Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is a bombastic shooter that perfectly preserves the split-second, hair-trigger gunplay of its predecessors. What’s different this time around is that every aspect of this game – from the techno-babble campaign to the burlesque Zombies mode – is fine-tuned for co-op play. Having a fancy scope or underbarrel attachment is nice, but in the end it’ll be your buddy who pulls your ass out of the fire.
With a friend in tow, Black Ops 3 becomes one of the most varied and enjoyable shooters on current-gen hardware. But this emphasis on co-op cuts both ways. Parts that feel great when played together become tedious when tackled alone. And the diverse selection of modes – enjoyable as they are – make the game feel disjointed at times, diminishing the thruster pack and other excellent designs.
Naturally, competitive multiplayer is where Black Ops 3 is at its most expressive and enjoyable. The new Specialist abilities – temporary power-ups like a short-range teleport and cluster grenade launcher – fold in nicely with the Pick 10 loadout and scorestreaks, providing ample opportunities for you to define your own play-style. And like scorestreaks, these abilities unlock as you fight, creating gleeful moments of unfair advantage that offer a brief rush of power, without disrupting the flow of the match.
Oddly for a game so focused on brutality, betrayal, violence, techno-fear and man’s inhumanity to man, generosity is Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s biggest asset. This is a mountainous all-you-can-eat buffet of a Call of Duty, its steaming heated trays crammed with game modes, options and hidden features. It adds enough to the core gameplay to make it feel like more than just another lazy retread, and it’s easily the best-looking CoD to date.
The only problem is that, as with all all-you-can-eat buffets, some portions are a lot tastier than others, leaving you wondering whether a little more focus might have created something really exceptional.
Black Ops 3 is a solid installment that will please the series’ hardcore fans, but it’s not a mainstream crowd-pleaser in the way that last year’s Advanced Warfare was.
In a way, it suffers because of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The first Black Ops bought a very distinctive flavour to Call of Duty; one born of conspiracy theory, spy thrillers and darker style of storytelling. The second mixed that up with a sci-fi techno-thriller, splitting the action between interleaved, branching past and near-future storylines and bringing bots and drones into the mix. Black Ops 3’s focuses entirely on the sci-fi stuff, loses most of its conspiracy theory trappings and brings augmented super-soldiers in. The result sometimes feels less like a third Black Ops game than Call of Duty: Even More Advanced Warfare. It leaves you wondering whether it’s time Call of Duty looked back to the past for inspiration.
Verdict: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is a massive, varied game, but your satisfaction will depend heavily on whether you have friends to play with either locally or online. Zombies finally comes into its own here with a play-style and design all its own, while the blockbuster campaign ends up feeling more Michael Bay than James Cameron. Multiplayer is the main attraction here, and the highly customizable loadouts and Specialist abilities combine to make it one of the most varied and enjoyable in the series. Just make sure you have someone you trust watching your back.
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