The Strike Force missions in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 are poorly conceived.

[Ambient_Malice]

So I've been replaying Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 again, and after a stellar first mission, a thrilling second mission, and an awesome third mission...

The game decides that what would really be awesome right about now would be to throw the game into a disguised MP mode with bots and the clunkiest RTS controls I've ever experienced.

Back in 2012, this made me give up on the game for 6 months. And now, it drains my will to continue.

To add insult to injury you can't quit the mission to exit the game without being punished for it. And if you don't complete these awful, repetitive, MP-in-disguise missions, the story takes a negative turn.

Mass Effect 3 did something similar with the dreary N7 missions.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I thought they were a nice little change up, and it was fun to see them try something new.

But doing them in tactical mode on anything higher than Normal is a chore, no doubt. And you team's AI is pretty dodgy at best. And don't even get me started on all the little trophies and awards for doing the missions in certain ways.

Often I just took control of a soldier and played the mission like a normal mission.

So yeah, while I like the concept and wish they had refined it a bit more because I did have fun, those missions certainly had their flaws that turned a lot of people off of them.

 

[Dalisclock]

I liked the idea of the Strike Force missions. It was similar to the SR-71/RTS-style mission from BLOPS but expanded into a full gameplay mechanic. The problem being that it was implemented poorly.

Mostly because, due to poor design, it was difficult, if not impossible to win them without jumping into the body of one of your troops. If you're gonna put in an RTS mode, it needs to be completable as an RTS.

The other issue was one of consistency. Strike Ops missions have to be done within a certain time frame or they disappear and you essentially get a fail for it(and if you fail one, you can't get the best ending). Which would make sense, except that some of the missions take place in the past(in the 1980's). So how that works, that playing missions that took place 40 years before somehow means you run out of time to complete your current missions, is never explained as a gameplay mechanic.

Frankly, if the Strike Ops missions were fixed, BLOPS 2 would be one of my favorite CoD games of all time. Too bad the devs never bothered to fix them.

 

[Evonisia]

I'd say they were mostly alright apart from the one you're forced to do. The challenges associated with them are bullshit, but most of them can be handled by playing normally and using the odd movement control. Treyarch really needed to refine the RTS mechanics, or better yet limit the RTS stuff to the commands you could make while as a soldier, because that was quite fun being able to move them. But all in all I still replay them whenever I replay the campaign.

Behind "World at War", "Black Ops II" is still my favourite CoD campaign and the Strike Force missions didn't deter from my overrall enjoyment.

The other issue was one of consistency. Strike Ops missions have to be done within a certain time frame or they disappear and you essentially get a fail for it(and if you fail one, you can't get the best ending). Which would make sense, except that some of the missions take place in the past(in the 1980's). So how that works, that playing missions that took place 40 years before somehow means you run out of time to complete your current missions, is never explained as a gameplay mechanic.

What Strike Force missions are set in the 1980s? There's one where you go back to Afghanistan, but that's still set in 2025.

 

[Dalisclock]

The other issue was one of consistency. Strike Ops missions have to be done within a certain time frame or they disappear and you essentially get a fail for it(and if you fail one, you can't get the best ending). Which would make sense, except that some of the missions take place in the past(in the 1980's). So how that works, that playing missions that took place 40 years before somehow means you run out of time to complete your current missions, is never explained as a gameplay mechanic.

What Strike Force missions are set in the 1980s? There's one where you go back to Afghanistan, but that's still set in 2025.

They aren't set in the 1980's, but you will fail them if you don't do them after so many story missions. Even ones set 40 years ago. That's my complaint, It's not that your "mission limit" counts down when you do a modern mission, but any mission, even the 1980's ones.

So unless there's some kind of weird time travel going on that I didn't notice, the counter makes little sense.