14 DAY TRIAL // I still have very mixed feelings about Call of Duty: Black Ops, the game that will surely be the best sold title for this year and will probably be itself surpassed when the new game in the series arrives in November 2011.
On one hand, Black Ops can be a thrilling, engaging, deep experience, spinning a coherent story that plays on the fears that permeated the Cold War period and makes significantly more sense than what we as gamers went through in Modern Warfare 2 and delivering some battle sequences that get the adrenalin pumping at high levels.
On the other hand, the new Call of Duty manages to embody the worst that first person shooters can be, taking control away from the gamer when it feels that he could do something wrong and driving him down linear corridor segments that could have been better and more interesting with at least two parallel paths to explore.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is a runner up when it comes to the first person category because of how well put together the experience is.
All the cutscenes are cinematic and have an 80's thriller feeling that quickly captures the imagination and keeps it spinning out theories before the last few missions.
The game also looks impressive, especially on the PC and in 3D, mainly when it takes on less visited battlefields like those in Vietnam or those in the Arctic.
I just hope that the developers working on the series and the overlords at publisher Activision understand that, in the long term, the series cannot simply coast through on the strength of its multiplayer component, now better balanced and a bit more friendly towards new players thanks to how progression is structured, and needs to actually add something new in order to keep drawing in million of sales.