14 DAY TRIAL // Call of Duty: Black Ops is the Treyarch developed new title in the long running series published by Activision and it is set to arrive on November 9 for the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the PC and the Nintendo Wii, with a separate version being created for the DS handheld.
At Gamescom 2010, Treyarch and Activision chose not to make the game playable by the general public, but they offered quite a chunk of content demoed on a pretty big screen.
The mission itself was not a surprise, it's the one involving a SR-71 Blackbird that works in tandem with a ground based team to advance on what seems to be a Soviet secret research lab deep in the mountains.
Treyarch seems to have the formula which powered the success of the two Modern Warfare games under perfect control.
There were a few scripted sequences, involving a fellow Special forces soldier falling to his death and the rappel assault on a power station, that are clearly designed to install the idea of being a highly trained professional to the player.
There are also some intense firefights where the guy giving the demo got himself killed by charging recklessly ahead with a shotgun.
Treyarch is also experimenting with shifting the perspective of the player much more than in previous Call of Duty titles, allowing him to spot for a ground based team from the air initially, without giving him access to any weaponry, and them taking him down to ground level when a significant firefight kicks in.
The setting of the Cold War is a generous one and will allow for variety in both the missions and the way they are told and Treyarch has a chance to craft a more interesting narrative than that in Modern Warfare 2.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is perhaps the biggest launch of the fall for the people at Activision and they really need it to be a hit, given the issues with developer Infinity Ward.