Call of Duty games have always been about moments; whether they’re ones you create in multiplayer (such as the first time you drop a Predator Missile onto a cluster of fools), or crafted moments in the single-player campaign. Scripted moments like the opening of the battle of Stalingrad seen in the original Call of Duty, the nuclear detonation in COD: Modern Warfare, and the rescuing-and-extracting of Prisoner #627 in COD: Modern Warfare 2, essentially define the series, and now Call of Duty: Black Ops adds its own set of signature highs. These include: guiding a missile towards a fleeing experimental rocket; engaging in urban combat while a destructive nerve gas fills the streets; and even running through a field of numbers in the darkness (don’t worry, it’ll make sense when you get there).
Historically, Call of Duty has followed a sort of Star Trek movie rule, with development studio Infinity Ward basking in praise for the original and the even-numbered installments while Treyarch toils away at titles like Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, COD3, and Call of Duty: World at War (not counting their work on Spider-Man games and Quantum of Solace). However, when examining this seventh (and therefore odd-numbered) Treyarch installment beside the studio’s history, it’s apparent that not only does Black Ops show how much Treyarch has grown as a developer, but that it’s easily their best title yet.
