CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS

         Hi, it’s Hunter again. Sorry about not having posted in a long time, but being stuck in school and other stuff really takes up your time. Not to mention being addicted to Black Ops amazing multiplayer. Black Ops has an amazing online multiplayer. The kill streaks are creative and fun to use. There are kill streaks ranging from three to eleven kills. But there’s nothing like getting a nuke like people did in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The best kill streak is a gunship. Where you control an attack helicopter and where it goes and where it fires. But, like in modern warfare there are UAVs called spy planes and counter UAVs called counter-spy planes. There are also attack helicopters, care-packages, sentry guns, and chopper gunners like in Modern Warfare 2. But I like Black Ops’ kill streaks better than the ones in Modern Warfare.  The RC-XD is a miniature remote control car that explodes when you command it to. It’s an easy to get yet fun kill streak.  But to other players it’s a cheap kill. SAM turrets are a good kill streak to have. They shoot down any enemy aircraft except for a Blackbird, which is a UAV that always tells the enemy position and which way the enemy is facing. A SAM turret gets you a lot of points and allows you to have an actual sidearm instead of having to pull out the LAW or some other kind of rocket launcher. But I think Treyarch should have given shotgun side arms. Now they are a primary weapon, so the only option is to have a pistol or a ballistic knife (which is a pair of knifes and one of them actually shoots the blade out.) or a crossbow (which is obviously a crossbow, but its tip explodes after you fire it) Anyways, there are other types of kill streaks, air strikes such as, Napalm strikes which lays down fires onto a set pint on the map, Mortar strikes where you pick three areas on the map to be bombarded with mortar bombs. There is also an 8 kill streak which is a valkyrie rocket, which is a guided missile you control and it shows the enemies on the map. It’s similar to a predator missile except you shoot 2 and they come from you on ground level. The other kill streak is attack dogs which you call in after 11 kills and dogs spawn from various points on the map and kill enemies. But, dogs can be killed, they may not count as a kill in team death match or free-for-all but it gives them 30 points for killing them. Now, onto perks, the new perk set-up I think is better than the one in Modern Warfare 2. The blue perks are Lightweight (faster run) which you start out with, Ghost (which is like cold blooded), Scavenger (scavenge ammo), Flak Jacket (which allows you to take more damage from just about anything), and finally Hardline (which allows you 1 less kill for a kill streak) The red perks are Hardened (which is like having FMJ, and you start out with this perk) Scout (gives you longer held breath when firing a scoped weapon) Steady Aim (which gives you increased aim when firing from the hip) Sleight of Hand (faster reload) and Warlord (which is Bling, it allows you to have two attachments) The green perks are Tactical Mask (which protects you from Nova gas you get this as a starting perk as well) Marathon (which allows you to run for a longer duration) Ninja (which allows you to run without being heard) Second chance (which puts you on the ground after being shot only equipped with a pistol to return fire but only for 10 seconds) and Hacker (it allows you to see enemy equipment) I love the new title and emblem set up. You create your emblem by buying pictures and setting them into place and changing the color. There are not as many titles though. But many of them are cool looking. You must buy these with COD points just like you do everything in multiplayer. I like this system better because then you don’t have to complete achievements for attachments on guns.

                But, before you play online I suggest you play its AMAZING campaign.  You play as a man named Mason who is part of a special operation named Black Ops, which is a group that goes behind enemy lines and risks their lives to find any information about the enemy. In the game you were captured and are being interrogated by some people. You are asked to recall the events of the Cold War. In these memories you play as Mason through escape, battles, and search and destroy missions. You also play as other characters, who are trying to capture Mason because he has become a mad man. The Russians have brainwashed Mason to try and get him to kill the president of the United States John F. Kennedy. They transmit numbers into your head, which you see throughout the campaign many, many times. Later in the campaign you find out you’ve been brainwashed and you go out to find where these numbers are being transmitted from. There you end the Cold War by blowing up the headquarters of the enemy. This campaign is very action packed and has a mission for everyone to love. When you finish the campaign, it will take you to zombies.

                I don’t like zombies like everyone else seems to. I guess it’s because I’m not very good at it. I think it’s very hard. You really need three or more people to play because it’s so hard. I love Left 4 Dead, and I love the idea of killing zombies. But I don’t like this one. There seems to be too much stuff to do. You’ve got to find things, set blockades, and MOW through many waves of zombies. But I’m also not the person to talk to about zombie gaming considering I haven’t played that many zombie games. But I did love the arcade mode. I thought that was hilarious. If you haven’t heard of it, when you are at the main menu you press the triggers rapidly and then you get up from you chair, and behind your chair there is a computer and you type in this code. “3ARC UNLOCK” This code works for all systems but I’m unsure of how you get up from your chair on PS3 and Wii. I know that rapidly pushing the triggers gets you up from your chair on Xbox 360 though. Thank you for reading this, and being patient for this review.

EVERYTHING ABOUT COD BLACKOPS

http://www.cod7blackops.com/

XCOM

            This is the newest writer of the C.I.F.A. team, Hunter. You may have never heard of XCOM, but it’s a series of games created from 1993 to 2001. If you don’t want to hear about the history of these games or already know what they are scroll down to where you’ll see a **** before the paragraph about the newest XCOM game.

They were a series of alien fighting games. These were mostly RTF styled, for the exception of XCOM Inceptor, and XCOM Enforcer. These were all made for PCs but, a few of them were made for Amiga PC and the original Playstation. The first of the series was U.F.O. Enemy Unknown. This game came out in 1994. In the game there were supposedly U.F.O. sightings all around the world, as well as abductions, and attacks on humans. You play as a team called X-COM (Extraterrestrial Combat Unit) they were formed by the most powerful nations in the world to deal with the attacks of extraterrestrial life. At the beginning of the game you immediately start to run XCOM. Throughout the game you learn about the aliens, their species, subspecies, and their technology. The aliens were controlled by mega-minded Ethereals, which were based on Mars. You must take the battle to mars to end the attacks on the human race.

The next game came out in 1995, it was called XCOM: Terror From The Deep. This was set in 2040; a new alien life spawns from the Earth’s own waters. Once again you play as XCOM, but the battles of alien versus man are taken underwater. There are occasions on which you submerge back to the surface. This is when the aliens attack on the shore. The player eventually wins the war over the alien menace.

XCOM Apocalypse was the third game of the series. This game was published in 1997, set in 2090. This game is about the several new cities formed to inhabit human kind. Another new kind of alien has been discovered, they were of no relation to the previous alien attackers. It is also discovered that they have enslaved another kind of alien. These aliens are sent through portals to attack the cities of humans. The main city of the game (and the one you follow) is called Mega-Primus. You play as XCOM (yet again) but this time it has been re-established by the city of Mega-Primus to fight off the newest alien attacks. Throughout the game XCOM tries to find a way to get to the base of these aliens, so they can take the war there.

The other two, as I had already mentioned, are different in that they are not RTF styled. The fourth game is Interceptor. In Inceptor, you play in a spacecraft war against yet, again, alien life. The year is 2067; Earth’s resources are slowly being used up. The companies, that supply these resources, quickly look up to the stars. When up there they find old, old enemies, the menace from the first alien war. The player manages XCOM during this war for resources and survival, while also battling in spacecraft.

Finally the last of the old series was, XCOM Enforcer. This game was created in 2001; the game is set in the first alien war. Professor Able Standard is creating a robot for XCOM, to help defeat the alien menace. Unfortunately, XCOM cut budget and had to cancel this project. Professor Able Standard did not stop with the project though. He secretly created this robot warrior in Nevada’s deserts. He completes his project and releases the machine onto the alien attackers. Throughout the game the player plays as the robot warrior and blows through the alien fleets. Professor Standard finds the alien mother ship, and sends his creation through a portal to destroy the aliens at the source.

****

The new game coming out in the series is being created by the great minds that created Bioshock 2. This game is set in the 1950’s and you are William Carter, an FBI agent sent by XCOM to find out why a distresses call was sent in to XCOM. You and your colleagues hear a scream from a nearby house while they’re going down the road. They find a slimy black trail heading to the cry of terror. They arrive to a man lying on the floor, dead you get a picture to take back to base for research. This isn’t like any alien the human race has ever known. In this first person shooter you do missions across the U.S. These missions range from things such as gathering evidence to battle the alien slime. Choose your missions wisely as when you do a mission others may be gone when you go back to base. The great part about the missions, are that you can retreat from it. You just have to make it back to your car and flee. This isn’t just a free-for-all type of game either. You the player need to take consideration into things. Think about the game instead of just shooting everything you see. Doing this will, help you throughout the game, because it may help you notice something and get some information. This will help you unlock a new weapon, find out their weakness, or even find out where they come from. The weapons in the game video look great. In the video, when you shotgun blast the black gooey enemy, they scatter all over. The pistol in the video seemed to do the same, except with less damage. There is also a gun that shoots out bolts of electricity, which is probably better for bigger amounts of the black slime, as you see in the video it shoots all over the place. There is also a glass gasoline holding Molotov. When you throw it the enemy catches fire. There is a lot of screaming involved when you harm or kill the vile goo. So be ready to turn the volume down when you first play. Also in the game, there is a giant thing, it changes shapes and is called a Monolith. This Monolith takes energy from everything around it and uses it to try to kill you. The only thing you can do is, RUN. Shooting this with any kind of gun will not affect it. The only option is to get to your car and get out of there. This video link will be at the end. In most of the previous XCOM games there is a strategic side of things. You control the battlefield, recruiting, ect. It is not yet known if there will be this side to the game, but I have read the people making this want to keep some of the original aspects to the game. What I do know is that if you lose a recruit, it’s not good. They all have their own traits and strength, so keeping others alive is vital. When someone does die, you get a new recruit. I am unsure as to if you pick them, or if they are spawned when you get back to base, but I bet you that the next person may not be too much better than the one before. They possibly could get better, but I only see that happening when you get farther into the game. I predict there will be a strategic side of things, as in some of the previous games, because the creators respect and love the original versions of the games.

This game looks like it will be a huge hit. The game play looks great, the story looks well done, and it has aspects that will suit every gamer. This game comes out in 2011, is coming out for XBOX 360 and PC, and has no ESRB rating yet, but I bet it will be M. Just watch the video and read the article on IGN. I’d put this on the top of the watch list. Here are the links below and thank you for reading this post.

The Official Teaser Video http://www.xcom.com/xcom.html

The Storyline for the Demo http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/109/1096424p1.html

sorry you have to copy and paste the second