The lovely people behind the Black Ops franchise are once again bringing us another Black Ops game... This one entitled... Black Ops 4. Thanks to the lovely people over at Activision I was able to get my hands on a beta code and give the game a try.
The first thing that I noticed from the game was that there wasn't much in terms of an upgrade to graphics, the game looked the same as it has done for the last few years, and if I'm honest, it's getting stale and unimaginative to me. The maps seem to use the normal Call of Duty formula of a 3 stretch approach, basically meaning you can either make your way down the left, right or the centre of the map. Since I've noticed this over the last few years, it has become more and more apparent that this is how the maps are set, and it doesn't look like changing here. This is just one of the things for me that's adding to the staleness of the series, it's predictable but easy to learn. One of my first Call of Duty experiences online was when I started playing Black Ops, and for me, nothing will beat the maps that were included in that game. I don't think there was a single map that I didn't like playing. Most of the games released since the majority of the maps, in my opinion, haven't really been that good, one example of this would be the Gustav Cannon on WWII. Voted one of the worst maps in Call of Duty history I believe.
The game did feel smooth to play and I enjoyed the movements, but the weapons I wasn't too sure about. There didn't seem to be a balance between them and the whole specialist thing as well I find pretty pointless. The only thing they bring is a special move/tactic and I think this could be implemented into the Create a Class. With Create a Class the Pick 10 system has been brought back, which I don't have a problem with, it allows you to get creative and think about what you use and don't. I like the fact that I don't really use a secondary so don't mind giving that up for something else. I just feel that the way the Create a Class was done in WWII had it spot on in regards to setting yourself up and kind of hoped something like that would have been used again.
I wrote an article a while back describing how I felt that the series felt stale, there was no imagination being put into it, or they were just going over the top for the sake of it. Well, to me the series still feels stale, it's more of the same again, and it pains me to say it as Black Ops is my favourite Call of Duty franchise. The whole idea with the specialist boggles the mind, I don't understand it's purpose, it adds nothing to the game and the special tactic/weapon that they have could have been implemented into the Create a Class system. It would have been nice to have stuck with the WWII system where I was able to customise my characters looks with different outfits etc, I enjoyed that part of the creation model.
Another thing I got frustrated over was when picking a class and specialist, you didn't have time to do both. If you went to change class the game would automatically pick a specialist for you. Why? Why can't I be given the time to do both? This means then that I have to play with a random specialist until I next respawn. Seems a bit silly to me and something that I hope they change in the final version of the game.
Overall I have to admit that it Black Ops 4 doesn't change the formula, it brings nothing new to a rather stale franchise. There is no doubt that the game will do well as the franchise does every year, but there does need to be a change of direction at some point. The maps need freshening up and getting out of the 3 prong model that seems to be constantly used.
It will be interesting to see what changes are made to the final version and also it will be interesting to try out the Blackout Battle Royale mode when it's in Beta.
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