for Wii U. Black Ops II is the ninth game in the Call of Duty franchise of video games and a sequel to the 2010 game Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Black Ops II is the first game in the Call of Duty franchise to feature future warfare technology and the first to present branching storylines driven by player choice. It also offers a 3D display option. A corresponding game, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified, will be released simultaneously on the PlayStation Vita. Within 24 hours of going on sale, the game grossed $500 million, beating 2011's Modern Warfare 3 to become the biggest entertainment launch of all time.
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Synopsis
Characters and setting
The 2025 section of the game features Alex Mason's son David as the protagonist during a new Cold War between China and the United States. In this era, war is defined by robotics, cyberwarfare, unmanned vehicles, and other futuristic technology.
Plot
In 1986, Alex Mason has retired from active duty and is living in Alaska with the seven year-old David. Their already-strained relationship is put to the test when Mason is approached by Jason Hudson, seeking to recruit him for a mission in Angola. Woods' unit has been taken captive while aiding rebels in the country's civil war, and their actions have been disavowed by the CIA. Hudson enlists Mason for a covert mission to rescue Woods and any survivors from his unit, with the help of the Jonas Savimbi, the leader of the Angolan forces. They discover Menendez is responsible for Woods' captivity and attempt to confront him, only for Menendez to give away their position to incoming enemy forces, allowing him to flee.
In light of the events in Angola, Mason and Hudson begin tracking Menendez, who has set himself up as one of the primary arms suppliers for conflicts in Africa and Latin America. Locating him in Afghanistan, the CIA authorises a strike against him. At this point, the story begins to explore Menendez's motivations and his vendetta against the West. After he and his sister were accidentally burned in the fire-bombing of a warehouse as part of an insurance scam, the Menendez family turned to drug trafficking and built up power and influence throughout Nicaragua. Their actions did not go unnoticed, and the CIA sanctioned the assassination of his father. Now knowing that Menendez considers the conflict to be personal and that he will not back down, the CIA lean on Panamanian president Manuel Noriega to support a raid on Menendez's home in Panama. Menendez suffers further tragedy when Woods inadvertently kills his sister during the raid. Menendez himself manages to escape due to secret assistance from Noriega.
Menendez plans to retaliate against those he holds responsible for his sister's death. During the 1989 invasion of Panama, he kidnaps Jason Hudson and David, using them as bait for a trap. He then uses Hudson to mislead Woods, manipulating him into shooting Mason instead of himself. Menendez then executes Hudson and cripples Woods. Unsatisfied with his revenge, Menendez allows Woods and David to live, promising to return to complete his revenge when the time is right.
Three decades later, Menendez re-emerges as the leader of Cordis Die, a massive populist movement with over a billion followers. He stages a cyberattack that cripples the Chinese Stock Exchange; in response, the Chinese ban the export of rare earth elements, fermenting the start of a new Cold War between the Chinese-led Strategic Defense Coalition and the U.S.-led JSOC. Taking advantage of this stand-off, Menendez attempts to bring the two powers to a full-blown war by inciting conflicts between the two, secretly aiding SDC leader Chairman Tian-Zhao. Using the intelligence provided by Woods, David, now a Navy SEAL code-named Section, leads JSOC forces in the renewed search for Menendez.
Shortly after gathering intelligence from Woods, Section and JSOC infiltrates Myanmar investigating a spike in activity in the region. There, Section's team encounters a computer engineer under Menendez's employment, warning them of a cyberattack with a Celerium device, a quantum computer capable of hacking any computer system. Section's team is later deployed in Pakistan, attempting to gather intelligence on Menendez's plots. During the infiltration, Menendez discloses the name of a target, "Karma" in the Cayman Islands. Section and SEAL operatives Harper and Salazar later infiltrate the Cayman Islands, finding out that "Karma" is a woman named Chloe Lynch, a former employee of Menendez's shell corporation, Tacitus. Lynch was the main developer of the Celerium device, and as a means of wrapping up loose ends, Menendez had deployed mercenaries for her abduction.
JSOC later has a lead on Menendez in Yemen, where JSOC asset Farid infiltrates Menendez's cell to help Section facilitate the leader's capture. However, Menendez's capture was a ruse for Menendez to hack into the U.S. military's computer infrastructure on-board the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Obama, seizing control the the United States' entire drone fleet. Salazar is revealed to be Menendez's mole within JSOC, and facilitates Menendez's attack before Section and JSOC forces repel the attack. The aftermath relocates Section to Los Angeles, where he escorts the President of the United States to safety amidst the drone attacks.
JSOC eventually finds the source of the transmissions responsible for the hacking to Haiti, where Section leads JSOC forces into recapturing the facility, and apprehending or killing Menendez. Depending on the actions taken by the player, the final outcome of the game's ending is influenced, such as whether or not the United States and China are able to enter an alliance with each other, as well as determining the fates of certain individuals in the game.
During the main campaign, the player may choose to particpate in optional Strike Missions. The Strike Missions involve JSOC attempting to curb the SDC's global influence by preventing them from forcing neighboring countries into an alliance. Section himself does not participate in these missions directly, though he can command the forces remotely from a command center.
Endings
If the player spares Menendez's life, and both Chloe Lynch and Alex Mason survive the events of the game, the player will have secured an alliance between China and the United States, ending the Second Cold War. Chloe's survival prevents Menendez's cyberattack from succeeding, and Mason's survival sees him visit Frank Woods in retirement, reuniting with Section. The final scene shows Menendez in prison, angry at his failed attack.
If Menendez is spared and Chloe survives, but Mason is killed in action, the Second Cold War will end and Menendez's cyberattack will fail, but Section will visit his father's grave with Woods and decides to retire from soldiering; Woods comments that his father would approve of the decision.
If Menendez is spared, Chloe is killed and Mason's fate is unresolved, Section will apprehend Menendez and take him into custody. The cyberattack will succeed, allowing Menendez to escape. He kills Woods in the retirement home before visting his sister's grave, dousing himself in gasoline, and readying a lighter.
If Menendez is killed, Chloe's fate is unresolved and Mason is killed, Section will kill Menendez before visiting his father's grave, but Menendez's followers will riot, leading to an uprising that destroys cities.
If Menendez is killed, Chloe's fate is unresolved and Mason lives, Section will kill Menendez before reuniting with his father at the retirement home, but Menendez's followers will riot, leading to an uprising that destroys cities.
Gameplay
Strike Force missions
Strike Force missions allow the player to control a number of different war assets, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, jet fighters and robots. If the player dies in a Strike Force mission, the campaign continues recording that loss, as opposed to letting the player load a previously saved checkpoint. The player's progress in the Strike Force missions may go on to change even the plans of the story's antagonist, Raul Menendez. By the end of the game, the player may have changed the results of the new Cold War, and the player will be shown what could have gone differently.
Zombies
Development
Internal leaks
following a product page for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 appeared on Amazon France before quickly being taken down in February 2012. No information had yet been released by Activision, but Gameblog claimed that Activision demanded it remove its original report too. When it refused to do so, the publisher cut off Gameblog from ad support, review game mailings and future Activision events for refusing to comply.Later Activision denied Gameblog.
claims that it has been cut off. Around the same time, computer game artist Hugo Beyer also listed "Black Ops 2" as his current project in his Linkedin CV, before his LinkedIn page was taken down. Beyer is an artist working for Nerve Software, "a Dallas-based independent developer" which has "helped" with previous Activision games including, Black Ops in 2010. A "Black Ops 2" trademark by Activision was spotted January 2012.Further Black Ops 2 was listed by the France international entertainment retail chain Fnac in March 2012, which touted a predictable November release date.
On April 9, 2012, an image was leaked from a URL on the official Call of Duty website, which leaked the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 logo, as well as a reveal date of April 28, 2012. The URL was later removed. On April 18, 2012, Kotaku received an image from "a retail source", which showed a teaser poster that lacked a game title but had clear nods to Black Ops and a May 2 date that seemingly points to a reveal.On April 27, 2012, an image containing two Target pre-order cards sent by IGN reader Richard confirmed the game's title and release date. The cards clearly display the Call of Duty: Black Ops II logo, and the release date November 13, 2012.
Reveal
On April 23, 2012, Activision redesigned CallofDuty.com to announce that the game will be revealed on May 1, 2012 during the NBA playoffs on TNT. The art featured on the site matched up perfectly with the supposed retailer leak received by Kotaku. However, parts of the official website went live hours prior to the announcement, which revealed the title, confirmed the release date for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and the "21st Century Cold War" setting. Activision had hinted that the game may eventually become available for Nintendo's own consoles, although had no official announcements for the time being. As promised by Activision, the preview for the game was revealed in the form of a YouTube trailer that detailed the futuristic setting, the characters carried over from the previous games, and the conflict.After the game was revealed, the preorder rates on the game set records three times higher than for the preorders of the first Black Ops. Critics have noted the trailer's similarities to that of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. On July 19, 2012 a second trailer was released by Treyarch, offering insight into the game's narrative. The storyline has been described by writer David S. Goyer as "better than a Hollywood movie"
Gameplay revisions
In developing Black Ops II, Treyarch introduced several revisions to the gameplay mechanics for online multiplayer that have been a hallmark of the Call of Duty franchise. These include the introduction of "multi-team" games that allow matches to host three or more teams of players, in counternance to the traditional two factions, and revisions to the "Create-A-Class" function that allows users to create customised characters for use in multiplayer matches. The "Kill Streak" function, which gives players in-game rewards for killing other players, has likewise been revised and will now be known as "Score Streaks". Whereas players still receive in-game rewards, these are unlocked by performing certain actions - such as killing other players, successfully capturing territory, and so on - rather than simply killing other players. Furthermore, the "wager matches" feature included in Call of Duty: Black Ops has been removed. These changes were introduced to shift the emphasis towards objective-based gameplay, reward players who work in teams and to make the game more accessible to new players.
In addition to this, Treyarch announced plans to integrate Black Ops II into the world of "eSports" or competitive gaming. To this end, Treyarch unveiled a matchmaking system designed to pair players up based on their skills within the game to ensure that online games are relatively equal in terms of player skill. They also announced what they termed "CODcasting", a form of live streaming that allows users to stream their games directly onto YouTube from their gaming consoles.
Video
Rating-9.2
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