The game: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the 6th Call of Duty title made by Treyarch and was recently released a couple months ago back in November. The game was released for all major platforms, PC, and even last-gen. Why on last-gen? Because more money, that’s why.
The campaign: 
The story takes place 40-50 years after the events of Black Ops 2 somewhere in the 2060s-2070s in a future full of advanced military and civilian technology such as cybernetics, which is the game’s primary focus. There’s this thing called Direct Neural Interface or DNI for short and it allows people to take complete control over their physiology and allow them to interact with computer systems. The DNI allows soldiers to have something called Tactical Mode which points out enemies, dangers, as well as other hazards to the user and you get to use this throughout the entire campaign. It comes in handy in a lot of situations but it does make the game feel a little too easy sometimes, as it tells you where grenades/explosives are going to land and points out enemies, even enemies behind walls at great distances. One useful thing about this Tactical Mode is that it shows your health and how much hits you can take before dying and that was something I liked about it.
The playable character in this campaign is literally named “The Player” and I’m not kidding, that’s actually his/her name. Player has no background story for you to care about him/her, no personality, and an awful voice actor. Oh, and by the way you can change the look of Player in the most disappointing character customization mode ever. All you do is pick the gender you want and pick the face you want, which all look the same by the way. The dude looks the same and the girl looks the same regardless of which face you pick. I hated the way Treyarch went with this approach, using a nobody whose name is literally Player instead of creating someone with backstory and interesting characters like Alex Mason, Viktor Reznov, and even David Mason from previous games. Another thing, ALL major previous Black Ops characters are never referenced or talked about in this game. Raul Menendez is talked about, but very briefly and it wasn’t even an accurate description about who he was.
Jacob Hendriks, who is Player’s best friend in the Black Ops organization, is with you the whole time and this guy has a serious anger issue as he’s always cussing and literally hates everything and everyone, even your allies. Rachel Kane who is a more light-hearted character aids you and Hendriks on your mission via communications and sometimes on the ground to stop John Taylor, a Black Ops member whose DNI became corrupted and spread the virus to his squad’s DNI. The virus, which name is Corvus and is one of the antagonists, has corrupted Taylor’s mind and made its way into Player’s and Hendrik’s mind as well, causing everyone to act different and much more aggressive than normal. Corvus is using Taylor and everyone it has infected and keeps telling you about this “Frozen Forest” that literally everyone knows about except you, the player. You don’t see this Frozen Forest until the end of the game in the weirdest, strangest, confusing, and most what-the-fuck type of level in Call of Duty campaign history. It felt like I wasn’t even playing a Call of Duty game anymore at this point because of everything that was going on in this level. I mean, I give them credit for designing a different type of level but what the hell man.You gotta see it to believe it.
John Taylor, the corrupt Black Ops soldier you must stop because Corvus is taking over his body via his DNI. When you first meet him, he seems like a cool guy and a character that I liked compared to Hendriks. Turns out he's one of the antagonists of this game.
Rachel Kane, who mainly helps you via communications. Hendriks throughout the whole story thinks she is a double agent and secretly works for Taylor when in reality she isn't. Compared to Hendriks and Player, she is actually one of the few interesting characters in this campaign.
The campaign at first seemed just like another run and gun campaign mode with no unique and different elements like in previous games. I was a little disappointed with the way this game starts out but it did get a little better towards the middle and towards the end. There were even mini-boss fights that weren’t quick-time events for once and surprisingly, all of these fights were different which was something that caught me by surprise. Treyarch made a multiplayer-like progression system for the campaign that allows you to unlock different weapons, cybercore abilities like hacking robots to make them explode, and different outfits for Player to wear. You can use the same loadout throughout the whole game if you want to and that was something I was glad they added. Although, I think its retarded how you need to equip a perk in order to pick up weapons off the ground.
Mechs and robots are enemies you will be constantly fighting. I'm disappointed that some of these mechs you encounter in the campaign aren't in multiplayer. It would have been fun earning them as Scorestreaks.
But one thing I absolutely HATED was the lack of story-driven decisions like what Black Ops 2 had. In that game, I actually cared about everything that was going on in that game because the outcome would be different depending on my choices. Black Ops 3’s campaign is as linear as any Call of Duty before it. Black Ops 2 had different story-driven decisions that changed the way the story progressed and even had multiple endings that were based on what the player chose to do throughout the campaign. Black Ops 3 has one ending and it has to be, if not, the absolute worst and unexpected ending I have ever witnessed in my life. If you thought Mass Effect 3 had a terrible ending or even Destiny, just lookup this ending and you’ll be amazed at how bad it is.
The multiplayer: Since I got the campaign out of the way, the multiplayer is where most people come to play in Call of Duty. How does it compare to previous titles and what does it add? I will let you know below.
- A Specialist must be chosen alongside a custom loadout before a match. There are 9 total Specialists and all have their own unique signature weapon and signature ability to cast in-game. These weapons/abilities are gained by earning points by getting kills, capping objectives, etc. similar to that of Scorestreaks. All the Specialists have their own callsign they go by too. For example, Battery has a War Machine grenade launcher that can be used and her other ability is Kinetic Armor which can deflect bullets away from the player’s body for a short time. Another Specialist, Outrider, has a compound bow that shoots explosive-tip arrows and her other ability is Vision Pulse which marks nearby enemies and lets her see through walls, kind of like Promethean Vision from Halo 4. All Specialists are customizable from acquiring new masks/helmets, body armor, and end game gesture which I’ll explain more later. Some of these Specialists’s weapons feel really overpowered, especially Reaper, whose arm turns into a minigun and can mow down anything in its path with just 2-3 bullets. These Specialists provide players to pick which fits their playstyle more and they did a good job doing this but some obvious nerfs are most definitely needed for some of the Specialist weapons.
All the Specialists and their callsigns:
- The weapons in this game are all fairly balanced. There isn’t that one gun like the MP40 from World at War or the Famas from Black Ops 1 that dominates and makes other guns obsolete and that’s a great thing to hear. However, the weapon variety is lacking this time around, especially when it comes to secondaries. There’s only 5 secondary weapons that you can choose from. There are only 3 pistols and only 2 launchers which is pathetic. Notable favorites of mine are the Man-O-War, M8A7, Razorback, Drakon, XR-2, ICR-1, and Kuda.
Some pics of the weapons:
M8A7, like its predecessor the M8A1, this is a 4-round burst weapon with low recoil and excellent rate of fire.
Man-O-War, a slow-firing automatic weapon with high damage and good range.
Razorback, sub machine gun with a medium rate of fire, respectable damage, and lowest recoil in its class
- I didn’t play Advanced Warfare so I didn’t know if they had the jump-pack in that game but it is in Black Ops 3. This allows players to gain extra height by jumping a second time and traverse over hard to reach obstacles. The jump-pack has a cooldown so you can only use it for a short time before it runs out. This cooldown also affects the “baseball slide” you can do when you hold the crouch button when sprinting. The Dolphin Dive is gone and this slide that I call a baseball slide cause thats what it looks like replaces the Dolphin Dive. Not gonna lie, I actually miss the dolphin dive a lot. The slide is cool but it just doesn’t have that same feeling I got when I evaded danger like the dive did.
- Running along walls is something you can do in this game to gain new heights or flank the enemy. There are sections on a lot of the maps that have walls just for wall running. You can still use your weapons while running alongside a wall which can make for some awesome looking kills or embarrassing deaths if killed by someone doing this. I’m not entirely sure how I really feel about the wall running. I mean its different and I want Call of Duty to have different things to change up the gameplay, but is wall running really necessary to change that? I don’t know. I’m curious to see others reading this and what they have to say about the wall running.
- The game currently has 13 multiplayer maps including Nuketown which they keep bringing back for some reason. I’ve never liked that map because its name is misleading(The map is 2 houses and not even the entire town) and the spawns are god-awful. All of the maps in Black Ops 3 so far are small-medium sized with only about 2 maps feeling larger than the rest, and the largest map is only playable in big team modes. Some of these maps are fine, I don’t particularly dislike any of them other than Nuketown which I’ve stated already. I’ll probably end up getting some of the DLC packs later on since they’ve already teased some Black Ops 2 map remakes like Hijacked, a map I enjoyed playing on from the previous title.
- The spawning system in this game isn’t the best and its really awful, at least in my experience. They’re completely random and you will spawn in random places across the map whether you’re near your team or the enemy. I have to constantly watch my back because I never know when someone is going to spawn somewhere behind me and kill me and getting killed from behind happens a lot in this game. I’m convinced at this point that the map developers put a poster of the map on a wall and throw darts at it and wherever the darts land is where a spawn point is placed in the game.
- Supply Drops are in this game and they add unlockables to your inventory such as rare weapon camouflages, unique reflex sights, and unique Specialist customization options. There are 2 Supply Drop crates, Common and Rare. In order to purchase Supply Drops, you need to trade in Cryptokeys which you earn by completing matches or by buying COD Points via microtransaction. You can avoid buying COD Points altogether and just earn Cryptokeys and use those. Its up to you.
Example of what you can get in Supply Drops:
- The lag in this game can be unbearable at times. This is 2016 and why they’re still depending on the severely outdated p2p system is beyond me. There is literally NO excuse to not have dedicated servers at this point for this franchise. It’s absolutely embarrassing.
- Another thing that is added is the end-game screen where the top 3 players of the winning team are shown off. The Specialist you played as will do a taunt and say something stupid. Why they added this I don't know why. The most stupid line I've heard from one of these was "I am become death, destroyer of scrubs." Are you kidding me? What 10 year old wrote that line?
Graphics: Since Modern Warfare 2 which was released in 2009 (that game still looks pretty good), every Call of Duty since then has been running on that game’s engine and you can tell big time in Black Ops 3. Textures will sometimes look a little blurry and need a few seconds to render and look like they’re supposed to and even some map props are recycled from previous Call of Duty titles. This game engine has had its run and now it needs to be thrown out and left behind. These games make millions and millions every year and its time to put all that money into a new engine already. There are times when the game can look good, but it could be so much better on a modern engine.
And Jesus Christ… this game on Xbox 360 and PS3 looks soooo horrible! It makes me wonder why they even bothered with last-gen, oh wait that’s right how could I forget, more money. Some games like Halo 2 still look better than Black Ops 3 on Xbox 360/Playstation 3.
Graphics comparisons between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One
Zombies: 
Zombies has been a phenomenon in Call of Duty since World at War and is generally one of the selling points for these games other than the multiplayer. The zombies map that comes with the game is rather large and has a lot of interesting features in it, like the Gobblegum which gives you a temporary perk to use. I haven’t really played the zombies mode in this game all that much, but its just so weird seeing this mode so different compared to how simple the concept was back in World at War. Zombies has really come a long way since their first introduction.
And you know what’s bullshit? They brought back the best zombies map Der Riese from World at War and the only way to play it is to buy the $50 season pass. They must be out of their mind.
Final Verdict: 
Black Ops 3 is a really fun game at times but sometimes I dislike it and wish it were more like Black Ops 2. To me, it really did feel like Treyarch went all out with Black Ops 2 in everything it had to offer and that’s why Black Ops 2 is one of, if not, my favorite Call of Duty game. With Black Ops 3, it just didn’t feel like Treyarch did their best this time around. This game is still easy to get into like any other Call of Duty and if you want a fun and fast-paced FPS multiplayer game, then you should give this one a shot and see if you like the additions they made.
This isn’t the best Call of Duty game and it most certainly isn’t the worst Call of Duty game either. It falls somewhere in between in my opinion. That is why I’m giving Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 a rating of
6.5/10. I do enjoy this game sometimes but I wouldn't put it on my top 3 list for favorite Call of Duty games. The top 3 still belong to Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare 2, and Black Ops 2 for me.
This game does have its moments but the mediocre and confusing campaign and some multiplayer elements really do hold this game back. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m burnt out by all these future-styled FPS games already. Its time to take Call of Duty back to the roots, back to the basics, and back to what the term “Call of Duty" actually meant, and that is World War 2. Here’s hoping Treyarch will make another WWII Call of Duty as their next game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 review