Zoom. Shoot. Kill. Repeat. Those four words perfectly sum up the FPS genre. When you look at it, that’s all there is to it. Sure, there are objectives along the way. Sure, you can shoot with different guns. Hell, you can even use a helicopter to kill things. But at its core, all we do is zoom, shoot and kill. It’s getting a bit stale, to be honest. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 does nothing to reinvent this gaming staple. But it handles it better than anyone yet, with three fantastic components that all add together to make an extremely solid game. In fact, it stops this from becoming stale entirely.

Call of Duty campaigns have never been known for their exceptional storyline. They’re generally a mad fun-house of death and destruction, with some pretty epic explosions intertwined, all enclosed by a rather thin plot. Black Ops 2 tries to change things a bit, adding in a really interesting concept: decisions. Throughout the campaign, you have to make some pretty key decisions, resulting in a branching storyline (including three very different endings). Making these choices is a really great experience, and gives you a feeling of control over the game that you wouldn’t normally expect. Unfortunately, some of the consequences of your choices seem a bit too stretched out, and oftentimes you’ll be confused about why something happened the way it did. Nevertheless, it’s a nice addition to the campaign that gives it a level of depth that Call of Duty has never really reached before.

This is complemented by the storyline: whilst not the best CoD has ever seen (that title goes to the original Black Ops), here we have an interesting plot with some really interesting characters. Raul Menendez makes for a very compelling villain, with clear motives: although he does seem a little too much like a Bond villain at times. The acting is generally superb, despite the somewhat lacking script, and for the most part the plot makes a lot of sense. There are times, especially towards the start, where the storyline seems thin and you’ll be left quite confused, and the use of acronyms could be toned down a bit, but by the end of the game you’ll be genuinely invested in the story and the characters.

From a gameplay perspective, nothing in particular stands out amongst the missions. There’s nothing that’s too memorable (although riding a horse whilst shooting an AK47 came pretty close), despite the entire campaign feeling really fun and refreshing. If you don’t like running down corridors and streets shooting everyone, then you won’t be too impressed, but if you’ve likedprevious CoD campaigns you’ll enjoy this one too – some things have been added in that are pretty great, like the wing-suit (YOU CAN LITERALLY FLY!). One thing that might annoy some people is the heavy use of quick time events, but personally I felt they made otherwise boring cutscenes a lot more interesting. The constant switch between the past and the futuristic 2025 also mixes up the campaign a bit, with weapons in both being as good and responsive as you’d expect from Call of Duty.

The primary weak point with the campaign is the Strike Force missions: RTS style missions where you must both control troops from an overhead map perspective, and jump in and individually play as one of your troops or units. They’re an interesting addition to the game, but not one that I personally loved: whilst tense, the AI was at times very frustrating, forcing me to rely much more heavily on the first person controls rather than the overhead map. Fortunately, the missions are optional, although failing them will result in a different ending, due to some contrived plot points that were difficult to keep up with.

Overall, the game’s campaign is enjoyable: whilst mission variety could be improved, and the plot would benefit from being a tad stronger, it’s definitely one of the best Call of Duty campaigns in recent years: if not one of the best FPS campaigns.

Always the true mark of an FPS, multiplayer in Black Ops 2 is every bit as good as you’d expect. Whilst on the surface it may not seem too revolutionary, under the hood you’ll see some big changes that have a huge impact on the way you play. Most notable is the reinvention of Create a Class, which has been revamped thanks to the new Pick 10 system: you get to choose any combination of 10 things: weapons, attachments, perks, grenades…they all take up a slot. This lets you play how you want to: if, like me, you never use a secondary weapon, you can take that slot and get an extra grenade instead. If you really want to mess with the system, Treyarch have added Wildcards that allow you to break the rules: Overkill lets me use 2primary weapons, and ditch my secondary altogether. There are also Wildcards to let you use two perks from

the first tier, for an example. These Wildcards also take up a slot, so it’s about being clever and working out how best to make use of the slots you’ve been given. The new Create a Class system allows you a whole new level of freedom regarding your game style, and I’m a big fan.

Killstreaks have also got a big overhaul, with them now being referred to as Scorestreaks. These are, as the name suggest, based on your in-game score: capturing an objective in Domination, for example, will add to your streak. This is a really great way to encourage players to actually complete the objectives, and from what I’ve played of multiplayer so far, it’s working.

There’s a nice range of maps, and all seem pretty great from what I’ve played. There’s a great mix of small and large maps, and all play really well in pretty much every game mode – no big compliment, but it’s nice to see that standards aren’t slipping at Activision.

For me, the game inextricably has a really different feel to it. Matches strike me as lot more difficult than in previous installments. I don’t know if this is just me getting used to the mechanics, but there’s definitely a different feel to the game: something to be aware of for those who aren’t exactly CoD pros.

Having said that, Treyarch have tried to help both the noobs and the pros: and as far as I can tell, they’ve done a really good job. For less experienced players, there’s a new Combat Training mode, which allows players to level up until level 10 – this mode has always been in the game, but this is the first time it’s made it into multiplayer, helping weaker players to level up in a more isolated and friendly environment before they jump into proper public matches.

League Play is another innovation that helps both the best and the worst of players: it places you in a league based on your ability, and from there you can move up and down based on how well you do. If you’re a bad CoD player, you’ll get put in a league of equally bad people so you can all have fun together. If you’re an exceptionally good MLG player, you’ll be placed in the best league. Within the leagues there are rankings and leaderboards, so your ultimate aim is to get to the top of your league, and possibly even progress to the next league up. It’s a very nice touch.

MLG players can also take advantage of the new CODcasting features, allowing someone to livestream private games and commentate, with a whole plethora of tools available to the commentator’s disposal, including an overhead map, a scoreboard, and the ability to view any player at any time. It’s a fantastic feature, and I doubt it will be long before we see CODcasting popping up all over YouTube. It remains to be seen how well MLG will take to this game though: the yearly innovation of the CoD series seems to clash with the MLG style of playing the same game for years.

The multiplayer in Black Ops 2 is fantastic, but not the reinvention many were looking for. I have nothing bad to say about it: it’s still easily the best FPS multiplayer out there, and this time round you’re going to have to use your head a bit more.

Now. I haven’t played much of Zombies, so I really don’t want to talk too much about it. From what I have played, it’s great, but the zombies are a hell of a lot more powerful this time round, making the game a lot harder (although there is an Easy mode which will more than likely help in this regard). The new Tranzit mode is wonderful, allowing you to hop on a bus to the next location, whilst zombies chase you down the road and even cling to the sides of your vehicle. My primary complaint would be that the maps are too large: I want a return to the original Zombies map from World at War: a nice, tight map with very little room to run around. It sounds stupid, but it really increased tension and fun.

There’s also a new multiplayer Zombies mode called Grief, where two teams of survivors must try to outlast each other, although neither can directly harm the other. Unfortunately, the mode doesn’t really live up to expectations: the two teams can do so very little to harm each other, save for preventing someone from reviving a teammate, resulting in a mode that largely feels like normal Zombies, but with eight players instead.

I also haven’t noticed any real additions to the overall Zombies plot: Treyarch have kept it pretty hidden throughout, despite the fact that a more clear, focussed plot would significantly add to the game. We haven’t been given that this time, but hopefully Treyarch will implement something more story driven in future.

I haven’t talked about graphics or sound here because they’re exactly as you would expect. And that rings true with the entirety of Black Ops 2. It’s a fantastic game. You’ll have a hell of a lot of fun playing it. It is everything you would expect from a Call of Duty game. If you’re not a fan of CoD or FPSs, then this obviously isn’t for you. But if you are? Then this is a must-buy: it’s the best FPS I’ve played in a long time. It proves that you can have a good FPS. More importantly for Activision, it proves that Call of Duty is most definitely not dead.