My thoughts on CoD can range from apathy due to it's discourse online, being lukewarm on a title in question or it being that cool friend I haven't hung around with for awhile. Any piece media franchise especially long running popular ones can be this but CoD personifies that better than most. The first Blops is most certainly the last one. I remember back in around in the Fall of 2010 how I much I wanted this due to the craze the series had. I did enjoy the campaign but I was sick of the way the multiplayers were designed and it would end my run with the series by that point. With that said, I'm going to be reviewing the campaign since it's the part I remember liking.
While the story is definitely memed now with the whole line involving "numbers". In terms of storytelling for the series at the time, it was a breathe of fresh air. In the game prior to this, I was getting sick and tired of the series' tradition of always sticking to a silent protagonist. When the player character established he could already talk like Soap MacTavish, the story just magically forgets that he was speaking prior to controlling him.Not the case with Alex Mason and the character player characters you control, they actually speak now. To top off all of this, the former is also an unreliable narrator which and it's also a framing story which were also two extra surprised thrown in.
I did complain in my MW2(2009) review about how the story can't decide if it wants to take itself seriously or be a parody on American propaganda and the war on terror. Blops on the other hand is very much a popcorn action movie first and foremost. It's not even trying to be anything than an over the top action film where it's about the characters trying to avoid a doomsday scenario.
It's very committed to this with the background music, the macho characters and with towards the end with Hudson putting on his shades.
The twist was mostly well foreshadowed too with how characters are questioning whether or not Mason's even there in the head or how no one even noticed that Reznov is even there. It adds to playing the game again in some ways to notice what other ways the question Mason losing it.
If there is one major weak link outside of one late game twist involving JFK is that Alex Mason's performance can get weirdly bizarre in places. Particularly the Bowman death scene where he tries to sound shocked and the way he threatnens the guy who killed felt more funny than menacing.
The villains can also feel on the underdeveloped side but it's with many of the series' villains and the mystery box nature of the story makes me more forgiving of this.
As for the gameplay, it's the same the series has been since CoD2(2005). You got the regenerating health where it's fine during easier parts but aggrevating when the challenge starts to amp up due to how much time is spent waiting for the regen health to kick in.
Reloading can be more of a hinderance since what if enemies catch line of sight of you and starts firing away and you are in the middle of reloading? Might as well hit the checkpoint restart button from there.
The hitscanners can also kill you from places where you can't even see them.
These have been issues with a lot of these games. What a CoD campaign lives and dies by are it's missions and how many interesting ones there are a good number of them in Black Ops.
You got missions like like "The Defector" where you get the iconic incendiary shotgun. "Numbers" where it's going through a series of rooftop fire fights. "Project Nova" which is kind of heart breaking for the CoD World at War fan in me seeing the protagonist "cheating" death just to see him finaly sccumb to it. "Vorkuta" with the prison break as you are going through it with Reznov. "WMD' where you have the snowy backdrop as where you are infilrating an enemy with the help of a fighter plane. "Payback" with the crazy part where you are shooting down from afar with the helicoptor that you fought to get. "Execute Order" with the another iconic weapon with the explosive tip arrows.
This could just be chocked up to me playing the campaign a lot but when it comes to sheer number of memorable missions in Blops, there's a lot here to go down. I could make a top 10 with this game. In spite of my issues with the combat, the missions in their specticle and gimmicks makes almost forgiving of them. The sound design and gory combat from WaW is best and it's just as good if not more memorable here. Treyarchs CoD did always nail it when it came to that and the music.
The only big stinker here is the 2nd half of Rebirth where you play as Hudson and you don't have regen health but finite health but with no way to replenish it. Combine that with the hitscanners and the prevelant smoke and this mission would be impossible without the frequent checkpointing.
Overall, CoD Blops while having the issues the series has had manages to be entertaining in spite of them.
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