Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Review

"The Darkest and Choppiest of Ops"

Campaign

Continuing the story of the original Black Ops you play as Mason’s son and romp around with his friends in 2025. This is the future and they will always apparently need people to do stuff no one else will do. Swapping back and forth through time you will eventually fill out a full story with future old Woods commentating.

It really is something special to see the overall campaigns arch together at the ending seeing a crazed man’s long term reign affecting multiple individuals. It really has quite a story to it that is entertaining both ends, but the repetition of enemies is something that becomes boring. Perhaps it is the years of Call of Duty or something else that has made the killing of that many AIs downright the same.

Anyways there was many fine points of the campaign allowing you to do a number of cool futuristic style thing like the super gliders or sticky hand gloves. Do slightly wish that there was more of a focus towards the American or even developed world side of combat. It was neat to see Los Angeles getting all torn down and such, but it was very short lived. The updates were nice in the visual standards showing you some incredibly cool areas across the globe though level design felt similar to the past.

The voice acting was great with character you could care for, it was well done. Aside from the route you traditionally play there is also some strike missions available that attempt to do something of Tom Clancy style. It utterly fails at this and is something you really do not want to even waste your time on. Basically you control a team of items that move randomly causing you to really only play as one soldier that runs around.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2

Multiplayer

Bringing the most unexciting announcers ever the multiplayer will bring you a set of bland slightly edited Modern Warfare weapons mixed with some of the most awful maps ever. The spawning is incredibly terrible and the maps designs don’t help at all.

There are some decent ones, but the worst just bring them all down. The game modes are relatively the same except the notable multi team which is to some extent interesting. Killstreaks are slightly changed having you gain more while classes have been overhauled to a weight system which is slightly better.

Zombies

Returning once more you will kills hordes of the undead in what is the aftermath of an apocalypse. For the first time you will venture onto a campaign style zombie mission where you venture about on a bus that likes to rapidly move from spot to spot with only a horns notice.

Anyways you move locations building traps and collecting bus items for the purpose of killing zombies. It is a neat addition and is welcomed well. There is also classic survival maps which are to an extent awful in style for they are tiny shells of maps. Finally there is the redeeming grief mode for competition of two teams trying to outlive each other to win.

Gameplay

There is few improvements on past games in the series with this title feeling like Modern Warfare with that interesting Treyarch choppiness. A selection of not the best guns mixed with some terrible maps. It does have the usual style and feeling that the franchise is known for. If you enjoyed the previous Black Ops title this one should certainly be a similar styling.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2

The Conclusion

Campaign is fantastically well done with zombies also being a good part of the package bringing some extra quality play time. The multiplayer though is the worst of the series with the most demoralizing lazy announcers yet.

I wasn’t huge with the multiplayer finding it to be disappointing though the campaign is really great and the zombies has some highlight moments that make it enjoyable and challenging to play.


Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Review on Xbox 360


Rating Overall: 7.3

Gamerheadquarters Reviewer Jason Stettner