NOTE: A lot of people didn't like this game, but i did. It's pretty cool and fun, and it's campaign is maybe even the best in the franchise. I just wanted to let some peeps know that reviewing is just giving out personal opinion and recommendations. Now for the review...
9th year since the franchise began to heat up our PC CPUs and GPUs, and it's still active and is one of the best FPS games out there. CoD BOII is better than MW3, worse than MW2 and MW, but it has that charm that makes you not forget about the game, it has some unique features and the theme is fairly relevant. Some people find the futuristic setting quite boresome and uninteresting, but i find it amuzing and fresh for the series (MW was a leap forward, so why wouldn't BOII be one too?).
PRESENTATION
CoD: BOII brings a ton of new stuff, but also keeps some that presented probs in the previous installments. The campaign structure is mostly the same over and over again i.e. you spawn somewhere, go through a bunch of 'hallways', kill some enemies (mostly Eastern Europeans standing in cover or rushing towards you for a juicy taste of an M4A1 bullet), collect the objective (or just simply go to it) after which the entire level starts going down apart in explosions and flames and BOOM! Level completed! If the mission structure is nothing like that, don't worry, it will be almost the same without scripted level destruction. The problem is, enemy AI is dumb and at some points, quite useless. There's just no strategy involved, and your only job is to kill enemies and nothing else (well, you can also interact with certain elements like buttons or levers or jumps, but in order to get there, you'll need to spill way more blood than you think you would in the first place). Sometimes, i would even get hit when i'm in cover, behind a thick steel door, and enemy bullets would still keep going through, while mine wouldn't even reach half way. The story follows David Mason, the son of Alex Mason from CoD: BO, and the story is well told. The many cutscenes that don't only involve first person perspective are interesting and well acted, and they also bring out emotions, while the character faces and lip syncing have been done really well. The game has a long campaign, which is enjoyable. Apart from the dumb-ish AI, the many action sequences tell the game's story like no CoD before. There are dog fights (mostly scripted), controlled bug sequences and numerous interactions.
GRAPHICS
CoD: BOII uses the same engine as CoD WAW and CoD BO, but wiith a few upgrades that make the system requirements a lot higher than the ones for IW's CoD games. The game looks descent, the guns look cool and polished, but many map textures are still blurry even on the highest settings.
MULTIPLAYER
After i was done with the campaign, i jumped straight to multiplayer. Maps are medium sized, some are pretty small (Nuketown 2025). Treyarch added more killstreaks and decided to change their name to 'scorestreaks', which are gained by getting certain amounts of kills without dying. Again, there is the gun customization which allows you to customize your dot on your red dot or holographic sight and of course you can put your customized emblem on the gun and give it some additional swag. Creating classes has been fixed (most of it). The new '10 per class' system allows every player to have a maximum of 10 items (guns, attachments, grenades, perks not including weapon camos). It's also worth mentioning that you cannot pay to have more slots. This way, all of the players are equal. The ability to customize your soldier's face has been taken out, which i didn't find as a bad thing, mostly because it was unnecessary.
+Tweaked multiplayer -Dumb-ish AI
10 per class system Mission structures
Choice of weapons
THE VERDICT
Call of Duty: Black Ops II is a great game that deserves attention, even after 1.5 years of being out in the stores (check Steam stats and you'll notice that both MW3 and CoD BO II have more players than CoD: Ghosts). It does have a lot of problems, but it still is one of the best CoDs in the franchise. I give this game an 8.4. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters!
9th year since the franchise began to heat up our PC CPUs and GPUs, and it's still active and is one of the best FPS games out there. CoD BOII is better than MW3, worse than MW2 and MW, but it has that charm that makes you not forget about the game, it has some unique features and the theme is fairly relevant. Some people find the futuristic setting quite boresome and uninteresting, but i find it amuzing and fresh for the series (MW was a leap forward, so why wouldn't BOII be one too?).
PRESENTATION
CoD: BOII brings a ton of new stuff, but also keeps some that presented probs in the previous installments. The campaign structure is mostly the same over and over again i.e. you spawn somewhere, go through a bunch of 'hallways', kill some enemies (mostly Eastern Europeans standing in cover or rushing towards you for a juicy taste of an M4A1 bullet), collect the objective (or just simply go to it) after which the entire level starts going down apart in explosions and flames and BOOM! Level completed! If the mission structure is nothing like that, don't worry, it will be almost the same without scripted level destruction. The problem is, enemy AI is dumb and at some points, quite useless. There's just no strategy involved, and your only job is to kill enemies and nothing else (well, you can also interact with certain elements like buttons or levers or jumps, but in order to get there, you'll need to spill way more blood than you think you would in the first place). Sometimes, i would even get hit when i'm in cover, behind a thick steel door, and enemy bullets would still keep going through, while mine wouldn't even reach half way. The story follows David Mason, the son of Alex Mason from CoD: BO, and the story is well told. The many cutscenes that don't only involve first person perspective are interesting and well acted, and they also bring out emotions, while the character faces and lip syncing have been done really well. The game has a long campaign, which is enjoyable. Apart from the dumb-ish AI, the many action sequences tell the game's story like no CoD before. There are dog fights (mostly scripted), controlled bug sequences and numerous interactions.
GRAPHICS
CoD: BOII uses the same engine as CoD WAW and CoD BO, but wiith a few upgrades that make the system requirements a lot higher than the ones for IW's CoD games. The game looks descent, the guns look cool and polished, but many map textures are still blurry even on the highest settings.
MULTIPLAYER
After i was done with the campaign, i jumped straight to multiplayer. Maps are medium sized, some are pretty small (Nuketown 2025). Treyarch added more killstreaks and decided to change their name to 'scorestreaks', which are gained by getting certain amounts of kills without dying. Again, there is the gun customization which allows you to customize your dot on your red dot or holographic sight and of course you can put your customized emblem on the gun and give it some additional swag. Creating classes has been fixed (most of it). The new '10 per class' system allows every player to have a maximum of 10 items (guns, attachments, grenades, perks not including weapon camos). It's also worth mentioning that you cannot pay to have more slots. This way, all of the players are equal. The ability to customize your soldier's face has been taken out, which i didn't find as a bad thing, mostly because it was unnecessary.
+Tweaked multiplayer -Dumb-ish AI
10 per class system Mission structures
Choice of weapons
THE VERDICT
Call of Duty: Black Ops II is a great game that deserves attention, even after 1.5 years of being out in the stores (check Steam stats and you'll notice that both MW3 and CoD BO II have more players than CoD: Ghosts). It does have a lot of problems, but it still is one of the best CoDs in the franchise. I give this game an 8.4. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters!
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