You also can’t fault Treyarch on the grounds of set-pieces or scale. The campaign itself is nothing short of bonkers, with sections that owe more to Dead Space, Crysis 2, the movie Source Code or Deus Ex than any normal Call of Duty game. It doesn’t hurt that movement also benefits, with Titanfall-style wall-running and ledge-grabbing manoeuvres now added to the repertory of jumps, mantles, dives and slides. Black Ops 3’s campaign has been designed for both solo and co-op play and it’s best when it delivers spaces where four players and any CPU-controlled buddies can tear things up, vying to out-do each other with feats of marksmanship and cybernetic warfare. When it does, we get Halo-like bubbles of combat where you can try out different tactics or make the most of your current cyber-core. There’s some genuinely smart stuff going on here.Īnd while this is still very much a restrictive, heavily orchestrated shooter – at one point, my progress was temporarily barred by a chainlink gate – it does open out at times. I had a fantastic time taking over flying drones and roving turrets, slaughtering the snipers lying in wait for me and mowing down grunts by the half-dozen. You’re leaping down from rooftops into gangs of enemy soldiers, smashing some into the scenery, surging through others like a tidal wave. You’re barreling through corridors full of military bots, tugging the energy core from one and hurling it grenade-like at another, chuckling as it blows on impact. There are times in Black Ops 3’s campaign where level design, atmosphere and your new cybernetic powers come together in an explosion of general awesomeness. Between a power that transforms enemy bots into walking grenades and one that sends out swarms of lethal nano-drones, the Chaos core can be incredibly useful in the early stages of the main campaign. Control capabilities allow you to disrupt or hack bots and turrets, either weakening them, bringing them to your side or putting them under your direct control.Īnd the Chaos capabilities? These allow you to wreck bots and turrets remotely, but also disrupt the enemy at range or whittle down their numbers when they threaten to overwhelm you. They’re divided into three types, Martial, Chaos and Control, only one of which is available in any mission load-out.īroadly speaking, Martial capabilities give you speed and enhanced melee attacks, transforming you into a whirling dervish of destruction on the battlefield. Just as Advanced Warfare’s exosuits shook up the tired Modern Warfare-style formula, so Black Ops 3’s various cyber-core abilities add some much-needed punch to this game. It’s not that the sci-fi stuff isn’t cool. It leaves you wondering whether it’s time Call of Duty looked back to the past for inspiration. The result sometimes feels less like a third Black Ops game than Call of Duty: Even More Advanced Warfare. 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 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. 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. In a way, it suffers because of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. 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.īlack 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. 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. 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. 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. Available on Xbox One, PS4, PC (PS4 and PC reviewed)
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