Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review

With Black Ops 2, Treyarch finally "gets" Call of Duty. It's taken a few goes. First came World at War, a disastrous step back after Modern Warfare, then Black Ops, which was bloated, incomprehensible and dull.

This time round, though, Treyarch's nailed it, capturing everything wonderful and fun about CoD in one fell game.

Near-future

The near-future aesthetic is a masterstroke, freeing the game up to be as wacky as it's always wanted to be while simultaneously renovating the CoD-standard brown/grey/green colour palette.

Black Ops 2looks gorgeous; the environments resonate a believable futurism, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where recognisable architecture is dolled up with LCD screens on everything. The weapons, too, look absolutely stunning, sleek M8 rifles and blocky TAC pistols with holographic scopes and neon tinted iron sights.

It's details like these that really make Black Ops 2's visual design. Stop to look around, and the entire game is popping with neat, semi-plausible touches.

Speedometers are projected on the inside windscreen of cars; civilian and military clothing has a slick digital-era look. Compared to the relentless muddy sepia of past Call of Duty games, Black Ops 2is a work of real flair, dripping in colourful near-future chic.

The 2025 setting also makes for some seriously fun toys - Wing Suits will prove a fan favourite. Jet-powered, mechanical hang-gliders, Wing Suits feature heavily in Black Ops 2's campaign, allowing you to arrive at the starts of levels looking like Optimus Prime.

There are invisibility cloaks, too, though they're only used by enemies, and QuadroCopters, hovering, pesky drone things with machineguns stuck to them.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Review