Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

[DisturbedSwan]

Got my copy through the post today from Simply Games, after I finished installing it I dived straight into the Multiplayer, pretty good, incredibly addictive as always, and extremely similar to the beta a few months back, I'm nowhere near as good as I was in AW unfortunately, and have only had a handful of games where I've got a positive K/D ratio but I'm still enjoying it, was mostly playing Ground War (alternating between Safeguard, TDM and Domination).

As I've got limited time for this before F4 on Tuesday I don't really know what to do in it, I was hoping to Prestige it by Tuesday but there's seemingly no 2XP so that'll be quite a difficult task, I've only levelled up to Level 10 in 3 hours so it'll take me another 20 hours at least to get anywhere near Level 55, so I may just pack it in and make a start on the campaign or try out a bit of Zombies.

I briefly tried to start the campaign today, just as an experiment to see what happens on the matchmaking side, pleasingly it does have matchmaking in co-op which means I can play with randoms if needs be if/when I eventually get round to playing it.

[AndyKurosaki]

Got this yesterday. Loved AW. And Treyarch are now the kings of COD.

As ever,it'll take a while to get the hang of multiplayer. Look forward to it though.

Seen some near Prestige 1 already. Sorry,but that's pathetic. Get a fucking life.

[DisturbedSwan]

Finally got round to playing this again yesterday after finishing Fallout, think I'm going to temporarily postpone my quest to Prestige in the MP and just finish the Campaign in co-op with a bit of Zombies after for good measure if the mood strikes me.

Anyway, played 3 and half hours of the campaign...and it's still kind of difficult for me to make a judgement on it. The reason for that is mainly due to lots of server disconnections (think PSN and/or my net connection was acting up) and the online co-op nature of it.

It is really good though how every level is now unlocked from the get-go, it reminded me of Halo 3 and Reach where you could just dive into a mission and play with mates or something, this is the same and the co-op works much better than I'd imagined, the levels are as bombastic as you'd expect (although a bit grey and orange) with some fantastic graphical effects going on and the levels are incredibly different to any CoD before AW really, AW had that open-nature to the levels, but it feels much more frequent in BO3 that you'll find yourself in an open area than AW, the new upgrades and tactical vision work really well, and with the majority of robots of enemies instead of humans, it does feel quite a lot different than any CoD before it, CoD-evolved is a nice way to look at it.

Had a good time with the campaign so far anyway, about 5 missions in, nothing too memorable, but some great set-pieces as always, will report back tomorrow.

[DisturbedSwan]

Played a bit more yesterday, 6 and a half hours total. It's an impressive Campaign that's for sure, although not really memorable

There's a few great missions (with the Singapore missions being the best) but nothing out of the ordinary for CoD really, the game is gorgeous as well and some of the particle effects and moments from set-pieces are spectacular and show off current-gen hardware completely, a lot of fun though all the same. Enjoying it a lot being able to play with other humans in the campaign, adds something more enticing to the formula for me, and I have to say most of the randoms I've played with have been pretty alright, it is annoying having to revive them, especially if they just run into a load of enemy robots without taking cover or something, but on the whole people have been alright.

For the most part I managed to stick with the same group of guys, so there wasn't as much hassle with disconnects, and having to replay levels again after disconnecting etc. that can happen in online co-op games. One thing that's annoying though is that if you join another's game you can't narrow down the search options for a certain difficulty, so once today I played through a mission on Realistic, god it was ridiculous, like Veteran used to be pre-Black Ops 2, hard as nails and you get taken down in a shot, went straight back to Hardened after that, much more enjoyable, although I still tend to go down a lot.

Almost finished it now, just got 2 missions left to do tomorrow then going to go back and re-do a couple I did on Regular on Hardened difficulty and then onto trying Zombies, never liked it before but meant to be better now, we'll see...

[retroed]

I played the first two missions of the campaign on Hardened, but as soon as I started the multiplayer I haven't returned to it.

I've put 26hrs into the mutiplayer. Level 54, so very close to being able to Prestige. I have prestiged my KN-44 twice (fully maxed) and unlocked the gold camo for it. 220 games of TDM played with a K/D of 1.40.

I can't wait for the first map pack.

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah, that's fair enough, the multiplayer is definitely the centre-piece to any CoD nowadays, and it is bloody good in this, although I still prefer AW's slightly myself purely because I loved the dodging and I was a bit better at it , think I played about 14 hours of Multiplayer before Halo 5 came out, got upto Level 31, would love to Prestige but I just don't really have the time with so much to play already, so just made a bee-line for finishing the campaign really, although I may pop back in in a 2XP weekend and see if I can get upto near Prestige level.

I'm nowhere near as good as you though, Ed, a K/D of 1.40 is impressive, think mine is 0.74, but then I do tend to play the objective based game modes and don't really take much care whether I die or not if it means taking a base in Demolition or something.

Anyhoo...back to the campaign, finished it off today, it was a lot of fun, some good moments but not particularly memorable, think I slightly preferred AW's campaign, but this was a darn sight better than BO2's campaign in my opinion. Things get really Scarecrow from Batman:AA crazy in the final few missions, had no idea really what was going on, incredibly trippy and finished very abruptly. After I'd finished it I went back to do the 2 missions I did on Regular difficulty on Hardened for the trophy and I think that's it pretty much for me.

Going to give Zombies a go tomorrow, but no idea how long it'll hold my interest.

[retroed]

Back on this after a short break. Still rocking the KN-44 with suppressor, and playing TDM. Currently level 25 after Prestiging, so I don't have all of my favourite perks or scorestreaks yet. Here's a couple of very short clips I made from this evening.

[regemond]

I've never been the biggest fan of Call of Duty. I always sneered at it thinking it was for 'casual gamers' and that there's no depth. My own dickish way of gatekeeping I suppose. Anyway, I've grown as a human (I'm totally lying, I'm still a massive asshole), and as such have also started to give these games more of a chance.

 

From Infinite Warfare and its Jon Snooooow's starring role to Advanced Warfare's, ahem, unfortunate bad guy of Kevin Spacey, I've really enjoyed getting into the bombast of the series and having fun during my time with them over the last few years. Oh, Modern Warfare Remastered too. At the time I wasn't the biggest fan of it, but looking back the only level I REALLY disliked was the one where you're waiting for an extraction near the ferris wheel.

 

As always, my opinions are only on SP. I don't have any part in MP, so have literally nothing to say there.

 

Now... Blops 3... Jesus christ what a ridiculous game. The story is no better than a bad action flick from the '80s. The action is a feast for the eyes. Over the top, insane. Full of explosions. Debris flying around left right and centre. Robots walking through flames to shoot at you like a Terminator. And I love it all. It's one of those incredibly dumb games where you can just switch your brain off and enjoy the ride. So that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm over half way through and waiting to be screwed over/betrayed. Because you know it's going to happen at some point.

 

Things I quite like include going back to a base of operations between each mission. I know that's been in a couple of the games now (I'm thinking IW specifically), but it's just a nice little touch that ensures you don't feel like you're being funneled from set-piece to set-piece. I mean, that's essentially what's happening in reality, but this creates a nice illusion. I also like the powers. Most of my time is spent making guns/robots explode. Or barrels explode. Or sending swarms of nano-bees out to help me. It's fun and gives a nice hint of freeform fun to the combat.

 

Also really like building my own gun. Right now I'm using an SMG with a cool cosmic skin on it.

 

I think if you're a fan of CoD you'll find things to enjoy here. It's non-offensive in what it does. And for free I'm definitely not gonna complain. Looking forward to see how much dumber the story gets tbh.