Maps such as Checkmate, set in an aircraft hangar, and Moscow, which winds through the grand, rainy streets of the Russian capital, are vintage CoD: tight, with excellent verticality and lots of open chokepoints for those enthralling multi-kill encounters. These are acceptable if rather chaotic diversions, but old faves such as Team Deathmatch, Domination and Search and Destroy remain paramount, offering blisteringly fast, super-intense combat with a range of simulated real-world guns that feel deadly and responsive. How can there be a scene set in Berlin in 1981 with no Bowie or Kraftwerk?Ĭlearly multiplayer is the focus, and all the usual modes are here, along with newcomers including VIP Escort, where you have to protect one player until you’re able to airlift them out while the other team attacks, and Fireteam: Dirty Bomb, where teams of four players compete to gather uranium and set off bombs in an Alpine setting. The Black Ops titles have always been great at cultural references, matching pop music to its bombastic action in highly enjoyable ways, but apart from some grainy news footage of Reagan speeches and an admittedly wonderful scene set in an amusement arcade, there’s little nostalgic revelry in the era. What’s really disappointing is that the soundtrack and environmental design make little effort to capitalise on the early 1980s setting. En route, war crimes are committed, moral quandaries are swerved, and macho platitudes are slung about like grenades (“we don’t hope for the best, we make the best happen!”).
Mostly, this is comprised of Call of Duty campaign staples: helicopter crashes escaping to rooftops and waiting for evac calling in airstrikes and gaining temporary control of aircraft miniguns. Photograph: Activisionīut we don’t get anything truly fresh or daring, and the surreal, hallucinatory brain-washing pyrotechnics the series is known for don’t really kick off until the end.
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