Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 revealed. Thoughts?
If you’re any kind of video gamer, it’s safe to say that by now you’ve seen the reveal trailer for Activision’s Call of Duty Black Ops 2. One of the worst kept secrets since… well, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops 2 was officially announced on April 27th, and the first trailer dropped just a couple days ago on May 1st. And if you’re any kind of video gamer thats remotely familiar with the Call of Duty series, you probably feel strongly one way or another about the latest game in the annual series. In case you haven’t seen it (all 6 of you), the trailer is below: Overall pretty standard fare for these types of first-looks (complete with the trendy Dubstep woo woo background music), with one major exception: the setting. In a somewhat surprising move, the time period of the game has shifted to the near future, as opposed to the distant past of the previous Black Ops game and the other Call of Duty interations worked on by developer Treyarch. A futuristic setting should (I’m hoping) be a fresh take on a series, and FPS genre as a whole, that’s running low on original & unique ideas. Crazy technology, mechs, and cool-yet-realistic prototype new guns might just be enough to hold one’s attention just long enough to keep dedicated COD players from straying to other franchises. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how they implement all this future tech into the game, and if Ubisoft’s upcoming “Ghost Recon Future Soldier” dampens any of the “wow” factor of these new gadgets. On the other hand, how much could the future setting really add to the Call of Duty experience? Because, let’s face it, at the end of the day, it’s going to be the exact same game mechanics with a different skin slapped on top of it. We can look forward to exciting set pieces, linear run-N-gun action, and a clusterfuck of a story to temporarily distract us from the real draw of the game: the multiplayer. Complaints aside, the vast majority of us will probably break and put a significant amount of time into this game. Because, after all, it IS Call of Duty. And just like sex & pizza, “bad” Call of Duty is pretty enjoyable....