Call of Duty: Black Ops
Where to start? Black Ops is a 2010 first person shooter revolving around Alex Mason, a government operative, his handler, Jason Hudson, and a Russian defector named Viktor Reznov. The main story of the game stretches from the Bay of Pigs Invasion through The Cuban Missile crisis with a few flash backs to WWII as Mason relives his missions so that a mysterious interrogator can discover the source of an impending Soviet attack.
The story behind the campaign of Black Ops is rather well done and intriguing. Mason is likable and his friendship with Reznov is actually fairly relevant in today's political climate. The blend of fiction and non-fiction history is well done and engaging.
Graphically Black Ops has some superior aspects. The animation is very lifelike and the backgrounds and characters are realistic, and crisp. Where it does suffer is it forgets that it is a game and not actually a war. The multitude of weapons are well researched and accurate looking.
Realistic sounds and excellent voice acting guide you through Black Ops. The background music is often the music of the time with a generous splattering of The Rolling Stones.
The controls of the game is where it falls short. It is a standard FPS control scheme as long as you're on foot. On the couple of instances where you're controlling a vehicle is gets a little clumsy but I won't lie, the helicopters are fun. Now where the game's controls fall hard is that THIS is where it forgets its a game. It is often completely impossible to tell where you are being shot from, and more often than not the "grenade warning" indicator simply does not work. It becomes very frustrating, very fast.
The multi-player component of the game is a complete fuck-show. It has what has got to be the worst matching I've ever seen. It throws first level new players in with max level players and the people who play this to max level are not patient, they are not well mannered, and frankly, they're mostly dicks. Nothing but a bunch of foul-mouthed 12 year olds who for the sake of the genome should never reproduce.
Summing up:
Story: 3/5: Well done and integrates history and fiction. I am knocking two points off for the fuck-show that is multi-player.
Graphics: 5/5: Very well done.
Sound: 5/5: Anytime you are piloting a river boat to the tune of Fade it Black you know you're in for a good ride.
Controls: 2/5 I don't care if it is a war game. Give me a goddamn radar. It is a game, not war.
Playability: 3.75/5: I remember reading shortly after the COD games began that it was inducing flashbacks in some veterans. I never verified that, but I could believe it. it is very realistic and very frustrating. It certainly elevated my blood pressure.