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Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified |OT| Ad-Hoc Summary: It Is Not Terrible!

Nairume

Banned
Neither Jeff or users could give this game a proper review so soon after release.

Hell give it 2 weeks at least, or a month and than you'll know if you bought yourself the call of duty portable game you hope it is.

If people are still playing online, and meeting one another for ad-hoc in a month, i'd say the game did alright. If not, well there's always next year.

Actually, if you can beat the main campaign in less than an hour, see everything there is to see about the single player content in a few more, and play at least a couple hours of multiplayer to get a feel for how well it works and whether it's worthwhile or not then, uh, yeah, they can totally give this game a proper review this soon after release.
 

Nairume

Banned
Funny thing is I bet it took them longer to write that review than it did for them to play through most of the game's content.
 
Metacritic user scores are completely worthless. It seems like about 95% of them are given on the basis of some agenda, with the typical culprits being "I hate this franchise so 0/10" or "I want to justify this purchase so 10/10." This game is well under the radar of the common troll so I'd imagine most of the people reviewing it fall into category two.

I think the best opinions we can get are from this thread and from trusted reviewers. I consider Jeff Gerstmann a very trusted reviewer even though our tastes do not always align (and since the GB guys in general don't seem to be huge fans of handhelds I'll say it's probably fair to give this game another star to make a solid 2/5).
 

winjet81

Member
This game clearly deserves all the bad press it's about to get. As a huge Vita backer, it makes me ill that the Vita haters will have even more ammunition to throw.

If Sony and Yoshida knew what was coming 12 months ago when they crowed about COD on Vita, I'm sure they would have asked Activision to can the project.
 
This game clearly deserves all the bad press it's about to get. As a huge Vita backer, it makes me ill that the Vita haters will have even more ammunition to throw.

If Sony and Yoshida knew what was coming 12 months ago when they crowed about COD on Vita, I'm sure they would have asked Activision to can the project.

Only because of 1 "bad" game?
 

Ohnonono

Member
This game clearly deserves all the bad press it's about to get. As a huge Vita backer, it makes me ill that the Vita haters will have even more ammunition to throw.

If Sony and Yoshida knew what was coming 12 months ago when they crowed about COD on Vita, I'm sure they would have asked Activision to can the project.

Till Persona 4 comes out next week and giantbomb reviews that one high? Then is it all good?
 

Sean

Banned
Neither Jeff or users could give this game a proper review so soon after release.

Hell give it 2 weeks at least, or a month and than you'll know if you bought yourself the call of duty portable game you hope it is.

If people are still playing online, and meeting one another for ad-hoc in a month, i'd say the game did alright. If not, well there's always next year.

This game having an active multiplayer community a month from now wouldn't really fix any of Jeff's complaints with it (tiny maps with poor spawn points, clumsy controls, embarrassing AI, short single player, technical issues, etc).
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
I count 46 now.

Which one is you? I only listed the ones that have only reviewed one game.

10 TheMightyJew
10 oMILLERoTIMEo
10 P8ntball4
10 edleao
10 dungey
10 DrDeath
10 marckivar
10 birthright
10 ephiroth
10 IBY
10 ImmortalA9
10 KonaBro
10 megazoidd
10 VR-4nic
10 d1897
10 hammy316
10 Nitendoheady

9 Vinbeansel
9 Torrella
9 wakey1210
9 billblue555
9 nm1043
9 lowlifemalakye
9 TwoLittleGamers
9 sparky7531
9 Sofamonster
9 TURBO777
9 David530

8 Deviator
8 Fruitbat1919
8 axlnizam
 

Hanmik

Member
Really glad I didn't waste money on this game.. Lol if you read jeff's review I certanly understand the low score.. And every video I have watched shows the complaints he has..
 
Which one is you? I only listed the ones that have only reviewed one game.
10 TheMightyJew
10 oMILLERoTIMEo
10 P8ntball4
10 edleao
10 dungey
10 DrDeath
10 marckivar
10 birthright
10 ephiroth
10 IBY
10 ImmortalA9
10 KonaBro
10 megazoidd
10 VR-4nic
10 d1897
10 hammy316
10 Nitendoheady

9 Vinbeansel
9 Torrella
9 wakey1210
9 billblue555
9 nm1043
9 lowlifemalakye
9 TwoLittleGamers
9 sparky7531
9 Sofamonster
9 TURBO777
9 David530

8 Deviator
8 Fruitbat1919
8 axlnizam

Wow. So, 67% of this games user reviews have only reviewed this game. Very telling.
 
Even if this game is a somewhat serviceable version of CoD on the go, as many posts here would suggest, it still makes me sad that we have to settle for this. This game had the potential to be every bit as good as a console CoD release (minus a few small details perhaps, such as graphical fidelity) but instead we got a version that is clearly significantly inferior to its console counterpart in every way.

There is no excuse for it, really. Just look at how well Need for Speed: Most Wanted was handled on the Vita for a perfect example of doing it right.

And to be clear, I haven't played either of these games so I'm just basing these observations on what I've learned through reading and watching. It just makes me legitimately sad because I want the Vita to be successful. This kind of effort just isn't going to cut it.

Imagine playing this game and being genuinely impressed and blown away that you were playing an extremely solid CoD game on your handheld. Instead of that it seems what we're getting is more along the lines of, "wow, this is actually moderately fun and not complete and utter garbage!" It's not worth lowering my standards for that, personally, especially when the asking price is $50.
 

ttocs

Member
Metacritic needs to beef up their user reviews. Maybe have a karma system in place to figure out which reviewers are on their first review and which only give negative scores, stuff like that. At least make the user scores something other than a constant laughing stock.
 
GiantBomb's review has some good points against the game.. It's still a review though. Some people might still like the game a lot... which is the case here!

I get the fact that the game is not a good value for it's price, but reviews should not take that into account. If suddenly the game dropped to $20 it's suddenly a 3/5? Ridiculous.

Even then, 1/5 is the worst grade possible is this game really at that end of the spectrum? I seriously doubt it, R:BS is a solid 3/5. The game is not perfect and maybe it's not even good, it's mediocre, but what you see in most coverage and reviews is beyond that, it's telling us it's a POS that should be avoided at all costs.

User reviews on metacritic are worthless. Yet when real COD fans say the game is not bad at all, just a very simplified version and goes against what most "journalists" are saying, who's to believe?. It doesn't help that the current state of games journalism is pitiful.
 
Even if this game is a somewhat serviceable version of CoD on the go, as many posts here would suggest, it still makes me sad that we have to settle for this. This game had the potential to be every bit as good as a console CoD release (minus a few small details perhaps, such as graphical fidelity) but instead we got a version that is clearly significantly inferior to its console counterpart in every way.

There is no excuse for it, really. Just look at how well Need for Speed: Most Wanted was handled on the Vita for a perfect example of doing it right.

And to be clear, I haven't played either of these games so I'm just basing these observations on what I've learned through reading and watching. It just makes me legitimately sad because I want the Vita to be successful. This kind of effort just isn't going to cut it.

Imagine playing this game and being genuinely impressed and blown away that you were playing an extremely solid CoD game on your handheld. Instead of that it seems what we're getting is more along the lines of, "wow, this is actually moderately fun and not complete and utter garbage!"

This is actually what I was thinking last year, I was fantasizing I would play a full console CoD in the back of the class.
 
This is actually what I was thinking last year, I was fantasizing I would play a full console CoD in the back of the class.
I remember discussing this in previous threads here on GAF and talking about how cool it would be if it was the same version of the game and all of your loadouts and stats carried over on the different versions. It's crazy how unrealistic that idea seems now, haha.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
User reviews on metacritic are worthless. Yet when real COD fans say the game is not bad at all, just a very simplified version and goes against what most "journalists" are saying, who's to believe?. It doesn't help that the current state of games journalism is pitiful.
Jeff Gerstmann is a big COD fan. He played for example Modern Warfare for several hundred hours on XBL.
 
I remember discussing this in previous threads here on GAF and talking about how cool it would be if it was the same version of the game and all of your loadouts and stats carried over on the different versions. It's crazy how unrealistic that idea seems now, haha.

I think cross play would have worked great with BLOPS2.
 
Jeff Gerstmann is a big COD fan. He played for example Modern Warfare for several hundred hours on XBL.

Then that's a great user review from a COD fan.

I just read the review. Wow, I don't read GB but are all of their reviews so badly written? It was surprising to say the least. It's just a flow of anecdotal experiences with bad punctuation.

The fact that he thinks there's a "proper" call of duty makes it inevitable that he is actually comparing the game to it's console counterparts, and what it could've been, instead of reviewing the game for what it's.
 

jaxpunk

Member
Folks trying to justify their purchases with very paded scores.

I personally bought it myself and there's no way this is a 1 star game. Played a few levels of single player, played survival or whatever until I died and multiplayer had me tracked at a little over 1:30.

Single player is just that, single player call of duty. Meh... But I'm meh about all the single player COD games.

Survival was strange and this was before I got the 1.1? patch. But the AI was weird, some guys would chase me down while others at times stood in doorways. Either way it was alright, nothing to write home to momma about and tell her how my panties got moist.

Multiplayer was pretty much what I bought the game for and after 10 mins or so of getting used to it I was killing people pretty regularly. Loading took a little bit of extra time, which seemed to somewhat been fixed by the patch. I ended up lvl 10 after that hour and a half and I had fun.

So stroke over Jeffs review of 1 star, but by no means is it a one star game.
 

Apocryphon

Member
Bought this yesterday, reasonably happy but think the prices is too high. Vita games need to be £20 not £40 :-/

It's nice to have Call of Duty on a handheld - previous versions on PSP and DS were dreadful, but it does leave a lot to be desired.

The lack of significant offline content is unforgivable. While the series is most definitely multiplayer centric, a zombies mode, multiplayer with bots and more hostiles levels would have gone a long way to making this a must have. Of all the Vita games, Unit 13 has been my favourite. Plenty of content, brilliant controls, great visuals, everything you need for a solid portable shooter. Except an online mode obviously. Declassified is exactly the opposite. The multiplayer stuff is great - even if it isn't 60fps and only has 6 maps. It's Call of Duty on a handheld and Vita owners should at least be greatful that there's a new game available.

Worth buying? Sure. Worth buying for £40? Probably not.
 
The fact that he thinks there's a "proper" call of duty makes it inevitable that he is actually comparing the game to it's console counterparts, and what it could've been, instead of reviewing the game for what it's.

I'm not saying it's right, but how can this ever not happen with a big multi-playform series? Honestly it's going to be either this or "it's good... for a handheld game", take your pick.
 

spannicus

Member
I wonder if you guys actually know this for a fact, because the Modern Combat series actually have pretty featured rich multiplayers, and MC4 seems to up this another notch.

The new MC 4 game actually in my opinion looks way better than Declassified and they even through in alot of that BLOPs 2 future thingamajigs. Im loving Declassified but all in all it could have been awesome if someone loved it a little more than that bastard father Activision. Hey, you live and then you learn and then you slap your head with your hand.
 

Shikoro

Member
Multiplayer matches are often hard to connect to, and if you're connecting to what Sony refers to as a "Type 3" NAT...
That isn't anything Sony is referring to as, it's a widely known thing which may or may not be due to the game, but it mostly is the router's fault. Ignorant piece of something...

Wow at their comment section. Jesus Christ
 

Carl

Member
This game having an active multiplayer community a month from now wouldn't really fix any of Jeff's complaints with it (tiny maps with poor spawn points, clumsy controls, embarrassing AI, short single player, technical issues, etc).

Tiny maps complaint is amusing. With 8 players you need small maps. Looks fine to me from videos. If the maps were any bigger people would be complaining that you spend ages searching for the enemy.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
The GB review and all of the comments that follow it...So good. I guess that's what you get when you have a bunch of folks out there rooting for the Vita to fail.

I'm picking this up, but likely not at $50. $40, yes - but $50 is a bit much given the huge list of games I have in my backlog alongside the announcement of PS+.
 

fernoca

Member
Damn. I so wanted to buy a vita, just to play some COD matches during lunch break...

How did this happen?
You not buying the Vita or taking lunch break? Break happens after up to 5 hours if working usually.

:p

I really like the game AND played during launch break yesterday (left it today). Loving 'Hostiles' but I like horde-type modes in ganes (played more offline Spec Ops in MW3 than online multiplayer).
 
is this going to turn into an RE6-level conspiracy theory? because that was bullshit too

Not at all, it seems the game is not perfect and is overpriced for the little content it has. The problem is that the little content it has seems to actually be good. Given that, all those below average reviews seems a bit unffair.
 
is this going to turn into an RE6-level conspiracy theory? because that was bullshit too
Seriously, it's absurd. Anyone who is familiar with the GB guys probably knows that they aren't huge fans of handhelds but purposefully reviewing games negatively in order to help a system fail? Come on...
 

jaxpunk

Member
You can try and discredit Jeff's 1/5 review all you want, but it doesn't make your opinion any more important than his.

Not much trying to it, his 1 star review is shit...but it's his opinion and I offered my differing opinion. It's cool because we've both played the game, unlike you.
 
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