Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (PS4/XB1)

[Retro STrife]

I haven't played a Call of Duty game since way back around 2007 or so, with the classic - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. But Fortnite got me all caught up in the new Battle Royale craze, and that landed Black Ops 4 on my radar. I was planning to catch up on a backlog of games this past weekend, but then I saw Black Ops 4 plastered on a Redbox at my local gas station, and that was all the marketing I needed to fork over $7 for a 3-day rental. I probably haven't rented a game in over 10 years either...

I had fun with it for the weekend, but I can't really recommend it. Black Ops 4 has no single player mode... it's all about multiplayer. There are three main modes: (1) traditional COD multiplayer with deathmatches and whatnot, (2) a cooperative mode against AI zombies, and (3) the new Blackout mode (COD's version of battle royale). The traditional COD deathmatch multiplayer is still good, but it seems like it's become overly complicated since the Modern Warfare days. I guess you have to get more complex to avoid being called "stale", but that doesn't make it better, and all deathmatch shooters feel stale to me these days anyway. (I even bought Overwatch recently and I'm already bored with it after about 5 hours of play).

The Blackout mode is decent enough, especially if you can get a good team to play with. It's probably the 3rd best battle royale game out there, after PUBG and Fortnite. It's solid all around -- completely ripping off the PUBG/Fortnite formula and placing it in the shiny COD engine -- but it's still missing that certain something that makes Fortnite so special and entertaining. COD isn't stealing any crowns from PUBG or Fortnite here. One major negative is that the progression system is absolutely terrible... you don't make much progression unless you get a ton of kills, but battle royale should be focused on survival rather than kills. Black Ops 4 also relies heavily on microtransactions, although I'm not sure if they're just cosmetic or if they effect the gameplay (didn't look into it far enough). Either way, Fortnite does its progression much better, so that's yet another reason not to abandon it in favor of Black Ops 4.

Black Ops 4 has gotten decent reviews so far, with an 85 out of 100 on Metacritic, and many reviews have said that it doesn't need a single player campaign because there's so much to do here. I disagree -- at $60, Black Ops 4 lacks the the substance and longevity that I would need to justify the purchase. I'm glad I only paid $7 for it. I would have spent more time with it if I owned it, but I won't miss it. Based on my time with it, I'd give it a C-.

[GameOfThrones]

It sounds like Battlefield 1. 70Gb of I am not playing this game as it is MP only. MP only games are ones I keep away from. I do not buy them, I do not play them. I learned by lesson with ESO

Thanks for the warning but I played blops 3 and that was a turkey as such I do not need another 1.