Call of Duty 7: Black Ops

This is the first installment of Black Ops series.The player assumes the role of various characters during the single-player campaign, changing perspectives throughout the story. The playable characters are special forces operatives conducting black operations behind enemy lines. In this way, the player's characters have their own traits such as voices and shadows. Each mission features a series of objectives that are displayed on the heads-up display, which marks the direction and distance towards and from such objectives. The player is accompanied by friendly troops throughout the game. Although primarily a first-person shooter, certain levels feature sequences where the player pilots a Hind helicopter and guides friendly troops from a SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. The campaign features several scripted cinematic moments. One of them is a bullet time effect during the "Victor Charlie" level, activated when the player fires toward the last enemy of a Viet Cong squad.We can play with three game modes, Single player/ Multiplayer and Zombie mode. Player had to control three characters, Mason / Hudson and McNamara.

Story

On February 25, 1968, SOG operative Alex Mason is strapped to a chair in an interrogation room, bombarded with questions by his unseen captors about the location of a numbers station. Mason then recalls several events, as an attempt to answer their questions.

In 1961, Mason, Woods, and Bowman take part in Operation 40 to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs. Mason apparently succeeds and stays behind to protect the extraction plane from an oncoming blocade, before being captured by the real Castro, having shot a double. Handed over to General Nikita Dragovich to be held captive at Vorkuta Gulag, Mason befriends inmate Viktor Reznov, the former Red Army soldier. Reznov recounts to Mason the identities of his enemies, the same people involved in Mason’s torture: Nikita Dragovich, his right-hand man Lev Kravchenko, and ex-Nazi scientist Friedrich Steiner, who defected to the Soviet Union.

Viktor Reznov

In October 1945, Reznov and Dimitri Petrenko were sent to extract Steiner from a Nazi base in the Arctic. Dragovich later betrayed them by testing Steiner's creation, a nerve agent known as "Nova-6", on Petrenko and other soldiers in a ship. Reznov was spared the same fate when British commandos, also attempting to acquire Nova-6, attacked the Soviets. During the confusion, Reznov destroyed the Nova-6 and escaped. However, the Soviets recreated it using Steiner and a British scientist, Daniel Clarke. Mason and Reznov later spark a prisoner uprising to escape the gulag, but only Mason escapes and Reznov is captured. One month later, President John F. Kennedy meets Mason and authorizes a mission to assassinate Dragovich. Mason briefly envisions aiming his side arm at Kennedy.

In November 1963, Mason, Woods, Bowman and Weaver are dispatched to Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakh SSR to disrupt the Soviet space program and eliminate members of "Ascension", a Soviet program giving sanctuary to Nazi scientists in exchange for their knowledge. Weaver is captured and Kravchenko stabs out his left eye. Mason and his team rescue him and destroy the Soyuz spacecraft, while Woods apparently kills Dragovich, though Mason believes him to be alive.

In 1968, the team is sent to Vietnam. After defending Khe Sanh, they recover a dossier on Dragovich from a Russian defector in Hue during the Tet Offensive. Mason finds the defector is none other than Reznov. They then penetrate Laos to recover a Nova-6 shipment from a downed Soviet plane. At the crash site the plane collapses and they are captured by Viet Cong and Spetznaz infiltrators. Bowman is executed, while Woods and Mason hijack an Mi-24 Hind and rescue Reznov at Kravchenko's base before confronting Kravchenko himself. Woods stabs Kravchenko, gaining the upper hand. But then as Kravchenko pulls the pins off four grenades strapped to his chest, Woods sacrifices himself by pushing Kravchenko and himself out a window. In a huge explosion, Mason presumes the two dead.

Meanwhile, Hudson and Weaver interrogate Clarke in Kowloon. Clarke reveals the location of a hidden facility in Mount Yamantau before being killed by Dragovich's men. Hudson and Weaver move to destroy the facility and receive a transmission from Steiner requesting to meet at Rebirth Island, as Dragovich has begun killing loose ends. Mason and Reznov head there to assassinate Steiner at the same time, succeeding just as Hudson and Weaver arrive. Mason is adamant that Reznov executed Steiner, but Hudson had witnessed Mason carrying out the act alone.

From left to right: Mason, Hudson, McNamara

At this point, Hudson and Weaver are revealed as Mason's interrogators. Dragovich has communist sleeper cells placed all over the United States which, when ordered by the numbers broadcast, will release the Nova-6 gas. As a result, the U.S. is preparing a retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union, which will lead to a full scale war. Hudson needed Steiner to abort the gas launch but after his death only Mason has any knowledge of the numbers station. Hudson reveals that Dragovich brainwashed Mason to understand the numbers broadcasts, effectively making him a Soviet sleeper agent. It is revealed that the real Reznov never escaped and died during the Vorkuta break out, and that the Soviet defector was later dead in Hue. Mason’s visions of Reznov are a result of a dissociative disorder caused by the traumatic brainwashing program. Prior to the Vorkuta breakout, Reznov had secretly met and reprogrammed Mason to assassinate Dragovich, Kravchenko and Steiner for what they did to him and for killing Petrenko and his comrades, instead of Mason's original aim to kill the U.S. President. Mason finally remembers the location of the station: a Russian cargo ship called Rusalka off the coast of Cuba.

An assault on the Rusalka begins, with Mason and Hudson infiltrating the underwater submarine and broadcast station protected by the ship, intended to be used for an invasion of the U.S. after the planned Nova-6 attack. Confirming that the Rusalka is the numbers station, Hudson calls in the US Navy to destroy the ship and its underwater base. Mason and Hudson finally confront Dragovich in the lower levels of the facility. Dragovich taunts Mason and hints at his hand in assassinating Kennedy but Mason drowns him and escapes.

Archive footage of President Kennedy prior to his assassination is shown, revealing Mason in the crowd, suggesting that Mason may have carried out his initial programming.

Multiplayer

The online multiplayer mode of Black Ops usually revolves around two teams on a specific mission. For example in Team Deathmatch the team with the most kills wins, while in Capture the Flag, players take the other team's flags and return it to their own base. Additionally, there is Free For All in which players aren't separated into teams. Not including Downloadable maps, there are 14 different maps.

Three killstreak in multiplayer mode

Black Ops retains the experience points and unlockable reward system that has been kept since Call of Duty 4. The game's multiplayer focuses on socialization and customization. "Create-a-Class 2.0" allows enhanced personalization with appearance items as well as upgradable perks; weapons are extensively customizable with writing, emblems, attachments and camouflage painting. Even reticles can be modified. There are more than one style for an attachment, which allows for a lot more personalized weaponry; for example, the player can choose between a red dot sight or a reflex sight, both of which share many of the same traits, although the red dot fills up less of the screen (something desired by many players). Character models depend on the first tier perk instead of the weapon's type. Furthermore, face paints can be unlocked. New custom killstreak rewards include explosive R/C cars, guided missiles and controllable attack helicopters.

A currency system has been implemented allowing players to buy weapons, accessories and clothes. Players can gamble with their "COD Points" in a free-for-all based playlist called "Wager Match", which is composed of four game modes. Time limited objectives known as "Contracts" can be purchased to gain more currency and experience points.The progression system is not featured in local split-screen multiplayer. In local split-screen play, all character customization options are already unlocked. Players can no longer define game rules such as win conditions.

Zombie Mode

Zombies

A zombie cooperation mode, titled "Zombies", is included in the game. Originally featured in World at War, it was revamped to be included in Black Ops. It is a four-player online and two-player split screen co-op mode (which can also be unlocked online). In the map "Five", players take the roles of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, and Fidel Castro as they fight zombies at The Pentagon. There is one map based on the original game called Kino der Toten ("Theater/Cinema of the Dead" in German). This map features the characters from World at War – Edward Richtofen the German, Tank Dempsey the American, Takeo Masaki the Japanese, and Nikolai Belinski the Russian. Limited editions of the game offer graphically-enhanced versions of the four zombie maps from World at War, featuring the newer weapons from the rest of the game. There is an unlockable top-down, two-stick arcade-shooter version of Zombies known as Dead Ops Arcade.