Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC

The Black Ops 2 video game is a first person shooter game which takes place in the year of 2025. The game was released on November 13, 2012 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is the ninth in the Call of Duty franchise and is the leading sequel to the game Black Ops. This game was the first to introduce future warfare technology in the franchise and let you choose which weaponry you could pick before a mission in the campaign. The campaign also continues from the Black Ops campaign as you take control of both Alex Mason and his son David Mason. The campaign switches between the past and present in which you are the father in the past and the son in the future. The Alex Mason part is played using past weapons while David Mason’s story is played using futuristic weapons, vehicles, and environments. All weapons in the campaign are automatic and have similar attachments. The campaign is about you taking control of David Mason and stopping a criminal named Menendez who is trying to attack major locations around the war like China and the US.

The multiplayer part of the game is actually very different compared to its campaign counter-part. The multiplayer starts you off at level zero and you are forced to play with five preset classes. You will eventually unlock the create-a-class option and the customize score streak option later. The create-a-class option lets you pick up to ten items from the weapons, attachments, perks, lethals, tacticals, and wildcards. This lets you create the best class for any situation you want and pick your favorite weapons. The score streak part lets you pick three scorestreaks that ranges from a UAV which lets you spot the enemy, to a Swarm which calls in a lot of lethal Hunter Killer drones that lock on to enemy targets and explode upon impact. These scorestreaks are acquired by getting points. The points are given when killing players, helping to kill players, destroying enemy scorestreaks, and capturing objectives. These scorestreaks can change the game tactics as some score streaks allow you to take control of some areas of the map forcing the other team to go to last resorts. All the weapons you get in multiplayer have different stats from their own accuracy, fire rate, damage, and range. However, all guns also have their own recoil such as the SMR which has a huge recoil for unexperienced wielders. The game modes also have variation as it has coremode for the regular players and hardcore for the more realistic approach. The hardcore mode puts all the player’s health at thirty to give a more life-like approach so you can kill in almost one shot. You also have no regeneration to give the simulation that you are injured in war and no HUD display to notify your current ammo or map. This makes this mode very challenging and only tough players play this as most common players become frustrated. The coremode however is easier to the players as you do get to use the HUD to your advantage and get to regenerate health. This mode is more favored among the fans as it is the best to get powerful scorestreaks and many kills.

This is the best Call of Duty by far as the newest releases have been a disappointment with Call of Duty: Ghosts having too many “campers” who shoot you if you try to walk around the map, and has lost a lot of players due to being way too repetitive. While Advanced Warfare is way too laggy for common players to play such as myself. This has led to a large increase in players moving back to Black Ops 2 as most view it as a well rounded out game. However, all games have their flaws and Black Ops 2 is no exception. Some major flaws in the multiplayer online is the fact that there are some hackers every once and awhile. These hackers are able to usually always turn the game to their favor as they can make themselves invincible from all harm, and they can hack to shoot through walls. Though you will always have the option to quit the match if you want to. But, what ruins the game by far is the Call of Duty community, as a lot of the people who play will often say rude comments to anyone. They will pick on new comers and see them as easy kills for them. You also have people who like to humiliate others such as t-bagging the people he kills and those who single a players out for raging.  A personal example is when I joined a match I said I hope everyone has fun and a man answered me saying that I should shut up as I wouldn’t get any kills. These types of people is what gives Call of Duty a bad reputation. Though there are cool people you meet time from time who can easily become new friends. Over all, Black Ops 2 is a game that is worth playing with friends as it is really fun if you aren’t too competitive.

I give it an 8/10 for being well built in gameplay and for still being superior to future installments with only some small unavoidable problems.