HeвЂ™s a square-jawed stack of vanilla in a borrowed protagonistвЂ™s uniform, and heвЂ™s always saying things like вЂњSpread out!вЂќ (IвЂ™m alone) and вЂњEliminate those tangoes, double-timeвЂќ (what?) and вЂњLetвЂ™s take it to вЂem!вЂњ (please stop).ДЄs a work of speculative fiction, Blops 3 gets points in my book for trying to say something. ItвЂ™s no wonder, then, that the playerвЂ™s wingman, Hendricks, is my least favorite character in the game. The more a character has to say, the more I hate them. Boy, that facial capture technology is really coming along, huh? The acting is decent across the board, but the script-it is not. The best acting in the game comes from a stunningly realistic, animated Christopher Meloni. Why do they even bother with this bullshit? On a hunch, I took my hand off the mouse and watched the dogfight just successfully resolve itself. The worst part of the game is in the skies over Egypt, a fighter jet attack sequence screams at me to pull up, pull up, pull up for GodвЂ™s sake. There are at least three of those slow-mo breach-and-clear sequences, each one more rote than the last. There are turret sequences that donвЂ™t care if you shoot anything as long as you watch the explosions. The weather effects are much less successful when they start to interact with the game, though-a terrible sequence in Singapore, walking slowly through high waves for no reason, comes to mind as a complete waste of time.ДЄnd Blops 3 isnвЂ™t completely immune to the seriesвЂ™ established bad habits. Weather events like monsoons and sandstorms are powerful and dangerous, even if they usually just amount to flashy backcloth. Blops 3вЂ™s locations feel distinct, interesting, and lived-in. It mostly allows you to pace yourself, and itвЂ™s nice to have a minute to admire the scenery. Though Blops 3 is built out of tightly controlled corridors, as always, I didnвЂ™t have any problems with failing a mission because I took a wrong turn. Is it a Russian robot? Is the robot angry because it misses Russia? The bad guys donвЂ™t get a lot of screentime, so IвЂ™m not sure.Д®ach Black Ops game has gotten more loosely scripted and started to back away from its most egregious errors-mainly, going mental if the player takes a step out of line. Now thereвЂ™s a robot beating you to death with your own arms. The details are unimportant and sparse: thereвЂ™s a new Cold War (with Russia?) going on and a mission in Ethiopia (?) went completely pear-shaped. The story follows a special forces soldier as he-or, in a first for Call of Duty campaigns, she-gets the ever-loving crap kicked out of them by an angry robot. Someday, Call of Duty might be more than a brash no-brainer entertainer-but this is not that day.

Blops 3 has an ambitious single-player campaign that takes some wild chances which it mostly almost manages to land, and itвЂ™s easy to recommend as a loud, dumb action movie-ish experience. These are the things that make Call of Duty the giant that it is. It features wild set-pieces, good actors, and guns that feel great. Call of Duty is not made by rookie developers, though, so letвЂ™s establish a few givens: This is a gorgeous game.

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