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Black Ops III: Initial Reviews


andy19

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I hate to say it, but given the abundance of positive reviews, with the amount of mXmbers who are getting the game, I might be inclined to possibly think about procuring it.

Of course I also say that every time...

 

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Call of Duty: Black Ops III deserves your time – take a day off work to play. With two campaigns, world-class online combat and a deep and passionate step forward with Zombies (not to mention the fantastic Dead Ops Arcade 2), there is something here for everyone.

  • Gamers' Temple - 95%

Black is indeed back, and it's bigger than ever.

  • Digital Chumps - 9.2/10

There are assumed expectations that some have about the impact of a CoD release in terms of how it will function, and that certain aspects will be tepidly developed. Black Ops III does its absolute best to quell those that only see this annual brand as a $60 online hype machine. From my few days with the game, it's clear that the time and effort spent on every main section was done equally. Each third not only holds it's own in terms of playability, but pushes past the two previous Black Ops releases with added depth and consistency. Is this the best CoD Campaign ever? I don't know, maybe one of the WWII era games holds that distinction. But it's close. Is this the best CoD MP ever? I don't know, maybe time will prove CoD 4 or Black Ops II stays at the top of that mountain. But it's close. Is this the best CoD Zombies mode ever? I don't know, it's honestly too early to definitively tell. But (you guessed it) it's close. So, the fact that this one Call of Duty is in contention with being mentioned around the top of each main gameplay section sets it apart from all others before. Which means its best aspect is value. Outside of the massiveness that will be Fallout 4, I can't imagine a game being a bigger bang for your buck this holiday. This game could retail for $80, and I would still be inclined to tell CoD, FPS, and action game fans alike to get it day one. At $60, it's almost too good to be true. Black Ops III is the deepest Call of Duty ever. That I do know.

  • GameTrailers – 9.2/10

The most robust offering in the franchise this generation.

  • Hobby Consolas - 91/100

The biggest, if not best, Call of Duty game yet. Black Ops 3 offers great multiplayer (with perfect balance in maps and weapons) and an ambitious campaign -sometimes confusing- with coop mode for 4 players. Zombies, Free Run mode, Nightmare mode and Dead Ops Arcade complete this experience, which seems too familiar for veteran players.

  • Meristation - 9/10

Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 offers the most complete and mature campaign we've seen to date, delivers a seamless multiplayer, and brings back the funny Zombies Mode, which this year comes with a lot of secrets and mysteries to uncover.

  • IGN Spain - 9/10

The biggest CoD game yet released. Three are its legs, and all of them are equally important. Maybe the campaign is the weakest leg and the multiplayer the strongest, but any of them is noteworthy.

  • ** Hardcore Gamer - 9/10**

Call of Duty: Black Ops III was created in a three-year development cycle and it shows. This is basically five standalone games wrapped into one deep package. While it will have DLC released for it, there’s enough content out of the box to keep players busy until the next Call of Duty and probably some time after that. The campaign is perfectly paced and entertaining throughout, the multiplayer is rich with customization and Zombies is refreshingly challenging. The only real black mark is a story teetering on the on the brink of pretension, but the existentialism of it is undeniably fascinating. Jam-packed with meaningful content, Black Ops III is the Call of Duty you’ve been waiting for.

  • Lazygamer - 9/10

In the end it is still Call of Duty and if you aren’t a fan of the run and gun mechanic then you are probably not going to be a big fan. However if you’ve ever enjoyed any Call of Duty game since World at War you are going to love this. Easily the best multiplayer I’ve experienced in years along with a strikingly unique single player campaign plus a bucket load of extras and a massive community to enjoy it with. You can’t go wrong picking it up this year.

  • WeGotThisCovered - 9/10

FANTASTIC With Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Treyarch has delivered a massive and feature rich shooter that offers nearly unparalleled value and replayability. It also happens to be the best Call of Duty game of this generation, and one of the best in general.

  • GameInformer – 9

Despite a campaign that struggles with occasional mundane shootouts that bring the out-of-this-world story down to earth, the overall Call of Duty: Black Ops III package is incredibly strong, with something for everyone. Whether you’re into traditional multiplayer mayhem or zombie survival, you’ve got lots of choices that are fun solo and even better with friends.

  • XGN - 9/10

Treyarch had some extra time to create Call of Duty Black Ops 3, and it is definitely noticeable within the game. All modes are worthy of playing and there is so much content to discover besides that. People will love playing Black Ops 3 for a long time to come.

  • Ausgamers – 8.8/10

Black Ops III might not be the absolute best Call of Duty experience ever, but it's certainly the biggest, and probably the most fun. It's the new gold standard for Treyarch too, the game that best shows off their strengths (and works around their weaknesses) as a studio. It's a weird, confident, fresh take on the Call of Duty formula, one that truly excels in online multiplayer but also manages to provide a campaign that's well worth playing through.

  • LaPS4 - 8.8/10

Black Ops 3 is three great games in one. The formula is enhanced to maintain the leadership in FPS. This Call of Duty has a few new ideas to feel surprisingly good, such as the co-op mode or the Specialists. The Campaign wants to provoke but it's too pretentious. The Multiplayer mode proves again that it is the king. And the Zombies mode gets the importance that fans were demanding. But overall, everything in this game is more conservative and cautious than we would expect from the wonderful Treyarch Studios.

  • Vandal Online - 8.7/10

Black Ops III is a game with a huge amount of content, and all of it is solid and well-developed. Again, we didn't enjoy the campaign as we used to do back in the day, but the zombie and the multiplayer modes can be the best ones we've played in a few years. If you've ever loved playing CoD online, this game can be the reason to come back or to keep on playing it.

  • 3DJuegos -8.5/10

Despite its innovations, Black Ops III doesn’t manage to surprise us. This new Call of Duty is a nice and solid videogame with an extraordinary multiplayer experience, but its single player-cooperative campaign is a weak one. Moreover, Black Ops III is the deepest Call of Duty ever.

  • Destructoid – 8.5/10

Charming - Not perfect, but it's easy to ignore the rough spots when faced with so many engaging design decisions and entertaining moments. A memorable game that's hard not to like and recommend to others.

  • Eurogamer Italy - 8/10

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is a well-paced game, but we feel that it's missing something to entirely accomplish its goal.

  • Gameblog.fr - 8/10

This new Black Ops is not a revolution in the series, but what it does it does really well.

  • The Escapist - 8/10

    Black Ops III has upped its game, giving exciting updates to the fan-favorite Zombies and the classic multiplayer, but the single player doesn't measure up to the same standard.

  • GamesRadar – 4/5

This massive, wonderfully diverse Call of Duty theme park is best enjoyed with a friend (or three). Going alone dampens the fun, but either way it's still worth the price of admission.

  • Everyeye.it - 8/10

It's more and more a saga that clings to its hardcore fans: the campaign feels somehow tired and overcomplicated, and the cooperative doesn't add a real challenge to the mix. On the other hand, Treyarch shows once more its unique ability to master the competitive multiplayer and fill it with content, with noteworthy resuslts.

  • Polygon – 7

At its heart, Black Ops 3's multiplayer is still very much Treyarch's take on Call of Duty. This means it's fun — Call of Duty and Black Ops found a basis for solid, competitive multiplayer that worked almost a decade ago, and it still resonates here and there. But I'm surprised by how familiar, how recognizable it all feels, which is even more disappointingly the case with its campaign. Black Ops 3's biggest point of recommendation may be the breadth of content there, and that's a valid point of view. But Treyarch doesn't meaningfully move the series forward here.

  • Gamespot – 7

In its undead modes, and the first 10 hours of multiplayer, it excels. But in its campaign, it merely crawls forward. Black Ops III doesn't offer anything remarkable to the series, but does just enough to maintain the Call of Duty status quo. The franchise, however slowly, continues its inexorable march.

  • Giant Bomb – 3/5

Perhaps some pockets of the still-large Call of Duty fanbase will enjoy different parts of it more than I did, but as I add it all up, Black Ops III is a pretty even mix of positive and negatives. It's OK.

  • EGM – 9.5

    • Good
    • More quality content than ever before crammed into a Call of Duty game.
    • Bad
    • Character development in campaign has a sharp drop off.
    • Ugly
    • Why hasn’t Activision announced a Call of Duty starring Jeff Goldblum yet?
  • JeuxActu - 9/10

    • Pros
    • Hollywood spectacle
    • Really impressive graphics!
    • Gargantuan content
    • All solo playable in co-op activities 4
    • Thoughtful Zombies modes
    • Excellent entertainment
    • Multiplayer always as complete and impressive ...
    • Cons
    • ... but a little too conservative
    • Scenario the single player campaign that feels drugs
    • AI pathfinding not always on top
    • The jetpack has disappeared from the single player campaign
    • Some framerate drops
  • PSX-Sense.nl - 9/10

    • Pros
    • Long campaign
    • Co-op
    • Atmosphere in Shadows of Evil
    • Music is phenomenal
    • Fine multiplayer
    • Interesting story ...
    • Cons
    • ... but too complicated
    • Cyber Cores hardly play a role
  • God is a Geek - 9/10

    • Pros
    • Incredible gunplay.
    • Multiplayer as good as ever.
    • Zombies is back, and much bigger
    • Cons
    • Campaign is a little confusing.
  • PlayStation Lifestyle – 9/10

    • Pros
    • Tons of content packed into one game
    • Easter eggs, secrets, and unlockables to keep players coming back
    • Dark and thought provoking narrative
    • Fun new flowing movement system in multiplayer
    • Rewards players and encourages continued play to get better
    • Cons
    • Occasional poor map design elements in multiplayer that don't telegraph where you can't traverse
    • The Call of Duty name means some will dismiss it without looking at the great game underneath
  • COGconnected - 8.7/10

    • Pros
    • Deep CoD experience
    • Interesting storyline
    • Multiplayer mayhem still solid
    • Multiple avenues of approach
    • Cons
    • Still a little too familiar
    • Multiplayer unforgiving
    • Exo mechanics gone
  • Multiplayer.it - 8.4/10

    • Pros
    • Double coop Campaign, Zombies, Multiplayer and more
    • Split screen in any mode
    • The movement system in Multiplayer
    • The nine specialists ...
    • Cons
    • ... But not all seem essential
    • Campaign standard has little bite and is narratively weak
    • Technically, with ups and downs
    • Very large maps but with unpleasant movement restrictions
  • SixthAxis – 8

    • Pros
    • Co-op play throughout the game.
    • Plenty of modes and hidden extras to play.
    • The biggest Zombie map yet.
    • Specialists add another layer to multiplayer.
    • Cons
    • Sometimes jarring checkpoints in co-op.
    • Unbalanced story can be difficult to follow.
    • Steep learning curve for Zombies.
    • Handful of invisible walls in online maps.
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What they are saying is true. It is very deep. I have only scratched the surface, but Zombies is a big indication of the development that went into the game. Zombies is Zombies, but there is a metric shit ton more to it. I dont want to spoil it for anyone, because when I experienced it I was like WTF? and you should have that moment as well.

The Campaign mode allows co-op and the game borrows from some successful entities in gaming and movies. I am at a point in the campaign where I am experimenting with Force like powers but think more Neo than Anakin in there application. Pretty cool stuff.

Online is also intense. You can run along the walls now and the maps are designed for you to take advantage of this and also engage in firefights whilst running along said walls. "Exosuit" has been tuned down, and Destiny type specializations have been implemented. You can select a player specialization that will give you a choice of two abilities that charge over time. Abilities like being able to warp time backwards for a brief moment, see enemies through walls, pull out a semi-automatic grenade launcher, etc. Its fast paced, like always.

More mXm on any game is always a good thing.

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