Call of Duty Black Ops has one of the most memorable, controversial and beloved campaigns in the franchise’s history. It is well worth experiencing for fans of Cold War fiction and alternative history.
Campaign aside, the ever-popular zombie mode can be played solo for those who enjoy facing down hordes of the undead without a friend by their side.
Despite launching almost 13 years ago, Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) holds up incredibly well, and while visuals have come a long way since 2010, after a few moments of playing, I found that I could appreciate Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) ‘s visuals for how good they were for the time, and in no way found them distracting.
While much of this is likely due to it being displayed in native 1080p (PC) or upscaled 1080p (console), a strong cast of iconic characters, clever missions session, and buttery smooth gunplay make Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) one of the best Call of Duty titles for those who interest in classic Call of Duty titles.
Image credit Call of Duty Black Ops - Published by Treyarch and developed by Activision.
Call of Duty Black Ops (2010), unlike most Call of Duty titles, does considerably better on PC than on console; this is partly due to Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) not being available for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Traditionally, the PlayStation community for Call of Duty is the largest by a fair margin; the choice to bypass the later PlayStation generations becomes even more baffling when you take into consideration that Call of Duty Black Ops (2010)is available on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S via back-compatibility mode.
On deeper inspection, the “choice” may not have been a choice, with the PlayStation 3 proving difficult for even high-end PCs and 9th-generation consoles to emulate successfully.
While there are many videos on the subject of why the Playstation 3 is so hard to emulate, the long and short of it is the PlayStation 3 utilised CPU technology that was radically different to all that came before or after it, making emulation far more difficult than its relatively meagre specifications would imply.
The second reason for Call of Duty Black Ops’ longevity on PC is the server browser, which allows what few players remain to find active lobbies at any time of day.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that even at 4 am (GMT) on a weekday, I could find four active lobbies close to capacity.
Without access to a server browser, the console community for Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) must rely on matchmaking, which is poor at best, with average matchmaking times of 20+ minutes.
Thankfully, once a lobby has been found, matches will be consistently quick until enough players quit the lobby to force it back into the queue system; with any luck, this won’t happen very often, or when it does, there will hopefully be players already qued up to quickly fill any open slots, avoiding another 20-30 minute wait to find a new lobby.
Image credit Call of Duty Black Ops - Published by Treyarch and developed by Activision.
Call of Duty Black Ops is a first person shooter video game developed by Activision and published by Treyarch, it was released on 9 November 2010 and retails for $39.99.
Call of Duty Black Ops is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) is no longer in active development, and the developers have moved on to other projects.
As of November 2023, around 15,000 people play Call of Duty Black Ops on a fairly regular basis.
Call of Duty Black Ops suffers from low activity, meaning that while off-peak matchmaking is possible in populated regions, finding full lobbies in less populated regions is unlikely outside of peak playtimes.
Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) supports:
Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Call of Duty Black Ops (2010) is unrated and contains the following:
Call of Duty Black Ops is not worth purchasing for those only interested in multiplayer content, as there isn’t enough activity to warrant a purchase.
However, for those who prefer single-player or cooperative content, Call of Duty Black Ops has one of the best campaigns and zombie modes in the franchise’s history; I fully recommend playing it.
