The first few days were particularly frustrating for Black Ops owners. Each platform suffered from its own unique problems, but I will stick to the issues affecting PC gamers, since this is the version we received for review. <\/p>\n
The first local servers were up and running by the evening of the game’s launch date. Thousands of local gamers flocked to the servers to get their BLOPs fix, and the vast majority were left bitterly disappointed by the end of the evening. Crashes, freezes, broken menus and erratic lag were common place, and many stopped playing the game altogether. <\/p>\n
The Thursday following the game’s release saw a patch release which promised to fix a number of the problems experienced by PC gamers, and it seemed to do just that. For the first time, the majority of gamers seemed to finally be able to enjoy the game as it was meant to be, or at least very close to it. <\/p>\n
However, many users continued to report performance issues even with high-end gaming rigs, with frame rates struggling to get above 10 frames per second. It also became apparent that the game was maintaining a constant upload stream, with live stats being streamed from users throughout the game. This provided an explanation as to why so many gamers with 384Kbps ADSL lines were finding the game completely unplayable, thanks to the lowly 128Kbps upload speed causing monster lag. <\/p>\n
Although the game was fixed for many, continuing complaints led to Treyarch announcing that they were working on another patch that would sort out the remaining issues, and late last week, it was released. With this patch, my own Black Ops experience went from smooth and seamless, to utterly broken. The game would freeze roughly twice an hour, and lag became noticeably worse. Another patch was promptly released, which fixed most of the freezing issues, but did not sort out the lag which occasionally rears its head. <\/p>\n
While many previous complainants rejoiced at the fix, it seemed that many others found the game had returned to the buggy state it was in at launch. <\/p>\n
Although I can connect to most local servers at well below 50ms ping times, there are periods where the game is unplayable due to lag spikes which occur every few seconds in game. Then there are times when lag is almost nonexistent. <\/p>\n
The great peer divide<\/strong><\/p>\n Another problem that has to be mentioned, is that the Black Ops servers are all hosted on MWEB’s network. Certain ISPs – most notably Telkom – no longer peer directly with MWEB. What results, is that gamers with Telkom ADSL accounts connect to the Black Ops servers via London, and end up with over 300ms latency. This is simply not fast enough for an online FPS, so if you are a dedicated Telkom customer, then you should just forget about Black Ops altogether. Having chatted to various gamers with Telkom accounts, as well as testing our own Telkom accounts, we can safely conclude that their bandwidth just doesn’t cut it on the Black Ops servers. Broadband supplied by MWEB, as well as any IS reseller provides the best experience. <\/p>\n The game behind the lag<\/strong><\/p>\n Black Ops for PC has been the least smooth CoD release to date, and that includes Modern Warfare 2, which despite its P2P networking setup, was working fine for most gamers after a few days.<\/p>\n Having said that, I was lucky enough to experience the game in a very solid state for about ten days. Following the first patch, my lag was almost completely eliminated, bugs were fixed, and gameplay was smooth. During that time, I fell in love with Black Ops.<\/p>\n From a certain angle, Black Ops looks a lot like Modern Warfare 2. However, it feels more like Call of Duty: World at War, which makes sense since Treyarch developed both games. The hit registry is as good as it’s ever been in CoD (which is very good, by the way), the pacing is varied, and the maps and weapons are dynamic enough to keep things interesting for a long time to come. <\/p>\n Like Modern Warfare 2, you can customize your class and there is no shortage of options. Players can now customize details such as face paint and even replace their red-dot\/scope with an image. <\/p>\n Many perks and items return from previous games, although there are enough new toys to play with to satisfy CoD veterans. The radio controlled explosive car is as much fun as I hoped it would be when it was revealed months ago in the trailer, as is the crossbow which shoots timed explosive darts. The Valkyrie radio controlled rockets are also a highlight, but the sweetest kill streak reward has to be the Gunship, which allows players to pilot an attack helicopter. This time around, kills earned with killstreak rewards do not contribute to further killstreaks, so all your killstreaks will have to be earned the old fashioned way – a nice balance tweak which makes it a bit more difficult for certain players to get carried away with kill-streaks. <\/p>\n Personally, I felt that Treyarch could have made us work harder for the cooler goodies, but I can understand the decision to make the game more accessible to casual gamers. You will unlock new weapons at a rapid rate, which means that after 10 days or so you should have unlocked almost everything. I would have enjoyed it if Treyarch had forced me to play with each weapon unlock more before moving on to the next unlock. Unlike Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which fed us new items in slow dribs and drabs, Black Ops seems to be constantly releasing a barrage of news goodies to play with which ultimatly leaves you feeling a bit spoilt for choice. <\/p>\n There are a host of new features in Black Ops. The first thing you may notice is that in order to use a weapon\/attachment\/item, you must not only unlock it by reaching a certain level, but you also have to buy it using CoD Points. These are earned in game, and are dished out alongside your regular XP. <\/p>\n To compliment the currency system, Treyach has also implemented a Wager mode, in which players can essentially gamble CoD Points to complete set task within a certain amount of time. Sadly, there are not many local Wager servers operating in SA, so it can be difficult to get really involved in this portion of the game.<\/p>\n These are excellent innovations, and you have to commend Treyarch for bringing something new to the table. However, the implementation is not quite right, and CoD Points are simply far too easy to earn. Not once have I been in a position where I desperately needed to farm CoD Points to buy that new scope, or sweet face paint. Simply put, CoD points are extremely easy to come by, and even high level items are not that expensive. Without even thinking about your CoD Points, you are likely to have far more than you need most of the time, which kinda makes the whole thing redundant. I currently have over 85,000 CoD Points sitting in my account, and within 10 days, I have bought the majority of the cool toys I want. <\/p>\n Another annoyance is that players have to exit games to go out and sign up new contracts, or tweak their class. Want to quickly change your scope mid-game? No dice. Just finished a contract 5 minutes into a game and want to take out a new one while you’re playing? Can’t do that either. You have to quit the game in order to access this portion of the game. <\/p>\n These and other minor quirks are only slightly annoying, and the real problem is that many gamers are still reporting that the game is broken. Other gamers, however, are reporting that the game is perfectly playable. If we could guarantee that the game would run well on your particular configuration, then the game would come highly recommended. However, many gamers have reported having given up on the game due to the problems, which makes Black Ops, in its current state, a bit of a gamble. <\/p>\n Without these problems, Black Ops would get 90\/100. Fortunately, most gamers seem to report the issues are not too bad, but the fact that they actually ruin it completely for some pushes it down to 70\/100.<\/p>\n Broadband users with anything less than a 4MB ADSL line should be wary of Black Ops, as should Telkom users. <\/p>\n We will continue playing Black Ops, and amend the score should Treyarch iron out the current issues.<\/p>\n Reviewed on PC<\/em><\/p>\n Discuss our Black Ops review in the forums<\/a><\/p>\n More on CoD:BO <\/strong><\/p>\n Call of Duty: Black Ops PC – broken at launch?<\/a><\/p>\n Live stat streaming responsible for Black Ops “lag”?<\/a><\/p>\n Call of Duty: Black Ops PC patch fixes lag<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t![\"Call_Of_Duty_Black_Ops_Multiplayer_Customization_Trailer_9_442678362.jpg\"](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Call_Of_Duty_Black_Ops_Multiplayer_Customization_Trailer_9_442678362.jpg\" "\\"Call_Of_Duty_Black_Ops_Multiplayer_Customization_Trailer_9_442678362.jpg\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"CODBLOPS\"](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/blops_767622302.jpg\" "\\"CODBLOPS\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"CODBLOPS\"](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/call_of_duty_multiplayer_screen_1_710669149.jpeg\" "\\"CODBLOPS\\"")
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