Ugh, I've been dreading this one. You know that reluctant feeling you get when you wake up in the morning to go to school? Yea, that is how I'm feeling while typing this up.

So here's what happened: Last Wednesday, I had a half day of school. So my friend decided it would be a good idea to come to my house and bring Call of Duty: Black Ops with him, hooray. *Sprinkles confetti*

As expected, the graphics are stunning. But not as much as they were when Modern Warfare 2 was out, because they are the same exact thing *Is unimpressed* So far, I can only do the multiplayer review because I didn't get a chance to try out the single player.

It seemed like it was going to be another Call of Duty game: Same trash talking idiots, same noob-tubing failures and same generic guns with one over powered one. Instead, none of that is true - no one talks, there are almost no noob-tubes and there are less guns in the game than a farm owners house. I'm not joking on this one, there are not a lot of gun to choose from in this game.

One thing is really apparent if you spent days pouring your life into MW2 - your character is slow. Not only is he going to lose the race to the last cookie in the jar to a turtle, he must also be incredibly fat because he can only run for a good 5 seconds before having to stop for a breather. It is at that moment that made me miss MW2, and I even thought about playing it once my friend left.

Other than the fact that you play as the stereotypical of today, there are some new game modes (I don't know why those two should've been in the same sentence). First off, we got the wager games - which include the only 3 new game modes.

The first of which is sticks and stones. It's a game where the only weapons you get are a crossbow, which sadly does not shoot bolts but shoots sticky grenades and reloads like the person forgot how to reload it every time, a tomahawk, which the idea is a complete rip-off of MW2's throwing knife, and a ballistic-knife, which is a mixture of a throwing knife and a broken pea-shooter. The ballistic-knife really is crap, if you shoot it straight ahead of you, it will drop within a few feet - that few feet only being 4 or 5.

The second is called One in the Gun. The point of this game is to fight people, like normal, but instead - you get a gun that can instantly kill people with one bullet, but you only have one bullet. To get more bullets, you have to kill others. Yes, you can stock bullets by killing people with your knife, but that's simple.

The final mode is called The Gun Game. This one's name is a complete rip-off of the game on Newgrounds AND Kongregate. This is pretty straight-forward: You kill people with the weapon you have to get the next weapon. And another thing, you can make people go down one weapon by killing them with your knife. Whoever can get a kill with every weapon once (excluding knife), wins the match. I actually enjoyed this one, as it actually has an objective and makes people use stuff that they normally wouldn't (a.k.a, being tactically or adaptive).

Finally, to the level-ups. Just like before, when you level up, you unlock new weapons and perks. Unlike before, you have to spend "CoD credits" to fully unlock them. So it works like this: You level up, you kill hundreds to get required credits, you unlock said weapon, never use it after the first few matches. You also have to spend credits to unlock weapon attachments, but you don't have to unlock the attachments through weapon challenges. And this idea... probably was the smartest idea that Treyarch thought of when designing this game. And I have to say this right now, you can attach a scope to a pistol (no longer will I be joking about attaching a scope to a magnum).

One thing that bugged me when I thought about my feelings of this game was, it doesn't have a lot of original stuff into it. In fact, a lot of it seems to be ripped-off of not only the CoD series, but the Halo series. I shouldn't even have to explain the Halo series rip-off (with the credits). The list of rip-offs look like this:
-Throwing weapon: Taken from MW2
-Pro Perks: Taken from MW2
-Certain weapon attachments: Taken from MW1, WaW, and MW2

I honestly thought this was a big disappointment in Video gaming history. If this game wins GotY, I will personally go "Rambo" up the Treyarch Headquarters... with my throwing knife.

So now for the long-awaited score:
Graphics: N/A because I should be expecting this quality from all recent games (In other words, 9/10)
Gameplay: 7/10 - controls just like any other CoD game, but is incredibly sluggish.
Originality: 2/10 - was there a spy in the Bungie studios? Or possibly a double-agent in some other video game company? Oh yes, they brought back Nazi zombies. Yes, you read that right Nazi zombies. Apparently, they have time traveling abilities now. (Minus 1 point in Originality)
Replayability: 4/10 - the only reason I would play this game again is to get attachments.
Overall Score: 4/10 - Wow. Treyarch, trying to play with Infinity Ward? Did you happen to take the same engine and tweak it so it would run slower? Even the sensitivity is slow. This goes into the file of "Biggest disappointment in video gaming history"

Personal comments: A) This game SHOULD NOT win Game of the Year. B) This game is NOT even CLOSE to the $60 price tag. I am NOT going to waste my money RENTING this game to play the single player. I can already say everything about it in a few short sentences.

Short, had a few surprising missions, stupidly annoying missions that insta-kill you ever 5 seconds.

Everything you can find in Black Ops, you can easily find in the two games before this. More than likely, if you are a CoD fan, you will have those two, so you might as well not buy this unless you are way too lazy to switch out one disc for another if you want to go from Multiplayer to zombies.

im with super espeon on this one.

mprhgphm. The only Call of Duty I really enjoyed was World at War for Wii. The FPS gameplay worked well for Wii, and unlike the other two consoles you weren't forced to buy the DLC so you were never segregated from people who didn't buy the add-on packs.

As a COD fan myself, I do agree that Treyarch IS milking the franchise for all its worth, but I dont deny that the gameplay of BO is quite decent. I (respectfully) disagree with this review.
On the other hand, I dont exactly think this is the best game on the face of the Earth, but anyway..

I dont judge a game by the actions of its developers or originality, I judge games based solely on gameplay. What are games for after all? To have fun of course. I dont care if a game asks me to crack eggs and throw them at badgers to save the planet Saturn from imploding, I dont care if a game is developed by an idiot with no arms, if its a fun game, I play it, and I enjoy it. Thats all there is to it.

From a COD fans point of view, I actually see Black Ops as an improvement. You mentioned Black Ops not being original, and being exactly the same as the previous 2 games. True, the core gameplay is almost identical, with a few new weapons and game modes, but what you dont see is that the core gameplay of COD is what the fans love about it. Its as staple to us as the top-down interface in Pokemon, and the side scrolling interface in Mario.

I'll put it like this. Would you not buy, and be biased against Black and White, because the gameplay of Diamond and Pearl are almost identical?

In both instances: (COD4, MW2 to BO and Diamond & Pearl to Black & White)
Both keep the core gameplay
Both keep the fans happy and give them what they want
Both have the same semi-predictable story
Both are made by more or less the same people
Both add new additions to try and 1up the previous one
Both keep features from its predecessors.

Relating to what you said here (too lazy to quote, sorry):

"One thing that bugged me when I thought about my feelings of this game was, it doesn't have a lot of original stuff into it. In fact, a lot of it seems to be ripped-off of not only the CoD series, but the Halo series. I shouldn't even have to explain the Halo series rip-off (with the credits). The list of rip-offs look like this:
-Throwing weapon: Taken from MW2
-Pro Perks: Taken from MW2
-Certain weapon attachments: Taken from MW1, WaW, and MW2"

I dont see taking the perks, throwing weapon and attachment features as ripping them off from other games, I see it as, they kept those features. After all, thats what made the other games stand out from its predecessors. Comparing again to Pokemon:

Gold & Silver added the breeding feature. When you saw the breeding feature in Ruby & Sapphire, did you see it as ripping off Gold & Silver?

Similarly, the Pro Perks weren't ripped off, they were simply kept from the previous games.

IMO, the multiplayer took a different turn from MW2. It feels more slower paced now. I'm happy and disappointed at the same time, at the fact that Killstreak Rewards no longer stack to your kill streak. No longer can you put on a Predator Missile, Harrier and AC130/Chopper Gunner and expect to reach your 11th killstreak every time you hit 5. No longer will you hear your steroid pumped announcer yelling: "ENEMIEGH AC130 ABOVVV!!11!!", "WEVE BEEN EMP-ED, OMFG!!!!!1!!1!" "TACTICAL NUKE INCOMING!!!1ONE!!1! ITS OVARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", every 5 seconds. Rounds in multiplayer do a better job of separating the skilled from the killstreak wh*res.

I like the fact that there are alot less guns. Infact, the abundance of weapons in MW2 was rather pointless, in the end, everybody ended up using the same few weapons. From my experience in Black Ops, I see a more diverse array of weapons being used. The most popular weapon so far would be the AK-74u SMG. If its any weapon at all thats overused, the 74u definately takes the cake.

IMO, you were a little too critical and harsh in some points of your review.

"Yes, you can stock bullets by killing people with your knife, but that's simple."
-You take their bullet when you kill them, I dont see anything strange about that.

"(no longer will I be joking about attaching a scope to a magnum)"

-Those exist in real life, is Black Ops not based on real life?

"your character is slow. Not only is he going to lose the race to the last cookie in the jar to a turtle, he must also be incredibly fat because he can only run for a good 5 seconds before having to stop for a breather."
-Many people fail to realize, that these soldiers are running with equipment that weighs more than they do. They balanced out the knife runner classes in BO, Marathon Pro (which is a pain in the ass to unlock) has to be unlocked in order to attain infinite sprint. If its anything that was unrealistic, it was the Marathon perk in MW2.


However, I also do acknowledge the bad points of this game. I'll give you a head start on your single-player review, should you ever decide to do one. Apart from a few missions, its really, really (really), bad.

There is a huge lack of the beloved, stealth/sniper mission. The only one that gets close, takes place in the Ural (I think) mountains, but the stealth part only lasts for a few minutes.

Every mission is almost as predictable as a filler episode in Pokemon:
-Start-
Dark Cutscene
Flashback
Start in the middle of every hostile being in the world
Either start shooting eveything that moves, or sneak/run somewhere, then start shooting everything that moves
More shooting
Checkpoint
More shooting
Checkpoint
More shooting
Your buddy,

Reznov

I'm going to go with Quad on this, but anthem has some pretty good counter arguments. I just have a serious dislike for the series, so it's a bias sort of thing. The multiplayer seems to have a lot of boosters, too, not to mention MW2 had a bajillion glitches when it came out- see the javelin glitch, which has since been patched. In general, this series has had itself milked the hell out of. It's ridiculous, almost about the ridiculous amount of Mario games that are produced over the years.