Black Ops, You are Breakin' My Heart.

Last month saw the release of the newest edition to the Call of Duty line up. Black Ops broke sales records on every platform and has made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits so far. Its just a shame the game sucks.

Okay, that was shock value. The game does not completely blow, only marginally. When looking back at the history of amazing first person shooters, CoD has definitely earned the right to join the ranks. Call of Duty 3 and 4 were both amazing games that were extremely well rounded. Even World at War brought some new ideas to the table. But Black Ops in no way compares to any of these games.

The more I play Black Ops, the more I realize how it is like a refurbished version of Modern Warfare 2. Its no secret that MW2 was shit. Both the lack of a sufficient Beta and an excess of poorly designed weapons contributed to the games failure for its first six months. Black Ops seems to have taken MW2 and simply changed the maps and fixed the glitches.

The look and feel of the game is incredibly similar to its immediate predecessor. I was really wanting something new. It seems like the only new attributes to the game are gimicky weapons like exploding crossbows and an exploding rc-car.

But there are some good changes. Thankfully, the designers made adjustments like removing the ability to play using nothing more than grenade launchers. They also added some new game types including wager matches and specialty rounds like One In The Chamber. There is now so much more customization. Of course some players are dicks that make reticule and emblems that look like ... well... dicks. But some of them are surprisingly cool and original.

I think for me, this is all just too little too late. I feel like I've been playing the same mediocre game that I was playing for the previous year. I'm waiting for it to become new and exciting but it really just doesn't strike me as amazing. It certainly didn't live up all the expectations I had. So maybe in the end it's my fault. I was ready to be blown away but maybe my hopes and dreams were just too big.

The single player is really good. I can't hate that. Its far more difficult than the last few and the changing of scenery through time travel is appreciated. But who plays Call of Duty for the single player ?

Black Ops has finally provided me with that proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I'm over the Call of Duty series. There are so many other games I could be playing and I would rather dedicate my time to them instead. Now I do realize that a lot of people disagree with me. They play the new game and swear its the best thing ever. And there are literally millions of gamers that log onto the Black Ops servers on a regular basis so I'm sure they all would have an argument or two. But for me, as much as I don't want to walk away from a series that I used to love; I have grown as a gamer and it is time for me to move on. Goodbye Call of Duty, you will be missed.