Call of Duty: Black Ops is a beautiful shooter with a very mysterious and clever storyline.
Gameplay: 92/100
Sounds: 88/100
Longevity: 88/100
Tilt: 90/100
GREAT OPS
I never liked Call of Duty games. I thought they were criminally overrated, especially Modern Warfares. I was really skeptical about Black Ops too, but now I'm really glad I picked it up. Black Ops is a really good shooter that combines interesting storytelling with great fast-paced action and amazing graphics.
BEST COD STORY SO FAR
The game's story is very mysterious. An agent named Alex Mason is being interrogated by mysterious men and the chapters are played during his flashbacks. There are many interesting characters, especially a Russian named Viktor Reznov, who has apparently gotten inside Mason's head. Mason often repeats the phrase that evil Russian general Dragovich, his "lapdog" Kravchenko and a scientist named Friedrich Steiner must die. Mason seems to have a some kind of multi-personality and all is revealed towards the end where the player finds out about numerous brainwashings Mason has been through and the fate of Reznov.
WAR IS BEAUTIFUL, AT LEAST IN GAMES
Black Ops's graphics are outstanding, what else did you expect? It really uses all of Playstation 3's power. The cinematic cutscenes look great, characters look really lively and the environments are beautiful and diverse. There are jungles, towns, streets, deserts, fields, prisons, labs, snowy mountains and much more. Black Ops is all-around great looking.
SHOOT AND BLOW UP
The game's gameplay is pretty basic rail-shooting, but it's very enjoyable. There are many narrow hallways where you just shoot everything coming at you, but there are also more free-roaming areas, for example jungles are these. Black Ops is like a fast-paced train that gets the player hooked with its Hollywood-level story and won't let go. The missions are diverse: there are straight-forward shooting at streets, a very impressive prison riot, working in rat tunnels, driving a battle boat and flying a helicopter, moving stealth in snowy mountains, blowing places up with C4's and doing parkour in rooftops. Mason never works alone. His team-mates include lots of memorable faces like CIA agent Hudson, Frank Woods, Weaver, Bowman and more.
TECHNICAL MASTERPIECE
Musics aren't anything special, but the sounds are overally outstanding. Rattling explosions, great voice acting, guns launching, rockets flying, everything. Black Ops is technically almost a masterpiece.
OVER TOO SOON
Black Ops's addicting campaign could be a little longer. It only takes about 6-8 hours. With one of the most interesting stories of 2000's games, I could've played it single a lot longer. That doesn't take away anything from Black Ops's score, though.
OVERALL: Black Ops is a beautiful shooter with a very mysterious and clever storyline. It gets you addicted and you don't wanna stop until you reach the end of a pretty short, but very enjoyable campaign. Of course you can play the award-winning multiplayer after that. And Zombie mode.
+ Pros: Clever and addicting story, outstanding graphics, great sounds, gameplay is really enjoyable, Vorkuta prison riot is never-seen-before material in games
- Cons: Campaign is pretty short, the story may be too confusing for someone
REAL SCORE: 9.2