More on rails than a lightgun shooter
| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Wii | 6.00 |
| Overall | 6.00 |
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You see the score up there? That is not some troll on the game, because I am only reviewing the single player campaign. Immediately add 2 points to make it an 8.0 if you are going to partake in the online multiplayer component. Now onto the single player. There is a story here, but its all quite jumbled and it's often hard to hear what people are saying in cutscenes, especially with distorted voices. The same goes for in game vocals, with explosions and sound effects droning out the speech. You can put subtitles on, though without an outline the subtitles become unreadable when there is white on the screen overlaying it. Also, trying to read subtitles in game whilst you are being hammered by spawning AI is not fun. So you have played COD before, this should not come as a surprise to you: the game is scripted. Heavily scripted so hard that it feels like someone has put his car sized fist on your back and forced you to do what they want. Only there is little that is original or awe inspiring here. It feels like COD by the numbers gameplay. AI is brainless, they pop up like whack a mole and endlessly spawn. Won't this ever change? There is barely any kind of variation in level design here. It's kind of boring actually, you follow someone most missions, it almost feels like you when you were 5 years old and you had to follow your older brother about, when all you wanted to do was explore and have fun on your own terms. Well here we are many years later and I don't want to be babysat. Often the game sets up visual set pieces that have little to no gameplay merit. They lead you around on a leash telling you to sniff this or poop there. Control wise this game has some pretty excellent controls, improved over last years COD4 Wii port. The IR ADS controls are truly something special here, on par with Medal Of Honor Heroes 2. Technically this game is a lot less consistent than last years COD4 port. The graphics range from great to abysmal and everything in between. The framerate is shoddy a lot of the time, something which further kills the gameplay. It has this hideous Vietnam trench mission which plays like some dinosaur dug out from a decade ago. When it's at its best, it's still not as good as World at War or COD4. There is something missing from the single player this time. There is no sense of pacing and they often re-run old IW moments for the umpteenth time. They can't paper over the cracks and they can rarely top or deviate from what Infinity Ward have done. And infuriatingly they keep cutting the levels up with flashback cutscenes. You lose the feeling of being on one large and persistent battlefield because you are constantly irritated by Sam Worthington's fake and whimpering American accent. Also the Wii version has crashed on me several times, freezing the screen and emitting a high pitched noise from the TV. It becomes completely unresponsive to control inputs and you have to power down the wii by holding the power button down flat. Multiple other Wii owners have had the same problem with the game if you read the Neogaf thread. Incidently I have read that the multiplayer on PC is broken and that the both the PS3 and 360 versions are sub-HD resolution. Also the PS3 version suffers from screen tear and is running at 20 frames per second less than the 360 version FYI. So all in all, I am tremendously saddened by the state of this game. It feels like flash over substance, smoke and mirrors. It insults your intelligence and offers no room for deviation from what they want you to do. Stacked up against the superior single player from Goldeneye 007 on Wii, this comes off as a damp and expensive squib, which I happily returned for the much better Sonic Colours. I never thought I would ever trade COD for Sonic but here we are in the Bizaaro Superman world. |
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Posted by gamingeek Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:23:26
Recently Spotted:
robio (7m)
This wasn't written as some snide backlash against your post. I have said how I feel about the campaign well before you got Black Ops.
I will try and get a Sonic Colours review up too once I have played more.
This is my fifth Call of Duty game, so maybe I am feeling franchise fatigue? I think I am at least level pegging, if not beating Archie for the number of COD games completed. And he likes most games and has no problem with the foibles of COD single player in general anyway. Travo is playing the 360 version and said it was "scripted so much it felt kinda boring."
As I said I'm not playing the multiplayer of either Goldeneye or Black Ops. I do however feel that you have a very limited understanding of what Treyarch do, mechanically for the Wii version each year. Mechanically the multiplayer on Wii has the same maps, same geometry, same design, same options etc etc etc, I think Black Ops Wii is missing a zombie map or something. Otherwise the multiplayer is much the same only with much better aiming than any other console can manage.
Same goes for the single player, which features the same geometry, same level design, same enemies, same weapons, same pacing, same AI. The only difference is in graphics and controls.
I think Black Ops deviates more from the HD versions than past Wii COD ports - but from what I have seen the stuff they cut out like the pointless and boring helicopter siege on the ship was cut for the better and not something I would want to play anyway.
It's like playing Half Life 2 on Xbox. Despite the single player being the same other than visuals. Some bits of the design were still boring and would be boring even in HD. And it was the same design.
Also there are just as many people playing the HD version of Black Ops on GAF that say the single player sucks too.
How many COD games have you completed Leo?
I guess it's because your positivity came across as an attack, against anyone who dared, to not like it.
"MW 1 and 2, and WaW I eventually gave up BECAUSE they had portions of the game where there was crap blowing up all around me, they were screaming orders at me and I had NO IDEA where I was supposed to go"
Yeah, sounds like COD. I think they lowered the difficulty here on the first few settings, so maybe it's relatively less punishing difficulty, has allowed you to enjoy it more. For me it just exposed the weak AI and shooting gallery approach. Sure I could replay on hard, but the game left such a sour taste in my mouth that I couldn't even muster up the enthusiasm.
Rubbish AI and spawning enemies are part of COD, but past games I still found more enjoyable as the level design and coherency were better. And just because dumb ass AI has been in COD doesn't mean that it should get a free pass here and never be asked to improve. It's like early PS2 level AI.
"I've already said GoldenEye single player is better. It's OK to like BOTH of them. I don't understand why lines are being drawn were you MUST choose one OR the other."
It's not wrong to like both. I'm not drawing lines, it's just natural to compare the single player because they are both Activision FPS released in the same month, that people happen to be playing at the same time.
"The number of CoD games I have completed is irrelevant."
I think it's relevant as then you would have more COD experience to compare Black Ops too. I'm saying it's wrong for you to be enjoying Black Ops. For instance Travo is new to COD and he found the single player to be too scripted and kinda boring.