Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - PUMP OR AUTO

Response to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's alpha seems to be mixed, with many disappointed that this year's title delivers less of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's audio-visual luxury. Absolutely Treyarch (and Activision Shanghai, Beenox, High Moon Studios and Raven Software)'s game is less interested in gun club fidelity but Cold War's overall sound design is much more readable. Foot steps in particular were superb in this Alpha, allowing players to make quick decisions based on reliable, actionable, audio feedback. That's something that Modern Warfare, particularly Call of Duty: Warzone, has never quite achieved.

My personal complaints are the latency issues that always seem to plague the Treyarch releases - opposition players and their weapons pointing in completely different directions to the way they're actually firing or the broken camera angles that mean what you're seeing and what your opponent are seeing never quite synchronise. The latter most often expressed in killcam watching that sees your character bounding into frame and taking hits, following a confrontation were you never even saw a pixel of your assassin. Balance wise, scorestreaks are heavily weighted towards the end of matches, when the dune snipers have finally amassed enough points to unleash Huey helicopters, meaning otherwise sedate games can become meat grinders in their dying seconds. Still the classic run-and-gun gameplay is obviously there and, thankfully, weighted towards players who seek confrontation rather than vertical power positions.