Call of Duty Blacks Ops – Hands Off Impressions

One of the top titles that was on display at E3 this year was obviously the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops from Treyarch and Activision.

I was given a behind closed doors demo of the upcoming shooter but unfortunately it was all hands off and so I can only report on what I saw and not what it’s like.

The game is based on the same engine as World at War but it has been completely tweaked and polished and that’s easy to see as soon as the demo starts. The graphics are fantastic and the engine seems more then happy with the tons of enemies that appear on screen throughout the demo.

The demo starts off with you getting suited up in a space suit of sorts and heading out to your plane, you then control the take off and head off to the unknown. You fly up until the edge of space and then take the controls of the camera looking down on your tactical insertion team who are hiding in the bushes deep in Russian territory.

You then get to direct them over to the safe house just north of their current position while avoiding the cars on the roads, once we were in the house a group of soldiers pulled up outside and began advancing on the house, queue the next stage of the demo were the developers needed to guide the tactical insertion team out of the house and up to some cover higher up the hill.

At this point we warp into the body on the ground and become the leader of the tactical insertion squad. Armed with an awesome crossbow we wait until the squads of enemy soldiers pass by and then we head down to the communication station that is our target.

Once there we begin taking out the forces protecting the base with our 1 shot kill crossbow which is completely silent. However it doesn’t take long before we are spotted and then we swap out to our machine guns and continue the fight. One of the coolest things I did see was that you could arm your crossbow with sticky explosive arrows and then target a soldier in the middle of a group, the arrow buries deep inside him and then explodes a few seconds later clearing out the squad.

After that we are treated to the squad rappelling down the side of a building and smashing through the windows before taking out everyone inside. it’s your typical action packed call of duty sequence and it’s still as good as it ever was.

Then off we go to the next part of our demo…

The opening sequence, of the second demo, through the tunnels in Vietnam set the mood perfectly with claustrophobic nature of the Vietnam war coming through perfectly with cockroaches, rats and water running through the tunnels and with Vietcong hiding around corners just waiting to run their knife through your chest.

The biggest change in this years COD is that you are now going to be able to take control of vehicles and in the demo we see this in the shape of a Hind helicopter which you commandeer to take out some boats, riverside villages and then an oil pipeline.

In the demo we see a lot of destruction in the shape of bridges coming down, buildings being destroyed and trucks being carved out by sidewinder missiles.

Blacks Ops is based in the time of the Cold War but the developers reiterated that the story is entirely fictional and not based on any real history at all. They also reiterated that the game will be the same on both platforms (720p and 60 fps) and that the PC multiplayer will have dedicated servers but the consoles are still going to be peer to peer but with regional matchmaking that should make most of our games lag free.

Black Ops is looking incredibly polished and will be yet another great Call Of Duty entrant when it’s released but the big worry for Treyarch would be the upcoming Medal of Honor from EA which could steal the limelight from them if they are released in the same timeslot.

Here’s the debut trailer released by Treyarch

Added extras

After posting this I saw that I had some notes that didn’t make it into the main article.. At one point in the demo we see the developers shoot the hinges off a door to gain entry which was quite cool.

I also saw some awesome looking lightning effects and this Call of Duty appears to also have tactical destruction with cover being blown away and buildings being chipped away by bullets.

Our guest for the walkthrough was Josh Holden from Treyarch, I hope I spelt that right.

Last Updated: June 21, 2010