Unlike the rest of the sub-series in Call of Duty, Black Ops entries have been the most creative in terms of gameplay over the past 10 years. Original Black Ops had some curious gameplay ideas to enhance the narrative, the sequel is probably still the most choice/consequence heavy entry in the franchise and even the third game had some curious ideas, including the fact that your player character was fully customizable. So after the pretty and curious, but rather uneventful Modern Warfare (2019), I expected the singleplayer of Black Ops Cold War to be more exciting. And even more stupid. It delivered on both.
There’s something pleasantly arcade-like in how this game plays in comparison with Modern Warfare. Given how ridiculous the story is, it’s good that everything about the gameplay seems fittingly faster and over the top. It’s not like you can bunnyhop like it’s Quake, or that you have considerably more health than in its serious siblings of the franchise, but it’s far more open to letting you run across rooms, running and gunning and not sticking to cover every few seconds. And even the level design is sometimes more open, yet still more slick to allow for these stunts that in Modern Warfare get you killed immediately.
The story is expectedly stupid, but it’s entertaining. If you’ve played any of the previous Black Ops games, you can predict the story from the start, as they, sadly, pull the basically same plot twists every other game. But at the same time, at least the game doesn’t go too much into gory violence as it used to, instead keeping things more cartoonish. It’s hard to take it seriously, but it does its job. Plus, as expected from Black Ops by now, it allows for some variation depending on the player choice, including several game endings.
Overall, it looks nice, it plays nice and unlike Modern Warfare, at least for now, Activision didn’t sideline it in favor of something else that brings them more money. So it looks less pathetic in comparison. It’s a good fun silly FPS and if you like the extra modes, like the usual Zombie mode returning here, you’ll enjoy this game even more. Not a glowing recommendation, but as far as Call of Duty campaigns go, this one was really entertaining.