Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review

[Synthesthesia]

I was enjoying this at first online but the bullet sponging is happening all the time now. My ping is like 22-29ms.

It feels like the maps are mazes, and there's ALWAYS someone behind me or to the left or right waiting to kill me right after I get a kill or right before I get a kill. I went one match before with 8 deaths before I got a single kill. Bulletsponges everywhere, and when I nearly get a kill...it's an assist! YAY.

I would say I'd much rather play Halo 4 but that was a piece of **** tonight too. People lagging all over, and the flag glitching into a wall so theirs couldn't be captured but ours could

[jim g]

I was enjoying this at first online but the bullet sponging is happening all the time now. My ping is like 22-29ms.

Yep , now more players are on I have noticed the same lag issues are plaguing the game now, see summary from one guy on NeoGaf

After 48 hours, I can officially declare there is no hope left for Call of Duty. It's gone. The greatness of CoD4 will never return. It's been lost to this madness that we see now. This run-and-gun, broken spawn, no teamwork, killstreak focused, technically flawed madness.

As much as Treyarch has developed an eSports boner over the last two years, I really expected this to be a much more cohesive game than MW2 and MW3 were and more like Black Ops 1. It's not. It's Call of Duty on a turbo speedball, if you can even fathom that.

Black Ops 2 is more of the same bull****: constant headglitching, easier-than-ever quickscoping, getting shot less than three seconds after you spawn, that typical Treyarch garbage hit detection, and more lag compensation to punish you for having a good connection when you get shot at before you even see an enemy yet on the killcam he's looking at you for a full second before shooting.

They don't give a **** about fixing any of this stuff. They just want your money every year. It's the same old **** every year. And suckers like me fall for the hype every year. Well, no more for me.

[Golgo]

It was a mess last night on PS3, to be honest. Even if you managed to get into a game you'd find your custom loadouts re-set to the puny default loadouts, although this didn't affect everyone as some clearly had higher-level tech while the rest of us were running around with peashooters trying to scavenge stuff off dead bodies. It was torrid, I tells ya! War is hell!

[teddymeow]

I only ever do campaign in these anyway.

Maybe some zombies this year but rarely MP because of the ****.

[Neon Ignition]

Last night was very sketchy on the server, hopefully it'll settle down soon. That said some of the complaints levied against the multiplayer itself on some sites are very weak and show how some gamers love to blame the game for their own crapness. I'm on lvl 22 now and am stormjng the maps as they're well planned out. It's all a matter of learning them. Sure you can be flanked at any time but that stops camping, it's either one way or another and this is better. I find many COD players are too focused on sharp shooting and not on geometry making it easy to get the drop on them. Had no issues with spawn points either, never in the line of fire but never having miles to trek either.

[nonny]

It's no better on 360. The more I play it the more I despise it. The maps aren't they great and with hardly any real long sight lines and not too many showing verticality it results in best tactical load out being SMGs with lightweight... And we all know how that ends up.

Its a case of play the campaign and get rid of it for me.

[MisterBubbles]

Yup im back, all i can say is you'll all never learn.

[Golgo]

This is a gift for you, Mr. B, a depthless repository for all the smug criticism you can muster against every game you've never played: http://www.bordersdown.net/showthrea...-Played-Thread

[Brad]

COD:MW was ace. I bought MW2 at launch - worse than MW. And that was the end of COD for me. Real shame, the first MW was spectacular. We wait for Respawn to fix the genre.

[Synthesthesia]

Last night was very sketchy on the server, hopefully it'll settle down soon. That said some of the complaints levied against the multiplayer itself on some sites are very weak and show how some gamers love to blame the game for their own crapness. I'm on lvl 22 now and am stormjng the maps as they're well planned out. It's all a matter of learning them. Sure you can be flanked at any time but that stops camping, it's either one way or another and this is better. I find many COD players are too focused on sharp shooting and not on geometry making it easy to get the drop on them. Had no issues with spawn points either, never in the line of fire but never having miles to trek either.

If that's aimed at me, yeah, I'm not great at call of duty now. However every call of duty until MW3 I could consistently get more kills than deaths. I get absolutely annihilated ever since I've had a better connection. I used to get 55-70ms, now I get around 22-29ms as I said before.

It just feels ridiculous when I'm shooting someone and can clearly hear the sound of the bullets hitting them 3x, yet in some killcams etc I'm dead in less than half a second and around 1 or 2 bullets. In my books...that's not down to my "crapness".

It seemed to get worse as more people started to play too, with one of the worst being a sticks and stones games I played last night (can't remember if that's what it's called in this). This american guy (obviously not going to be the most stable of connections but it was totally one sided) was knifing me like 2 seconds after I'd knifed him, and on the killcam it even showed me knifing him, then him moving to the side of me and knifing me from a good 5 feet away...

Awful. Black Ops never had this lag compensation problem for me, I dunno why they feel this is a good way to go, but I think I'm gonna sell my copy. Halo 4 will be my go-to online game since the connection on that game is generally rock solid, and it's actually fun/ tactical.

Yup im back, all i can say is you'll all never learn.

Never learn what? Black Ops 1 wasn't like this (for me at least). Treyarch are a different developer to Infinity Ward.

[Uli]

what's the point in adding a Combat Training populated with human players? they ruined the best game mode of Black Ops! Combat Training in Black Ops was amazing, it only needed a level up system comparable to the MP career. i really hope they will add a bots-only mode.

other than that i am happy they finally improved sound quality. it's still no Battlefield but a big improvement over the 8-bit sound samples of Modern Warfare.

[Golgo]

Uli, you can have a bots-only experience in the custom game mode. Just tried it against some remedial-level bots so I could have a play with some of the high-end scorestreak rewards.

[Neon Ignition]

If that's aimed at me, yeah, I'm not great at call of duty now

Wasn't aimed at you The complaints against a new COD are widespread every year, reading on various forums makes for weary reading. It was the same for BO1 till things settled down and it started to be appreciated for what it did right. I'm fine with the sometimes sluggish hit detection as I'm used to it and every CoD has it including fan rose tinted fave 4. Pretty much every major FPS has it even BF3 and MOH but the slower action pace and restrictive/lack of killcam stops how much it's highlighted. Halo def feels more immediately balanced in that regard but I guess it's a different breed of FPS with less chaos going on to crunch. As far as navigating mp goes, I've found using vertical ledges and crawl spaces works well as does having a rocket launcher for UAVs and enemy care drops. You won't stop them but the hit they do scores well into building a skillstreak. The only map I'm a bit cold to so far is Aftermath. Slums is good as is Meltdown and Cargo

[Uli]

Uli, you can have a bots-only experience in the custom game mode. Just tried it against some remedial-level bots so I could have a play with some of the high-end scorestreak rewards.

There's zero XP, not even a basic offline level up system like in the predecessor. it's fine to play this just for fun but it's ultimately a lazy and lackustre implementation.

but, oh well, nobody except for me and my buddies seems to care for this anyway so i take it whining about it wont do anything

[teddymeow]

I do enjoy going online and getting my ass kicked. Every. Single. Time.

I'm running 70meg Virgin fibre optic and the connection is bloody awful. Not to mention the whole "I defo shot you but apparently it doesn't matter as the system thinks you killed me first bollocks".

I'll finish the SP and flog this. Just makes me angry.