Call of Duty: Black Ops II

black ops II is much like the first, except this time no longer are you under a veil of "whats going on???" with all the crazy interrogation things. the story is more generic and underwhelming you play as various soldiers through flashbacks of some old man in a wheelchair called woods, and still its all the typical war jargon, its basically a sunday soap opera but for men. contrived conflicts, russia this, china that...bad guy villians that want to take over the world type shit.

where the gameplay differs is you often go into high tech territory, admittedly something im not fond of. i'm not too much into fictional sci-fi and hypothesis of what 'the future' would look like, the aesthetic of high tech stuff just doesnt do it for me. but some missions look more like Crysis than call of duty, with all your fancy gadgets and invisible cloak stuff (which I only saw once actually)

the gameplay is pretty much the same, with varied level design which is the strong point of the black ops series it seems. you can actually choose your loadout eachtime you start a mission now, which is a welcome change. but not something I used often. You can only choose your attachments at the beginning of a level, it would of been nice to be able to swap attachments at the 'Reload ammo' stations, but you cannot do that.

Theres a ton of different outcomes in the campaign which is cool, but since atleast 50% of the campaign is forced hand holding, 'take control away from player' cutscenes you cant skip, scripted segments ETC, i dont see anyone ever replaying this for fun. it simply takes far too long to actually get into the meat of each mission with all of the scripted shit going on. Always a flaw I saw in these games.

Also, in the campaign there are 'Strike Force' missions. the first one is required to progress, and they are basically 'Defend the points' wave defense style missions. You hold out for 10 minutes in a psuedo RTS style exchange where you defend points A,B,C,D etc.. and even having to do the first mandatory one was a pain in the ass and really unfun. So apparently if you dont do all of the optional ones, you get the Bad ending. I could barely stand doing the first one, so naturally I skipped the rest.

the biggest thing that makes the gameplay Feel different is the addition of hitmarkers on the campaign. it is satisfying to know when your bullets connect and to hear that chunky hitmarker sound, it adds another level of oomph to the gunplay.

I think the story is a lot less interesting in black ops II, I'm not sure if the levels are quite as memorable, but the gunplay is a bit more satisfying. so maybe on those fronts its either slightly worse than black ops I, or maybe as good, not quite sure.

6.5/10

Zombies is better than ever! Which is really all I care about when it comes to COD these days. In all seriousness, the campaign makes for a decent popcorn FPS experience, with elements of the David Cage in a few cool choice sequences that add up to a surprisingly emotional story with an awesome villain, undercut by the expected "hoo-rah!" attitude, and with variety only highlighting how little substance is truly in this thing.

Reviewing only the campaign, since i have no interest in the multiplayer side of Call of Duty anymore

This one is actually pretty solid against all of my expectations. Its the best COD campaign i have played, after MW1.

Its obviously filled with cinematic moments, spawning enemies and generally taking too much control away from the player. That said, the level design, story (gasp), and even variety is frankly superior than i have come to expect out of these games. There are even some quieter moments when its close to being atmospheric. You know, those when you are waiting for your teamembers to open a door.

One major thing they innovated on was giving the player choices in some key moments of the story, which i found to be a nice addition.

Overal its a fun and over the top, albeit short campaign. Its filled with modern militastistic shooter cliches, so i doubt it will please any fan of old school shooters.