14 DAY TRIAL // I’d like to be able to report that I had a fun time playing the multiplayer mode for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops II during Gamescom 2012 and that I came away sure that this year I might actually spend time playing it with strangers and friends.
Unfortunately, my first 5 minutes of play time consisted of spawning only to quickly get shot, usually by players I was not able to see and from positions I didn’t know were reachable.
The map, called Cargo, was set in a port where a crane constantly shifts the position of massive containers, forcing gamers to adapt their movement and their tactics every few minutes.
After the initial deaths I managed to get into the game a little more, scoring a few kills after noticing enemies out of the corner of my eye or after spotting them from a distance and stalking them for a while.
Still the game is much too quick and brutal for me, even though pretty much everyone else around us was able to enjoy it.
The big change when it comes to features for Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the new option, which allows any player to create his own completely customized class and then take it into battle.
The ten points can be spent on weapons, modifiers for them, perks and score streaks and there are even Wilcards which allow the gamer to slightly change the core rules of the game.
The idea is to make it easy to get to a setup one likes and feels confined with the battlefield rather than frustrating players with a number of predetermined conditions.
The full unlock possibilities for Black Ops II currently stand at 100 and the level cap stands at 50, which means that only half of the toys will be available to a player who never gets into the Prestige system (10 ranks to grind up).
Call of Duty: Black Ops II launches on the PC, home consoles and other devices on November 13.