Call Of Duty: Black Ops

Monday, July 5th, 2010

At E3 2010, Activision and Treyarch showcased two levels from the upcoming installment of the FPS franchise, Call Of Duty.

In this latest installment, Treyarch take CoD into the Cold War.  Call of Duty: Black Ops is based loosely on “deniable” events, which may be or may not be real-life operations.

The first was called WMD and featured two aspects of gameplay: “eye in the sky” and “boots on the ground.” At the start, you’re controlling the takeoff of a stealth jet.

Once in the sky, you’re scanning for enemy troops to assist your ground forces. Once they’ve made it to safety, you gain control of the ground troops to infiltrate a Russian base with the aim of finding and destroying an apocalyptic weapons system, aimed at friendly territory.

An interesting new addition to the weaponry was seen here, as the infiltration featured a crossbow that could incapacitate or destroy enemy troops. Troop chatter seemed more prevalent than in the last installment, and the controlling gamer even called out when his gun was empty so that his teammates could keep him safe while he reloaded.

After infiltrating the base and shutting down the weapons of mass destruction, the team escaped by rappelling down a mountain, getting caught in an avalanche, leaping off the edge off a cliff, where a short base-jumping scene ended the demonstration.

The familiar over-the-top action sequences remain and certainly look to keep things exciting, though overall the demo level felt very similar to other snow-based levels we’ve seen in earlier CoD installments.

The familiarity was soon to evaporate, however, as the next level, Payback, was set in Laos, 1968.  The goal is to steal a helicopter and slice up as many random foreigners as you can in a bloody slaughterous revenge spree – these particular foreigners being the troops that killed your friends (and also presumably some innocents, but never mind that – if they’re in uniform, they’re guilty commies and need to die!)

The level begins with a few soldiers guarding the helo that you plan to half-inch, that need to be dispatched in order to reach the vehicle.  Once airborne, the player literally takes control of a helicopter in the first person and has full control over the aircraft’s guns and rockets in a sequence that the creators made a point of assuring us was “not on rails”.  Winding down a river valley, spraying lead death into ground-troops, blowing up bridges, and basically recreating the famous helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now, sans-Valkyres, in the sort of way that should delight even the most battle-hardened of CoD veterans.

If the Call of Duty series has so far kept your attention, this latest installment will thrill you in all the ways the previous games did.  Jumping all over the cold war, Call Of Duty: Black Ops is quite simply unmissable.

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