![]() You have to direct your groupings of soldiers and mechs to protect certain points, and can zoom in to take control of any individual unit at any point. The new strategy levels combine standard COD action with a top-down view of the battlefield. When long stretches of levels are constructed around them, the results are not so good. When used sparingly, it can be a very effective tool. The cinematic experience, some might say. If Treyarch's Call of Duty campaigns have one singular weakness, it is this willingness to wrest control away from the player for long periods, with sections that ostensibly require your input, but really just ask you to follow the prompts. Then, in the very next section, Black Ops II does a "stealth" section, though really it's more of a game of following the NPC. It is a demented kind of a world, but it works. Then you move through this at swift pace to what can only be described as a club tune, popping enemies left and right and watching the opalescent shimmer of their body armour signal the kill. The level is drenched in gorgeous water effects, combined with countless sputtering neon signs and crumbling buildings – a real technical showcase. One sequence set in an inexplicably flooded Lahore shows what this method gives Black Ops II. ![]() At one point, I was launching anti-air rockets from the back of a horse. Black Ops II moves from torture chambers to wingsuits, via clunking mechs, battle-planes, and nearly every other type of military fantasy going. ![]() I'm not suggesting such topics shouldn't be here simply that, in a world without a fixed moral centre, they sit very oddly. ![]() Perhaps this shows a certain desensitisation among the game's audience or its developers. This incident is part of a bizarre and disturbing thread running through Black Ops II's narrative you see one child being burned and disfigured, then another being psychologically tortured (the main character, in fact). It makes an early attempt to humanise big baddy Menedez, showing how his sister was disfigured by American bombs, but after this he turns out a standard bloodthirsty maniac. Talking about the narrative in these games always feels a little like a thankless task, and Black Ops II doesn't deviate from that. Most of the time is still spent shooting foreigners in corridors, but even here, there are changes – COD's most well-known crutch, the endlessly respawning enemies that stop when you cross an invisible line, have been junked entirely. Black Ops II has a familiar campaign that has nevertheless been jazzed up with the incorporation of (optional) squad-based strategy missions and a plotline that branches according to a few key decisions. ![]()
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