Morning Vent, 26 January 2011

 Boonie Hat Gungal^TM needs to learn a proper isoceles

shooting position pronto for that Glock!

    Four night rotation starting up away from my Pretty Gal for a long work week, but I'm cheered by the thought that she's waiting for me to come home to her. We've got our whole lives ahead of us, with plenty of time, God willing, for quality smooching and hugging!

    Not much in the way of gaming going on. I did manage to find the time to finish the Call of Duty: Black Ops single player campaign, tho. I have a few preliminary thoughts on it. (I might have to play thru one more time, tho, to try and clear up some plot points, lol.) The campaign is pretty brief. Because my play through was separated into several sessions many weeks apart, I can't specifically say how long. But it was apparent that I had quit very, very close to the end of the game. A lot of time is taken up by long sessions of exposition, delivered thru the 'interrogation room debrief' mechanic used in spy movies and most memorably for video games in Stuart Black's single player masterpiece, Black. (A lot of similarities, plot-wise, between these two games, too, now that I think on it.) I'll also say this: The plot, tho extremely convoluted, at least didn't rise to the point of ludicrousness that afflicted Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Unlike the latter game, Call of Duty: Black Ops had no ridiculous GTFO moments where the game's plot turns affronted my intelligence and made my suspension of disbelief run cringing into a corner, vowing never to emerge until the next CoD game launched.
   The overall feel of the combat in Call of Duty: Black Ops, at least on the Regular difficulty, is better than previous games. Predictably, a few moments of frustration resulted (for me on the flying sequences, which I always have issues with on FPS games), but the combat had fewer CoD-style cranks. The combat flowed a bit better, tactically. It wasn't as good as the more tactical Bad Company 2, but it was better than any Call of Duty game I've played before. (CoD fanbois may demur, since there appears to be a streak of masochism in some folks who insist on dying 50 times before finishing a level. I politely disagree. Bragging rights for beating a video game are pretty low on the testosterone food chain.) 
    All in all, a very satisfying campaign, tho I missed co-op, and the length was somewhat skinpy. Moving on...