Call of Duty: Black Ops emerges across all the doubts surrounding the Activision/Infinity Ward company that took place back in March 2010, in which many speculated about an inevitable fall from grace for the Call of Duty franchise. Beside that the hard work behind the doors at Treyarch proved that they could bring the franchise to bigger and better heights, although the risk of stepping away from the path, particularly in terms of storytelling, the story still has plenty of the blockbuster elements that the franchise is known for, and manages a much more intelligent light since it's not just the typical action for action's sake type of game.

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, Alex Mason, fighting in a variety of historically representative fictional Black Ops missions of the Cold War era. The story has a well-written narrative and the main character has more vocal presence than any previous Call of Duty. It's also clear a good balance between set piece moments as well, the bigger cinematic approach and the addition of a few cutscenes, rather than having dialogue throughout loading screens manage to improve the gaming experience, beside that the graphics are pretty decent.

The campaign mode is roughly a 7-8 hours thrill, and although the campaign doesn't support co-op play, there is the zombie mode which does, even though fighting off the walking dead can be fun alone, it's way better with up to four players.

Apart from the singleplayer, the multiplayer component had its fair share of alterations. The most evident is the new currency upgrade system, this new method allows players to earn "COD" points in addition to experience points during matches, which gives players a level field by having all perks and attachments available for purchase at the start. Also, once you've unlocked the appropriate categories through ranking up, you can acquire any kill streak reward you wish or invest in an insane amount of customization options.

There is also a new Combat Training simulator, allowing practice in Free-For-All or Team Deathmatch modes against AI opponents. If that wasn't enough, Treyarch even included an in-depth Combat Record to give a detailed look at how your multiplayer stats break down. It includes everything from kill/death ratio graphs, individual weapon stats, to heat maps that show the main spots of activity.

Overall, the campaign is thrilling from beginning to end, the competitive multiplayer is as addictive as ever, and there are plenty of zombies to be slaughtered for all the co-op players.

75/100