Many great shooters come out this year but in the end, Call of Duty: Black Ops surpass them all
After making a massive success on the market with Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 on 2009, Activision's annual series, Call of Duty come back with a another soon to be selling record breaker game, Call of Duty: Black Ops. On 2008, Treyarch successfully improved Modern Warfare by making World at War, now, they successfully making a game that not just follow the success of Modern Warfare but, in my opinion, surpass it on every aspect. I have no doubt to say that Black Ops is my best game of 2010.
The Story, Black Ops take you to the Cold War era, but don't expect to fight in the real conflict occur during the Cold War because Treyarch made their own crisis, a real and scary nightmare, hidden underneath history written by the victor.The story focus on a group of elite soldiers, travel across the globe, looking for 3 men whose said to have a chemical weapon created by the Germans during the World War II. The story told by one of the SOG team member, Mason, as he being interogate by a mysterious man who is looking for a key to save America from devastating chemical weapon attack. It's not a new way to tell a story (Criterion use the same way on Black) but Treyarch managed to write a story so amazing, unpredictable, shockingly and disturbingly amazing. It's a heart pounding story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The atmosphere of the story really remind me with F.E.A.R. and Bioshock. The campaign only last for about 6-8 hours but, it's really an amazing experience.
The Gameplay, there are not much improvements here but Treyarch, cleverly, making a dynamic level design on each mission. The pace on several missions can change dramatically from stealthy, knife-only action to all out intense run and gun action. This make the campaign always fresh and exciting from the beginning to the end. Treyarch provide you with large arsenal of cold war era weapons such as M16, M14, MP5, FN FAL, FN AUG, AK 47, PKM, AKS, MAC 10, H21, FAMAS, SPAS 12, and crossbow. There are a lot of driving mission on this game too.
The Graphics, as usual, IW engine is more than enough to give you excellent graphics with rich textures, detailed environment, realistic physics, and great looking fire, dust, smoke, and water effects. There are several effects that make the frame rate drops but it won't bother you. The character animation is far more fluid than World at War, the transition between scripted and free movement of an NPC goes pretty smooth. The facial animation need some work but it's quite enough for FPS game. The only thing that bother me is the gore effects. On World at War, you can see fresh red blood splattered everywhere and it take a while to vanished but on Black Ops, that effect is so limited and it vanish pretty quick. It's a shame because the nature of this game is far more mature than World at War, some scenes from this game can make F.E.A.R. like a teen game but the bloody scenes left almost no blood on the environment. This make the dismemberment on Black Ops feel unsatisfying and less disturbing than World at War.
The Sound, Black Ops use several hits from the Vietnam war era as scores like The Roling Stones's Sympathy For The Devil and Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son. Sean Murray come back with another great original music for Black Ops. Overall, the scores and the music is enough to bring the intensity of the game. Just like World at War, Treyarch gather famous actors to bring their characters to life. Sam Worthington did a great job as Alex Mason, although he's not as cool as Kiefer Sutherland. Ed Harris as Hudson is pretty awesome too while Gary Oldman is -without a single doubt- pure gold.
So, for almost 7 years Call of Duty has been known for its excellent graphics, attention to military details, creative mission design, and solid gameplay. But of course it needs a lot more than that to survive because almost every other military shooter today have those aspects. That's why Treyarch pull so much efforts to make a great story and for the first time, the story become the strongest point on a Call of Duty game and i appreciate it a lot. Call of Duty: Black Ops, greatest shooter ever made so far...