Treyarch, you've outdone yourself again. But I'm afraid that I can't accept excuses this time.
I loved the previous two Black Ops games. Their connection to World at War and each other made for an amazing trilogy in a Call of Duty game, the gameplay itself was fun, and the zombies mode held up (Mostly).
Now, we're at Black Ops 3. Three years after the second Black Ops game was released, I was actually excited to have one of my favorite actors (Christopher Meloni) in the game. As a voice actor, he's surprisingly good. But the rest of the selection, especially your mission partner, seems like an absolute mess of A and B-list celebrities that would only make sense for their cameos.
I'll give credit where it's due: Robert Picardo and Nolan North were amazing, as were the actors in Zombies. But the campaign is where I want to focus: To call it a Black Ops game makes it feel disconnected from the rest of the timeline that you built up. Without going into the browser for extra lore, just throwing out Nova 6 and Raul Menendez does not make a Black Ops game. Additionally, the choices of Sean Douglas, Ben Browder and Katee Sackhoff were anywhere between not-so-decent and absolutely terrible.
Sean "Jacob Hendricks" Douglas was stilted and flat in nearly every bit of dialogue he had. There was only one line I actually liked. "Uh, I didn't do that." Ben Browder's a great actor, no questions asked. But I don't think he's meant for voice, unless he gets practice. Katee Sackoff sounded flat through half the game, like she needed less punctuation in her dialogue.
Also, there are still typos everywhere in the campaign subtitles.
All in all, gameplay holds up, Campaign story feels disconnected, improvements on Multiplayer, and the zombies mode has gotten far more contrived than I'd like. 6/10.
I loved the previous two Black Ops games. Their connection to World at War and each other made for an amazing trilogy in a Call of Duty game, the gameplay itself was fun, and the zombies mode held up (Mostly).
Now, we're at Black Ops 3. Three years after the second Black Ops game was released, I was actually excited to have one of my favorite actors (Christopher Meloni) in the game. As a voice actor, he's surprisingly good. But the rest of the selection, especially your mission partner, seems like an absolute mess of A and B-list celebrities that would only make sense for their cameos.
I'll give credit where it's due: Robert Picardo and Nolan North were amazing, as were the actors in Zombies. But the campaign is where I want to focus: To call it a Black Ops game makes it feel disconnected from the rest of the timeline that you built up. Without going into the browser for extra lore, just throwing out Nova 6 and Raul Menendez does not make a Black Ops game. Additionally, the choices of Sean Douglas, Ben Browder and Katee Sackhoff were anywhere between not-so-decent and absolutely terrible.
Sean "Jacob Hendricks" Douglas was stilted and flat in nearly every bit of dialogue he had. There was only one line I actually liked. "Uh, I didn't do that." Ben Browder's a great actor, no questions asked. But I don't think he's meant for voice, unless he gets practice. Katee Sackoff sounded flat through half the game, like she needed less punctuation in her dialogue.
Also, there are still typos everywhere in the campaign subtitles.
All in all, gameplay holds up, Campaign story feels disconnected, improvements on Multiplayer, and the zombies mode has gotten far more contrived than I'd like. 6/10.