Every Tuesday I like to take some time to focus on the hardworking and dedicated “YouTubers” within the gaming community. This week features some multiplayer gameplay from Treyarch’s upcoming Call of Duty installment, Black Ops II. I think it’s safe to say that this game doesn’t need an introduction, so I’m not going to give it one. This will be the first in the series that takes place in the “future,” even if it is only a few years away. By the looks of this video it seems they’ve nailed their futuristic art style really well, with all aspects of gameplay having a kind of digitized feel to them. Sure, there’s no lasers or ray guns, but it does look there are some nifty futuristic toys to play with.
I’m sure someone will painstakingly go through each frame of this footage in an effort to squeeze as much information out of it as possible. At first glance however, this may be the first CoD game that doesn’t look like every other one in the series. Sure, there are similarities, and the core gameplay is most likely still intact but all of the feedback, from the HUD to the in-game weapons, is subtly sleek and futuristic.
They also seem to have taken America’s drone warfare to a whole new level. There looks like some kind of robotic mech that can be piloted, miniature suicide planes, and some sort of microwave (or whatever) suppression turret that seems to slow enemies to a crawl. It seems that one of the features of Black Ops II will be in allowing players the freedom to explore futuristic warfare with more than just fancy guns.
Late last week some industry analysts claimed that the CoD franchise had peaked and that fans were becoming “genre tired,” which is analyst jargon for bored. They cited that MW3 sales haven’t yet grown past Black Ops I sales, which is a first for the franchise; usually each game does better than the last. While I think it’s fair to say that the Modern Warfare piece of the franchise has become a bit of a yawn fest, I don’t think it’s fair to cast a new over the entire CoD franchise.
Black Ops is its own game, and this footage shows that Treyarch isn’t afraid try new things within the franchise. So while some of us may be sick of Modern Warfare, I think Black Ops may just be getting started.
