Saw this on PSN last night and downloaded it. I've mostly got good experiences with Call Of Duty and ended up really enjoying the MW2 demo because the series is really good at set-pieces (haven't gotten around to playing the full game because I know the story is ass). So I went into the Black Ops demo with high hopes.
Well, those hopes got dashed. Seemed like a good bit of the game was fiddling about with novel control schemes that had little to nothing to do with anything else. Seriously, the demo lost me at the very start when I'm walking toward the spy plane in computer controlled first person mode, getting in, then expected to fly the thing. Cue a variation on the great plane mission of MW1 where the action cuts between directing the troops on the ground and taking control of a ground team member.
The whole thing smacks of a developer going full tilt to make a great cinematic experience, but losing sight of simple immersion. Plugging me into first person mode is immersive... if I'm the one controlling the character. Otherwise it's a weird cinematic trick that generally doesn't work. To compound that, you're switching back and forth, so at some points I'm listening to my own voice... while at other times the same voice is someone else. And the flow just always seemed to be off to me because of all the exposition dumps and action change-ups, which is something that drives me nuts in demos. I'm trying to work out the controls and get a good feel for what I'm supposed to be doing... and the demo seems to be constantly trying to catch me on the wrong foot. At one point, I was supposed to hide while a guard comes out and wouldn't you know it, for the first time in the demo the game doesn't tell me what I need to push to lie down. Good thing they tell me what to hit to fend off the dog attack.
Don't get me wrong, there's some cool bits in there like rappelling... and the combat is decent enough once I get past the PS3's insistence that the trigger buttons aren't fire buttons. My teammates are perhaps a bit too good at taking out baddies and I can almost hide in a corner until they're ready for me to initiate the big push into a new area. But it looks like I can safely keep this one off of my Wishlist.
Well, those hopes got dashed. Seemed like a good bit of the game was fiddling about with novel control schemes that had little to nothing to do with anything else. Seriously, the demo lost me at the very start when I'm walking toward the spy plane in computer controlled first person mode, getting in, then expected to fly the thing. Cue a variation on the great plane mission of MW1 where the action cuts between directing the troops on the ground and taking control of a ground team member.
The whole thing smacks of a developer going full tilt to make a great cinematic experience, but losing sight of simple immersion. Plugging me into first person mode is immersive... if I'm the one controlling the character. Otherwise it's a weird cinematic trick that generally doesn't work. To compound that, you're switching back and forth, so at some points I'm listening to my own voice... while at other times the same voice is someone else. And the flow just always seemed to be off to me because of all the exposition dumps and action change-ups, which is something that drives me nuts in demos. I'm trying to work out the controls and get a good feel for what I'm supposed to be doing... and the demo seems to be constantly trying to catch me on the wrong foot. At one point, I was supposed to hide while a guard comes out and wouldn't you know it, for the first time in the demo the game doesn't tell me what I need to push to lie down. Good thing they tell me what to hit to fend off the dog attack.
Don't get me wrong, there's some cool bits in there like rappelling... and the combat is decent enough once I get past the PS3's insistence that the trigger buttons aren't fire buttons. My teammates are perhaps a bit too good at taking out baddies and I can almost hide in a corner until they're ready for me to initiate the big push into a new area. But it looks like I can safely keep this one off of my Wishlist.
