Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review – Change is Good

Sequel fatigue is a real thing. Its when so many sequels are released to a game or genre that the populous grows tired of the formula. Last year’s Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 was very much a sequel to Modern Warfare 2. The story was similar and shock and awe moments were predictable and expected. That didn’t make it a bad game, just another Call of Duty game. The newly crowned lead developer Treyarch has returned this year with Black Ops 2, the sequel to 2010’s history invading roller coaster of a game Call of Duty: Black Ops and it successfully dodges the fatigue for one more year.

Rather than staying in the past, Blops 2 dips its toes in the past while mainly being played in the future. That’s right, Call of Duty: Future Warfare is here…well kinda. The primary protagonist in Blops 2 is David Mason, the son of Alex Mason the main protagonist in the original game. David, like his father, has become a high ranking Navy Seal in the Black Ops division in 2025. Through a well woven story, David investigates Raul Menendez a Nicaraguan drug lord/terrorist. Very quickly David finds out that Menendez’s rise to power is tied very closely to him and his father’s past. David visits Frank Woods, his dad’s best friend from the first game and through the stories he tells the player lives out events from 1989 that are important to the story happening in 2025. It may seem hard to follow on paper, but the characters and script do a great job of fleshing out the details to make it truly compelling.

Like other Call of Duty games the story is handled in the ultra dramatic, anything goes, style of 24-esq thrillers. What starts off as a global conflict shrinks down to a surprisingly personal level for David, only to finish as a world changing war scenario. Its not a long game, but alot gets done in the short amount of time spent shooting baddies. The story is probably the strongest in the Call of Duty family, outside of Call of duty 4 (of course) and Raul Menendez is a scary SCARY antagonist. I know what you are saying, “Sergio, this sounds great and all, but what makes Blops 2 different?” Choice my friend, choice.

Blops 2 has a branching story line that is affected by different factors throughout the game. Certain objectives in the game have two different outcomes. Whichever outcome your character achieves will determine a piece of the rest of the story and play into the ending. While other games, make it obvious that choices are being made, Blops 2 hides the choices in the narrative. Some choices that lead to achievements can be completely missed if areas of the map aren’t visited or small tasks aren’t completed. The game doesn’t tell you you’ve made a choice and the narrative continues as designed. Outside of 2 very important either/or choices all of the other options are never more than hinted at in the game. It would be totally possible for a player to play through the whole game, get an ending and never know that their ending could have been drastically different.

The story branching gives the player a compelling reason to play through the campaign two-four times and the choices not feeling forced helps the game feel less gamey and modular a common problem with most choice based games. Call of Duty has never given me a reason to play it twice, but when I finished Blops 2 I couldn’t wait to jump back in and see what I could do differently. Bravo Treyarch, you found a way to change Call of Duty without breaking it! But don’t pat yourself on the back just yet, I haven’t mentioned the Strike Force missions.

The Strike Force missions are mostly optional side missions where you are in command of a large squad of seals and/or drones trying to complete a specific objective. These missions are also a new feature to the franchise, and are a complete mess for multiple reasons. They are introduced as a tactical almost tower defense-like mode. The player is given turrets and robot gun-dinos they can order around the map to take out enemies, basically setting up a real time multi-front attack campaign. The downside is that the controls are confusing and clunky, the AI characters you control are pretty dumb and the real time tactical aspect of the battles is pretty much optional.

If you choose to just try and iron man the mission and not set up your army, depending on the difficulty you might succeed without the silly tactical view. Also, there’s only 5 or 6 of these missions, and they are so different (in that about half of them don’t really require much strategy at all) that the player never really gets used to playing the scenarios the way Treyach wants you to play them. The Strike Force missions are technically optional, but skipping them will have a huge effect on the story. There’s a nugget of a good idea here, and in future games strike force could be really awesome but as-is it just seems clunky and scatterbrained.

The acting in Blops two is top notch and fits the drama appropriately. The voice acting works great. I love Michael Rooker, and he has one of the most unique voices in Hollywood, but everytime his character Harper speaks all I can think of is Michael Rooker. Voice acting should be seemless, casting Rooker may have been a mistake. The setting of 2025 is technically the future, but its only 13 years away. Many of the technologies displayed in the game feel way to advanced for some thing that is supposed to happen in 13 years. Did we not learn anything from Back to the Future Part 2? Obviously we will have a Black Ops 3, and where they take it from here should get very interesting.

Zombies are back. I’m not a huge fan of them, but I get it…I see the appeal. Like usual I barely touched the multiplayer, Its also not my thing, but I am to understand it is very much a Call of Duty multiplayer. You already know if you like it. Blops 2 shows the first true innovation seen in the Call of Duty series since the original Modern Warfare. Not all of it is great but its interesting and fresh.

Treyarch should be commended for the work done here in the game, but it would be a glaring omission if I did not mention the post credits mind-blowing cavalcade of bizarre that is the closing scene. Its is hands down the weirdest thing I have ever seen in a video game…and I’ve played stuff from Japan. Even if you don’t play through the game, I strongly suggest you look it up. The only thing that comes close is the bizarre ending to Conduit 2.

Verdict: Should you play Blops 2? Sure, its pretty great! Its familiar, yet innovative, and the over dramatic story-line will keep you on the edge of your seat.