Are you enjoying Black Ops ?

[MrJoyless]

I only play online with friends, who have senses of humor even when losing, so yes im having a great time but only because i dont have to play with screaming children.

 

[Treblaine]

Much better than MW 2, but then a game about a disabled cat on a unicycle would beat that piece of crap.

Plus where I live there were too small earthquakes (3.6 on the scale) and I genuinely didn't notice them because I was playing the black ops campaign.

Seriously? What was THAT bad about MW2. I have never met the 'noob tube brigade', the story was okay (until they tie it up then for me it's 'meh'), the multiplayer was not full of 'ZOMG PWNSUM 3PIC W!N N0 SK177Z' weapons. If there was an especially nooby Winchester running around then I got out a SPAS 12 FMJ Stopping power with a SCAR Heartbeat. After they switched classes it was back to the F200 and my USP.

How about:
-everything that happened on the No Russian Mission, makes no sense
-You cannot shoot the terrorists in No Russian mission, it calls it a failed objective to spite doing that would save the entire world or at very least a thousand innocent civilians
-Entire tangent in South America is practically irrelevant, it's just a shooting gallery
-Russia invading USA... what the fuck?
-Russia invading USA without a nuclear exchange, nuclear weapons can be launched manually regardless of any "super virus"
-It makes no sense how Shepard could have masterminded anything, Makarov would never trust or co-operate with an American General.
-He has no reason to kill Roach, Price or anyone, who suspected nothing till his botched attempts at silencing him.
-his reasons are bullshit, invading USA to "increase recruitment"... that is stupid on so many levels. He already boast to having the most powerful army the world had ever seen!
-How does Shepard convince US President that Makarov is responsible?
-no resolution with Makarov, game just loses interest in him
-no resolution with the Russian forces in USA
-Yay, now we're team-killing, who are these guys with American accents we are supposed to be gunning down?
-Why do we have to kill Shepard? Rather than send a tape to Wikileaks or Washington post? Shepard may control US media but not global media and so on.
-Why is China a non-factor in this game? They should be shitting bricks over Russia invading their biggest customer, also counting their ongoing animosity since the Sino-Soviet split.


Mutliplayer:
-ridiculous killstreaks, those kills earning more killstreaks to earn game-ending killstreaks
-such overpowered secondary weapons like Ranger, Raffica and M1887
-Client hosted multiplayer rather than dedicated servers as well as general betrayal of their PC fanbase
-

Just to pick out a few...

An 'email wikileaks' side mission?

Forgets about the Russians? That's called a cliffhanger ending... Otherwise the Rangers would be rendered irrelevent if the Russians were ALL dead.

Most of the others...

SO THE GAME IS PLAYABLE.
Or: Because making it that realistic would be OTT. China is irrelevent as far as gaming is concerned so doesn't need to be mentioned.

The only two that I agree with are No Russian and the 'Nuke' comment. That is, 'why do No Russian'. Not 'Why can't I kill Makarov'. That's just stupid.

That sounds like a lot of leave-it-to-the-sequel that's a positive spin on the story being unfinished, and likely will never be finished with West and Zampella getting fired. COD4 got wrapped up in a nice neat bow, MW2 leaves you confused and unsatisfied. They don't need to be all dead, but they do need to be forced out of America rather than act like etaking the White House is the end of the conflict.

I'm not saying have an "email wikileaks" side mission, I'm saying they should NEVER have gone down this path that had such a simple solution. I'm not saying you can't have an American General as a bad guy, that's a great idea but it is executed in such a hamfisted way. Shepard just seems like an arbitrary, last-minute and ultimately unbelievable villain who has thinner motivations than Austin Powers' Dr Evil. His plans are about as far fetched yet no where near as funny.

Zakhaev was a great villain and left a REALLY nail bighting ending, leaving you just a few minutes to prevent nuclear apocalypse, if Price/Soap failed to kill Shepard in MW2 all they'd have to do is contact the President or the media or anyone to undo all he has done. "Victory written by the victor" my arse, that's pure contrivance, a stodgy old quote is no where near as good a motivation as apocalyptic rockets hurtling through space!

Here's an idea right off the top of my head: Shepard seizes power in a military Coup to rule America as an evil militaristic dictatorship, he achieves this by leaking intel of President and vice president's evac-locations to the Russians who do the hard work of assassinating them*, he uses this as a pretext for absolute power. There could even be a back story of Shepard in Vietnam or Russia or wherever and have missions with him slowly revealing quite how insane and power-mad he is... rather than this sudden 3rd act turn.

There, it's not totally fleshed out, but at least it takes more than a phone-call to undo all he has done. He could defect any criticism as supreme leader. All this would give the conflict as much significance as WW2 based CoD games, fighting against ultimate tyranny.

It certainly makes for an appealing plot, you know the old "enemies foreign and domestic" and emphasising America's core values are more important than jingoistic militarism. COD series has been weighed down with the "killing foreign people" simulator, this would counter that. They could even directly reference the title of the series, "Call of Duty" as in:

Soap: "This isn't our war, this isn't our country..."
Price: "No, it's our duty, Shepard is an enemy of Democracy and freedom... blah blah blah (this is off the top of my head)"

They could also make a point of showing Shepard's personal security as being in on his plot, as in they knew of the President's betrayal and welcome this new military order... rather than the awkward feeling of killing these troops because they had been duped.

(*that could be a mission, you discover this info Shepard has leaked and fight an unwinnable battle trying to save the President, but you and the president die as Shepard conspires to deny air-support and lies to his troops that the calls on the radio for help is a Russian disinformation campaign... since they aren't using proper code words)

 

[superbatranger]

Well, I can't tell you if you're going to regret it or not. Different strokes for different folks, you know?