Game review 13 November 2020, 06:00

author: Darius Matusiak

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War Review. Cold War, Hot Choices

After a great reboot of the Modern Warfare series, the Black Ops series has also been revived. The adventures of Mason, Woods and Hudson are back in style, as Cold War brings one of the best campaigns in the history of CoD!

The review is based on the PS4 version. It's also relevant to XONE version(s).

A year ago, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, created on the new engine, dramatically raised the bar for quality for subsequent games in this series. The story campaign with a revamped Captain Price was great, and shooting was finally fun again, translating into a great experience of network games. How does the latest installment fare? What can we say about Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War apart from the title being a SEO nightmare? It depends...

The answer is not clear, because Black Ops is, as usual, three separate modules offering a slightly different experience. In my opinion, we get a phenomenal storyline campaign that's among the greatest in the entire CoD series, a slightly weaker multiplayer than in Modern Warfare and Zombie mode, as usual at a high level, but to the full satisfaction of a demanding team.

Online clashes are similar to those from last year's game, with many elements transferred directly, without any changes. We even have the same menu, operator selection, almost the same arsenal or 6vs6 modes, but in Cold War, I somehow couldn't get used to a new pace of movement, and the noticeably different "time-to-kill." The gunplay isn't as fluent and fun as the one in MW, which I suspect is due to the completely different engine the game was made in. However, the technical differences didn't interfere with the single-player campaign at all.

The new adventures of Hudson, Woods and Mason take us back to the days of yore, when the world was hanging on a thread, on the verge of a nuclear apocalypse. The shaky status quo was defended by politicians of both powers engaged in the Cold War, as well as secret intelligence agents, who were constantly playing cat and mouse with each other. The Black Ops – Cold War campaign puts us in the middle of such action and does it really well – both in terms of plot and gameplay mechanics. Especially in terms of the latter, the new CoD will really surprise you!

Black Ops + Modern Warfare = Call Of Duty

I went through the Cold War story campaign in a single sitting, not merely because it's possible with the standard campaign length of around five hours, but mostly because it's hellishly riveting. It's a cohesive, engaging story with an explosive ending, so it doesn't generally feel either long or short. It takes exactly as much time as the story needs, and it's neither boring nor unsatisfactory, just like a good movie. According to the developers, this is the direct sequel to Black Ops, but it's of course not mandatory to know the plot of that game to enjoy the new release.

The protagonist is a CIA agent, Russel Adler, who commands an operation in the field to track down a certain Perseus – a Soviet agent who seeks to destabilize the United States their allies, even at the cost of a nuclear attack. Woods and Mason are two guys doing the wet work, and Hudson coordinates the operations. You don't need to know the previous game, but believe me, it's worth it – not only Black Ops 1, but also the first two parts of Modern Warfare! First, you'll get to know some great games, and second, there's a ton of references that you'll otherwise miss!

Me, a spy!

However, fan service is just the icing on the cake when it comes to Cold War campaign. New mechanics are very conspicuous from the first minutes with the game, and can be quite surprising if you got used to CoDs being rail shooters – even with the Black Ops experiments in mind. Choices, optional missions, an FOB were already featured in Cold War, but in a slightly more compact, thoughtful form, sometimes almost reminiscent of a role-playing game! But how about a Call of Duty with a character creator, conversations with NPCs using different dialog options, and time-limited dialog choices?

On top of that, here are also stealth sequences, there's moving and hiding of bodies, and even a lockpicking minigame! One mission gives us significant leeway in completing the goals, there are some optional activities, entire side missions, or details like the option to choose the starting weapon naturally interwoven with interactive cut-scenes. Like in Wolfenstein, the FOB, you can have conversations with team members, and they're much better than a similar solution recently featured in Star Wars: Squadrons; the entire story leads to one of two endings, which have smaller variants as well.

From the chopper ride over the river to River Raid?

The Cold War campaign is distinguished by a considerable variety of actions during the mission. Since we play a spy, we will spend a lot of time in dark alleys of cities, bars or in our safe base, with a large board for collecting evidence. A few moment later, we're firing missiles from a helicopter, then steal data from a computer, play classic River Raid or sit at a boring meeting in a rather surprising company! There's an opportunity to play many arcade classics from the 80s – and it's even justified by the plot! This is one of the best campaigns in the 17 years of history of Call of Duty!

It's not perfect, of course, but the drawbacks aren't massive. CoD is still CoD – the most important thing is accessibility, so artificial intelligence doesn't really make you worried about AI going rogue anytime in the future, so stealth sequences are unfortunately too simple, even at highest difficulty. There aren't many moments when sneaking would be at all thrilling; the AI generally makes sure not to spoil our fun, so there's little excitement to these sequences.

I'd much rather approach the same moment ten times and feel some kind of pressure at every next step, than just slip through the most secure areas effortlessly. I also didn't like the first Vietnam mission (which is not a previously unsaid sentence), where a chance for an epic ending was squandered by cutting the ending short. Which was not the only such instance in the game: the other is when an NPC completely ignores a rather important choice we make during a dialog, which totally kills the atmosphere. I was a little surprised too at how underwhelming the audio design of the game is for the most part, with some weird balance and the soundtrack that doesn't get enough exposition.

Multiplayer with adjustments

While the single-player campaign of Cold War arguably bested last year's Modern Warfare, things are much different in the multi. The similarities are huge, both in terms of map layout, relatively modern setting, and in terms of weapons and accessories used. So the differences are mainly technical – and here, you can clearly see the advantage of the engine developed by Infinity Ward. In Cold War, the gunplay feel is somehow not as satisfying, some maps are horribly designed, and the biggest single difference is probably a the pace, which I just couldn't get used to.

Movement is faster, while time-to-kill is longer than in Modern Warfare, so enemies often get away with at least a few HP. This impression is amplified by the health bar above the enemy, enabled by default, which makes you realize just how spongy characters are. Bunny hopping and dynamic slides are also more effective countermeasures against getting shot in the face.

The authors are proud of their system of score-streaks, rather than kill-streaks (bonuses such as areal attacks are obtained by accumulating points, not kills alone), but it's just another element that didn't convince me. In my case, collecting points usually took longer than getting frags, although it may be a matter of getting the hang of it. There are some evidently ill-conceived ideas in the Control mode, i.e. the CoD version of conquest. The developers tried to add vehicles at all costs, and while they make sense on some maps (even tanks), they're usually completely out-of-place. The microscopic location of Nicaragua, for example, which you can run end-to-end in a few seconds, is stacked with motorbikes that no one even uses.

One Warzone to rule them all

The creators attempted to hide the similarities in terms of weaponry and locations with a different set of modes. In Cold War, there's no ground war for 64 players (which is rather good news), but there are innovations such as VIP escorting, or fire-teams contest in collecting uranium resources to "banks" in Dirty Bomb mode. These are generally interesting ideas with potential for quality fun, but they're based on close cooperation. Without a tight, communicating team, it will be rather difficult to really nail a match.

Everything else is basically identical as in Modern Warfare. We have exactly the same menu, the same choice of operators, sets of weapons and accessories in the gunsmith mode. The most popular modes are all variations of 6v6 games, including the usual team deathmatch, dog-tag collection, or domination. Everything is unified by the idea of seamless integration with the popularity of Call of Duty: Warzone, which doesn't seem to waver. And given that this free multiplayer game runs on the Modern Warfare engine anyway, I'm sticking to the last year's game, which is still quite fresh.

Vodka and peace and Polish zombies

The Black Ops series doesn't have any competition in the zombie mode; the cooperative battles with successive waves of the undead, as always enriched with numerous environmental puzzles and easter eggs. And, you got that right, it's actually set in Poland, in a location named Morasko. The place is now part of a bigger city in western part of the country, and it was hit by a meteorite at a shallow angle between 4100 and 2700 BC. Anyway, after the hectic variety that ranged from Ancient Rome to the Titanic, I welcomed this more stable and coherent setting.

Since it's set in Poland, we're playing inside the bunkers built by the Warsaw Pact, whose secrets imply much more than conventional war with NATO. The novelty in this version is the ability to call for evacuation after defeating the tenth wave (which still requires wining five waves more) in order to earn additional bonuses, and it was done in a style that's sort of reminiscent of The Division. First, we need to radio the helicopter, then get to the landing zone in a completely different location, and finally clear the area to allow a safe landing. So, the escape won't always be successful, and in addition, other players from the team must agree to it.

Here, we reach the key element of the zombie mode, i.e. the relative requirement of playing in a tight team if one wants to really achieve something. It's relative because there also is the possibility of playing solo, but it's always better to repel waves of zombies with friends. Unfortunately, I didn't have such team at my disposal, and the only reason I once managed to reach wave 13 or 14, rather than the usual 5, was probably due to the game's decision to lower the difficulty curve, which, according to developers, is supposed to be smoother.

More relaxed entertainment, even solo, will be provided by the returning Dead Ops Arcade mode after a long break. It's also a fight against hordes of zombies, but in twin-stick shooter form, with top-down view, as in classic games like Front Line or Commando. As part of various bonuses, we can also turn on the FPP view for a while, which further diversifies the experience. Dead Ops Arcade is a nice diversion after the puzzles and gore in the main mode.

A sensational return to the roots

I admit that after seeing the, almost indefinitely postponed, announcement of Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, I was not even half as excited as last year, with the return of Modern Warfare. But now, I am quite convinced that Cold War is even worth expanding your system storage with the hundred or so gigabytes if need be. The only thing I remember from Modern Warfare campaign were the night stages with NV goggles on, and that was really something. However, I'm sure I'll remember much more from the Cold War campaign, since the missions in Berlin and Moscow, my choices, or the secrets hidden in Ukraine, and the character of Russel Adler, are truly memorable.

I'm not likely to change my preferences in terms of multiplayer and will stick to last year's hit, but maybe I'll get more engaged in collecting weapons in time. This Call of Duty, is mainly about the single-player campaign, and I am glad that after the futuristic nonsense, we're back to the cold reality. I'm really looking forward to a strictly next-gen Call of Duty in the future, combining the universe of Black Ops and Modern Warfare, so that we no longer have to make such difficult choices. For now, Black Ops is returning to the roots in a sensational style.