Dead.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 beta is out, which means I had to uninstall Bloodborne in order to download all 12GB of the FPS demo onto my PS4 (I ran out of storage space about 6 months ago; I should probably grab myself an external hard drive at some point so that I no longer have to keep deleting games I love). As someone who has owned every entry in the main Call of Duty series since Call of Duty 2, I have somehow managed to never become anything more than competent at its multiplayer. Considering it has largely retained the same gameplay formula since 2007, the onus is firmly on me that I have seen no dramatic improvement to my skill level, but just because my K/D ratio may not be exceptional doesn’t mean that I haven’t had fun with the series in the past. Unfortunately, the time I have spent with the Black Ops 3 beta has highlighted that I may have trouble mining as much enjoyment out of this game as I have previous iterations in the series.
Call of Duty matches typically fall into one of two categories: you either have a good game and you promptly decide that it is your favorite CoD game to date, or you have a bad game where you are stuck in a seemingly infinite loop of dying and respawning, with you then being left to question whether it’s too late to go back to the store from which you bought it and request a refund. There is little room for middle ground given the fast-paced nature of the game, in which there is no time to contemplate anything other than “I must run a full circle around the edge of the map shooting anything that moves with my sub-machine g-OH GOD I’M DEAD.” Unfortunately the Black Ops 3 beta has led me to believe that I will personally be spending more time in the latter camp this time around, with the game’s new additions greatly benefiting those who are already knowledgeable in the ways of Call of Duty, but negatively impacting upon the amount of fun that can be gleaned by those who typically spend more time dying than they do succeeding.
Me, dead.
This is still a beta, of course, so perhaps when the full game rolls around it will allow me to become a gun-slinging war machine, but I’m understandably doubtful that will be the case considering that in my last play session, which I endured about 5 minutes ago as I attempted to take screenshots of the game for this very article, saw me very loudly and very venomously cursing at my TV, adopting the faithful and thoroughly insincere viewpoint that my failings were as a result of the game being shit rather than my own considerable lack of skill. A key factor in this sudden spike in the game’s difficulty level is that it is now even more fast-paced and frenetic than before. Call of Duty has never exactly been subdued when it has come to its portrayal of war, with multiplayer battles foregoing methodical, thoughtful movement in favor of running head-first into life-threatening situations and shooting shit up, but this time around an even larger emphasis has been placed upon being movement speed and what that essentially means for people like me is that we’re dying faster than ever before.
With the new addition of wall running, enemies can now get the jump on you by utilizing shortcuts that wouldn’t have been possible to take before, leading to even more instances where you’re shot from behind. Given my lack of understanding in how to be good at CoD, it also means that whenever I personally try to wall run, I will be shot down almost immediately by the enemy team who all seemingly share a psychic bond with me and therefore know my position at all times, even if I personally don’t particularly know where I am. This led to a plethora of frustrating instances in which I was just trying to enjoy myself by bouncing along walls, only for me to be promptly shot down by a bastard Black Ops squad member.
Dead again.
The wall running now supplements the jetpack boosting, which has been carried over from Advanced Warfare but still doesn’t offer the freedom of movement as was displayed in Titanfall. In Titanfall, a game that I was actually rather good at, each map felt like a virtual playground in which you could explore as you saw fit. However, in the Black Ops 3 beta each map features invisible walls and objects that you’re simply not allowed to climb, even though your jetpack would allow you to do so. This is most apparent in the ‘Hunted’ map, in which there are steep rock formations that you could quite clearly traverse across but the game forbids you from doing so, and in which you’re also prevented from boosting onto rooftops. It makes the jetpack and wall running additions feel tacked-on – as though these maps were created without these features in mind. Couple that with each map shown in the beta only providing a handful of uses for these new methods of movement, and it makes them feel like incongruous additions with the rest of the game.
As such using these new mechanics feels somewhat alien, as though the game doesn’t particularly want you to use them but it has given you the means to do so anyway, in order to fill a checklist of what is expected from a new Call of Duty in a post-Advanced Warfare world. As previously mentioned, they still allow for a few shortcuts to be taken (in my case, mostly by the enemy team), but you’re still going to spend the majority of your time walking through the same corridors, trying to gain dominance in the same buildings and taking the same routes through each map, with there rarely being any need to boost or wall run your way around the map. It greatly inhibits this sense of freedom that the new movement options should really be granting the player, and makes these new additions feel superfluous rather than vital.
Here I am, just – oh no wait I’m dead again.
The other big new addition to the game are the Specialist classes, which aren’t quite the game-changers that you’d expect them to be, but are worthy inclusions nonetheless. Players now have the option to use the Unlock Tokens earned by playing the game’s multiplayer component in order to unlock new Specialist classes that each have their own unique abilities, with these abilities then unlocking periodically during a match in order to give you a tactical advantage. Each Specialist class has two abilities, though only one can be utilized during a game, with them ranging from momentary infrared vision that highlights any surrounding enemies in your vicinity, to a launcher that fires out three grenades at a time without needing to be reloaded. I spent much of my first half hour with the game attempting to use the ‘Gravity Spikes,’ an ability which allows you to kill any surrounding enemies by forcing said spikes into the ground (logistically I’m not sure how this works, but I’ll go with it), only to be shot down with every attempt). Each Specialist class is more well-equipped with dealing with certain game types, and while they don’t exactly provide the player with a huge edge that could aid them in their prospective victory, they’re enjoyable to use regardless.
The Black Ops 3 beta has made me skeptical regarding whether or not I’ll enjoy the finished product, but as this is coming from someone who is thoroughly mediocre in every aspect of the game, perhaps this will be good news for Call of Duty veterans who will perhaps be able to excel at it more so than they have any other CoD. Unfortunately, the beta suggests that it’s shaping up to be a grind for fairweather fans of the series, with it leaving me feeling cold and irritable after enduring countless deaths and defeats. I’m assuming it would be selfish of me to hope that developers Treyarch tailor their output to the needs of people who won’t play their game religiously for the next 12 months, but I’m hoping that the full release will at least feature maps that allow tactless players such as myself some breathing room before our corpses fall into a heap on the blood-stained floor.
