Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

It's been a long time since I've reviewed a Call of Duty game - the pretty fantastic Advanced Warfare - but not all that long since I've played one. The franchise has gone forward to struggle through some recent years with the highly forgettable Black Ops 3 and WWII that was easily outdone by Battlefield 1 the same year. I was able to play both either through free PS+ games or purchasing it several months later, respectively, but refrained from reviewing them because it wouldn't have been all that timely. 

Now...the Call of Duty franchise is an interesting one all together. It has arguably not undergone many significant changes since the release of Modern Warfare that changed the game over 10 years ago. The fact that so many people flock to this series yearly is still a testament to how well their formula works and yeah, I still find it plenty of fun too.

That said, there's also a reason you didn't find Call of Duty winning much during my recent Rath Awards (sometimes the awards beat the game reviews during busy gaming seasons!) and that's because, ultimately, there's not a whole lot that's "game changing" here for gaming in general and, to a certain extent, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 phones it in.

Blackout mode is the best Battle Royale
yet, but it looks familiar...

What's most disappointing about the new Call of Duty is that it has no single player element. I know, I know, the single player is often an overlooked component of the heavily multiplayer game. I'm sure there's some statistic out there that only X% of Call of Duty players actually beat the campaign, but I'm usually one of those players. And to be fair, it doesn't matter how amazing your multiplayer is because if you have a standout campaign, people will talk about it. Just look at Titanfall 2 for a perfect example of that. Instead Black Ops 4 does away with a campaign completely and has a sad, sad excuse for a "story" hidden within tutorial missions for each character. These are utterly forgettable and upon completion of all them I got a "rare" achievement because so few other players have bothered to even open them. 

In exchange for a campaign, Black Ops 4 offers up a trade in the form of Blackout, their new entry into the Battle Royale craze that has been popularized by the likes of Fortnite and PUBG. Now, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Battle Royale game modes because, quite frankly, I suck at them. I played PUBG for a little while and semi-enjoyed it, but found that I had a "good" round probably 1 out of every 7-10 tries. Fortnite I tried a handful of times and just couldn't connect with it, but I'm not sure that game exactly needs many more players anyway. The Battle Royale genre is honestly a genius game mode and I'm always amazed at the layers upon layers of strategy that it introduces compared to something simpler like a Team Deathmatch. I find however that the action is so minimal that I can never "get on a roll" which is something I often need to have time to do in order to win or be a top performer in the round. Blackout, much like other BR game types is incredibly intense, but it can also be frustrating in the worst of ways -- often when you have awful luck at finding loot and gear. 

This isn't exactly a review of the Battle Royale craze, but it is a confession that this mode doesn't do all that much for me, mostly directly linked to my lack of talent in it. Blackout though deserves credit for being easily the most polished BR mode there is and it sincerely puts PUBG and its nearly-never-ending BETA phase to shame in terms of quality. But you'll also notice something if you've played both games and it's just how much Black Ops 4, dare I say, "copied" PUBG. The map is similarly laid out, though differently populated with famous Call of Duty locations, but weapons, gear, landscape, and even sound effects all feel eerily ripped from somewhere I've seen previously. It's a bit shocking how closely they were allowed to get to what PUBG has produced in some respects and it annoys me as a consumer and gamer that when you actively make the decision to not have a campaign, you're going to copy+paste a significant portion of the thing you're replacing it with. Even if that "thing" is better than the original copy. 

That blue car really stands out...too bad a guy was using it for cover

This "recycling" bleeds over into the traditional multiplayer game mode too. I very recently played Black Ops 3 because PlayStation was giving it away as a free download. After I made my way through the atrocious campaign, I enjoyed some fun traditional multiplayer. Color me surprised that when I started Black Ops 4 that many of the maps I had JUST seen in BLOPS3 were in my "new" game. I did a little research on this and apparently they brought back some "fan favorite" maps to BLOPS4 but only a few compared to the multiple new ones. I play a lot of Domination mode and I can honestly say that I pretty much only see the maps from what I had played in previous entries. Again, as a consumer, this is incredibly frustrating (but also not new for Activision or the franchise) that I'm paying normal price for something I've seen before.

"Ya gotta be quicker than that!"

To a certain extent, BLOPS4 survives fine with its traditional multiplayer because the Call of Duty formula of fast-paced running and gunning is still alive and well here. I'm probably "most" talented in this space and I find that I have more good games than bad - and the bad are more caused by annoying players rather than the game itself. *Side rant: if you're a player of games online and you choose a specific game mode and DON'T play the objective of the game, you're the worst kind of human. This extends to any MP game, not just COD* The action here is always furious and I've found myself trying more modes than in the past because each seem to be populated with active players and be fun variations of just straight up killing. The game also feels balanced most of the time too and while experienced players with guns that shoot 200 g****n bullets per second piss me off, I find that I can often do decent from game to game. 

Lastly, we have the Zombies mode which I've also never really been into in this franchise, but I was immensely intrigued by a new level aboard the Titanic. I can tell that this component has been considerably beefed up over the years and BLOPS4 features several different levels you can play in. To me, zombies is nothing more than a fun and hollow diversion and I'm honestly a bit shocked that with this iteration they didn't make some smart changes. For starters, you can never win zombies mode. That's the point: you just survive as long as you can for as many rounds as you can and try to unlock all the mysteries of each level. The problem with this is that "losing" (remember, that's something that happens every time you play zombies) is incredibly defeating because you have to go back to the beginning. If you get on a long run that can sometimes mean going back 45+ minutes. Why these developers have never thought to separate out a zombies "story" that's actually winnable and has save points while still keeping an "endless" mode is beyond me. As I mentioned before, it makes zombies a hollow experience because I always have fun when I play one, but then feel like I lost so much progress when I lost that it's usually weeks before I try to play another one. That said, I did find the maps this time around intriguing and it is a lot of fun to buy upgrades, weapons, and power-ups all while unlocking mysteries around the map with zany characters. But like many things in Call of Duty, this too is a recycled "dont fix it if it aint broken" game type that could use a level up. 

"Jack! Kate! Where are you?!?"

I know that I focused a lot on the negative of Black Ops 4 in this review but I think that just makes the fact that I'm still playing it and enjoying the hell out of *most* of it all that more impressive to how strong of a core this series is built upon. But stagnation will eventually kill any product or business. This year Call of Duty brought Blackout. Awesome. Where they go from here will be a signal from the developers and Activision into how much true effort and innovation they want to put into one of gaming's biggest franchises. I'm glad I only paid $35 for Black Ops 4 because that's honestly all it's worth. It has a lot of content, yes, but a lot of it is content you've seen or experienced before. And while I can't deny the fun I've had with it, it also doesn't pass the Rath's Reviews *sniff* test when it comes to marketing itself as a "new" Call of Duty game.

CONS

• I will forever give a thumbs down to any game that skips a campaign. Call of Duty has given us great campaigns in the past. They got lazy here and opted out of one
• The excuse for a story and single player component here is laughable. The game would have been better leaving it out
• Lots of recycled content in nearly every game type
• Blackout takes a LOT of inspiration from PUBG. Sometimes almost too much
• Traditional multiplayer is nearly identical to BLOPS3 and features several returning maps that make oddly-frequent rotations in several game types
• Zombies hasn't evolved much at all outside of refining the power-ups system and having new levels
• Not horrible graphics, but also not stunning either. Especially at this point in console lifecycles
• Lack of a Bot-filled Blackout mode is a huge miss. Would have been a perfect training ground for Battle Royale n00bs like me
• Zombies fails to evolve into something worthwhile and can be deflating when you "end" (read: lose) a long round
• Why there aren't different zombie modes - one with save points - yet blows my mind
• This is not a game worth $60. It's worth purchasing, but for 50% off

PROS

• Despite having played most parts of this game before, I still have a ton of fun with it
• From a pure content perspective, there's a lot here, even without a single player
• The game's graphics may be nothing to write home about but it's effortlessly smooth and I rarely have had any connectivity issues with any of the game modes
• Blackout is the most polished Battle Royale mode available currently and the genre's many nuances and strategies are alive and well here
• Traditional multiplayer has some good mode variations, logical progression system, and a thriving community. It can still be a ton of fun
• Zombies has really nifty maps. I think the Titanic one is an awesome idea and I had a good time exploring it

Rath's Review Score | 7/10