Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Review – I was still enjoying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer when they announced the new Black Ops Cold War.
Even from looking at the trailers, it’s definitely still the Call of Duty that fans love and know what to expect: a fast-paced, first-person-shooter (FPS) multiplayer action with weapon unlocks and streaks, along with a single-story campaign that will take you to different kinds of locations around the world with a mix of stealth, sniping, and rampaging.
While the new Call of Duty: Black Ops exactly delivers those expectations, there are still few updates and changes that make this new Call of Duty fresh and fun to play.
Single Player Campaign
The campaign takes you to the cold war era between the United States and the Soviet Union. It’s definitely a unique era to hop into compared to what Call of Duty used to offer with World War II scenarios or futuristic settings.
And sure, you’ll encounter the same elements exist in the Call of Duty series as I mentioned in the introduction. However, there are fresh new ideas this time around.
For example, you are given a choice to select your missions through a mission briefing board (with optional bonus missions) and sometimes, a decision whether you kill or capture the bad guys or even who to save. These have effects on some cutscenes, dialogues, and there’s even a plot twist at the end with multiple endings that I’m not going to spoil here. This is a truly unique, different experience compared to the previous Call of Duty series.
There is also a mission where you need to sneak into someone’s house without getting caught by the family. It adds different kinds of tensions as if I’m playing a horror game and the murderer is trying to find me in the house as I sneak between rooms and hide inside a wardrobe.
And flashbacks into the past let the game developers (Treyarch and Raven Software) take you into a different war setting like the Vietnam War.
The graphics are top notch here in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Textures are sharp, each room and area is full with details (lush jungle with fallen leaves on the ground, etc). As soon as you start your first mission in a bar, you’ll be greeted with this visual eye candy and high amount of details.
And if you have the NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphic cards, you will be greeted with more eye candies like the Ray Tracing, NVIDIA DLSS, and NVIDIA Reflex. Ray Tracing definitely makes the game more life-like and it’s amazing how difference this makes with the vibe of the game and graphics quality overall.
I’ve just got my RTX 3080 and opted to download the 50GB high resolution pack and it is so worth the drive space.
Multiplayer
I have to admit that the star of the show is definitely the multiplayer. In one word, it simply is addictive.
If you’ve played Modern Warfare or the previous Call of Duty series, you’d also be familiar with the multiplayer aspect of the game. Weapons and attachments need to be unlocked as you use them, there are different kinds of match types to pick from, and if you perform well in the game, you’ll be rewarded with killstreaks – a one-time-used-ability like unleashing an air strike, UAV, and more.
Previously, you have to kill enemies in succession without dying to be able to score a killstreak. Players with good aim will have tons of fun with these, but probably not those who can’t even kill 2-3 enemies in a row. In Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the killstreaks have been changed to scorestreaks. These are earned not just through killing, but assisting in the kills and doing objectives in the game.
In my opinion, scorestreaks are better than killstreaks because players who are playing the game can have some fun as well, and not just for those with good aim.
Multiplayer is frantic, fast-paced, fun, and addictive. There are also incentives to try out other weapons and unlock all the attachments as you progress through the levels.
There are also new updates being rolled over frequently to the game: bug fixes, weapon balancing, new characters, new maps, etc. You’ll find that you’ll always want to go back and play after a while.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Review Conclusion
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has amazing contents in both campaign and multiplayer. Plus, there are more to explore such as the Warzone and Zombie mode (which I haven’t had a chance to try out yet).
The campaign is one of the best Call of Duty campaigns I’ve ever tried so far in the series and the different decision trees and multiple endings (good and bad) are new and fresh. The plot twist towards the end is also pretty unexpected and there is also an epilogue a la Fallout that depends on what you did and how well you did the previous main and bonus missions.
The latest in the series definitely takes advantage of the latest and greatest technology including Ray Tracing, DLSS, and NVIDIA Reflex so if you own one of the NVIDIA RTX cards, this is one of the games you should grab to utilise your new, shiny graphic card.
Disclosure: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War review licence was supplied for reviewing
