Weekend Reading: Call of Duty: Black Ops II and the Quest for Innovation

Call of Duty games may be some of the most successful titles out there, breaking sales records with each iteration, but their reluctance to mess with the tried and true first-person shooter formula has certainly gotten them a bad rap among more educated gamers.

I’m the first to admit that, while I like shooters in general, Call of Duty titles haven’t exactly managed to satisfy all of my desires.

With the recent reveal of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, however, things are a bit different, as it seems that Treyarch has managed to improve on a variety of aspects, from graphics, to story, mechanics, and much more.

First up, let’s talk about the setting, as Black Ops II takes place in the near future, in 2025, where unmanned vehicles, whether they’re drones or mechanized walkers, have taken the place of humans on the battlefield.

While the Modern Warfare series, made by Infinity Ward, also takes place in the very near future, the world of Black Ops II is much more exciting, as the technology portrayed still looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

What’s more, the premise of a terrorist organization putting down the bombs and trying to take over these unmanned vehicles in order to hurt the U.S. seems more interesting than a crazy Russian nationalist who manages to spark World War III with just a cunning plan.

In the gameplay trailer we have also seen a variety of environments, from the age-old urban warfare zones, to new areas, like the Middle Eastern mountain ranges where you need to use horses and rusty pickup trucks in order to get around inconspicuously.

The graphics, while still looking a bit bland when compared to the likes of Battlefield 3 or Crysis 2, seem a bit more polished, especially when you admire close up shots of Frank Woods’ face.

Besides the things we saw in the trailer, Treyarch also promises some other serious features, from branching story paths, to overhauled multiplayer and cooperative Zombies modes.

Thanks to all these things, I’m quite excited about Call of Duty: Black Ops II and hope that it will manage to bring some much needed innovation to the series..

What about you? Are you eager to see if the franchise can actually innovate or do you think it’s still going to be the same old experience?