Games Inbox: Is Black Ops 6 the best Call Of Duty ever?
Date: 2024-11-01
The Friday letters page worries it’s been too easy to forget Wolverine and Perfect Dark, as one reader hopes Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a good omen for Mass Effect 4.
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GOAT COD
I honestly think Black Ops 6 might be the best Call Of Duty ever. It won’t have the impact of Call Of Duty 4 and the other earlier games but I really can’t remember enjoying a Call Of Duty more and it’s definitely one of my favourites of the year.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, because you were right about Zombies mode still just coasting along on fumes, but I’ve enjoyed every minute with the multiplayer. The spawn point problems are an issue but I’m sure that’ll be patched out in the next few days.
The campaign is the highlight for me though. I love how hi-energy and varied it is. Call Of Duty is at its worst when it’s taking itself seriously, if you ask me. This does go more whacky than usual but even the original Modern Warfare games were filled with humour and were more trying to be an interactive action film than they were a military sim. For me that’s exactly the right approach for Call Of Duty.
Fuse
Pyrrhic victory
Those financial results for Xbox are so bizarre. They’re the biggest publisher in the West now but their success is entirely based on a publisher they had to pay $75.4 billion to buy and a game that sells best on the PlayStation 5. Talk about a high cost of success.
I don’t really get their game plan though. Being the biggest third party publisher around is obviously a good thing but they don’t seem content with just that. But what else does Xbox actually do? They’re dead in the water when it comes to console sales and cloud gaming is super niche with current tech. No wonder there were those rumours about even people at Microsoft not being sure what’s going on.
I’m not having a go; I just don’t understand where they stand anymore and I don’t think Microsoft does either.
Iain
Forgotten reveals
Hearing about the Wolverine guy leaving Sony, I had completely forgotten Microsoft had a trailer for Perfect Dark earlier in the year and that it actually looked pretty good. I really don’t think these publishers being so quiet and secretive is a good idea.
A game like that should be bubbling over with hype but it’s only a few months since it was unveiled and I’d already completely forgotten it existed. Come to that, I’ve no idea whether Wolverine had a gameplay trailer or not. I don’t think it did, but it’s been so long since Sony has even mentioned it the whole thought of the game has gone out of my head.
Yes, too much hype and endlessly going on about the same games can be a problem, but publishers are ridiculous overcompensating at the moment, to the point where I could barely tell you a single game PlayStation or Xbox has planned right now.
Falculate
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A different horror
Chalk me up as another one that gives the Silent Hill 2 remake a double thumbs up. Very happy to eat humble pie on that one because it’s great, and I never thought it would be. Funnily enough though it’s put me in the mood for more Resident Evil, just because I’d really like to shoot some monsters now, instead of just running away from them.
Personally, I hope the next game isn’t open world and I have my doubts that co-op is a good idea either. For me those two ideas are just not compatible with a game being scary. Resident Evil might be cheesy, unlike Silent Hill, but it’s still frightening. Maybe not Resident Evil 4, because it’s a remake, but that bit in Village was amazingly creepy. More of that for Resident Evil 9, please!
Kurt
Let them cook
Personally, I have no interest in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I’ve never liked any of the previous ones, regardless of the reviews, and so I don’t suppose I’ll like this one. I do love Mass Effect though and this makes me very optimistic that BioWare will do a good job of the new one.
Dragon Age: Inquisition was 10 years ago now but it’s also seven since Mass Effect Andromeda and 12 years since Mass Effect 3. BioWare used to one of the biggest developers around so even though it’s not for me I really hope Veilguard is a hit and it gives EA the confidence to just let BioWare get on with their thing.
Tacle
Beginner’s tips
I’ve been playing Call Of Duty online since Call Of Duty 3 on the PlayStation 3. I’m 38.
Black Ops 6 is good fun but it took a few hours for the multiplayer to click for me on my PlayStation 5.
Interesting to read people saying it’s full of sweaty lobbies. I have definitely noticed that the skill floor of players seems to have risen… either that or my age is catching up with me.
I’m still winning games and smashing opponents but for me any new Call Of Duty is about getting some new guns as quick as possible and levelling them up quick, so I have a slight advantage. That and learning the best parts of the map.
You can still decide from the map whether you should take a short, medium or long-range weapon and that can make a big difference.
Take advantage of these few easy weeks where there are loads of level 1 players.
Oh, and play an objective-based game. So much more fun and it helps you know where the enemies will be spawning from.
They also let you level up guns you may not use much in multiplayer through Zombies mode, which is nice.
Just a few thoughts.
Any GC’rs on PlayStation 5 feel free to add me.
Tommyfatfingers
Nice and dumb
Really enjoyed the Black Ops 6 campaign. The story is dumb but it doesn’t take itself too seriously and I appreciate that. I really like the variety and the kind of arcade style feel to it. It’s almost like a lightgun game but off-the-rails, and I mean that as a compliment.
Personally, I think the weirder missions are the best bit. The Control one is great and the final level is good too. For me, it’s definitely the best Call Of Duty of the generation, if not the last two.
Haymaker
Pros and cons
Having played Black Ops 6 for the past week now, it has been interesting reading different thoughts about it in the Inbox. For me, it has been enjoyable to play but not without its faults. I’ve really enjoyed it being on Game Pass, as it has meant I can play on both Xbox and PC without needing to pay for either.
Campaign: A definite improvement on previous entries but still not to the standard of a proper single-player game. Enjoyable enough to dip in and blast through though.
Multiplayer: Definitely some issues with spawns, aggravated by allowing 6×6 games on maps designed for 2v2 and 3v3. The larger maps seem to have so many overlapping fields of fire it can be very hard to make even the slightest movement out into the open before dying instantly. I’m the wrong side of 40 these days and I know I lose a lot of 1v1s where reaction time is everything.
I’m curious how items like elite controllers, with hair trigger locks or the ability to adjust dead zones, can impact reaction speed and aiming in games like this, especially as I only play hardcore so 22hp does not last long! I’ve been debating upgrading my controller but they’re in excess of £130 usually, which is a pretty steep price.
The reports around untraceable cheats also adds an element of doubt when watching a repeat of someone dropping five to six players in two seconds flat, while their aim swings instantly to a new target that was on their peripheral vision. On the whole I’ve enjoyed multiplayer, it has been a breath of fresh air to be able to play without the ridiculous skins that have dominated recent editions and made it look like Fortnite; sadly this won’t last I expect.
The game isn’t without its fair share of bugs, off the top of my head I’ve experienced:
- Editing loadout mid-game kept respawning me with the old loadout.
- I had one game where it thought I was rank 1, loaded me in with a default loadout and at the end of the game unlocked 120+ ranks and weapon/perk things.
- Occasional dead players flip-flopping around the map.
- Game loads in with a completely black screen – I’m in game, it’s going on around me, but I literally can’t see anything. Only fix is to close the app and launch it again. Apparently, a common enough issue and seems to happen at random, although only in the last two days for me.
- Occasional hard crash on Xbox, back to the main system.
The Season 1 battle pass starts in a couple of weeks, so multiplayer is going to get more varied and I wonder if we’ll get some new maps with maybe some spawn fixing. I know a lot of Inbox comments recently have been about how it is dominated by kids, but I honestly don’t think it is.
I think a lot of players will be 20+ these days, as the kids are still in Fortnite, FIFA, and so on. As a secondary school teacher I rarely hear any of the kids talking about Call Of Duty and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out a large proportion of players are 30+ and only playing because they always have.
Adam W.
GC: They’re not complaining about too many kids but a lack of casual players. Which matches with what you’re saying and the reader above.
Inbox also-rans
I don’t really get this Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos revisionism. It was rubbish back in the 90s so I dread to think how it’d play now. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Freddy
I have to say that Nintendo music app is actually a lot better than I was expecting. Nintendo Switch Online is lowkey a great bargain. Much better than PS Plus, I’d say (it’s also cheaper).
Korbie
Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk
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