Game Review: Call Of Duty Black Ops Declassified

-Aaron Clark
Reviews Editor

Note: This review only covers the singleplayer.

Call Of Duty Black Ops Declassified is an unsuccessful attempt at trying to use the dual analog sticks and touch screen abilities of the Playstation Vita in order to create an averagely successful shooter with console quality gameplay on the powerful handheld. With many factoring problems such as awkward controls that could lead you to frustration and senseless artificial intelligence that could make you feel stupid make this one shooter that is very difficult to really get behind.

Story:

I would start off this review by talking about the story the only problem is there is no story or at least anything that would count as the story. Instead what we get are series of totally random events that take place between both the first and second games with recurring characters from each installment. These random events have no character development or built up to them and have little connection to previous games in the series and are nothing more than
totality random excuses for you to go out and kill whoever.

Rating: THERE IS NO STORY

These random events are nothing more than totality random excuses for you to go out and kill whoever.

Gameplay:

Not only is there no story but there is no campaign either and what we get in its place is the significantly bland Operations. Each level in Operations will give to you some typical shooter objective to try and complete such as simple things like destroy coding device and collecting enemy intel to more complex things like rescuing captured informants and providing sniper support. Despite the familiar objectives there are only ten levels to be
completed also each one only takes about five minutes and despite the short length this mode quickly becomes tedious.

Operations of course is not the only singleplayer experience there are some extra modes to play with. Time
Trails which lets you run through an obstacle course as fast as you can while shooting targets and Hostiles gives you the opportunity to hold out against endless wave of enemies for long as possible. These extra modes would be nice
singleplayer additions if it was not for the already incredibly dumb artificial intelligence and weak level design of the gameplay.

Rating: 2/5

Despite the familiar objectives and the short length Operations quickly becomes boring.

Design:

Moving your character and aiming your weapons is so awkward that it can make hitting your target even at close range very undoubtedly irritating to the point if you come within close proximity of an enemy and they are pointing their weapon at you and you are not already pointing your weapon at them could mean an instant death sentence. Also throwing grenades is incredibly frustrating as well they mostly never go where you aim them and good luck trying
to toss back an enemy grenade almost always it will find some way back to you no matter where you throw it and blow you into to smithereens. Despite the awkward controls using the touch screen for things like melee does feel pretty good sometimes though.

The artificial intelligence is so stupid you would be much better off playing against young children. The levels are so poorly designed that they fell more like multiplayer maps then campaign levels. The weapon design is alright but the aim assist does not always function properly and mix that with awkward controls can really rank up the frustration of trying to properly shoot anything.

Rating: 2/5

If you come within close proximity of an enemy and they are pointing their weapon at you and you are not already pointing your weapon at them you are going to die fast.

Presentation:

The level detail is decent and character models look alright but the entire thing looks like something that is running directly on the PS2. The voice actors from previous installments return and do an excellent job while the entire music score is also from previous games. The sound effects are very good but the overall sound quality itself is kind of poor. Things like the frame rate and draw distance fell alright while the load times between the
menus and the gameplay are slow.

Rating 3/5

The entire game looks like something that is running on the PS2.

Final Verdict:

Call Of Duty Black Ops Declassified is an ineffective effort at attempting to bring the successful shooter franchise to the proficient handheld. Playstation Vita is more than capable at preforming this task if only the developers who implement the effort.  Not just only is this one of the weakest shooters in the entire genre but it is defiantly also one of the weakest installments in the entire franchise and is one call really not worth making.

Final Rating: 2/5

This is one call really not worth making.

I actually fell really sorry for anyone who actually bought the Playstation Vita that came bundled with this game.

worst game bought