Call Of Duty Black Ops

The CoD Points system does lead to a higher level of customization in Black Ops. Not only can you customize your title and emblem, but you can write your clan tag on your weapon, change the color and look of your targeting reticule, and lots more. Of course, each and every thing that you add to your character will cost you valuable CoD Points, so you need to have a big stockpile of disposable income before the customization really becomes a viable option.
Other multiplayer options have been expanded as well. You'll now find a boatload of tweakable settings for the matches that you create. You can change players' health, their number of lives, turn Kill Cam on and off, alter score limits, time limits and lots more. It's also cool that you can share your created modes with your pals; something I'm sure PC players will appreciate.

To help you build up your stash of CoD Points, Treyarch included a contract system where you invest a small amount of points, then attempt to complete a certain objective with the reward being a sizeable chunk of dough. While it's cool enough, I wish the contract system was a bit broader as it currently doesn't allow you to do things like bet on other players' performance or the overall performance of your team. Also, the fact that you can be thrown into a match mid-game can hurt your ability to successfully complete contracts. Here's hoping they tune contracts a bit with the first patch.

Once you get into a match, the level design is well-thought-out, with some stages featuring dynamic elements that change each time you play. Firing Range, for instance, puts target dummies in different spots each time you load the map (same goes for Nuke Town, my favorite). Each stage has parts for just about every style of player. Snipers will be able to find a second tier to rain down fire, campers will have a few cover spots, and everyone else can deal with both open and closed quarters depending on their play style.

The new perks that have been added (I'll let you discover most of them for yourself if you haven't already scoured the Internet for information) are all very cool and, yes, the tactical nuke is nowhere to be found. I will say that the RC Car will likely have its power ratcheted down as it's currently going to be abused by new players, especially since it only takes three kills to earn. Other new perks seemed nicely tuned to avoid unbalanced gameplay (the tactical nuke is gone).
All of this crazy multiplayer action can be captured with Black Ops' brand new theater system that allows you to clip out the good stuff, hide the embarrassing deaths, and then share it all with your pals. I think Theater Mode as a whole is an awesome addition and I hope the COD community takes advantage of it. The only slight detractor is that you have to upload your clips to CallofDuty.com rather than something like YouTube or Facebook where there would obviously be a larger audience.

Throughout my multiple days with the PC version, I haven't experienced any signs of the lag that have been reported elsewhere. Occasionally I'd get a higher ping than I would've liked, but more often than not the game performed just as it should've. The one detractor in terms of performance was the Final Kill Cam which always seemed to stutter out of control, no matter the amount of lag I experienced. Of course, it's worth mentioning that the connection at the IGN office is probably better than yours, so your results will likely differ.
Outside of the competitive multiplayer, there's also the return of the incredibly popular Nazi Zombies mode. Treyarch clearly understood that its fans loved the original and did a nice job of expanding the feature while still keeping the same fun spirit intact.

In Black Ops there are three types of Nazi Zombies. The first is pretty standard and presents an old theater to defend. The second takes things in a different direction and puts each of the four potential players (online or off) in the shoes of either JFK, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, or Robert McNamara with plenty of funny dialogue for each. The first two modes of Nazi Zombies don't exactly redefine the game, but then again, they didn't really need to. You're still running around an ever-expanding level trying to ward off wave after wave of the evil undead. The third type of Nazi Zombies, however, is totally different from the norm and is an Easter egg that I wouldn't dream of spoiling. It's just that good.

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