Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Year: 2012
Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC, PS3, WiiU, Xbox 360
BBFC: 18
Published: 03/08/23
Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC, PS3, WiiU, Xbox 360
BBFC: 18
Published: 03/08/23
Treyarch’s Call of Duty games and I have a funny history with each other. I hate World at War, much to my generation’s shock and horror because it was one of the most beloved games of the seventh console generation. Black Ops meanwhile I thoroughly enjoy, aside from the Zombies portion of the game. Then came Black Ops II, which when I played for the first time in 2012 I thoroughly hated alongside World at War. Suffice to say I was not looking forward to replaying Black Ops II for the purposes of this review, I was just going to play it and hate it. But this is exactly why I love doing retrospective reviews, because occasionally I surprise myself.
The year is 2025 and the United States has entered into a second Cold War with China over rare Earth elements. Unknown to the U.S. and Chinese governments however is that this is being orchestrated by Raul Menendez, a Nicaraguan drug lord who is seeking revenge for the death of his sister at the hands of Alex Mason and Frank Woods in the 1980’s. Now old enough to fight his father’s war, Alex’s son David, must piece together fragments of the past to save the future.
The year is 2025 and the United States has entered into a second Cold War with China over rare Earth elements. Unknown to the U.S. and Chinese governments however is that this is being orchestrated by Raul Menendez, a Nicaraguan drug lord who is seeking revenge for the death of his sister at the hands of Alex Mason and Frank Woods in the 1980’s. Now old enough to fight his father’s war, Alex’s son David, must piece together fragments of the past to save the future.
I remember hating Black Ops II so ferociously back in 2012, and as time has gone on I have honestly forgotten why that was. Perhaps I was jumping on the ‘It’s cool to hate CoD’ trend that was very much starting to show prominence around that time? Regardless, having replayed Black Ops II for the first time in a decade, I can confirm that it’s not actually half bad. I mean it’s definitely not the best in the franchise, but for the first time since 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare players are presented with a game that meaningfully pushes the franchise forwards…or maybe sideways at least.
The story, for the first time in Call of Duty history, is presented in the form of cutscenes. Gone are the radars and maps detailing the mission area or equipment you’ll be using, in its place are full blown cinematic cutscenes and a lot of dialogue relating to people and not missions. Black Ops II really is a story about family and legacy, and whilst it’s told with as much sensitivity as a Fast & Furious film, it’s actually kind of nice to see Call of Duty branch out from your typical military bravado. The original Black Ops had flashes of this with its interrogation style narrative, but Black Ops II doubles down hard on the relationship between David Mason and Frank Woods as Woods explains what happened in the 80’s with Alex and Menendez, and David then deals with the consequences forty years later.
This is also the first Call of Duty to be set properly in the future. The Modern Warfare trilogy was set in the near future, where technology had not significantly surpassed what we possessed at the time, but Black Ops II goes full on sci-fi with high-tech gadgets, visors, and a whole lot of drones. Even now as we approach the year Black Ops II is set in, this kind of technology is still fantasy. Black Ops II is where Call of Duty started to set its sights on becoming a sci-fi shooter and lost its grip on realism entirely. Where Modern Warfare 2&3 and Black Ops had some outrageously explosive Michael Bay moments which ditched military realism in favour of sensationalism, Black Ops II just stops trying to be realistic at all.
However, Black Ops II is also the first game in the franchise to allow for a branching narrative. Player choice is surprisingly pervasive throughout the game allowing for areas of the story to change depending on your actions. There are only so many outcomes so don’t expect anything crazy, and most of the choices don’t make a particularly huge impact on the narrative as a whole, but there’s enough going on to warrant multiple playthroughs.
The story, for the first time in Call of Duty history, is presented in the form of cutscenes. Gone are the radars and maps detailing the mission area or equipment you’ll be using, in its place are full blown cinematic cutscenes and a lot of dialogue relating to people and not missions. Black Ops II really is a story about family and legacy, and whilst it’s told with as much sensitivity as a Fast & Furious film, it’s actually kind of nice to see Call of Duty branch out from your typical military bravado. The original Black Ops had flashes of this with its interrogation style narrative, but Black Ops II doubles down hard on the relationship between David Mason and Frank Woods as Woods explains what happened in the 80’s with Alex and Menendez, and David then deals with the consequences forty years later.
This is also the first Call of Duty to be set properly in the future. The Modern Warfare trilogy was set in the near future, where technology had not significantly surpassed what we possessed at the time, but Black Ops II goes full on sci-fi with high-tech gadgets, visors, and a whole lot of drones. Even now as we approach the year Black Ops II is set in, this kind of technology is still fantasy. Black Ops II is where Call of Duty started to set its sights on becoming a sci-fi shooter and lost its grip on realism entirely. Where Modern Warfare 2&3 and Black Ops had some outrageously explosive Michael Bay moments which ditched military realism in favour of sensationalism, Black Ops II just stops trying to be realistic at all.
However, Black Ops II is also the first game in the franchise to allow for a branching narrative. Player choice is surprisingly pervasive throughout the game allowing for areas of the story to change depending on your actions. There are only so many outcomes so don’t expect anything crazy, and most of the choices don’t make a particularly huge impact on the narrative as a whole, but there’s enough going on to warrant multiple playthroughs.
As for the gameplay, Black Ops II builds on the smoother and more athletic gameplay present in the original Black Ops. In comparison to Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops II feels smooth as butter to move around in as you mantle surfaces and can dive into cover with ease. This smoother movement is aided further by allowing you to choose a weapon loadout before each mission. You’ll always have a suggested loadout provided, but you can swap it out to whatever playstyle you prefer. I tended to run around with my typical multiplayer setup of assault rifle and SMG, but if I was given the indication a mission may require a sniper then I’d swap out the SMG for that, or maybe if it was close quarters drop the assault rifle for shotgun. The ability to add attachments also meant that I could stick with my preferred style of sights, add on an extended magazine and a foregrip, and have a whale of a time. Where previous games just lumped me with a random weapon that I likely didn’t like meant that I was often frantically searching on the ground for a weapon I could use more effectively, but in Black Ops II that was no longer the case, only swapping out weapons when ammo was scarce. A perk can also be applied pre-mission, whether that be for longer sprinting, armour piercing bullets, or faster reloads. But I often found myself using the Access Kit which can be utilised to gain access to special weapons or alternate routes through a mission.
The only area where the campaign really faltered was with the new ‘Strike Force’ missions. Thankfully aside from the first one, they’re all optional. But the problem with them is that these missions are intended to be played like a RTS game, commanding units placements and attacks. However, you can jump into the body of a soldier or drone and command that individual unit as well. The problem with these missions is they’re incredibly boring, and the RTS mechanics don’t work very well. I found myself having to run and gun as an infantry member most of the time because the AI wouldn’t do what I wanted it to. Completing them does give access to different endings in the game, but after looking up those endings they’re negligible at best. These missions break the flow of the story and gameplay and considering how haphazardly implemented they are it’s honestly best to just skip them.
Of course, no Call of Duty would be complete without Multiplayer and I think this is where my hatred for Black Ops II really comes from. With the gameplay being set in the 2025 era where you have access to the futuristic equipment, it’s easy to find yourself being spammed with drones and hunted down by weapon sights that can detect you through walls. It’s fine in the campaign because I’m playing against a computer, it gives you a feeling of empowerment, but in multiplayer it’s just a sure-fire way to become frustrated because players that use those items will be able to hunt you down in seconds.
Gone is the currency system used in the original Black Ops that I loved so much, and in its place comes the ‘Pick 10’ system. Pick 10 allows you to pick any combination of ten weapons, attachments, or perks to truly play your way. You could just run around with a stock assault rifle and nine perks if you really wanted, it’s totally up to you. This does bring in a great amount of personalisation in how you want to play Call of Duty multiplayer, but personally I find it throws the balancing out the window entirely. In previous games it was mandated that you had two weapons (with up to two attachments each), two grenade types (1 lethal, 1 non-lethal), and three perks. Now, you can just do what you want, and it can lead to some interesting ways to break the game.
Zombies also returns and I hate it more than ever. This was probably also a key factor in my disliking Black Ops II back in 2012. I enjoyed World at War Zombies enough to tolerate it, but Black Ops 1 added lots of complications to the mix in an attempt to squeeze some longevity out of the mode. Black Ops II applied the same tactic by making the same old mode even more complex. There are two new mode variations called ‘Grief’ and ‘Turned’ but these do little more than provide a bit of one-time novelty to the proceedings before you’re just back to the original gamemode. For me survival modes work best with simplicity, and Black Ops II Zombies is anything but, so it’s a no from me.
The only area where the campaign really faltered was with the new ‘Strike Force’ missions. Thankfully aside from the first one, they’re all optional. But the problem with them is that these missions are intended to be played like a RTS game, commanding units placements and attacks. However, you can jump into the body of a soldier or drone and command that individual unit as well. The problem with these missions is they’re incredibly boring, and the RTS mechanics don’t work very well. I found myself having to run and gun as an infantry member most of the time because the AI wouldn’t do what I wanted it to. Completing them does give access to different endings in the game, but after looking up those endings they’re negligible at best. These missions break the flow of the story and gameplay and considering how haphazardly implemented they are it’s honestly best to just skip them.
Of course, no Call of Duty would be complete without Multiplayer and I think this is where my hatred for Black Ops II really comes from. With the gameplay being set in the 2025 era where you have access to the futuristic equipment, it’s easy to find yourself being spammed with drones and hunted down by weapon sights that can detect you through walls. It’s fine in the campaign because I’m playing against a computer, it gives you a feeling of empowerment, but in multiplayer it’s just a sure-fire way to become frustrated because players that use those items will be able to hunt you down in seconds.
Gone is the currency system used in the original Black Ops that I loved so much, and in its place comes the ‘Pick 10’ system. Pick 10 allows you to pick any combination of ten weapons, attachments, or perks to truly play your way. You could just run around with a stock assault rifle and nine perks if you really wanted, it’s totally up to you. This does bring in a great amount of personalisation in how you want to play Call of Duty multiplayer, but personally I find it throws the balancing out the window entirely. In previous games it was mandated that you had two weapons (with up to two attachments each), two grenade types (1 lethal, 1 non-lethal), and three perks. Now, you can just do what you want, and it can lead to some interesting ways to break the game.
Zombies also returns and I hate it more than ever. This was probably also a key factor in my disliking Black Ops II back in 2012. I enjoyed World at War Zombies enough to tolerate it, but Black Ops 1 added lots of complications to the mix in an attempt to squeeze some longevity out of the mode. Black Ops II applied the same tactic by making the same old mode even more complex. There are two new mode variations called ‘Grief’ and ‘Turned’ but these do little more than provide a bit of one-time novelty to the proceedings before you’re just back to the original gamemode. For me survival modes work best with simplicity, and Black Ops II Zombies is anything but, so it’s a no from me.
The technical showcase of Black Ops II is a bit of a mixed bag really. Interestingly the game still runs on the IW 3.0 engine first used in Call of Duty 4 five years earlier (despite MW3 running on the IW 5.0 engine). I did expect this to mean that I was going to encounter the same graphical shortcomings I saw in the first Black Ops, but if anything, Black Ops II looks pretty good. Character animations are extremely smooth and realistic, small details in things like clothing and environmental objects is high. There are some noticeable shortcomings in areas like grass that often looks patchy, and some skyboxes look barren, but on the whole, it was impressive how much mileage Treyarch managed to get out of the IW 3.0 engine.
I did encounter a number of glitches though. Numerous friendly and enemy AI were floating in the air, music would get stuck on a loop, and sometimes the grenade indicator was hit and miss. There were other issues, and none of them were dealbreakers, but I’ve not seen anything like this in the Call of Duty games I have played so far.
I enjoyed Black Ops II a lot more than I was expecting to, and I’m not entirely sure why I hated it so much a decade ago. Whilst I am certainly not a fan of the multiplayer and zombies modes, the campaign is arguably the best in the franchise up to this point. It’s definitely held back by the Strike Force missions, allowing campaigns from CoD4 & MW2 to remain firmly at the top of my list, but Black Ops II does so much right in its story and that’s great to see.
It seems that even I in my infinite wisdom have been too harsh on the Call of Duty games in the past, it makes me wonder what else I am yet to realise about this franchise going forward.
I did encounter a number of glitches though. Numerous friendly and enemy AI were floating in the air, music would get stuck on a loop, and sometimes the grenade indicator was hit and miss. There were other issues, and none of them were dealbreakers, but I’ve not seen anything like this in the Call of Duty games I have played so far.
I enjoyed Black Ops II a lot more than I was expecting to, and I’m not entirely sure why I hated it so much a decade ago. Whilst I am certainly not a fan of the multiplayer and zombies modes, the campaign is arguably the best in the franchise up to this point. It’s definitely held back by the Strike Force missions, allowing campaigns from CoD4 & MW2 to remain firmly at the top of my list, but Black Ops II does so much right in its story and that’s great to see.
It seems that even I in my infinite wisdom have been too harsh on the Call of Duty games in the past, it makes me wonder what else I am yet to realise about this franchise going forward.