Friday 11 September 2015

Player Preview - Call of Duty: Black Ops 3


Title: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Developer: Treyarch
Status: Open Beta
Release Date: 6/November/2015

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1UBiQfv
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1OcOPxF





Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the multiplayer portion of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 developed by Treyarch. The series continues its setting in the near future with robotics and advanced weaponry with Black Ops 3 containing a couple of changes with new movement mechanics and the introduction of classes.

The classes aren’t the kind you would find in something like Battlefield or Team Fortress 2 were each class is locked to a certain loadout. Instead in Black Ops 3 the class that you pick only effects your special ability and each class has the option between 1 weapon ability or 1 utility ability. For example the Sharpshooter has an explosive arrow firing bow as her weapon and an enemy revealing pulse as her utility. These special abilities slowly recharge during the game enabling you to use them around twice a game however by using a certain perk this can be increase to around 4 times a match. There will be a total of 9 different classes available to play on release resulting in 18 different abilities that you can play around with. The most impressive abilities during the beta though definitely has to include the Outriders Bow because for some reason bows always feel good to use in these kinds of game plus the explosion is a nice little addition, and for the utility, Prophet has this one down with Glitch which allows you to teleport back to where you were a couple of seconds ago allowing you to get out of tricky situations or lead enemies into a trap.


Movement has been becoming more and more of a focus in the Call of Duty series and this time around there are a couple of new mechanics to help you get around the map faster and better. Wall running is by far the most noticeable change allowing you to get some height on your enemies or to avoid hotspots on the map like this bridge. The feature is implemented pretty solidly in terms of its usability, just jump into the side of a wall and you will attach and continue on your way. Most of the main walls you can run will be clearly indicated but after playing a map for a while you will find smaller lengths of walls that will give you that tactical height advantage as your enemies will expect you to come around a corner at floor level rather than a meter or 2 in the air. 


The other movement mechanic is the slide and is arguably the more important mechanic of the two to get a hang of. While wall running gives you height you are a pretty easy target with a predictable movement direction but with the slide it’s basically allowing players to dolphin dive while still moving extremely fast. Mastering this with the shotgun can be devastating and can confuse enemies when 1 second your standing in front of them and the next you are now firing at them from behind as you’ve slid straight past them. It also makes for a great way to cross open areas so you’re not such an easy target which is extremely important as you die extremely quickly once in an opponent’s sights.


Due to the extremely fast paced nature of Black Ops 3 non structured or non-objective based game modes are extremely chaotic and not it the good way. For instance in Team Deathmatch, while you are spawned into the game at opposite sides of the map you can get to the other side in a matter of seconds resulting in you constantly getting shot at from behind. The spawns in Team Deathmatch also change to prevent spawn camping but this also adds onto the problem of being shot from behind. This problem is somewhat corrected in the more objective based game modes like Search and Destroy and SafeGuard. Search and Destroy manages to slow the game down the game quite a bit due to the mode being 1 death and you’re out for the round. Safeguard however has continuous spawns as you try to either escort the robot to the point or prevent the robot from getting to the point but the gamemode plays so much better then Team Death Match while still maintaining that chaos factor. Safeguard was definitely my favourite mode of the beta providing really intense closing moments of the round as each team desperately fights for the win with the robot only a couple meters away from the point.


The available arsenal in Black Ops 3 while being slightly futuristic, still have the general form as weapons of today like the ark-7 is a futuristic AK-47, Kuda is a UMP and the Drakon is a Drakanov. Being set in a futuristic setting I would have liked to see more unique weapon designs and weapon mechanics however this seems to only be reserved for your characters special weapons and kill streaks. The different attachments for your weapons are all a bit the same as previous games in the series with basic scopes, grips and stocks that all effect your weapons stats. As for grenades there isn’t anything to innovative here either, you can equip both a damaging grenade like a frag, sticky or proximity mine and a utility grenade like a flashbang, concussion or EMP grenade. Equipping weapons, attachments, grenades and perks take up 1 slot each in the return of the 10 slot system were you can only have 10 items equipped at once so you will have to decide whether you want to run a full weapon accuracy set-up for instance or a multi primary and multi grenade set-up instead of being able to just have the best loadout your level can achieve.


Other features of the game include multiple customization options for your weapons, profile and tags. The most important customization feature being the paintshop, here you will be able to play around with different graphics, colours and gradients to customize the look of certain parts of your weapon. You will also be able to share your designs with others and use other player’s designs yourself. The gunsmith feature in the game will allow you to customize the physical appearance of your weapons via cosmetic variations of the weapons attachments which is rumoured to have 4 to 5 variants of each separate attatchment. You will also be able to name your weapon, apply your custom paint jobs and apply a camo for the parts of the weapon that the paint job doesn’t cover. As for your profile customization options you can create your own emblem or logo out of the same graphics, colours and gradients available in the paint shop feature. The end result will be displayed on your player card as well as being overlayed on your chosen calling card when you kill someone. Your calling card being a set graphic design that you select out of a big list. There is one final tab on this customization screen simply labelled classified but this maybe just the sharing feature for the paintshop.


Altogether Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 does do some interesting changes with the movement system and introduction of classes albeit in a small way. The game is extremely fast paced delving into the twitch shooter genre far more than any previous Call of Duty title before it but I feel the game is struggling with the combination of speed and movement while still trying to maintain its close quarters combat, something that another game called Titanfall managed to do a lot better. If you are looking for that kind of mix between open areas that you can move freely in and small enclosed spaces then Black Ops 3 may be of interest to you but if you are expecting a futuristic shooter with a unique arsenal to play around with, it doesn’t really offer that despite being based in the future.


Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. The game will be officially releasing on the 6th of November for $60 or your regional equivalent. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.

No comments:

Post a Comment