Critical Consensus: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

November 14th, 2012, 01:23 Posted By: wraggster

No pressure, folks - just another product in the world's largest entertainment franchise. A franchise which has steadily increased its phenomenal retail presence over the last five years since its departure from a WWII setting with 2007's Modern Warfare, hitting a high water mark with Treyarch's original Black Ops in late 2010.
That game, despite predictions from Activision itself that it would undersell Modern Warfare 2 by 20 per cent, made $1 billion in revenues in 42 days - almost double Modern Warfare's $550 million chump change in the same period.
An incredible attachment rate for DLC meant that, on average, each of the 30 million plus players of Black Ops spent over $76 on the game in total - totalling over 18 million map packs. A record selling title around the world, Black Ops remains the highest-grossing entertainment launch of all time to date.
So what of the sequel? Despite some pessimism from analysts about its chances at breaking its own records, citing ageing console hardware and engine tech, Black Ops 2 has already tripled the pre-order total of the original.
So do the reviews even matter? A tightly enforced embargo, which only expired at 8am this morning for the UK and Europe, meant that the game had already been available for eight hours by the time the reviews went live, thanks to a plethora of midnight openings from games retailers. For the thousands who queued in the cold to grab their copies for a late night binge before things got really busy, scores were not important. For them, as for so many customers, any Call of Duty purchase is a given.
Near future settings are artfully realised with some surprisingly close attention to detail, say critics.

So far, the Metacritic rating is similar to its predecessor's, hovering around 85 per cent on Xbox 360, whilst Black Ops ended up at 88. 31 Reviews had been posted at the time of writing, ranging from 94 to 80 per cent, but there were a few notable gaps, including GamesIndustry International sister site Eurogamer, as a few outlets eschewed Activision-organised review 'events' or waited to get a better look at public multiplayer.
Looking at a range of scores from some of the biggest media outlets today, the trend is to see a wave of pleasant surprise at some interesting tricks worked into the single-player campaign to keep things fresh, including a range of choices which lead to multiple endings and a geographically and horologically diverse storyline. Multiplayer sees some new tricks, including a deepening of the RPG-lite perks and classes system, as well as plenty of new guns and gadgets.
Despite that, there's a general feeling that Treyarch haven't stretched themselves quite as far as they might have, and may not have brought as much innovation to the table as they did with the original.
Starting at the low end of the scores, we have Russ Frushtick at Polygon, who awards an 8/10 - painting Black Ops 2 as a Treyarch's chance to prove that the original wasn't a fluke but a sign of the quality to come - an attempt which he feels offers somewhat mixed results.
"These excellent new additions are layered atop an already-refined multiplayer blueprint which is as good as it's ever been. Black Ops 2 multiplayer feels like a Swiss watch I could never afford."
Russ Frushtick, Polygon

"Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 easily hits some of those expectations," says Frushtick. "At times it's genius, as with the multiplayer's redesigned class system. But at others, it doesn't feel like it's trying very hard. Occasionally, it's a complete mess."
Opening with a run-down of the changes to game's multiplayer, a consideration much more weighty than that of the single-player for most readers, Frushtick praises the flexibility of the new "create a class" system which allows players to balance weapons, attachments and equipment themselves rather than adhering to pre-set choices. Alongside these improvements come encouragements for support roles, with the kill-streaks of previous games being replaced by score streaks, letting players build momentum for the potentially match-changing rewards which they offer in more tactical or defensive ways - a lesson perhaps learned from EA's Battlefield series.
"Treyarch took a big risk with the Pick 10 create-a-class system, and it paid off, reimagining how players customize their experience," Frushtick believes. "They could have stopped there, but the developer's drive to go deeper, changing certain core elements of Call of Duty multiplayer to encourage more teamwork, makes Black Ops 2 online play even more remarkable. No other online shooter is offering a better experience right now."
A new ranking system also receives cautious praise, but Polygon rightly points out that it'll take a few days of public play before the effectiveness of this system can be properly assessed.
Where Black Ops 2 compares unfavourably with the original, says Polygon, is in the execution of its single-player campaign story, which drops some of the intrigue and characterisation of Alex Mason's story in favour of a villain who is "a cat-stroking Bond character" who attempts to take over the world of 2025's advanced military technology with "a magic computer chip and some spitfire technobabble but seemingly not much else."
This, says Russ, results in "Only a pair of missions in Black Ops 2 stand[ing] out, one offering a major structural departure from the linear Call of Duty mission format, the other an interesting glimpse into civilian life in the year 2025. More often than not you're running from one uninteresting room to the next, shooting guys."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ty-black-ops-2

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