Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops

[Zhukov]

I am just loving the butthurt fan rage on this thread.

Music to my ears.

I'm not noticing any fan rage actually, just a few people giving their views, which happen to be different to the re viewer's.

And why would people being upset make you happy anyway?

Surely you've noticed all the people who have suddenly decided that Mr Pitts is not a real reviewer and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Just look at the post underneath your own for a prime example.

As for why it makes me happy, seeing people denounce a reviewer for bashing their beloved game gives me a smug feeling of completely unjustified superiority. Reading ZP threads is especially delightful.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

I am just loving the butthurt fan rage on this thread.

Music to my ears.

I'm not noticing any fan rage actually, just a few people giving their views, which happen to be different to the re viewer's.

And why would people being upset make you happy anyway?

Actually I've seen more than a few people say "This review is nothing but bullshit lies none of it it true etc ect."

It's just an opinion, and obviously Russ' differs from yours.

I respect both your opinions, and would consider them both if I were to think about getting Black Ops. Obviously there has to be something causing him to give it such a low score, just as there has to be something that means you love it. As such, it's fair for you to disagree, but for some people to call his opinion a 'lie' is wrong.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Well, that's a shame. But I remember the Metro 2033 review here on the Escapist saying that it sucked, and turns out that game was awesome. So I don't know what to say.
Not like I was gonna buy it in the first place anyway.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Surely you've noticed all the people who have suddenly decided that Mr Pitts is not a real reviewer and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Just look at the post underneath your own for a prime example.

True, some replies spit bile and fanboyish hate.

I think most sensible peoples' issue with the review seems to be that it felt a little hyperbolic and vindicitve in an unfair and biased way towards the game, in order to appease the anti-COD majority on the site.

 

[Zhukov]

I think most sensible peoples' issue with the review seems to be that it felt a little hyperbolic and vindicitve in an unfair and biased way towards the game, in order to appease the anti-COD majority on the site.

Interesting.

Are you saying that you hold that opinion yourself?

Bear in mind that Mr Pitts gave MW2 a glowing review capped with a 4 star rating. Obviously I cannot say this with any authority, but rather I doubt he feels any need to alter his reviews for the sake of appeasing his readers.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Campaign is really stupid. Its very underwhelming and not as cinematic as IW makes them. Treyarch said something about wanting us to care about the characters but I couldn't care less. There is not a single memorable moment in the entire campaign. In those "cinematic" moments when you need to press a certain button you shouldn't have to concentrate on the controls. That breaks the immersion, and every time a situation like that happens in the game you have to press a hundred buttons to preform a certain operation, like Press Shift and tap V? What the fuck? Why couldn't it just be F for fuck sake? It's a bad campaign, worse one so far.

As for multiplayer, it's better than MW2 but that's not saying much because everything is better than MW2 multiplayer. Zombies are boring.

 

[FallenTraveler]

I guess im just confused, I watched the cutscenes.. everything looked good... muppet Kennedy... idk, he looked pretty damned good in my opinion... I cant say much for anything else, but the game looks pretty flippin polished

 

[ConfusedCrib]

I completely disagree with this review, I thought that Black Ops single player was the best in the series, and the best FPS campaign I've played in quite a while. First to address the graphics: I think that although it has some graphical low points the character detail was better than the other Call of Duty games as well as more effort being put forth in mocap, and I certainly don't think they were bad enough to comment on being bad. Plus there are some scenes wherein the shadow rich graphics really shine, like when you're crawling through a Vietnamese spider hole. Also you have to consider the amount of on screen movement, there's constant papers flying, debris exploding, limbs flying off on screen at once.

As for the "blurry flash backs" and the fast cutting, I think that Treyarch finally got the feeling of Call of Duty right, I didn't like the beginning and ending every freaking mission with a helicopter in the past Call of Duties, the flashes and cutbacks are basically the game's helicopter, only it allows you to be placed right in the middle of whatever kickassery you and your comrades were up to.

Also, I am a bit of a history buff, so I was excited like a little girl meeting Justin Bieber when I'm being escorted by Secretary McNamara to meet JFK. I mean, how sick is that! But I digress, I think this Call of Duty let you see some very cool eras and very cool imaginary settings in real places. Every time the game opens a level it shows a little intro with the specifics of the mission getting blacked out until it's just a name, location, and a time; and this really makes you stay in the atmosphere of Black Ops.

The final and most important reason I loved this campaign more than all the others is because of it's self awareness. The *spoiler alert* BattleShips and Jets at the end *no more spoiler* I mean c'mon, that's hilariously America. And the multiple times you're jumping in slow motion to blow up barrels on a roof while you slide in through a window, or ziplining across the map with an MP5 in one hand killing 3 people while busting open a window, that stuff is fun and very self aware of what Call of Duty has become.

In Conclusion I really think that the Black Ops campaign is an extremely fun experience, as long as you either know who McNamara is, or realize that it's over-the-top mantastic glory is intentional and you just sit back and enjoy it.

 

[Lolth17]

I don't play call of duty, but one thing in this review disturbed me. The ragging on the graphics. Really? They looked great to me, better than Mafia II which as I recall you said had gorgeous graphics. Obviously, I can't judge the rest of the stuff that was said, but since that comment is obviously a bit biased - well, I'm going to assume that you couldn't look past one thing that irritated you, whatever that may be, and judge the rest of the game a little more objectively.

And to all those people who say reviews are always opinion - that's true and it's not. As a review, you SHOULD be able to look past your own opinion and tell your audience what things are done well, from an objective standpoint. I didn't like the movie Schindler's List, but I could identify worthwhile things to like about it without saying "ITS ALL TRASH AND IT SUX11!!11!" From what I've heard from both friends and other reviewers, there is enough stuff in this game that, if one was to do a proper review, one could pick out good things and not just trash the whole game.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Interesting.

Are you saying that you hold that opinion yourself?

Bear in mind that Mr Pitts gave MW2 a glowing review capped with a 4 star rating. Obviously I cannot say this with any authority, but rather I doubt he feels any need to alter his reviews for the sake of appeasing his readers.

Who knows?

Only the critic himself knows his reasoning, all I can say for myself is that I disagree entirely with his opinions and thought it was the best campaign in the series so far.

For me, the language used that equates playing the game to self torture was just biased hyperbole and something I previously thought was below MR Pitts.

 

[gl1koz3]

FHSSSHWWHSHSSHWHSHWHSHWHS *skips the cutscene*

"blablablab blabla bla blabla." *tries to skip...*

FSHSHSHSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSWWHSHSHWHS *skips the cutscene*

*tries exiting game*

FSHSHSHSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSWWHSHSHWHSFSHSHSHSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSWWHSHSHWHSSHSHSHSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSWWHSHSHWHSFSHSHSHSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSWWHSHSHWHS *tries to skip...*

*turns out you need to exit once more*

 

[DalekJaas]

I think most sensible peoples' issue with the review seems to be that it felt a little hyperbolic and vindicitve in an unfair and biased way towards the game, in order to appease the anti-COD majority on the site.

Interesting.

Are you saying that you hold that opinion yourself?

Bear in mind that Mr Pitts gave MW2 a glowing review capped with a 4 star rating. Obviously I cannot say this with any authority, but rather I doubt he feels any need to alter his reviews for the sake of appeasing his readers.

I wasn't a fanboy, MW2 was a horrible game. But now that I have played Black Ops and seen what it has to offer I have a strange compulsion to defend it. Because despite what it says, the game is genuinely down-to-earth good.

What I dislike is when I see a review where it seems like the reviewer has only played the first few levels and it shows some footage of him failing at noob tubing in multiplayer. And then I see that MW2 was given a good review here!?


This is I think is a fair review of the game, it covers every aspect of the game including Dead Ops Arcade which Pitt's review ignored.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-call-of/707271


I honestly believes it dwarfs any other CoD, it is leaps and bounds above MW1 in terms of story telling and action, it jumps over Medal of Honour in every aspect and the multi I think is more fun than BC2.

So even if I seem fanboyish to the haters I don't deny because this is the first game in 2 years I have bought that I honestly think deserves the money. I hope Treyarch enjoy their success and begin working on an even better game.

 

[Kinokohatake]

I dont know. I am enjoying the story and the Graphics seem better than MW2 and the like. I guess reviews are the same as opinions. Just Sounds like someone is drinking his Haterade.

Aye, I thought the campaign's plot was a lot more interesting and clever than MW2's, and I liked the way they did the whole "most of the game levels are flashbacks whilst he's being interrogated". It tried to do something different.

I remember Syphon Filter doing that back in the PS1 days. Not exactly new idea. But watching that video, the graphics look awful. And it looks rather boring. I may give this a rent.

 

[LetalisK]

After the colossal disappointment of MW2, I actually liked Black Ops. Multiplayer alone is leaps and bounds better.

 

[Woodsey]

No matter what you say, there will be thousands of people who will claim that it's the greatest game they've ever played. Kind of sad, really...

This guy in my Maths A-Level class would not fucking shut up about it today - then again, I think he'd only ever played CoD and Fifa, and that situation doesn't seem uncommon with people who play CoD.

OT: I laughed, a lot.

I salute you, not because you've rated it badly, but because you obviously don't care what anyone else has given it.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

... The review didn't even touch upon the extras, like Dead Ops Arcade, as the extras are really what make Black Ops. Even Zombie Mode, one of the most desired / talked about features wasn't mentioned. ...

These features are extras, not the main content of the game. I can't think of a review we've done where we ever placed more importance on the extras than the main single player experience. We've sometimes done supplementals for the extras, or mentioned them in passing, but not as the bulk of a review. If the extras are really that important, why the hell did they clearly under-develop the single player campaign?

I completely agreed with Russ's review. Black Ops took the "it's like you're playing an action movie" approach of more recent CoD titles, and slaughtered it with repetitive cutscenes, pointless quicktime events, and a story that hammers the foreshadowing in with a tree branch full of nails.

It was the first CoD experience I had where I truly felt like I wasted my time on the single player. Even MW2 didn't go that far.

Like all the CoD games, there is still a sprinkling of worthwhile singleplayer content in the campaign. In this case, the tunnel rat and hazmat suit sequences actually showed some interesting gameplay concepts, but flashlights, smoke effects, and damage that doesn't magically regenerate aren't anything new. In fact, they've all been utilized to better effect as early as the late 90s.

 

[The Arbiter of Cool]

I'll concede the point about the cutscenes, the white hot lights are painful on the eyes. I'm on the other side of the fence when it comes to the rest of the review though. Single player wise, I thought this was the best CoD yet. Oh well, to each their own.

 

[Admiral Stukov]

This sounds just like my preconceptions of the game.
One should be very careful around games that have the word Activision on them.

 

[Hybridwolf]

I...wow.

Biased opinion here, because I did not get any of this bright light syndrome. I got the impression of a man who was seriously ill and stuggling to cope with being interrogated whilst remembering past events. Just my own two cents. I agree about the story, and the part about meeting JFK, but nothing more. Just my own thoughts and views.