posted by @HeyItsKamo

I was originally going to name this article Call of Duty: Black Ops 2: With A First Blood II Vengeance and the Temple of Doom Reloaded Red, White, and Blonde in Paradise, but that would have been total overkill. What I’d actually like to do is first pose a question to anyone that might be reading this: have you ever heard of the term “Planned Obsolescence”?

Black Ops 2, more black…opier?

Basically, planned obsolescence is when something is made with the intention of it becoming obsolete/unfashionable (unpopular) after a short period of time. The iPhone is a great example of this, but this idea is also rampant in the world of video games; a perfect example is the Madden series. Each year, a new game comes out with minor updates, but still has the same price tag. Sure, there are some tweaks to gameplay and maybe an update to the graphics, but the consumer is basically paying for the same shit over and over again- and if they don’t get the newest title, well, what kind of fuckin’ gamer do they think they are, huh? I like to think that I am able to shy away from this idea, but when it comes to the Call of Duty series, I ignore any moral behavior that I might normally follow and buy that fucker as soon as I can. Gamers who hate on the Call of Duty series do this with other games, so none of us are safe, NONE OF US!

So in the case of Black Ops 2, “as soon as I can” turned out to be midnight last night when BO2 was released. I stood in a cluster fuck of a line at my local GameStop with hundreds of other assholes (some of these said assholes are my best friends- hi W, Dave, and Zmuda!), just so I could get home and burn through as many levels of multiplayer as I could before work in the morning. This meant little sleep, as I still had to write this stupid review, and I’m still trying to warm up from the rainy wait in line.

So what the fuck is different? The short answer: not much. Modern Warfare 3 was a great game- the single player campaign was one of my favorites, just like the campaign in the first Black Ops was one of my favorites in the new era of FPS. The guns were fun, they brought back titles and emblems (!!!), the maps were excellent, as were the kill streaks and improved perk system. But MW3 left a lot to be desired in terms of multiplayer. Don’t get me wrong here, I was able to “prestige” five times, but going through 80 fucking levels to prestige once can take a lot out of a modern day alcoholic like myself; it cuts into my drinking time, is what I’m getting at, not to mention other games I might be trying to play (Borderlands 2 and NHL 13!). My other beef with MW3 was the atrocious (big word for “fucking terrible”) spawning system players were subject to in the multiplayer realm. I don’t rage quit in many video games, but when you get killed by a person who spawns behind you two seconds after you pass their spawn location…shit’s wack, yo. There was a similar issue with Modern Warfare 2, now that I think about it… I’m looking at you, Infinity Ward.

So far, Black Ops 2 seems to have the spawning issue cleared away. Although I’ve only gotten through a handful so far, so I can’t be positive, it looks like the multiplayer maps are a bit smaller than what we’ve seen in the past (smaller in size, but not imagination: there’s a lot of fucking pathways and rooms to hide out in on Yemen). The only real issue with spawning I noticed was when playing in a private match with six other people, although that’s expected I guess, especially on a smaller map. The Multi-Team multiplayer game mode also has this spawning issue, but I don’t dare bad mouth it yet because it has a ton of potential. Multi-Team is basically you and two teammates versus another team of three players and ANOTHER team of three players. It’s kind of a Free-For-All with some friends, and I’m really going to enjoy playing this (not yet though… don’t know the maps/have good guns yet and the potential for me getting destroyed by six other players is way too high).

I haven’t had much of a look at the guns yet, but from what I’ve seen so far I’ve really liked. There’s a lot of attachments for weapons (crossbow’s back…) and perks this time around, so players are going to be able to seemingly create an unstoppable warrior full of real, ultimate power (lol). I think one of the more interesting new customization’s in BO2 is when creating a class, you have an option for a Wildcard stat. There are several things to choose from, but the most exciting were the “Greed” perks. If you equip one of these, you can have an additional perk (Greed 1 gets you two perks from the perk one category, etc.). This is going to make for some really interesting game play- in theory, six perks can be on at once.

Last up, I’d like to briefly discuss the new Zombies mode. This mode is hugely popular in the gaming community (Left 4 Dead and The Walking Dead may have a hand in this), and it’s easy to see why: WAVES AND WAVES OF MURDER. You can play solo or join up with some friends (looks like up to EIGHT this time around), and fuck up those undead bastards like only CoD players can. I will say this, my friends and I are not very good, so we were fucked up almost immediately- I think the farthest we made it was to wave seven or so. I like the idea of Zombies this time around, as it looks like there’s an actual story and level system- you start at a bus depot and travel from town to town escaping the flesh eating horde that’s constantly biting at your heels. It’s going to be interesting to see how this mode/story ends.

I’m going to end this post by saying this- Black Ops 2 is a new Call of Duty game. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re going to fucking buy it (if you haven’t already). If you’re not a fan, I honestly think this one is going to be worth checking out. Lots of new multiplayer game modes, you can create emblems again (BIG OL’ BOOBS? Maaaaaybe ;) !!!), new maps/weapons/create-a-class features, new ZOMBIES(!), and the game looks absolutely amazing. These things just keep looking better and better, and BO2 has outdone itself…or maybe it was Treyarch. Either way, if you want to open up a can of whoop-ass on some children, why not do it on the CoD battlefield?

Like this article? Fucking hate it? Let Mike know in the comments section!