User Blog:
A Reluctant Buyer - Call of Duty: Black Ops

9th November 2010. And so begins the first of quite a few isolated days for me on the old PS. Today is the release date of Call of Duty: Black Ops, a game for which I have much respect, and much resentment. The reason that I will be isolated on the PS3 for a little while is that I am making a sort of personal stand and not purchasing this game. Now, whether this stand will be for a few days, or for a few months, is something of which I am unaware of at the moment, but what I seem to be implying is that at some point or another, I will get it, and that is what is pissing me off.

I have no problem with the game; I own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and sequel, Modern Warfare 2. But my problem lies with the fact that virtually everyone is aware of these games, and the sort of community this brings. My issue is more with Modern Warfare 2, a game that I felt almost ridiculous to have not bought immediately after its release; when I eventually did manage to buy it, I didn’t really feel that I had enough time to fully play the story mode, always under pressure to just hurry through it, or bypass it altogether, for the multiplayer mode. I’m massive on story, and I waited till I finished the story mode before I went over to the multiplayer, even if I was left unimpressed at the game’s repeated attempts to shock me, after a successful attempt back in COD 4. Twice during MW2 does the game (attempt to) shock the player by having the controlled character killed as part of the storyline, and it does start to feel a bit forced by the time you reach the second occasion. It’s just not that fun when you milk the shock.

Multiplayer mode, admittedly, was a lot of fun. Hours of my life wasted, just killing people for no purpose, on servers that ran a LOT better than most other games at the time (screw you, FIFA), but this brought out the first niggle of the franchise. I detest people with microphones. To me, it spells ‘loser’. I don’t mean this to offend, particularly if you are someone who uses a microphone/Bluetooth headset for the purpose of tactical communication, but more at the guys who spew incoherent babble down the microphone at me, forcing me to mute them. Playing MW2 seemed to increasingly decrease my faith in humanity as a force for good, and just pissed me off to the extent that I would mute everyone in the lobby with me.