How can there be a scene set in Berlin in 1981 with no Bowie or Kraftwerk?Ĭlearly multiplayer is the focus, and all the usual modes are here, along with newcomers including VIP Escort, where you have to protect one player until you’re able to airlift them out while the other team attacks, and Fireteam: Dirty Bomb, where teams of four players compete to gather uranium and set off bombs in an Alpine setting. The Black Ops titles have always been great at cultural references, matching pop music to its bombastic action in highly enjoyable ways, but apart from some grainy news footage of Reagan speeches and an admittedly wonderful scene set in an amusement arcade, there’s little nostalgic revelry in the era.
What’s really disappointing is that the soundtrack and environmental design make little effort to capitalise on the early 1980s setting. En route, war crimes are committed, moral quandaries are swerved, and macho platitudes are slung about like grenades (“we don’t hope for the best, we make the best happen!”). Mostly, this is comprised of Call of Duty campaign staples: helicopter crashes escaping to rooftops and waiting for evac calling in airstrikes and gaining temporary control of aircraft miniguns. Photograph: Activisionīut we don’t get anything truly fresh or daring, and the surreal, hallucinatory brain-washing pyrotechnics the series is known for don’t really kick off until the end.
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