About a week ago, “Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War,” was released and according to Essentially Sports, “The game has sold the largest number of digital copies on launch day in the franchise’s history.”
I got the game two days after the release, Nov. 13, and I have been having a lot of fun with it. I have been enjoying the campaign, the multiplayer games and the new zombie map.
The campaign
Now, we all know that Azusa Pacific’s wifi can be slow, so it took five hours for my game to finish downloading. It was 11 p.m. on Sunday when my game finished downloading, and I decided to play one campaign mission … I ended up playing eight.
I enjoyed the storyline, but I was even more taken away by how high quality the graphics in this game are.
Mitchell Nobel, an APU graduate with a bachelor of science in applied exercise science, shares the same feeling. “I think the campaign was a lot of fun. It just looks so beautiful on the Xbox Series X and I didn’t really have any complaints other than it was pretty short.”
Luke Salsman, a junior studying English, also mentioned that, “This has definitely been my favorite campaign in a long time. There was such a compelling storyline and interesting characters.”
Multiplayer
Cold War is the first first-person shooter game I’ve played in about four years. I’ve always been a huge fan of the Halo series and recently got into OverWatch (they were having a sale over the summer), but it’s been a while. I’ve been playing more relaxing games on my Nintendo Switch, such as “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” and “Stardew Valley.” However, once I played my first online game of team deathmatch, I was hooked. A competitive spirit suddenly invaded me, and I was inspired to get better.
Other than working toward getting better, people also enjoy having a new way to connect with friends. Kody Schneider, residential director of APU’s Trinity Hall, said, “Multiplayer games have truly been a way for me to connect with friends all over the country during the pandemic.”
Though playing the game online with friends can yield some good times, I have found myself getting frustrated for one main reason — the shotgun.
Schneider said, “They brought back shotguns as secondaries and shotguns are either extremely overpowered or useless. I’ve noticed they are more on the overpowered side.”
When it comes to maps that are smaller and closed off, I can turn any random corner and be met with a shotgun shell to my face. The challenge of playing against other people makes multiplayer a bit more interesting. Salsman said, “The multiplayer is engaging while also being challenging.” Good maps and good players make for the best time while playing.
Zombies
I have a love-hate relationship with the zombies mode. I’m the type of person who gets scared easily. So during my first game of zombies, I jumped and screamed every other three seconds. Just like with previous games, I appreciate how the zombies mode has a quick story. During my first game, I got to round eight by myself and got stuck in one particular area because I could not find where the next area was.
Along with myself and other fans, Schneider talks about how he has really been enjoying the zombies mode since it had been absent in previous games.
Some Feedback
The game has been out for about a week and it’s not perfect, no game is perfect on launch day. So to close, here are a couple of things the interviewees and I hope to see in future updates for the game.
Me
In future updates, I hope to see more map variety. There aren’t many maps in the multiplayer games and they are either hit or miss with me. Other than map variety, I hope Activision can add more zombie maps. The zombies game mode is a huge part of why the Call Of Duty games do so well. I think it would be really cool to see remakes of old zombie maps, give a modern twist or an art update to some of the older maps.
Nobel
I’m looking forward to the battle pass guns and possibly a better revamp of the attachment system in-game. I hope they also preview the items in the store rather than just put a picture up for the packs.
Salsman
Fix the local multiplayer, as the local multiplayer isn’t functioning well, and to tweak the guns to make it more fun for everyone.
Schneider
Minor bug fixes obviously. Multiplayer parties tend to have a lot of connection issues from my experience so servers might be really backed up with the new game. The previous Modern Warfare (most recently before Black Ops) had weekly tournaments and rotating multiplayer game modes which would be really cool to bring to the multiplayer game mode. I don’t think they will do any gun nerfs, but there are definitely some weapons that could use a bit of a nerf.