Now I won't have to talk about Call of Duty Black Ops for the rest of the week

Most of my weekend was spent hanging around the house playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. I was initially expecting another foray in the bleak world of USA black ops set in the present day, but COD:BO is actually set during the Vietnam War and the Cold War eras. Pretty sweet. Like the last few games in the COD series you end up playing as a few different characters throughout the game and jump around the world a bunch, but in the end you are basically blowing everything up while howling triumphantly.

My experience with the Cold War is very limited, what with being born in 1985 and whatnot. So of course most of my knowledge of the Cold War has come from movies made in the 80s, ludicrous action movies. Black Ops' campaign mode is a great homage to commie killing movies of yore. The single player mode is chock full of great set pieces that involving a prison escape from a brutal Gulag, stealing a helicopter that is made out of guns, running from a cloud of weaponized neurotoxin on the roofs and through the alleys of Hong Kong, infiltrating a mysterious bio-weapons lab, and a really cool boat ride in Vietnam. One of my favorite parts (scenes?) is when after rappelling down a mountain, you and your team swing through the windows of a control room spraying glass and bullets everywhere. It's just as badass as it sounds. Alas the campaign mode is rather short and, despite the fact that you are never on your own, there is no co-op. I played it on medium difficulty which provided a good challenge, but nothing that made me want to yell at the TV or throw things. There are a few points where enemies just keep on spawning and spawning and spawning, but fuck it, you have grenades and you did pick up that RPG a while back ago. The AI on your side is kind of dumb and will sometimes just stand around while you are being shot at by a dozen dudes.

One of my favorite features of Black Ops is the sheer amount of guns that you can use. There are 36 straight up guns in the game, not even counting a few rocket launchers and the crossbow (equipped with explosive bolts!). Oh man, I forgot to mention the tomahawk and the ballistic knife, which is a knife that shoots out the blade. Ludicrous. Okay, lots of guns, big deal, everyone who is alive now knows what an AK47 is, even babies. But what the hell is a G11? It's an assault rifle that can fire 2000 rounds per minute in addition to looking like something from the future. The various attachements add another level of depth and insanity, such as the masterkey attachment, which is a shotgun that attaches to your gun. Unfortunately you can't use the masterkey on a shotgun because it would be silly. What's the point of having so many goddamn guns anyway? Pft, to shoot complete strangers over the internet with, everyone knows that.


The bullets have adorable whiskers on them.

One of the wonders of living in this bleak horrible future is being able to play army through a series of tubes and Black Ops does it in style. You get a variety of multiplayer modes, from your standard deathmatch to various objective based matches such as capture the flag, demolition (blow up their thing before they blow up your thing), and a few more modes. One of the best things about this reiteration of multiplayer is the ability to pick and choose what weapons and perks you want. It's so customizable that you can even pick the color and look of your laser reticle. There's a wide variety of perks that you can pick for your custom class and play style. My philosophy to playing online is easy, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets." As a result my favorite class involves an M60 with a scope, the lightweight perk allows me to run fast with this monstrosity, the warlord perk lets me put a grip on the M60 to keep it stable as I shoot 100 bullets into the general direction of my foes, and the ninja perk completely silences my foot steps. Also I have a rocket launcher. The multiplayer is deep and there is plenty for everyone who enjoys blowing shit up. It can be a little overwhelming for, as the kids say, noobs, mainly because some people are just so damn good at the game. Most of the irritation comes from other players, whether it be their incessant chatter or camping, truly hell is other people, but this is all solved through being able to mute people and shooting the hell out of them. My favorite game mode is team death match. I consider it the most pure mode of reaching out and killing someone. Multiplayer in barebones streamlines TDM and a few other modes to the most basics, which means no perks, no weapon attachments, and no kill streaks and it is still a blast to play. The coolest part of multiplayer mode is that you can play it splitscreen with someone else in the room! That's fucking dope!

There's also zombie mode, but that terrifying and I hardly played it. Basically you kill zombies. What more do you want?


GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE.