Call of Duty®: Black Ops II

Americanada

oldie but a goodie

Call of Duty: Black Ops II — A Retrospective, Sort Of Fourteen years on, and Black Ops II remains the high-water mark of the entire franchise — a towering monument that every subsequent Call of Duty has been quietly, hopelessly trying to live up to ever since. Treyarch didn't just make a sequel in 2012. They made a piece of art, then had the wisdom to walk away before anyone could ruin it. (They came back later. Some ruining occurred. We don't discuss that era.) The campaign! A branching narrative where YOUR choices shape the outcome — practically unheard of at the time, and honestly still more ambitious than most "choice-driven" games released since. Set in a terrifyingly plausible 2025 of drone swarms, cyberwarfare, and a villain in Raul Menendez who deserves his own wing in the Pantheon of Great Video Game Antagonists. And reader — we have now lived through 2025. I'm just saying. Treyarch knew something. The Strike Force missions were, famously, divisive. I would like to go on record as one of the few people defending them as bold, ahead-of-their-time design. I will not be elaborating further. My position is the position. And then there's Zombies. Tranzit. Die Rise. Mob of the Dead. Buried. And — be still my heart — Origins. Giant steampunk robots, Element 115, the O4 squad fighting literal apocalypse machines in a WWI trench. If you know what it takes to finish that Easter egg, you understand why I get emotional over a video game from 2012. Which brings me to something I never thought I'd say — something I have actively mocked other people for saying. I want a remaster. Me. The guy who thinks remasters are usually soulless cash-ins in nostalgia's clothing. For THIS game? Polish the textures. Re-release the soundtrack. Take my money, Activision. I will defend this purchase with my life. Now, the elephant in the room: the multiplayer in 2026 is, to put it gently, a haunted house. Every lobby is a crime scene. Every match against "xX_Pr3stige_G0d_Xx" ends with me dead before textures finish loading, shot through three walls by what I can only describe as a sniper rifle forged from pure malware. And yet. Even knowing this. Even knowing I will boot up Nuketown 2025 and get aimbotted into next Tuesday — I cannot, in good conscience, give this game anything less than a glowing, unreserved, faintly tearful 10/10. Verdict: Masterpiece. Please remaster it. I'm begging. Would get aimbotted again.