This week, Activision, Treyarch, and a whole lot of Xbox 360 sponsorship revealed the upcoming multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Literally. It's been streaming all freaking week. I've seen more Call of Duty multiplayer in the past three days than I've seen for any Call of Duty title before release.
Here are five things that makes Black Ops 2 the most exciting Call of Duty in decades. Wait… you mean this series hasn't been around for over 20 years? It feels like we've had 30 or 40 games in the ser– You know, forget it, here's the list:
Pick 10 System
I don't know about you, but I'm far too clumsy to switch to my sidearm when my rifle runs out of ammunition. I totally suck at Call of Duty. Anyway, the Pick 10 System allows people like me to load up perks instead of equipment, equipment instead of perks, umm… different stuff!
Regardless of what I'll do with it, Pick 10 means some wildly different playstyles with wildly customized classes. Black Ops 2 will not suffer from the "everyone picks famas because that's the best gun" like Black Ops 1 did.
Shoutcasting, eSports I Guess
Frankly, I'm not the Call of Duty player the eSports thing is aimed at. That stuff is about maintaining long-term players, the gamers who'll sit down and religiously play Black Ops 2 every day until the next Call of Duty comes out. They exist you know. They're scary as all hell.
That doesn't mean that this isn't going to make the game better. Hopefully, with the increased focus on people watching, we won't get any more of the terrible Call of Duty Elite programming. Again, I'm not the person for this feature set, but I guarantee that there are a ton of folks out there who will be supremely pleased with the ease of use it offers.
There are already people streaming Call of Duty gameplay at all hours of the day, everyday. This makes it easier which therefore means that it'll be more widely used, creating even more visibility for the brand.
New Attachments And Equipment
Honestly, the modern era is totally tapped out in terms of material. Black Ops was really just another near-modern shooter. Every killstreak and piece of equipment was a an amalgam of what was already in Modern Warfare or might eventually be in MW3. Crazy scanner sights? Target finders? Little mini helicopters?! HOLY CRAP.
At the very least, a new era has been exciting for the developers to work in. Hopefully, that excitement has translated into plenty of originality and a healthy dose of balancing. The more fun developers have with their own game, the more they'll play it and squeeze the bugs and balancing issues out early.
I certainly wish we could have a beta or demo, but that seems unlikely.
New Modes
Multi-team deathwatch? Sounds cool. Hardpoint? Any change on the Headquarters formula is fine by me. Let's keep those new modes coming. The reality is that the most entertaining mode in Call of Duty anymore is Team Deathmatch, and that's just for the sheer simplicity of it.
My point is that there's actually some changes in the playlist at launch. What's more, the community doesn't have to come up with it. The return of wager-style matches, like GunGame and One in the Chamber, are a welcome sight too. Well, not sight but they've said that those modes are returning so, yay.
Leagues
This is really, in my mind, the single biggest addition to Black Ops 2's multiplayer mode. Halo has had Ranked matches for quite some time, even running qualifying rounds for an entire season of multiplayer. Call of Duty didn't need the eSports angle to bring this into the formula. It was desperately needed for some time now.
Throughout this entire article I've mentioned how I'm terrible at Call of Duty. Of course, when you only play infrequently and have matchmaking that consistently sets you against 40-hour-a-week experts who spawn trap you and never let you play more than 30 seconds a life… the game tends to not be fun.
Near release, I'll play enough to keep up with the middle-tier of players. Several months later, maybe I'll get matched up with people who just bought the game.
If you've been watching any of the gameplay this week or if you've got a mild interest in Call of Duty, let us know what the most appealing change Black Ops 2 is making to the formula.
