I got Black Ops 3 when I first got my PS4, less than a year ago.  And I knew I wasn’t gonna get a “spectacular” game given the more recent Call of Duty games, but I expected something decent.  And did the game deliver?  Well that’s what we’re here to find out.  We’ll take a look at the three modes the game advertises, campaign, multiplayer, and zombies.

The story starts out as you and your partner, Jacob Hendrix, infiltrate a base in Ethiopia in the year 2065.  Your goal is to rescue the hostages.  The mission goes successful but on your way to the helicopter you’re badly wounded by one of the robot soldiers.  So then you’re required to have cybernetic enhancement to save your life.  So while in this you’re given a direct neural interface (DNI) to help you survive.  So while in there you’re also given virtual training by your teammates John Taylor, Sarah Hall, Sebasstian Diaz, and Peter Maretti. Five years later you wake up and are sent by your new commander Rachel Kane to investigate a CIA laboratory that is inactive.  You soon realize that the facility has been overrun by the 54 immortals, Singapore’s most powerful crime organization.  From there the story contains many twists and turns that, for me, confused me a bit.

Now, on to critiquing the story. One big thing I noticed straight off the bat is that you cannot pick up enemy weapons, instead thrown throughout the levels are supply boxes where you can choose between five classes or make your own.  But still no more than five.  And another thing you’re taught in the tutorial is using your special DNI powers to help you along the way.  These include taking control of robots, stunning them, or sending little virtual bugs to attack other people.  This is useful but it’s tedious to have to switch your power in battle.  And, just like ammo, you can only change it when you get to an ammo box.  Now let’s go to the final part and the part everyone was probably excited for most, THE WALL RUNNING.  I mean it’s decent and it’s required in some areas of the game but I wouldn’t recommend it where it’s optional, mostly due to the fact that it’s hard to aim your gun and run at the same time.  And another thing is that it doesn’t really continue the story of black ops 2 at all.  My guess is Activision was in a hole after advanced warfare and needed something good.  So they looked back at their most popular Call of Duty series’ and decided to make a black ops 3 but since they have to make all their games related to the future nowadays they just took some random rejected pile of garbage that barely made it through testing and slapped black ops 3 on it so that everybody would buy it more.  All in all I give the campaign a 40/100.

Now, let’s look at another big staple of Call of Duty games, the multiplayer.  Alright well it’s not the worst but it certainly isn’t the best.  If we’re talking recently then yes it is terrible.  It puts a HUGE reliance on DLC, downloadable content.  You won’t be able to do well in a match unless you have some of the DLC weapons.  Another thing is all the micro transactions.  Basically micro transactions are when you have to unlock things in the game but what you unlock isn’t required but will help advance you.  So an example would be on say candy crush, when you run out of tries it gives you the option to buy another try.  Well that’s a micro transaction.  The micro transactions in this game are referred to as “supply drops” that you can spend your COD points on.  You earn COD points by getting points in multiplayer.  Each weapons is has variety, some are really lightweight and let you run more but don’t do as much damage.  Some hold a bunch of ammo and are really powerful but you can’t run as much.  It’s all the same set ups but just reskinned and called something else.  I recommend the BRM and using that until you can get the Argus shotgun.  Now let’s talk about another thing: the specialties.  These are based off of characters from the campaign and they each have two powers but only one can be equipped at a time.  The most over-powered class is the scythe class I recommend using that ASAP.

Then there’s the maps.  Do you want to know what they’re like?  Well a gimmick of the game is wall running and flying so guess what the maps have a big emphasis on.  Yep most of them have parts that you need to wall run in order to bypass them.  And I’ve already discussed that wall running is not that fun so oh well. But again same problem with the maps as with the guns – TOO MUCH DLC. No joke, there is actually more DLC maps than regular ones.  I think the most fun map is probably Nuk3town just because, well it’s Nuketown but with a 3 so that automatically makes it the best.  So with the micro transactions, DLC, terrible maps, and overpowered classes and specialties the multiplayer gets a 20/100.

Now, a fan favorite of the Call of Duty game – ZOMBIES.  The zombies in the game were actually pretty decent.  The main story centers around four different characters who must pay for their evil actions by becoming a beast temporarily and defeating zombies to try and figure out what’s going on its set, not in the future, but in a fifties-esque town called Morg city. You collect ritual items, kill zombies and once you’ve collected enough items you summon the shadow man and you must kill him.  The game’s actually pretty fun and it’s even better on multiplayer, just stay close to your buddies.  But like everything else in this game it’s not perfect.  There’s the mechanic where you can “become the beast” which is necessary to beat the level.  You use the beast’s three abilities: electrocute, grapple, and melee, to take down the zombies and move to other places.  Sure it’s cool but how does it tie into the story.  Oh well at least there’s no wall running.  So overall zombies gets an 80/100.

So overall if you’re going to buy Black ops 3 stay away from the campaign, DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT GOING NEAR MULTIPLAYER, but give zombies a try.  The game would’ve been better if they had stepped back and really thought “is this what people want out of a Call of Duty game?”  It seems that activision will not learn what the people want out of a CoD game.  That’s why my final rating for this game is a 40/100.  It’s not good and it would’ve gotten lower if it weren’t for zombies.  I’ve yet to try out the DLC but I feel like I’m doing myself a favor by not purchasing those.  We can only hope that Infinite Warfare is going to be good, but let’s not get our hopes up too high.