Wednesday 31 March 2010

Franchise Installment X: Wet Work



VGChartz is reporting that the next Call of Duty title will be swerving the anticipated Vietnam only installment, and instead focusing on disavowed murder missions up and down the twentieth century. Call of Duty: Black Ops is expected to be best-of assassination compilation, with missions ranging from World War II nastiness right up to roleplaying an SAS operative during the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege.

Black Ops looks to be continuing a loose trend begun with Treyarch's last installment Call of Duty: World at War. That title muddled around with the concept of sanctioned immorality - during the Soviet portion of the campaign prisoner's of war could be shot, and missions prickled with your commanding officer sermonising a gospel of utter extermination. This emphasis on venality made World at War pop in comparison to the whitewashed worthiness of its WWII simulation contemporaries.

If this all info turns out to be kosher, Black Ops might well be the spiritual successor to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's SAS campaign. As good as Modern Warfare 2 was, the single player never quite captured the moral black hole of its predecessor, were shooting helpless sleeping insurgents was top of your to-do list. Disaster Year does hope that Black Ops' developers have had themselves a good read of Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz's Shadowplay: The Secret Team from the Brought to Light anthology. Go the whole hog Treyarch! Have players murder suspected Communist sympathisers - teachers are always a good start! Rig elections! Undermine economies! Funnel drug trafficking profits into arming psychotic militias! Release a title dripping with boozy, imperialist paranoia and you'll have yourselves Disaster Year's ideal military muck-about. Make us feel like monsters Treyarch!

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