MONOBROW

How do you like their new direction? B Team Treyarch ditch their usual balls nasty approach for mecha-tat and icey electronica, a strange decision given the studios previous entries. Treyarch's Call of Duty games have never excelled as bleeding-edge series shuffles, historically the studio maintains by correcting the perceived balance issues of Infinity Ward's last release, and adding various shades of dismemberment. 

Call of Duty: World at War, arguably their best crack of the whip, kills because it presents the Second World War in terms of rampant Nationalism, and state sponsored extermination. Treyarch's MO is rusting landscapes, functional bullet spitters, and gibs galore. This Metal Gear / Battlefield 20XX mash-up borders on antithetical. Moans aside, it's interesting to see Treyarch attempting something a little less rote with the CoD franchise, I just wish it wasn't another sub-Clancy speculative shooter. We are promised two timelines in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the first stream concerns a Tomorrow Never Dies alike scenario in which some rich dick is playing the US and China off against each other. Narrative 2 concerns proxy war naughtiness of a 1980s vintage. Keep 'em peeled for a glimpse of the player flanked by Mujahideen, charging at Soviet choppers, that conclusively proves that mud and blood heroism is a millions times more exciting than imaginary laser helicopters.