Here we go! Another year, another Call of Duty vying for position of ‘the most paramount shooter of this generation!’

Will it succeed? Time will tell, and time is what you’ll need!

Call of Duty titles are never small games, despite their much maligned short campaigns. Online multiplayer and Zombies is where most will have spent their time in the original Black Ops. This time around however, it’s clear that much more emphasis has been placed on the single player portion.

Single player

Over to the main campaign then. Yes, it’s exactly how you imagine it! Just like the others, there are explosions and set pieces that would make Michael Bay blush! The story jumps between the Cold War era in the 70’s and 80’s following Alex Mason, whom you’ll remember from the first game, to his son David in the year 2025. The story follows the rise in power of the games excellent main antagonist Raul Menendez over time, as well as the encroaching instability between China and the USA in 2025. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, penned by David S. Goyer, it felt dark and brutal in such a way games rarely do. Some of the scenes can be upsetting for the weak of stomach! Then again, there is always the option to turn off some of the graphic content. I would also recommend staying until after the credits roll for one of the most surreal cut scenes I have ever witnessed!

The lack of loading screens whilst playing the main campaign is fantastic, each cut scene slyly covering a loading bar makes it much more immersive to the player. The only notable screen between the two is an equipment loadout section offering different weapons and perks to choose from. Later on you will unlock better gear for use in previous missions. These are unlocked by either game progression or by completing in-game challenges during levels, such as killing a certain amount of enemies with a specific weapon. My only gripe with this is that there seems to be no way of checking progression on these, or in fact what you need to do in the first place. Seems like a bit of an oversight in my opinion and instead of encouraging creativity, I feel people will just ‘ask the internet’ what to do.

There have been a lot of changes made from previous iterations of CoD. The most noteworthy, although by no means an unheard of device, is that your in-game choices can, and will alter the ending of the game. They range from the obvious, such as deciding who to shoot when put in a tense situation, to much more subtle occasions that some players might miss out upon entirely.

Another new feature being the much talked about ‘Strike Force’ missions that appear periodically throughout the campaign. Taking the form of a pseudo RTS with a twist, these take place in the games multiplayer maps giving you an almost sandbox style to the missions. You are tasked with a bevy of objectives such as locating a held captive or capturing points on the map. In principal, these missions sound fantastic; you control a top down view of the battlefield dubbed ‘Overwatch Mode’. The key innovation being that you can select a unit and it will give you direct control over them. The 10 minute time limit coupled with the notion that you can fail these, affecting the War Effort, adds great tension on higher difficulties. Unfortunately, this is where the system seems to fall down a little. Ordering your units to move and attack specific targets, then return to their previous locations never seems to work out in reality as the controls seem sluggish and at times unresponsive.

Unfortunately, despite the Overwatch view, I believe many people, like me, will control a single unit and play the Strike Force maps as if they were normal missions. However, I’m already looking forward to seeing the next implementation of it, as some refinement could make this mode great fun and a welcome distraction.

Zombies

The shuffling, screaming horde returns, and in three different guises! Tranzit, Grief and good old fashioned Survival are your choices; all share similarities, but each have a completely different play style. Interestingly, there is also an easy mode, presumably for people new to the game so as to make it easier to learn the maps and hone your zombie rounding tactics!

Survival mode is just as addictive as it used to be, with stats and leaderboards tracking your kills, bullets fired, times downed (unfortunately for me!) and many other interesting statistics. You’re likely to get sucked into competing with your friends all over again! The maps are well designed with all the usual doors to open, choke points to lead the undead through and corners to get backed into! The mystery box still offers plenty of treats well suited to Pack-a-Punch and mow down the horde with, as well as the weapons you scoff and sigh at!

Grief is essentially the same as Survival only there are two teams of humans, potentially fighting against the waves of zombies together. Only in the end, one team will survive longer and that’s the aim of the game! This mode will either be funny or just plain irritating I fear! You can shoot or knife players on the other team which has a slight knock-back effect. This could be used to push people off one another whilst reviving or onto a crack of fire on the floor. (You will soon get annoyed with those!) Much in the same way you get a ‘Max Ammo’ drop off zombies, you may get something to give your opponents some extra grief such as a lovely looking slab of meat which acts as a homing beacon for nearby zombies. Throw it at a friend for extra laughs!

Let’s head off to Tranzit now, this is the sandbox variant of Zombies. With a large open map connecting several hub locations and housing many secrets and easter eggs, it can be quite intimidating at first. Exploration and teamwork is the key to surviving (for as long as you can!) There isn’t a tutorial to this, you are just encouraged to experiment with your surroundings.

My first experience of this was with a friend. Both of us completely nonplussed about the situation we were thrust into, all the while a bus outside is honking its horn in a disorientating manner. Needless to say, I was confused! After a few minutes of finding and assembling an odd selection of items to make a turbine, we ventured outside… Still wary of the bus, thinking it was in some way going to attack us, we stayed around the first area until things started to click. Eventually we got brave and subsequently tried again!

After a while, you start to learn certain things such as how to turn the power on, how to find the mystery box. Or how to annoy the bus driver to such an extent that he shouts at you and kicks you off the bus, then you panic, again!

Tranzit is a great laugh on your own, it’s just its best played with a group of friends. Trusting a teammate to lure a lone zombie round the map whilst you and some friends vainly try to figure out where this ‘odd part you found’ goes can be great fun. Plus, some say that easter eggs are best found in a party of four…

Multiplayer

Probably Call of Duty’s biggest draw for purchasing the game, the multiplayer. Love it, or hate it so much you rage quit and get in a mood, it’s here to stay!

SMG’s are the order of the day here, in previous Call of Duty’s; there has always been one or two genuinely good SMG’s such as the AK74u from Black Ops. Aside from these, assault rifles have generally been on top form with the Galil and Famas, again from Black Ops or the ACR from Modern Warfare 3. Don’t get me wrong, assault rifles are still firm powerhouses. Shotguns and snipers can be one shot kills from surprising ranges (in both cases!) Just don’t expect to do wonders with an LMG on what are, mostly, relatively small maps.

With the new Pick 10 system, every piece of equipment, weaponry, attachments or perks all  take up one slot a piece. Don’t want a 2nd tier perk? Then why not have an extra attachment on your primary weapon instead? There are also Wildcards which let you switch it up even more, allowing you a third attachment or maybe two perks from the same tier. This all comes together to give players more choice in their loadouts, without creating a ‘super-class’. Some perks have made the transition into weapon attachments now, for example, laser sight is the equivalent of steady aim. The perks need no longer upgrading to ‘pro’ either now, meaning they work brilliantly straight out of the box. The majority of players will also rejoice in that ‘second chance’ is nowhere to be seen, yay! Ghost is still present but you don’t gain access to it until level 55, the final level before prestige; it now only protects you from UAV’s and only if you are moving, yay again!

Killstreaks have now been altered into Score-Streaks, which do not reward the lone run and gunner as much as a team player. Each Score-Streak costs a number of points now instead of an arbitrary amount of kills. Thus playing the objective is very much encouraged; you will get more points for killing an attacker near an objective in a team based mode than someone in a standard deathmatch. Streaks are also stackable now, much like in MW3. Get a Counter UAV in the air and watch in glee as every kill your teammates get whilst its up, gives you a cheeky little boost towards your next Score-Streak.

One thing you will learn very quickly is just how fast you die online; it’s still surprising even after several straight hours! This is good news for people who like to run and gun with an SMG, slap a Laser Sight on it (the new Steady Aim) and you’ll be laughing! Until you come across one of the many, many campers online at the minute that is! Head glitching is rampant on this game. If you don’t know what head glitching is, it’s when someone is hidden behind a piece of cover in such a way that only the top of their head is visible, yet on their screen, they can have a clear line of sight upon you. This is irritating, but with time, people tend to learn the maps more and these spots will become exploitable and useless, hopefully!

The overall sense of progression seems good; you are always earning xp via challenges, destroying equipment, capturing objectives etc. This is good news as there is a lot to level up! Not only is there the inevitable race to prestige with your friends, you can also level up your gun to unlock more attachments and camo options.

The party system seems to work a lot better now, joining a friends lobby isn’t traumatic anymore! Combat training is still here, you earn half xp in exchange for fighting against the AI, which I might add looks a hell of a lot more convincing than on the original Black Ops, they even miss slightly in KillCams! Alongside Combat Training, you can also put ‘bots’ in custom games, you don’t earn any xp, but a good old fashioned comp stomp after getting destroyed online against real people can calm the nerves! Speaking of custom games, you can still alter the rules with AI present. You can explore a multitude of game types and learn where all the Hardpoint locations are whilst still testing that new attachment you earned. Which is nice!

Party modes are back, replacing the wager matches of old, I love Gun Game and seeing it return is brilliant. What’s better however is that you can now earn xp whilst playing these! It won’t be the fastest way to power level, but it is indeed nice to be rewarded for playing something you love!

An interesting new mode, of which I haven’t spent much time in I’ll be honest, is something called League Play. This attempts to draw parallels with a football league in terms of you get placed in a division based upon your skill level. You then compete against players with the same ability to hopefully rise to the top of your table. This sounds like a fantastic mode for all players as you hopefully won’t be on the bad side of a thrashing every game!

Gen. Lowdown

Graphically it looks superb, running in typical Call of Duty fashion at 1080p and 60fps despite the non-stop action. The contrast between the Cold War missions and the 2025 ones is stark. Regardless of the optional HD textures install, which is a brilliant idea! Some of the textures, especially in the past missions, look a little murky and undefined, but aside from that, the artistic design is great. The near future settings look like something out of an Apple wish list catalogue! Some of the gadgets used, I imagine, could easily fall into the realm of possibility given a decade or two. I especially enjoyed the advert boards, which change to include your face when you approach them.

The sound quality is above par, you won’t forget the first time you hear a Warthog strafe run online! A number of sound pre-sets are included in the options, presumably for those with headsets. The addition of a THX style surround sound test on the options menu is exciting for sound system buffs too!

Offline glitches have been few and far between, an issue arose during one of the missions where you must jump from one balcony to another whilst being shot at by a helicopter, impaired vision was an issue here! After trying it the same way five times, it finally registered I had done it correctly, and on I moved. In another scenario I encountered the same problem, this time involving a HALO jump.

Online on the other hand has been a mixed bag. Server issues, some might argue, are bound to be prevalent when a new game launches. However, I would say that Activision and Treyarch would expect there to be an average of 500,000 people online to play their game when they bought it! Most issues have been resolved by now, save for a few dodgy lag moments. Conversely, at launch week, there were numerous crashes, audio problems and inconsistent connection speeds throughout. Unfortunately, the recent ‘double xp weekend’ for those who had pre-ordered was also fraught with problems, some games I wouldn’t get any xp at all.

Alas, to try and not end on a negative! Despite some teething issues, you still get a lot for your money, what with the campaign demanding multiple playthroughs. More zombies than you can shake a pack-a-punched LMG at, and millions of people to get angry at online! Call of Duty Black Ops 2 will not only last a while, but is also deserving of your time.

Reviewed on PS3, also available on Xbox 360, PC. Available for the Wii U 30/11/12