30/12/2010
For those interested, this review is from the perspective of a pc gamer, but I will still include all the general gaming caveats.
Cod Black Ops is the most hyped and most successful game to date, and has broken countless sales records, as well as many other records, so does it live up to the hype or is it another MW2 for pc gamers.
I will start with the single player as per my usual routine. The game brings you to many locations such as Cuba (Thanks to mapper Paulo88), Russia, Vietnam, The Artic, USA. The campaign is the standard 6-8 hours single player and should not pose much trouble to beat even on the hardest difficulty. As with Medal of Honor, the SP is very fun, however it feels like more of a modern warfare game than cold war era. Guns and technologies not available at the time are often included. There are plenty of easter eggs and secrets as is usual in Cod games, and it is well worth playing through at least once.
A secret top down secret game called Dead Ops Arcade can be accessed through the main menu in an interesting way. It is a good addition to the game and can provide a few hours entertainment if nothing else.
Of course the zombie mode returns to Black Ops, with 2 maps being featured in the stock game (1 new one will be added in the first mappack). 1 map featuring the political leaders of the time (Kennedy, Castro, Nixon, McNamarra) is unlocked after beating the SP. It uses the same format as WaW zombies and this is slightly disappointing in my eyes as Treyarch succeeded in innovating in all other aspects of the game. Simply put if you enjoyed WaW zombies, then you will enjoy this, and ergo if you didnt enjoy WaW zombies, you won't enjoy this.
Of course what all pc players have been interested is the multiplayer, and as of the time of this post, it is still not fully clear whether Treyarch have delivered. The usual larger seletion of maps and gametypes and game modes returns (including 4 wager betting type matches, some based on pc community made mods). However the whole xp ranking system has been scrapped and replaced by Cod points which is currency which the user buys items such as weapons, camos, etc with. Ranking and pretiging has remained however. Pc players are bitterly disappointed to know that there is no public server files and servers can only be rented from Gameservers.com. However Treyarch have made it more user friendly than Mw2 and a limited control dev. console exists, as well as Treyarchs promise to deliver Mod tools of some degree (recently reaffirmed). The important question will be whether this includes proper map tools, and as a result or vice versa, whether the map pack will cost money for pc. This is not known yet. However as a game, Treyarch have been trying hard to optimise the pc game post release (the game was poorly optimised on release), and it is now playable for the most part.
Sadly the AntiCheat used is not Punkbuster but VAC, however server admins control is the most important returning feature. For pc specific features, it is the best mainstream offering 2010 has to give, and it is fair to say that users are getting a lot of content for their money.
I would recommend purchasing this game if you have not done so already, as the promise for mod tools are enough to entice all but the absolute hardcore pc gamers.
My rating: 8/10