CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS COLD WAR BETA WEEKEND

Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War BETA cross-platform weekend will be open from Oct 17-19, free to all players. The preorders had their own allotted time before this to gain extra game time, and their BETA live plays are currently taking over the internet! We are also going LIVE as Treyarch debuts their introductory step towards the immersive universe for a truly global experience. The 1980’s maps are optimized for guerilla warfare and PVP pandemonium.

The new maps include:

African Angolan desert (Map name: Satellite)

Frozen lakes of Uzbekistan (Crossroads)

Streets of South Beach (Miami)

North Atlantic waters (Armada)

The heart of the U.S.S.R. (Moscow).

Nicaragua (Cartel)

They are bringing back the familiar core modes returning are Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, Domination, Control mode, and Kill Confirmed. New ways to play will be VIP Escort (6v6), Combined Arms (12v12 includes vehicles), and the absolute pandemonium of Fireteam (40 player, 10 teams of 4).

There are 56 Gunsmith customizations with 6 nodes allowing up to 3 skills each. Makes for an insane total of combinations that can be specified to each player’s hearts content. A new important feature is that score streaks have cooldowns to prevent spamming. This is to the relief of many returning Call of Duty.(Moscow)

We had a former FPS competitive gamer in NYC agree to come back for the day and play the Beta so that we could get some eyes-on perspective of our own. Based on his gameplay of the previous Call of Duty releases, he predicts pvp will have fun with the little changes for awhile because that is how they draw people back in. He thinks they will then go back to being the same stuff with different clothes again.

During his playthrough of the Beta, we took down his opinions. His first overall impression was that Infinity ward ownership has smoother gameplay and better options, and just FELT better to play in general. He says the new company, Treyarch, uses brighter colors that give the game a ‘cartoon feel’ in some of the maps. He does acknowledge Treyarch is the parent of the Zombie campaigns and he’s got have faith that he will be satisfied with that mode. However, that seems to be their selling point. Their Black Ops release was ok, but the campaign photos for Cold War are really not indicative of PVP capabilities. Campaign mode will have the best to offer, but as for multiplayer playthrough? The bottom line is that adding all the customization options and map changes has not changed gameplay, at least in the Beta released portion of the game we experienced today.

He does have some important critiques about multiplayer. With set spawn points, he knows that once these professional teams figure out the spawn points on the new maps, any regular players will end up frustrated. The first team to find the other team’s spawn points can just camp there and slaughter the other teams respawns until the round is over. We saw that the Cartel map was already experiencing spawn point camping issues. Using the submachine gun is still not realistic enough, because you can still kill someone from too far away and with a horrible aim.

Did we mention that when a player dies, the animation is comical? The players also need a way to communicate when they don’t have mics, and there’s no system enabled to allow that. When we were on the Satellite map, we wondered why the Beretta that was so common in this area during this time period was not an option. Smaller guns are still working better than larger ones, which makes no sense, and any weapon can still kill anyone in sights but not crosshairs from any distance. Realism (weapon) is still reduced extremely in comparison to Battlefield. He hopes they will spend a little more time on correcting these physics. Also, we noticed the BETA stream was a bit pixelated today. Will this be a problem in the future?

There are some positive fixes that have been implemented. Bullets do not penetrate the walls anymore- this may not be ideal for people on offensive, but it is GREAT for defensive maneuvers. The optics sighting has optimized better than before, with cleaner and smoother use. Weapon recoil is more realistic, and character movement is as well. When you play the new Fireteam mode, they did fix the spawn point issue by enabling spawn-on-player. This is a FPS players preference, as it takes the advantage away from the campers!

The diversity in character selection is very inclusive, which is well appreciated. The Armada map looks GREAT but they spent so much time on the water that they left the clouds stationary. We can’t shoot the naval artillery weapons, but did you see the sharks in the water? (They don’t attack you, although they look fantastic.) Also, we know that weapons shouldn’t work underwater… But it makes for amazing PVP options. We can see they put effort in graphics in other places like wall posters and environmental items. That also seems to differ between maps. The vehicular warfare in Combined Arms were available without requiring a killstreak for use! They were lain throughout the map for use at will, which was an appreciated element of the warfare. Uzbekistan had tanks, need we say more?

After this weekend’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War BETA run, the final game release is slated for November 13, 2020.