Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review (PS3)

Call of Duty has released this year’s installment. I took last year off, after I rented Modern Warfare 3 and was wholeheartedly disappointed in the game for being very cut and paste from the first two Modern Warfare games. I did enjoy Black Ops two years ago, so I had some hope for Black Ops 2. I have been thoroughly impressed with what developer Treyarch has been able to do with the franchise.

Treyarch has been able to pull off some impressive feats in the graphics department. I have not had any kind of slowdowns at all while playing Black Ops 2. There are some moments where things get a little muddy and blurred together, but overall, the game is pretty good looking. It’s not as good as Medal of Honor: Warfighter, but I can safely say that Black Ops 2 plays much better than it looks. During the cutscenes for the campaign, there are some impressive visuals going on. The close up facial animations and movements are very lifelike, and they help to bring some depth to some characters that I would normally not care about at all.  Environments in both campaign and multiplayer look very crisp and smooth. As I said before, there are times, like in all COD games where things get a little muddled together and lost in all the chaos, but the game overall looks very good.

The sound quality is great, just like it always is. The voice track is layered very well over top of the action, and I could almost always hear my allies speaking to me during the campaign. Guns sound like guns, and footsteps can be heard clearly. Voice acting was executed very well, with all of the characters sounding great. If you can get over the incredible amount of swearing, the voices aren’t too bad.

The gameplay is what Call Of Duty has always been known for, and Black Ops 2 does not disappoint at all. Controls are very tight and super responsive. Shooting is spot on, with very minimal hit detection issues, like I’ve noticed in the past.

Lets talk about the campaign mode a bit. Black Ops 2 is set both in the mid to late ‘80s and in the year 2025.  The game flips between these two time periods usually alternating between them. This can be a little jarring and does make the story a bit rough at times. The missions are paced very well, and offer some pretty cool semi-plausible tech that could come up in the next ten years.  The campaign mode has a moderately decent story that had me pulled in from the beginning. The near future setting helped draw in my attention, because I kept thinking that this what I was playing could one day happen. A fun change that was added to the campaign was the ability to customize your loadout before missions. This helped me play more to my style, instead of going with what they gave me and it is a great system. The only complaint that I have about the campaign is that there are secondary missions called Strike Force missions. These put you in control of a battlefield in a mild RTS type game where you can take direct control of any of your combatants on the field and beat objectives. These missions are optional, but do affect your ending depending on how well you do in them. I did not fare so well, and suffered the consequences. A final campaign note; Treyarch has included multiple endings depending on what objectives and conditions are met, so there are reasons to go back and replay the game. All in all, I thought that the campaign was very well done and thought that there was a lot of work put into it.

Moving on to the multiplayer function of the game, the multiplayer is split into two modes, multiplayer, and Zombies. We’ll hit the actually multiplayer function first. Matchmaking is quick and easy, with only some minor bugs on the server side of the PS3, such as trying to balance the teams, when there are already the maximum players and they’re split evenly. I have not noticed any lag, and only a few minor graphical glitches. Overall, the multiplayer modes are standard FPS fare, and they do what they’re supposed to do. Team Deathmatch is still my preferred mode, but Kill Confirmed (Where you pick up dogtags to earn points) is a nice diversion. Headquarters, Domination, and Search and Destroy are all back again as well. The maps are very well designed; with very little moment-to-moment when I wasn’t sure if an enemy was going to be coming up behind me. There are many pathways, and the levels don’t feel overly cluttered or too open. Treyarch put in a lot of work on designing the levels and they did a fantastic job. The create-a-class system has been changed since the last time I played a COD game, and it’s a great change. The system is called “Pick 10” and you literally pick ten things to use.  You can split these up however you want, score streaks don’t matter, and they just let you have fun with it. I made a class that had six perks and no guns or grenades. I made another class where I had two primary weapons, one with three attachments, and no grenades. They let you truly design your class the way that you want to. This system is probably one of the best things that Treyarch could have done to the Call of Duty franchise and I hope to see it utilized in other iterations. Another area worth noting is that the weapon attachments are unlocked by using your weapon, as is the camo for the weapons. Guns level up independently from the player, so if you want to get that Hybrid Optic sight for your weapon, you’re going to have to work for it and use that gun. As the player levels up they’re awarded Unlock Tokens to use to unlock new weapons, perks, and equipment, letting you choose whether or not you want to get something or save up for something better.

I didn’t get into the Zombies mode as much as I could have, though there have been some huge changes here too. First and foremost, there is technically only one map. It is split into four sections that the teams must travel around in to unlock various bonuses, weapons, and gadgets. Players load up into a bus and move to a different section. The whole thing makes it feel more like a first-person adventure game instead of a chaotic, team-based survival scramble. Each area offers different landscapes to explore, and there is a LOT to find. This iteration of zombies is pretty great so far, and I’m interested to see what Treyarch has in mind to expand it.

I’m going to be completely honest here. I thoroughly enjoyed Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Treyarch has done some things to the series that desperately needed done. I will safely say that this is the best Call of Duty I’ve played in a very long time, maybe since the original Modern Warfare. Infinity Ward or whoever is making the next game needs to take note of what Treyarch has done and continue the momentum. I recommend Black Ops 2 to anyone who is looking for a fantastic shooter game and award a 9/10. See you online..

WWE '13 Review (PS3)

Another year has come and gone and another WWE game has been released.  This year’s iteration focuses very heavily on the groundbreaking Attitude Era of the WWE. Things have been changed as always, but the thing to remember here, is that this is a wrestling game. If you aren’t a fan of wrestling, you will not like this game, and vice versa. WWE ’13 is a solid entry into a great franchise and is continuing in THQ’s focus on making changes for the better.

First off, at the time of this review, there is a major game breaking bug with the Universe Mode of WWE ’13. Using a created arena will cause any changes you make to matches to make the game not load. We are playing on the PS3, so I’m not sure if this is a issue for all platforms, but it is a deal breaker for us on PS3.

The graphics for WWE ’13 are the best that the series has ever presented. The digital representations of the wrestlers are as true to their real life counter parts as they’ve ever been. The Attitude Era stars look and move exactly like they did fifteen years ago. The crowds look and move much more realistically than they ever have, and with correct placement of the WWE logo my wife glanced at the TV and asked if I was watching Raw. Arenas are faithfully recreated completely, and the classic arenas bring back some nostalgia that makes me feel like I’m back in the mid to late ‘90s again. Animations are fairly fluid, with moves flowing easily from one into the next. There are some hitches in the hit detection and some of the weapon physics are questionable at times. There is the occasional moment when out of nowhere a chair that was on the ground will fly across the screen for no reason.

The sound in the game is pretty good. Hits sound like they should, slamming down onto the mat sounds right, the crowd is hit or miss however. THQ used samples from actual live crowds to try and recreate the atmosphere of being at a live WWE event. Wrestler entrance music is pulled straight from reality. The announcers both ring announcer and commentary teams sound great. When using custom entrance music though, the ring announcer will be nearly impossible to hear due to some audio mixing issues. The commentary during the matches is better than previous years, but is still obnoxious at times, and tends to call what is happening just before it finishes happening, but these are minor complaints.

The gameplay has been refined further from WWE ’12 making one of the best simulated wrestling games ever created.  Controls are still easy to learn, but difficult to master, with reversals being mapped to one button again instead of two. The controls are also very tight and responsive. Animations are fluid and moves flow very well. There are environmental finishers and match specific finishers that each superstar can preform. There are numerous match types to play ranging from a simple one on one match to a sixteen man King of the Ring tournament to an inferno match. The big focus this year again is on the Attitude Era. WWE ’13 does away with the standard Road to WrestleMania mode from the past few games and has the players play through decisive moments in the Attitude Era. This mode has quite a few different unlocks providing you get all of the historical bonus objectives in each event. Attitude Era mode provides a great bit of nostalgia for those of us that lived through it, and for younger fans of WWE helps give them some history for one of the most important time periods for the WWE. WWE Universe mode is back for those who want to go through and manage every aspect of the WWE. Rosters, shows, and matches are all available to be changed at the whim of the player. If you want to add a new show with the old Attitude Era stars, you can. Feel like deleting Monday Night Raw from the schedule, do it. Universe mode allows the player to customize the WWE in any way they want to. Several trophies(achievements) are tied into the Universe mode, so you should at least work through it a little bit.

WWE ’13 proves to be another solid entry into the WWE game franchise. There aren’t as many changes as last year, but there have been numerous refinements. Once they get their bugs ironed out, this game will be fantastic. I advise checking this out if you’re a wrestling fan. WWE ’13 beats it’s way to a nice 8/10. As always, See You Online.

Edit: Since publication, a patch has been released to fix the freezing issue, however all of your previous save data is corrupted and unusable including Universe, Create-an-Anything, and from surface appearances the progress made on Attitude Era mode. So....yeah…