Reviews

Call of Duty Black Ops III PS4 Review

Posted on: 2015-11-23

Call of Duty Black Ops III is set in the future where soldiers have augmentations in their minds where they can communicate with other comrades, hack robots or computers with their minds and use powers such as fire flies to destroy their enemies.

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So here we are again. That should be the subtitle with titles like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed as they come out on a annual basis, but that doesn't mean that I don't like this game I think it's good for the most part, but I do understand the fatigue due to the over saturation of these titles.

Call of Duty Black Ops III is set in the future where soldiers have augmentations in their minds where they can communicate with other comrades, hack robots or computers with their minds and use powers such as fire flies to destroy their enemies. It's an interesting campaign as it's a mix of Blade runner or Dues Ex as it delves into ethics of augmenting humans by turning them into weapons. The performances are fantastic in this game which helps with the fantastic animations with the faces and bodies, Treyarch have done a fantastic job with the production value with this title.

You can select from a male or female protagonist to play through the campaign and not only that you can play through its entirety with 3 other friends. You can tell it has co-op in mind because most of the levels are big and wide open battles with high number of enemies at once, which get really tense especially on the higher difficulties.

What I like about Treyarch is that they take time and effort with their singleplayer campaigns because they treat it as it is the multiplayer because it has its own level progression and custom loadouts etc. You can even customise your character for the campaign, things like what armour they wear or what camo you use even down to what they like facial wise. You can customise what weapons you can take into each mission whether it be traditional firearms or the main attraction cyber cores.

The cyber cores are weapons that you control with your mind and they're fun to use, this can vary from taking control enemy drones to setting soldiers on fire with the power of your mind. However a lot of these powers feel very gimmicky and you'll probably use a select few, the other problem is that they make the game extremely easy even on the highest difficulty. The reason why I say this is that there is a cyber core that will make humans vomit to death and another that shuts down robots immediately and this is a problem because you can take out 7 plus enemies immediately and makes firefights way too easy.

Multiplayer is the reason why most people play Call of Duty and if you read my review of Advanced Warfare on my blog last year you would know that I loved the multiplayer with the quick movements, they've slowed the pace in Black Ops III, but that doesn't mean it's bad. The maps still have elements of verticality which means you'll have to be aware of your surroundings whether it be up, down, left or right so stay vigilant. You have a thruster pack which will let you hover for a short distance to help you with the big jumps, plus you can run on walls which is a lot of fun when you run on a wall and gun down three players in one sweep, which never gets old.

This time in the multiplayer you're not a faceless class of soldier, when you start the multiplayer you get to choose a “Specialist” where they have unique abilities which can be powers such as gravity spikes which can blow enemies to pieces in it's area of effect or an explosive recurve bow like in Rambo. Each of these powers are unique and balanced in the multiplayer, I don't think I've found a single power that shifts the balance in terms of unfairness.

Gameplay modes in Call of Duty haven't really moved on from the original Modern Warfare and that's not a bad thing it's a well-oiled machine why change it if it still works. However I just wanted something to compliment the new movement, something that requires you to be constantly moving.

The standard Domination and Demolition modes don't really work with the fast movement system because they require defence rather than offence. Team Deathmatch is enhanced because you have to keep moving anticipating the enemy’s next move because they could be anywhere. It will fulfil your need for more multiplayer so it's standard fair but not bad.

Finally we have the Zombies mode where you take on hordes of the undead and to be honest I thought the zombie trend would have faded away by now because I'm really tired of zombies because it's the white noise of creativity. I like the 1940's setting with the glitz and glamour coupled with the acting done by Ron Perlman, Jeff Goldbum, Heather Graham and Neil McDonough they all do a fantastic job with great one liners. I'm just a bit tired of the horde modes as its just wave after wave and it gets monotonous fast.

Call of Duty Black Ops III is a fun game with an interesting campaign about ethics of mind control and augmenting soldiers and a fun multiplayer to boot. However the overdone Zombies mode really puts a downer on me because it was fun in 2008 when it first came about, but is now boring in 2015. Overall a fun package if you want an action packed campaign and multiplayer.

On a side note do not buy this game on Xbox 360 and PS3 because it does not feature the singleplayer campaign and the graphics are horrible coupled with a horrendous frame rate. It's time to upgrade to a Xbox One or PS4 to get the full experience.

4/5

Reviewed by The Bristolian Gamer for 365Bristol

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