BlackOps G4TV GamesCom Preview

[Sun Tzu]

G4TV GamesCom Preview

G4TV were at GamesCom and they managed to get a preview of Call of Duty: Black Ops. They were shown the "Victor Charlie" and "Payback" Single Player levels.

The first level that G4TV » seen was "Victor Charlie" which hasn't been shown previously until GamesCom. The level sees the player controlling Sergeant Mason as your helicopter crashes into the Huong River. G4 described the opening to the level as "horrific" due to watching your squadmates being ripped apart by the enemy's bullets as your crashed chopper sinks further into the water. The date for this mission is mentioned as February 5, 1968.

The beginning of "Saving Private Ryan" which sees soldiers diving over the edge of the landing boat to avoid fire from a German machine gun is what the level reminds them of. A few seconds after your helicopter plunges into the water, the Viet Cong are already approaching quickly while your character tries to swim underwater (new gameplay element ») to escape the enemy and the bullets that whiz through the water.

Once you have completed this level then you are put back in the water to do some stealth swimming which involves swimming behind unsuspecting enemies and killing them by surprise. It's believed that it's a simple swim mechanic but that the re-use of the bullet trails in the water (taken from Call of Duty: World at War) shows how much Treyarch must love the water. A character makes a funny remark, "Rain. That's all it f*ckin' does here is rain" but G4 states that these rain makes a lush, green jungle which is a truly beautiful environment.

At one point your character (Mason) grabs an enemy and uses him as a shield while he shoots back at the enemy attackers, but it seems that this is just one of many brutal executions as one encounter also sees the enemy with his throat completely gashed open. A new feature that gets us excited is bullet-time which is when the camera follows your bullet as it heads straight for your enemy, this would make for an awesome kill-cam in Multiplayer, right? If possible, that is!

The preview then went on to describe how the level evolves from stealthy to a massive firefight which sees your team gain access to Semtex, but you have to be careful not to hit any civilians within the area.

The next part of the level takes place in the infamous tunnel that many previewers have described as dark and creepy. You must crawl through the very tight quarters with only a flashlight to assist your sight. In order to confuse your enemies and to keep them from knowing your position, you have to pop the flashlight on and off.

The second and final level that they seen was "Payback" which was first shown to the public at E3 » over 2 months ago. In this level you have broken free after being captured and you then hijack a Russian Hind helicopter after taking out a Viet Cong squad. When in the helicopter, you can pitch and yaw in any direction while your squadmate controls the vertical.

The chopper does a lot of damage and destruction with it's weapons, which includes a 12MM nose cannon and two UV-32 rocket pods which both contain 32 S-5 57mm rockets. As far as controls are concerned, you control the pitch with the left stick while the yaw is controlled with the right stick. You can either fire single rocket shots, or you can hold down the trigger to "charge" them up and fire a burst of several rockets at once. The rockets are pretty useful for taking out smaller targets.

A LOT of things can blow up when causing your destruction from above, this includes: vehicles, infantry, fuel depots, boats, bridges, a SAM site and more. The previewers played in Demigod mode which makes sure that the can take damage but won't die. Their chopper was on fire, had plenty of bullet holes and well... it was in a very bad shape. The damage modeling in the chopper is dynamic and it will let you know visually how bad the damage is.

You can shoot a pipeline that is seen throughout most of the level, shooting it produces a few spouts of fire and G4 mention that it's little details like this that gives Black Ops a visceral experience. They felt that the flying was very satisfying and offered loads of revenge fun as well as describing it as a nice change from being situated on the ground and calling in an airstrike.

G4TV didn't experience Multiplayer and only had a short time on the Single Player levels but they found it fun and left them wanting more and luckily that's just around the corner as they ended the preview off by reminding us that a lot more Multiplayer details will be revealed next Wednesday (September 1st). Read the full preview in it's original form here » or check out a short video preview from G4TV below.