I've had a good history with the Call of Duty franchise. It started, as it did for many, with 4, which blew me away with the campaign and hooked me with the multiplayer, which I ended up putting an excess of 100 hours into and Pristaging twice. Naturally I picked up World At War, and while it was solid all around, it was nowhere near as fantastic as 4. The biggest let-down was multiplayer--although I enjoyed being able to effectively wield a semi-auto rifle while everyone else struggled to shoot long-rang targets with short range SMGs, the multiplayer lacked the polish and enjoyment of 4. I had a lot of expectations for Modern Warfare 2, which was met with the campaign--again fantastic--but the multiplayer was a huge let-down, and while I held out for around 40 levels, I gave up in disgust at the sorry state of affairs.
With that in mind, I was hesitant about Black Ops--Infinity Ward had failed the last time, and Treyarch's last outing had been mediocre. I decided to not bother pre-ordering, and only pick it up if the day-of reviews were good. When they rolled in and were positive (even more so than I expected) I picked up my copy and sat down later that day to play it.
As always, I ran through the campaign first, although this time starting on Hardened difficulty. In all honesty, despite the praise, it was underwhelming compared to MW2's campaign. Although it had good moments, and the return of Reznov, my favorite character from WaW, the overall feel was lackluster. None of the firefights or sequences felt new or overwhelmingly exciting, the story was poor bordering on predictable, and it felt like Modern Warfare more than true "Cold War." It was still mostly enjoyable, and as an added bonus, while Veteran was still annoyingly difficult (including endlessly spawning enemies and save points after an enemy had just thrown a grenade), it wasn't the impossible mess WaW was. The achievements were all fairly easy to nab, and once that was completed, I turned my attention to the multiplayer.
As I said, given how both Treyarch and IW had handled their respective last games, I was cautious. However, it was my turn to be proven wrong--Black Ops has the best, most refined multiplayer out of the entire series. They fixed everything wrong with MW2, like stupid knife builds, dual-wielding shotguns, endlessly sprinting nonsense, etc. etc. They fixed all the glitches and balanced the game out. They tweaked everything, from removing idiotic perks like Martyrdom to slightly adjusting the more reasonable ones. Killstreaks also got overhauled a lot, and while they're still powerful, they're deservedly so, and can always be countered. Overall it feels super balanced, super polished, and quite fun to play. The only main issue I've had so far is some of the game modes--for instance, playing Demolitions heavily favors people who don't actually follow the objectives, something that needs attention (especially since some upgrades require you to play Demolitions correctly, and other people are preying off that). The important thing is the core is solid, and for that I am grateful.
My experience obviously has been good, and past playings of other games has apparently helped a lot--I've been rocketing through the ranks. With a cap of 50, I've already hit 42 with only 15 hours of play, and four days ago I hit my 100th match played, and I'm happy to say that out of those 100 I had finished 20 as the top player, and 49 in the top 3 players, a ratio I'm very happy with. Leaderboard-wise I'm in the 40,000s for Mercenary (no arranged teams) and in the 80,000s for regular Team Deathmatch, out of about 1.5 million on both pools (being in the top 5% is a nice feeling :P). I've also come to grips with how bad some people's aim is-- I constantly see people spraying half a clip with an autogun in order to kill me, whereas I'm typically taking people down with 2-5 single shots with an semi-auto. It's not just my perception, either, since about 2/3s of my deaths have been from the AK-74u (SMG) or Galil (short-range full auto assault rifle).
The Wager matches are interesting in theory but not super fun in practice, personally speaking. The theater is an awesome addition, as is the game auto-saving the last 10 or so matches and letting you keep up to 6 stored at once. Split-screen multiplayer got downgraded, although it's not a huge impact. Finally, the COD$ system is interesting. On the one hand I like it because it makes you be more careful about your purchases and gives you interesting options. On the other, it discourages trying things out. A lot of the guns I have not bothered buying, thus have not tried out; likewise with a lot of attachments, items, perks, etc. I've probably spent more money on customization stuff (like camos, emblems, emblems on guns, facepaint, etc.). I do like the large amount of customization available, although you don't see other people's very often, sort of ruining the point in a sense. The number of challenges got greatly upped, but also harder to access, which means I haven't tracked them closely at all (another reason I haven't done a lot of weapon trying, since I used to for challenges). They've been overshadowed by Contracts, which are quite fun.
Nazi zombies is back, and the difficulty seems to have been upped considerably, making 4 players almost a must. Beyond that I don't have much to say, since I'm sure they'll be added to with DLC, but it was also nice that the arcade Dead Ops was added as a nice little bonus.
Overall, if you're looking for a great single player campaign, MW2 still holds the top spot, but Black Ops unquestionably contains the best multiplayer in the series, something I suspect I'll be hooked into for quite some time. If you're a CoD fan you probably already own it, but if you were on the fence, I can solidly recommend the latest venture.
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