“The Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result” –Albert Einstein

Never have I seen a better example of this quote than in a Call of Duty game. A match of Call of Duty can generally be described as utter chaos. Running around with ridiculously unbalanced weapons, dying repeatedly, and often not knowing why. These are the fundamentals of the Call of Duty experience. The franchise’s most recent installment, Black Ops Cold War, was released back in November of 2020. I received the game about a month ago and more recently began my immersion into the insanity. So let’s look at this new game and see how it compares with previous installments.

The Campaign of Cold War, I found to be very entertaining. Gamers play as Bell, an undercover operative tasked with finding a missing nuclear weapon which was taken by a former Russian operative known as Perseus. The missions vary in style. For some players need fight their way through the jungles of Vietnam and escape by flying a helicopter in an intense aerial battle. For others, players utilize stealth to follow a lead through the heart of east Berlin. The Campaign also gives you choices during the missions. Most of them have no impact on the story, but later in the game, you can alter the course of the story with one simple phrase. The game has multiple endings, some are good, and some are bad. Overall, the Campaign has a decent story and is a lot of fun.

The centerpiece of any Call of Duty game is definitely the multiplayer. Now to properly understand Call of Duty multiplayer, one must experience it for themselves. Everything from the unbalanced guns to the quickscopers is a part of the Call of Duty multiplayer experience. Upon entering the game I rounded a corner and was immediately eliminated. This was pretty much the pattern that followed for the rest of the game. The second game I played with a friend. I asked him what he thought about the game overall: “I think overall this game is an improvement to the last one, besides the skill based matchmaking, and…” At this point he was cut off because a helicopter had been called in and obliterated each of us. The primary issue with the multiplayer is the incredibly unbalanced weapons, and, in some cases, the skill based matchmaking. An example of unbalanced skill-based matchmaking was when me, who is level 12 and my friend, who is level 168, got placed in a game with someone who was level 1000. Overall the multiplayer could use improvement.

Finally, we have the zombies game mode. Now it seems like this mode doesn’t get as much attention, but it is an enjoyable game mode. The basics of zombie-mode are these: players survive as many waves of zombies as they can, with each wave becoming more difficult as they go. There are weapons and upgrades players can purchase as well. Zombies is not the most difficult game, but there is a level of skill needed to play it well. Unless of course you have a friend who knows exactly what he is doing while you just follow him around clueless as to what’s going on. My experience was the latter. I had no Idea what I was doing, I just followed my friend around and defeated as many enemies as I could. At one point I got a gun that fired lasers. I honestly couldn’t tell you how or why. It was also confusing because at one point we teleported to another dimension for some reason. The key is to pay attention to everything: the objectives, your points, health, all of it. Overall, Zombies is a fun experience, but can sometimes be confusing because it requires play to pay attention to many different things at once.

Cold War is a pretty standard Call of Duty game. It follows the pattern of unbalanced weapons and broken gameplay mechanics, though the story is pretty sold and zombie-mode is decent. This game used the improved customization system similar to the last game, Modern Warfare, which was definitely a good choice. The new system allows for more customization and styles of gameplay. The graphics and design aesthetic looks great. The weapons should definitely be more balanced.

Overall, I would rate this game at a 3.5 out of 5 stars.