Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Treyarch certainly isn’t the first developer to forgo the traditional single player campaign when producing a triple-A first person shooter, but it is the first in the Call of Duty universe. And it’s certainly been on the cards for a while, as there is a whole segment of players who never do play the single player.
I, however am not one of those people.
The first thing I do on receiving a new FPS is spend the first couple of nights completing the single player campaign. It’s a great way to get accustomed to the game, especially if you’re like me, and don’t play COD exclusively, but like to dabble in various different game genres. But it’s also nice to feel like you’re part of a story, and whilst those big cinematic set pieces can sometimes feel like they’re telling you what to do, they also help you relate to the game, the characters, and make multiplayer a whole lot more personal.
So, if there’s no single player campaign, what else is there to replace it.
Well, nothing really, except Blackout. But Blackout doesn’t replace single player, it’s just the current you have to have this mode or you game will tank type of gameplay addition. It’s basically PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds but with a slight Call of Duty makeover. Don’t know what PUBG is? Think Fortnite, the biggest, most successful PUBG clone, and the reason why both major FPS releases this year will be having a battle royale mode.
Never heard of Fortnite or PUGB? Well fuck off back to that rock you’ve been living under, because you obviously don’t play video games and you’ve stumbled onto the wrong website. In fact, how the hell do you get wifi under that damn rock anyway?
Anyway, I digress. So you have a battle royale mode called Blackout, a 100 player PvP mode with a shrinking map that you skydive into and have to find weapons, and basically the last man (or woman) standing wins.
I tried Fortnite, hated it, tried Blackout, hated it. But that’s just me. Treyarch have taken the basic rules of battle royale and added the COD flavour to it, creating a game that COD players will feel at home in, but with a definite BR flavour. In that, they’ve done a fantastic job.
Multiplayer of course is still the beating heart of Call Of Duty, and as you’d expect, Treyarch deliver once again with a solid online experience. Maps are varied, with enough variety that most maps accommodate all styles of play. All the usual modes are there and everything runs smoothly. If you buy COD:BO4 just for the multiplayer you will be happy.
Then of course there are the zombies. Zombies first appeared in Call of Duty: World at War, and have risen into every Treyarch COD game since. This first wave of zombies was based in a World War 2 universe and worked really well, requiring teamwork and a steady aim.
Zombie mode in BO4 is a totally different beast, with zombie tigers and much more. It feels too OTT and sharply out of place in the COD universe. In fact it feels a little too OTT even for the general zombie pop culture universe.
Having said that, it’s great to have these two multiplayer alternatives to the standard first person shooter respawn-fest. And to be honest if I was a little more monogamous in my gaming and could devote all my gaming time to mastering one of these two optional modes, I might fall in love with them.
But alas, I have gamer ADD and can’t commit long term to any one game.
Rating: R16 Restricted to persons 16 years and over. NOTE: Violence & horror.
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