At the outset (the year 2025), I was tasked with finding out what Raul Menendez, a populist who presents himself as the savior of the world's poor, is up to. He's deftly set up as a villain with a believable motive, and the US government knows he's planning something. Just one problem: I already knew exactly what that mysterious something was because Activision told us all. (This is normally the place where I'd insert "SPOILERS AHEAD," but thanks to Activision's nearly unavoidable advertising, the damage has already been done.) I even yelled it at the screen a few times in annoyance: "He's planning to take over the US drone fleet, you idiots! Didn't you see the commercials?" Sigh.
The CoD of The Future
There may not be any surprises left, but at least it looks good. We're not talking about Battlefield 3-level graphics here, but when it's cranked up to the highest settings Black Ops 2 is head and shoulders above anything Call of Duty has done to date. Character models, particularly their faces, look terrific. Light, shadow, and water effects are also strong, but when those stellar characters stand next to certain walls or trees, they highlight how low-definition many of the environmental textures are.
Character models look fantastic, but they also shine a bright light on low-def textures.
These are bigger than what I've come to expect from CoD campaign maps.
That could have something to do with the fact that the campaign maps are bigger than what I've come to expect from CoD. Just about every one of the 16 missions (which I spent roughly eight hours completing) is set on a relatively open map with various paths, spots to take cover and flank, and pieces of equipment to use to help fend off the enemy. The early Celerium mission, set first in the jungles of Myanmar before descending into a high-tech underground facility, is particularly impressive, with its seamless blend of exterior and interior environments. After years of scripted, linear shooting, it's refreshing and far more interesting than anything we've seen churned out of the CoD factory in years. Packing Sci-Fi Heat
Those wider maps are especially fun when Treyarch hands over the keys to future gadgets like the lumbering, Gatling gun- and flamethrower-packing CLAW walker or the swarming, bullet-spewing quadcopter drones. These tools typically aren't the scripted, "get on that machine gun!" moments CoD is famous (or infamous) for, rather, they're wisely integrated elements we can use when and how we decide. The futuristic guns aren't all that remarkable, but some of their sci-fi attachments have a wonderful transforming effect, like the seemingly basic laser dot scope that doubles as an X-ray vision device to spot enemies through walls.
Go get 'em, big guy.
There are artificial limits that rear their ugly heads at inopportune times.
Of course, while these missions are more open than prior CoD maps, it's no Far Cry 2-style open world -- they still have artificial limits that rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune times. For example, in a mission where I put the very cool Wing Suit to work by jumping off of a mountain and flying toward my target, I tried to do a bit of exploring and banked to the right. Almost immediately the screen went grey, and I was awarded with instant death for straying "too far from the flight path." On another level set inside a massive resort, I tried to flank the enemy by pushing out to a section of the map I could see on the left. All that stood in my path was a velvet rope, but it might as well have been the Great Wall of China because I wasn't getting past it.BYO Tactics
Another nice touch of limited freedom is a pre-mission menu that allows customization of your loadout, multiplayer style, in the campaign. Weapon, accessory, equipment, and perk options are all there, giving us real options in how we want to approach each mission. Will I let my squad push forward while I sit back and snipe, or will I surge forward and flank with a submachine gun? It's terrific to actually have the choice of tactics.
The Wing Suit section is just one part of the massive Celerium mission.
Treyarch should have just made the Access Kit part of your standard inventory.
One recommendation on selecting your two perks, though: always enable the Access Kit. It allows you to open doors and cases scattered across maps that give you even more weapons and equipment (I found a nasty old bear trap in one), and, in the end, even more options in how you play. Come to think of it, Treyarch should have just made the Access Kit part of your standard inventory and allowed for the selection of two unessential perks to give real variety.Old 'N' Busted vs New Hotness
The biggest problem with the campaign is that, even forgiving the spoilers, all the interesting, fun-to-play stuff is in the near-future setting. The story veers back to the past too often to set up an unnecessary and convoluted human drama that connects protagonist David Mason, his father Alex Mason and buddy Frank Woods from the first Black Ops, and the villain Menendez. I sighed every time I had to flash back to Angola in the 1970s or Panama and Afghanistan in the 1980s to plod through this truly silly tale without all of my cool near-future tools and gear. I'm harping on these major storyline and setting missteps because for me, they had a deeply negative impact on Black Ops 2's efforts to give us something truly new and different, most notably in its excellent FPS/RTS-hybrid Strike Force missions.
Strike Force missions put players in the role of Commander.
These are among the best missions in the campaign. They're fun, and the only truly innovative content CoD campaigns have seen since Modern Warfare. Much of their potential goes unfulfilled, though, because they feel like a sideshow to the main campaign rather than the stars they could've been.
Strike Missions have simple, intuitive controls that work terrifically.
As Strike Force commander in charge of a unit of soldiers and armor like the CLAW, I could control individuals or groups from above, RTS-style, sending my forces to attack or defend objectives (protect the power generator!) with a couple clicks of the mouse. I could also Being John Malkovich into any unit and do first-person battle quickly and easily courtesy of simple, intuitive controls that work terrifically. With one exception: there's no means of telling troops to take or remain in cover.Mindless Soldiers
That became a big issue, because whenever I wasn't in their heads, soldiers and drones were clueless. For example, there is no "take cover" command, and if I didn't happen to place soldiers in unmarked, automatic take-cover spots on the map, they simply stood out in the open, serving as little more than target practice dummies for the invading enemy horde. When I commanded units who were in cover to attack incoming enemy units, they'd frequently run out into the open instead of firing from relative safety. Their incompetence shines a bright light on just how poor CoD's AI is, which has previously been called upon only to give us dumb targets to shoot at.
Noriega is grinning because he knows I'm fresh out of SFUs.
By the time I was three quarters of the way through the campaign I was completely out of SFUs.
Frustrating as that is, I still found Strike Force missions to be some of the most interesting gameplay Black Ops 2 has to offer, so when I wasn't allowed to play them it was baffling. You start with three Special Forces units (SFUs), AKA three lives. Lose them by failing missions and they're dead forever; and if you're out of SFUs, you can't play any Strike Force missions again until you advance further in the campaign and earn more SFUs. They're doled out sparingly, and by the time I was three quarters of the way through the campaign I was completely out of SFUs, and all of the remaining Strike Force missions were labeled as officially lost. Huh? In a shooter where I can die countless deaths without an iota of impact on my progress, that makes no sense.Victory or Death (But Probably Death)
I suppose the counter-argument in favor of SFU permadeath in the Strike Force missions is the fact their outcome has an impact on the campaign story. Success or failure here will dramatically change how Menendez's plans for global upheaval play out in the end -- so why not heighten their importance with permadeath? Here's why: they're incredibly difficult, fought against massive well-armed enemy forces and using the aforementioned idiot soldiers. Over the course of the campaign, I was able to successfully complete only one Strike Force mission. If the pressure's going to be that high, the odds shouldn't be stacked so heavily against me.
Who would have thought Menendez would attack us with our own drones!
I was also given a handful of black-or-white decisions -- such as whether to kill or capture a target -- at points in certain standard missions. All the choices wind up creating three very different endings that definitely add replay value, even if it only means going back to those key missions. That's something a Call of Duty campaign has never offered before, and the control I had over the outcome definitely made me feel more invested.
More importantly, choice is another element that helps take the Black Ops 2 campaign off of the carbon-copy conveyor belt of typical Call of Duty shooting. It doesn't make the same whole-hearted dramatic franchise leap forward that Modern Warfare did, which is disappointing, but after five years of more of the same, it's a big step in the right direction.
Hit the next page for our impressions on the multiplayer and Zombies modes.