Call of Duty: Black Ops

by ACTIVISION

Product Features

• Wide array of play modes including single player, local multiplayer versus and online co-op and multiplayer
• Seventh installment of the Call of Duty series, based on the live fire conflicts of the Cold War era
• Diverse variety of play setting ranging from urban air and ground combat in SE Asia, to snow combat in Soviet region and jungle combat
• Blending of traditional COD, and new first-person character scenarios designed to both retain the essence of the COD gaming experience and ensure constantly flowing and varied action
• New arsenal of weapons and vehicles tied to the Cold War era, including the SR-71 Blackbird and sighted explosive-tipped crossbows

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B003JVF728
• Item Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: November 9, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (409 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,032 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #11 in Video Games > PC Games > Action > Shooter
  • #94 in Video Games > PC Games > All Games

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Standard

Amazon.com Product Description

Call of Duty: Black Ops is a first-person shooter with stealth and tactical play aspect that puts players in the role of a shadow soldier fighting in a variety of historically representative fictional Black Ops missions of the Cold War era. Created with the input of actual Black Ops soldiers from the time, the game mixes traditional Call of Duty tactical shooter gameplay with new gameplay options designed to expand the players' experience. Additional features include extensive multiplayer options, along with new vehicles and explosive new weapons. Putting Out the Hotspots of the Cold War Follow-up to 2009’s blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops breaks new ground in the Call of Duty series and the video game industry at large by delving into the not-so cold conflicts of the Cold War. Relive the Cold War COD style. View larger. Inspired by the experiences of real Black Ops soldiers of the era, the missions of Call of Duty: Black Ops take the player to a wide variety of settings, ranging from snowbound mountain strongholds in historical Soviet held territories, to the jungles and urban settings of Vietnam War era SE Asia. Throughout all, care has been taken to maintain the traditional essence of Call of Duty style combat, while also introducing new types of player action that add to the gameplay experience. Additional features include co-op, versus and team-based multiplayer options, new vehicles like the SR-71 Blackbird and lethal new weapons such as explosive-tipped crossbows. Key Game Features Seventh installment of the Call of Duty series, based on the live fire conflicts of the Cold War era. Diverse variety of play setting ranging from urban air and ground combat in SE Asia, to snow combat in Soviet region and jungle combat. Blending of traditional COD, and new first-person character scenarios designed to both retain the essence of the COD gaming experience and ensure constantly flowing and varied action. New arsenal of weapons and vehicles tied to the Cold War era, including the SR-71 Blackbird and sited explosive-tipped crossbows. Wide array of play modes including single player, local multiplayer versus and online co-op and multiplayer. 3-D Game Features Fully playable in stereoscopic 3D: the game will be compatible with 3D-ready HDTVs and 3D PCs utilizing state-of-the-art active shutter 3D glasses, delivering true depth of field and an unprecedented level of immersion that is perfectly suited for the Call of Duty action experience. Awesome 3D experiences: aim down the sights of your weapons, fly in helicopters, rappel down mountains, move through highly detailed environments and more. The experience is seamless to use with a simple menu option to enable stereoscopic 3D or disable it at any time whether playing in the single player campaign, multiplayer or Zombie mode. Playable in both 3D and non-3D on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Call of Duty: Black Ops for Windows PC is NVIDIA(R) 3D Vision(R)-Ready and supports stereoscopic 3D gaming using 3D Vision active-shutter glasses and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.   For Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system consoles, 3D features require a compatible 3D-ready HD TV. Additional Screenshots: Variety in gameplay action. View larger. COD style multiplayer. View larger. Diverse play settings. View larger. Cold war themed action. View larger.

Product Description

The newest installment in the biggest action series of all time and the follow-up to last year's blockbuster Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops launches on November 9, 2010.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

248 of 286 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Technical problems make this game fall flat., November 10, 2010

By 

C. Ryll Keller - See all my reviews

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Call of Duty: Black Ops (DVD-ROM)

Want to know the word that sums this game up in a nutshell? I'll give it to you: Stutter.

I have a fairly midrange system consisting of an AMD X2 7750BE, Radeon 4850, and 4 gigs of RAM. Since my PC exceeds the recommended system requirements, one would assume that I would be able to run the game. Not a chance. Both the singleplayer and multiplayer aspects of the game are COMPLETELY DOMINATED by stutter, regardless of the fact that I've either turned down or turned off every imaginable graphics setting to alleviate the problem.

Confused about what stutter is? Imagine watching a movie and having it freeze for a half second every three seconds. The movie plays as smooth as silk; it just freezes a little every three seconds. Would be frustrating, wouldn't it? You'd probably get a headache around five minutes; maybe leave the movie after ten, wouldn't you? Well, imagine purchasing this game and playing it. That's what's gonna happen to you. Constant, constant stuttering to the point you want to wring the neck of whoever was in charge of QA at Treyarch.

Really, it's obvious that the team at Treyarch does not care about the PC demographic, because I find it hard to believe that such a fundamental problem would get past quality control. Maybe they don't even have quality control for their PC ports.

Think it's just me and every other idiot writing a 1-star review? Google "black ops stutter". You'll stand corrected.

I already bought the game, and now I'm...meh, "paying" for it. Don't be an idiot like me. Be an informed and smart consumer; do not purchase this game unless you enjoy playing half-baked, stutter-strewn videogames that don't deserve to be put on the market.

EDIT ON 11/14/2010

OK, I've bumped this game up to three stars from one because, as other people have noted both in comments and other reviews, Treyarch released a patch on Thursday that DID fix the stuttering problem.

And because the stuttering was fixed, I have had the opportunity to play through both multilplayer and singleplayer and can safely say that there is a phenomenal game that is buried underneath a myriad of technical problems (more, unfortunately, on that later). I don't want to dedicate a large portion of this edit to a review of everything the game has gotten right simply because such reviews already exist. I will say this though: This game has either met or exceeded the standards set by past shining entries of the Call of Duty franchise from a cinematic, gameplay, and narrative perspective.

However, from a technical standpoint, the game is still an utter failure. While playing through singleplayer, I made it a point to enable a value in my configuration file that allowed me to measure the amount of Frames Per Second (fps) my computer was rendering. For the people that don't know what fps is, fps is a measurement of how smoothly the game is running (laymen's explanation). A low fps means that the game will run more choppy, whereas a high fps means that the game will run more smoother. Anything below 30 is considered unplayable, anything around 30 is considered barely playable, and anything near or above to 60 is considered quite smooth.

With those definitions in mind, throughout the entire singleplayer campaign, my fps never exceeded 60, and it often dropped below 30, particularly when it mattered most: in firefights and heavy action sequences. If I were to give a range, it would be about 25-45.

It was very frustrating. I found myself aiming from the hip because I couldn't track targets correctly aimed down the sight, and hanging back rather than rushing into the action. There were times where there was a really cool cinematic event that was flat-out ruined by the fact that the game was running like a slideshow. And as with the stuttering problem, I encountered low fps regardless of my graphical settings. I tested on three levels what I'm about to say: There was no discernible gain or loss of fps between two sets of settings of 16x AA, 16x AF, and a 1920x1080 resolution, and 0x AA, 0x AF, and an 800x600 resolution. This is on a PC that can run any other Call of Duty game at over 100 fps.

These fps problems carry into multiplayer as well, the part of the game where its absolutely vital to have over 60fps. Since this part of the review is, I must confess, absolutely heartbreaking for me (I played cod4 professionally), permit me to sum it up with one statement: Unless you have a high-range machine, you'll always be playing at around 30-40 fps. For me, at least, that is unacceptable.

Amazon defines a 3 star review of a product as one that is simply "OK". Nearly everything about the game is fantastic; the intriguing narrative, the cinematic feel, the tight feeling of the controls, and the improved multilayer, among other things. Yet, despite all of the awesome elements of this game, the problems with low fps served to consistently shatter the fantasy, turning a heart-racing, breathtaking global trot into a walk that was simply OK.

195 of 237 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pure Crap!!!, November 10, 2010

By 

Richard J. Method II - See all my reviews

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Call of Duty: Black Ops (DVD-ROM)

I wish, oh boy do I wish, that there was a way to flag this review with 0 stars. Yes. It sucks that much.

As a computer programmer, I know how important it is to make a first impression with your project. Whoever approved this game for launch should be fire immediately. I mean that.

The lagging. The pausing. The crashing. The . . everything technical about this game just sucks. I'm at a complete loss at how this game was approved for release. Maybe after one or two patches have been released it may be playable, but now, no way.

Save your money and wait. If you don't believe me, Google "call of duty black ops PC issues" and be prepared to read a lot.

122 of 147 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars FAILURE and I'm out $60 - STAY AWAY, November 10, 2010

By 

S. Solace (Reno, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Call of Duty: Black Ops (DVD-ROM)

If you wander to Activision's Support website it seems that their #1 reply to problems is that even though there are "Minimal System Requirements", many of our systems are TOO GOOD for Black Ops.

Most of the suggestions are to TURN EVERYTHING DOWN. I was almost expecting to see the suggestion to use a monochrome monitor! We're told to cut down screen resolution size, turn off textures, cut down sound rates and more ... wow!

For now, SAVE your $60.00 and wait until they get this stuff FIXED or just pass on this title to tell Activision we are not just open wallets. If I would have beta tested this game or played a demo, I would not have purchased it.

Here is what I've seen so far:

I finished the single player in about 5 hours ... all run-n-gun with zero tactics. You never get to enjoy what there is of the map graphics and are constantly blinded by the white screen flashes between game sequences. You do get to pilot a boat and copter, while the SR77 flight is ... is ... ah, useless? I agree with a few other reviews in that the AI is STUPID.

Multiplayer:

- LAG LAG LAG, Stutter~Stop, and more issues. Activate the in-game Lagometer and you will see in the lower green bar (not giving all the technical terms here) the lost and fragmented packets ... red can be stated as "lost" or like an interrupted connection, yellow = fragmented or incomplete. I monitored the packets using tools I have and they are a MESS. That green bar should be as fast, skinny, and steady as possible. No spikes, surges, or color changes.
- CPU Load in ALL cores of over 70+% (completely inefficient on my overclocked AMD Phenom II X4) with it sometimes loading all cores to 100% and minimal GPU load at all. (plus the game is not properly coded for multi-GPU)
- HACKS HACKS and MORE %$#*&@# HACKS already! People are already claiming they hack because the game sucks, or that they do so to offset the lag. The usual excuses on an FPS where the developer and all their claims to creating a cheat-free game are LIES!
- Graphics are OK (if you like games prior to Modern Warfare 2, and NOT the quality of detail from say a developer like Crytek), but no better (or possibly worse in many areas) than MW2. I expected something at least as good as Far Cry or Crysis graphics with explosions and such doing residual damage, not just new maps on top of old code (OK, yes they did tweak the code for multi-core CPUs). Even the bullet holes, fire (flames), and the movable objects (cans, tires, etc) are better in MW2 ... and I'm VERY surprised by that! The big explosions are in the advertising videos and not actual game-play.
- I have NO clue what is up with their range on Mouse Sensitivity .... but it is screwed up. I have to have it nearly OFF or the mouse rate is insane.
- Frame Rate (FPS) cap is at 60 FPS !?! ... As you may or may not know, MW2 is capped at 90 FPS, and with say CoD4 I was able through tweaks and configurations setting to achieve 400-500 FPS average. I have not been able to get beyond 80 FPS bursts with this game, usually hovering at 70-75 FPS, and it shows negatively in the smoothness of game play. That includes a variety of tweaks and testing to even get 80 FPS!
- Your own footsteps sound like someone is walking behind you and that they are not your own steps. A good 5.1 digital head set and you can hear how bad it really is.

By news reports there are changes being applied at the server level, but so far nothing at the PC client. Treyarch and Activision, ... can I have my $60 back now please, consider it a deposit for Beta testing your work? Maybe you can get a commission from the jerks selling the game hacks for your titles to make up for refunding me? You are FORCED to go through Steam, and dedicated servers are contracted ONLY with Gameservers. Steam claims to remove cheaters, but I've yet to see them ever ban an account for cheating (other than those that were banned mistakenly).

Above is the short list of issues ... you have a $60 expansion pack to MW2 with dedicated servers and horrendous, surging lag, and already an infestation of hackers.

I agree with other reviews that I expected a MUCH BETTER game from Treyarch. STAY AWAY until these greedy developers and merchandisers (publishers) provide something of quality again.

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