Did I Miss Out: Call of Duty Black Ops
Did I Miss Out is a series I write where I play games I did not play when they originally released. I then try to determine if I missed out or made the right move skipping.
Call of Duty fatigue is a real thing people all over the world suffer from. They make a new game every year and they can be hit or miss. So I was suffering from some series fatigues
when this game dropped. Funny thing though I did purchase it for the PS4. I played a couple rounds of multiplayer and then my son just took over. It was covid lockdown and he played the crap out of that game so I never really had the opportunity to play much. Fast forward, it is 2026 and the game is on a pretty deep discount on Steam. So I say let's grab it for the PC and give it a go.
Story
The campaign story is exactly the type of narrative I want for a game, book, or film. Cold war, proxy wars, CIA vs. KGB, lots of explosions, oh yah I am here for it. You play as a new recruit into the black ops team. A team of familiar faces like Woods and Mason and new ones like Adler, Simms, and Parker. The objective is to take out a rogue Soviet agent before he sets a plan in motion that will destroy the West. What I think is really cool about this edition of Call of Duty is there is this safe house that acts as a hub. When you want to start a mission you go up to the evidence board full of photos and intel and start from there. The missions range from stealthy spy work to all out guns a blazing action. One mission you have to sneak into East Berlin, meet up with a contact in a pub, then follow a target all while trying not to be stopped by the Stazi. Another mission is a flashback sequence to the Vietnam War which is just full of Huey helicopters, M16, and fighting charlie. I think my favourite mission is when you play a KGB double agent trying to sneak the black ops crew into the Lubyanka building. The game does a good job feeling period accurate and mixes in real life historical figures like Reagan and Gorbachev. I feel like if you where a fan of the original Black ops and it's story, Cold War is for you.
Gameplay
What can be said about the gameplay other than it's Call of Duty. It's a lot of pew pew boom boom USA!! USA!! Some cool mechanics, you can grab enemies and use them as human shields. When you shoot people there is this prominent impact sound which you can almost feel. The arsenal in this Call of Duty is pretty great. Lots of cold war era guns to utilize on the battlefield. I only played a handful of hours in multiplayer playing the classic game modes like TDM and DOM. It's a fun time. The maps are well designed with interesting locations like a mall with an arcade in America or the KGB Headquarters. Zombies is an interesting time. I am more of a classic zombies guy so these newer maps that are 100x the size of the originals are a little daunting. I do love that the "the machine" map is a remake of sorts of the original zombie map. It takes place at that bunker but now it's even more decripit, covered in graffiti and left for time to erode. However, it expands on this original map with a whole messed up freaky labroatory underneath. Overall gameplay is enjoyable and if you just want to turn your brain off a shoot shit, Call of Duty is always great for that.
Graphics
Here is where I am a little disappointed in the game. Now I am playing the game on a newer PC with a 5060 graphics card that is capable of playing Battlefield 6 beautifully. Cold War does this thing where it goes from super detailed to smooth with missing texures regularly. I did some online research and apparently the game suffers from memory leak. I had to investigate more online and do a few fixes suggested to get it to a point where it does not do it regularly. Another issue is for whatever reason it causes my GPU to work in over drive. My PC gets really hot and if I play long enough my system will shut down to protect it from melting. I hit the web again and it was suggested I limit my framerate to reduce this from happening. It could be my computer but I have not had this issue with any other the game. the fact it is happening with an older game is also really weird. When the graphic are working they are great, but these known issues are definitely a turn off.
Overall Cold War is a fun edition to the black ops series and one I would recommend to others to enjoy. It definitely was a great appetizer before MW4 drops.
Well that's it for this post folks. Sorry no screen shots. I was desparate for the hard drive space so I uninstalled it ASAP forgetting I was writing a post on it. As always thanks for popping in and stay safe out there gamers.
Call of Duty is the intellectual property of Activision Publishing, Inc. and the Microsoft Corporation
This article is subject to Fair Use (US Law) and Fair Dealing (Canadian Law) as it is informational in purpose and is a critique of the product. All rights and credits go directly to the owners. No copyright infringement is intended
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