Time warped: Cold War-era ‘Call of Duty’ rewrites history, but doesn’t break new ground - Military Video Games, computer games, games, gaming - Military Times

Time warped: Cold War-era ‘Call of Duty’ rewrites history, but doesn’t break new ground

“Call of Duty: Black Ops” is an acceptable but underwhelming installment in the behemoth first-person shooter franchise, conservatively laying out the same high-quality stuff as before.

But it risks letting the brand get eclipsed by other titles gunning for the top spot.

Nothing in “Black Ops” falls short of the “Call of Duty” standard, but nothing in it will blow you away, either — a remarkable flaw that could indicate publisher Activision may be diluting the milk from its cash cow by offering a new “Call” title every year in time for Christmas.

“Modern Warfare” and “Modern Warfare 2” took place in the present, while “World at War” and its predecessors were set in World War II, and everybody is sick of that. So “Black Ops” takes us to the Cold War, mashing up Cuban Missile Crisis-era paranoia, Vietnam, and “Dr. No”-style giant command centers full of tube displays and reel-to-reel recorders.

This makes the single-player campaign into a greatest-hits pageant of superpower brinksmanship, much like a video game version of “Watchmen” (the excellent comic book, not the horrible movie).

I liked the Cold War theme, and I enjoyed the alternate-history concept of secret commando wars raging between the U.S. and Soviet Union. I liked the cameos by historical figures including Fidel Castro, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, President Kennedy and others. I liked the voice acting by Ed Harris, Gary Oldman and Ice Cube.

But — and I know how this is going to sound, so stay with me — this alternate history is full of anachronisms. Your computer-controlled teammates use 21st century phrases such as “Tango down!” and “Engaging target!”

And even though you’re playing as an American, Australian voice actor Sam Worthington’s accent is awfully wobbly. There are high-tech weapons, including guided shoulder-launched rockets, radio-controlled car bombs and automatic gun turrets that could never have existed in the 1960s and ’70s. The soundtrack is all raucous heavy metal riffs.

Most players won’t care about any of this, but if programmers had really put in the effort to make this an accurate period game, like “Fallout 3,” in its way, “Black Ops” could have been sinking eagles instead of just making par.

The multiplayer mode is a carbon copy. There you are, hearing what sounds like the same voices shouting the same things as in “Modern Warfare 2:” (“Changing mag!” “Popping smoke!”) The look and feel is exactly the same. Kill streaks still buy you radars, attack helicopters and airstrikes; “care packages” still drop out of the sky with power-ups. It’s all perfectly fine. But one thing a new video game should never do is immediately give players déjà vu.

Although the “Black Ops” multiplayer maps are fun, set in Cuban villas or nuclear launch sites, they could’ve been included in any of the earlier sequels. My favorite was one of those guinea-pig model towns built out in the desert, complete with swell 1950s mannequins, so scientists could see what happened when they blew up an atom bomb nearby.

To the designers’ credit, the maps include much more detail than in the earlier games: I liked how a freight train passed at random intervals outside one Russian factory.

October’s “Medal of Honor” has much better sound and visuals. “Halo: Reach” has flying vehicles and jet packs. “MW 2,” because it takes place in our era, has much better weapons. I didn’t expect “Black Ops” to cede so much ground to its competitors and even its predecessors, but I also sympathize with programmers who must be under enormous pressure to keep their golden goose laying eggs no matter what, and as such dare not take too many risks.

Still, for the first time since “COD 4,” this franchise is dead in the water.

Buy? Rent? Skip?

• Our verdict: Rent.