![]() Perks and killstreaks are one thing, but area-of-effect flashbangs, Widowmaker-style wallhacks, and deployable accessories that redirect where your teammates respawn are a strange and clumsy direction for the series. Since I devoured Modern Warfare as a teen in 2007, Call of Duty has always denoted a 'pure' shooting experience in my mind, untainted by RPG-like abilities and cooldowns. Though it felt great in the moment to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with just a handful of mouse clicks, something about it just struck me as slightly off. One particular highlight saw me clear a point of the entire enemy team with just his ultimate ability, a far-reaching shock rifle that paralyzes targets with a single shot. I eventually found success as Prophet, a deep-voiced grunt who deploys a rolling drone that automatically seeks out targets and immobilizes them with a piercing shock. Though comparisons to the flashy ultimates of Overwatch seem inevitable, these Specialists lean closer to the classes of Destiny’s Crucible, where your loadout matters just as much as the boots you inhabit, if not more. Rather than throwing it all the way back to Black Ops 2, however, this new entry has doubled-down on the 'Specialist' system introduced in its third Black Ops, which layers character-specific abilities over the series’ enduring class system. I find that the simplified movement better suits Call of Duty’s pure, no-gristle take on the genre. Treyarch has ditched the divisive Titanfall-esque wall-running and double-jumping of Black Ops 3 for a more grounded approach. This sense of familiarity extends to Black Ops 4’s traditional multiplayer modes. The messy gunfights and clutch finishes make me want to jump back in repeatedly, and that’s ultimately the metric that matters the most to me. My trusty combo feels a bit ill-suited for the unpredictable open-field nature of most Blackout battles.Ĭompared its battle royale contemporaries, Black Ops 4 might be a refinement rather than a revolution, but it’s still the best version of a realistic battle royale (or at least, more realistic than Fortnite) that I’ve played-zombies aside-and I plan to go back to it for weeks to come. This left me relying on the slow-firing Rampart and a whatever shotgun I could find, rather than my CoD standby of the SMG-and-sniper combo. While it can be tough to tell when you’re packing a new weapon every game, the recoil patterns on the various rifles seem far more consistent than in previous games, which makes it easier to precisely blast down foes at mid-range. It’s an easy way to zip up to an unsuspecting player without making yourself too much of a target, which is always a concern with battle royale vehicles. My attempts at piloting the vehicles in Blackout mostly led to disaster, but the snappy ATV is by far my favorite, handling best with a controller, though I switch back to keyboard and mouse once I’m back on-foot. This is a looser take on PUBG’s realistic milieu, where deftly sliding around small interiors with an SMG or lightning-fast quickscoping with a sniper rifle will get you further than camping on a bathroom floor. Matches are quick and dirty, leaving only a little room for tactical maneuvering. The ten-minute lulls and tense nail-biting of a 45-minute PUBG match are mostly absent here, a welcome contrast that suits COD’s more pick-up-and-play style. ![]() The whip-sharp precision and reactivity of Blackout’s shooting easily outclasses the slightly-clunky gunplay of PUBG, while the smaller map and the generous distribution of quality loot produce a much faster, more thrilling game that's more akin to Fortnite. Still, its absence leaves the singleplayer relatively meager this time around, limited to solo zombie-stomping with bots or lone missions that star the game’s cast of multiplayer ‘Specialists.’ Black Ops 4 is solely a game about shooting your friends or shooting with your friends, and if the battle royale mode weren't so fun, it'd feel a little thin for its $60 price tag. Though I have fond memories of the CoD campaigns of yesteryear, especially Modern Warfare 2's, recent entries have left me unimpressed. ![]() If you haven't heard, Treyarch has jettisoned the usual glossy eight-hour corridor campaign from this year’s game. Note the lack of singleplayer in that description. ![]()
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