Call Of Duty: Black Ops [Review]

Released on November 9, 2010, CoD: Black Ops showed less demand than Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is easy to believe due to the backing out of Infinity Ward, whom released MW2.

Treyarch had a lot of work to do since their release of Call Of Duty: World At War didn't go so smoothly either. Aside from the decreased graphics from MW2, overall, Black Ops is very well balanced.



In non-hardcore matches, the amount of health to bullet damage ratio from all the guns are highly balanced. It takes a lot less to kill others, even with a lower level gun. Rather than taking multiple hits in order to kill someone like on MW2, it takes only a few which to me is a little more realistic.

They definitely outdid themselves with the implementation of the new weapon attachment and customization aspect of the game. Now it doesn't take challenges or a certain level to unlock attachments for guns you've already unlocked. You simply get CoD points to spend on customization alone. These CoD points are given for how well you do per game, leveling up, doing contracts, and even doing wager matches.

The new contracts system is of high innovation because you can choose what challenges you want to do at any given time on top of the in-game challenges that many of us are accustomed to. These challenges range from getting a certain number of kills with a certain gun to getting a certain number of headshots (usually in 40 minutes of game-play). New contracts are available daily and if you succeed or fail a contract, you can always do it again after a certain period of time before that contract is replaced with a new one. These contracts gain you points and xp at the cost of CoD points alone. The turnout ranges from low to high depending on the difficulty of the contract itself.

I haven't had a chance to toy around with the wager matches yet due to the destruction of my Black Ops disc. This section will be updated after I obtain a new disc and a fixed Xbox 360.

The major downfall I see, besides the terrible graphics quality, is that many of the maps are unbalanced. The only thing Treyarch has done to attempt to balance the builds of these maps is implementing random spawns, which in return makes it hard to spawn-trap players, but it is still possible.

To continue with the best aspect of the game, CoD Points, you can now create a playercard and custom icon tag that can be seen by users in the lobby, when they die by you, when they kill you, or when your name appears in the top right of the screen due to killstreak awards and calling in a Spy Plane, which many of us know as UAV. That's just the beginning of the customization aspect. You can put the player icon on your gun along with your clan tag. You can customize the reflex scope to your personal liking by changing the reticule itself and even the color of it. To me they spent a lot of time with the customization aspect and didn't spend enough time with the graphics which leads users away from liking the game.

Overall, so far, I'll give the game a 7/10. This could easily be bumped up to a 9 if they spent more time with the graphics.

*There will be more to come with this review after I obtain another copy of the game since mine has the ring of death on it and will not play.

- PrestigeShotz [Xbox Live]