Digital Media Concepts/Call of Duty:Black Ops 2

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Background

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is a first-person shooter game that was released on November 12, 2012. Developed by Treyarch Studios and published by Activision, It was one of the 17 call of duty's released and the ninth installment of the series. It was released across platforms for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii U, and PC. All which were the most popular consoles at the time. It was also the first Call of Duty introduced to the Wii U, since they both came out the same month. The game has three different popular game modes for people to play. Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies are the three. Each providing a different dynamic and feel for the user to enjoy. The game retailed at $59.99 USD and provided 4 new additional expansion packs every 2-3 months. These packs are also known as DLC's (Downloadable content) that were available for $14.99 USD.

Campaign

Campaign is the single player, story mode aspect of the game where the player is taken on a journey through the lives of soldiers who were fighting together to take out their common enemy. Alex Mason, Frank Woods, Mike Harper, and Jason Hudson were the operatives on the same side who were trying to take out Raul Menendez, leader of the Menendez cartel. The campaign puts the players in a nail biting state of emotion as they experience gory cutscenes and real life situations that soldiers have to go through in war. It consists of a variety of missions that explain the story through each characters eyes. First person point of view gives the player a realistic feel to the game almost as if they were there. The gun animations, bullet sounds, vibrant scenery, and character development all come in to play in this action filled story mode. Also, if the game felt too easy for you as you were playing, you can change the difficulty from recruit being the easiest, to realistic being the hardest where just a few bullets will kill you in game. Compared to ten or more bullets being the limit ro your lifeline. The other modes in between are regular, hardened, and veteran from easiest to hardest.

Main Characters

• Alex Mason: Protagonist of the story
• David Mason: Son of Alex Mason
• Mike Harper: Jsoc operative and David's teammate/comrade
• Jason Hudson: CIA operative
• Frank Woods: Alex's comrade
• Raul Menendez: Antagonist of the story; Nicaraguan drug lord

Multiplayer

Call of Duty's multiplayer has always been a big reason why people buy the game. It allows players to group up with friends or queue into a game solo to come across other players all over the world. In multiplayer, you typically have 5 other teammates and the other team has 6. Both teams compete against one another to either complete the objective in the game mode they are playing, or battle to the top of the leaderboard to see which team comes out with the most kills before the time runs out or reach the max score. Each player spawns in with 100 health and once they reach zero they respawn back into the match. The guns available for the players to use are the same guns used in the campaign and zombies. In multiplayer, there are 9 different regular game modes and there are 4 party game modes. The 9 regular ones are free for all, team deathmatch, kill confirmed, domination, demolition, hardpoint, headquarters, capture the flag, and search and destroy. The 4 party modes are one in the chamber, sticks and stones, sharpshooter, and gun game. Along with all these modes were very creative maps that generated an immersive experience for the player. At launch, the game came with 15 unique maps that players got to choose which to play while in the pregame lobby. They were given the option of two maps and a random map selection option if they didn't like the choices available. Besides this there were an additional 4 DLC packs that released overtime. Each of these DlC's came with four multiplayer maps and one zombies map.

Players going head-to-head in a Call of Duty multiplayer LAN match

DLC Map Packs

DLC 1: Revolution

• Hydro
• Grind
• Downhill
• Mirage

DLC 2: Uprising

• Magma
• Encore
• Vertigo
• Studio

DLC 3: Vengeance

• Cove
• Detour
• Rush
• Uplink

DLC 4: Apocalypse

• Fresh
• Pod
• Dig
• Takeoff

Zombies

Zombies has been a trademark mode for Call of Duty for a while now as it has emerged a fan favorite over the years. The zombies game mode takes the player on a frightening adventure around the map they are playing and the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. In the game there are perks that help your chances of staying alive. The perks in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 are quick revive, juggernog, speed cola, double tap, stamin-up, mule kick, PhD flopper and more. Each of these perks have special effects that improve your gameplay. Similar to multiplayer, zombies also got DLC packs as well but instead of four maps it was only one. The reason for that is because the zombies maps are much bigger and have more content inside of them. Content included in each new map were things like easter eggs, which are hidden messages or objects in game that depict an image or trigger voices while playing zombies. Easter eggs also contribute to the main storyline of zombies. Even though this is a fun mode to play, developers took an extra step to supply players with extra content that carries on with the mode over the years. When you load into the map you can either play by yourself, with friends, or queue into a public match with three other people you've never met before. Giving users a very interactive experience and a chance to make new friends online. The total number of players in one game are 4. However, in Black Ops 2, two new zombies modes were introduced called Grief and Turned. At launch the map that came with the game was Tranzit, which created three smaller maps that were all different locations in Tranzit that you can play individually. On top of that, there are the four DLC maps and Nuketown which is a spin on the multiplayer map.

DLC Zombies Maps

• DLC 1: Die Rise
• DLC 2: Mob of the Dead
• DLC 3: Buried
• DLC 4: Origins