The annual franchise, that will always undoubtedly, gross more than some B-rated, and flops at the box office, Call of Duty returns. And as developers switch off each year, its Treyarch’s turn with, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Many fans clambered over the course of MW3 year long reign to fix multiple things and Treyarch, seemed more than willing to make them. The game was hyped, most from the robust YouTube community that was used early on to secretly give gamers hints at what would be in the game. For example, a possible joint venture between FPS Russia and WoodysGamertag, with the former using the quad rotor, which would be called Dragon Fire, in game, in one of his videos, and the latter, talking about it being connected to Black Ops 2. But lets move along to what your really here for.
Just as Treyarch is more known for having a story in their Call of Duty games, Black Ops 2 is no stranger to that. The story continues with Alex Mason, and him being thrust back into the duty after the events of Black Ops, and the rise of the main villain, Raul Menendez in the past. Additionally, it throws in Mason’s son, David, codename Section and him dealing with the angry Raul and his plans for domination of the World Powers, in the current times. The story is well done for a military epic, dealing with both the past and the present. Also, it explains quickly, how Woods survived his explosive encounter from the climax of Black Ops. The game throws tons of gunfire and enemies at you, at any given moment, which will frustrate anybody playing on the highest difficulty.
Each mission has a set of 10 challenges, which will throw a monkey wrench for those who love to platinum games. Some of the challenges range from what you’d normally do during the mission to, specifically using a certain weapon during a certain moment, or maximum effectiveness. As you progress, you’ll come across at least three missions, that’ll give you a commander’s seat to battles that will determine the path of the story. Also, during these missions, you can take charge, in the classic sense of Call of Duty by controlling one of the squads or one of the many mechanical units you have at your disposal. As those have bearing on the story as do choices throughout, that will determine, for the first time, multiple endings in the game. A different pace and storytelling for a Call of Duty game, but it’s nice, that Treyarch cares about their story mode, when most FPS just have gathered weird elements together for single player experience. 
Multiplayer is the main reason, why any and everybody will buy BLOPS 2, and the reason it grossed $500 million in just 24hrs. Treyarch has a tendency to listen to the community and fix what the masses has a gripe with from the previous game (Modern Warfare 3) and its own, Black Ops. Well… In my honest opinion, Treyarch did some things well, and the rest, well just fell flat. This could have been due to Activision, the publisher, rushing the product, and that may have been the cause of multiple systems, both PlayStation and Xbox, to crash or force restarts when the game freezes. Also, the graphics and textures are rather bland, and just blah. Treyarch did add more color schemes and are far from the bland and earthy tone of every level in Black Ops. Additionally, as you play, you’ll greatly and slowly realize, every level is huge, compared to both MW3 and BLOPS, and the small ones are just a cluster f*** of grenades, shock charges, bouncing betties, SMGs, and scorestreaks. Last gripe about BLOPS 2 multiplayer, every person favors the guns with higher rate of fire, so bring in the SMGs, and even if you get the drop on the person, lag compensation comes into play and you’ll be dropped, and they’ll get the kill.
But minus all that I have picked at, it does provide a great time when you play with friend or solo. Scorestreaks are the replacement of Kill Streaks, which, you get your extra fighting power by killing, capping, defending, and collecting tags. You get points, for everything, for instance, you kill a player you get 50pts, but if you get the tag, you get 100pts, so Treyarch, is making people play objectives. Treyarch has made some leaps on the field of fixing spawns that allow people to spawn trap or spawn kill. Although, domination is trap the other team first, but that’s understandable. Multiplayer rarely has any frame hiccups, when so much can be going on in either a 6-on-6 or even a ground war, team deathmatch game. I’m not going to say the game is completely balanced, but I will say, even for it being unbalanced, it’s still a great play. With intense firefights and close quarter, depending on the level, fighting. O, and before I forget, those who were lucky enough to preordered, anywhere, Nuketown is back, in its kill your K/D completely, with a few game modes attached to it besides, TDM, Kill Confirmed, and Search & Destroy.
The most evenly dispersed, you and your crew against the zombie horde moved to the 21st century, and it’s fun from start to finish. Zombie mode returns to bite you at every round, and the hidden story reveals continue from the previous games. It smooth, promotes cooperation between all players, awareness of your surroundings, and steady aim for smooth headshots. As you play in three modes, Tranzit, the story mode of Zombies; Survival, stay in one place, and fight to your heart’s content; and newly created, Grief, think, your group, against another group of human players, and the zombies, last team standing wins. The primary focus of Zombies is Tranzit, the story, finding clues and assembling the new play mechanic pieces ala Dead Island, to help counter the growing masses of zombies, as you travel via bus or foot, if you’re bold enough, run, from five different locations. The other two are self-explanatory from what I’ve told above. It’s still fun to play and find out if your friends would help you in dire straits. But Zombies isn’t perfect, the player characters constantly comment on various situational points, for example, running low on ammo. This’ll get annoying by round 7 or maybe round 1 if you’re doing the story elements. My last little thing about Zombies is be aware of the annoying, “O I took that zombies head off.” Only to be downed by a headless Zombie that’s still moving for only a few more seconds.
All in all, Black Ops 2, isn’t a horrible game. Or a game that should be thrown to the backseat of a car and driven off a cliff. It’s just a little broken, and there is no doubt in my mind, that Treyarch will slowly, but surely fix all the problems with the game, over the course of its life time. Which should top out around 3 years. The story mode for a FPS, well done, multiplayer, hell of a lot of fun, and action, but will make you rage, at least once or twice an hour. With Zombies being a shambling good time! I’m sorry I had to have a zombie joke, somewhere. If you’re a fan, go get it, you’re not, seriously keep your thoughts to yourself, unless someone asks, and if you’re indifferent, just play what you want. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, is a must have for those who love the game and know what they’re going to get out of it.