I had never heard of the Call of Duty franchise, and if I did, I immediately related it to the Medal of Honor franchise since they were both World War II shooters. Then my friend told me to get Call of Duty 4, which I did, and I immediately fell in love (not literally, 'cause I'm not weird like that or anything). Then I saw World at War coming out, and I thought they had done nothing new, which I was right about. And then Modern Warfare 2, which still had nothing new.

So, I technically haven't been excited about a Call of Duty game pre-release, but it seems Black Ops is changing that. I mean, there's a lot of stuff interesting me, but it's mostly, if not all, self-contained in the campaign.

I mean, for one, no one's really attempted a Cold War campaign. Battlefield did Vietnam, but that was still primarily multiplayer. And now, for the first time in history, a major title is focusing on the Cold War. There's Rockstar's new PS3 exclusive Agent, but I mean, this is Call of Duty, one of the biggest series ever.

So, the Cold War story got me hooked, but Call of Duty's previous failures was ensuring me that this was NOT going to be a day one buy. Then, I heard some other stuff that might make a Call of Duty fan pee. I heard that you can now hear your own voice while playing as him, as well as see your own character's body (a first for the Call of Duty franchise), but I've already seen it in Halo. They also introduced a saved film option, where you can record say 20-30 seconds of multiplayer gameplay. Halo did it better since you could record entire games (even if it was nearly two hours long), as well as take film clips, and you could record from nearly every game mode (campaign, multiplayer, Forge, custom games, and now Firefight).

But, then I was reading up on some stuff, and then I saw that the timeline for the game was set to be between 1960 and 2010. And then I was like, "Oh my f***ing gosh!" It's like Assassin's Creed all over again! But then I realized exactly how EPIC of a story that would be. Medal of Honor is already focusing on the real-life supersoldiers we call Tier One Operators, but that only focuses on the current war in Afghanistan. If I'm correct, which I'm sure I am, Black Ops will focus on not only the Tier One Operators (or whatever other supersoldiers we have), as well as all the black ops they performed, but also the SOG from THE PAST. So, for a full half century, we get to witness just about every black ops mission the US government has performed. It's like a trust exercise (Obama must be getting sooo p*ssed).

Graphics might look a little dated from the trailers, but the new gameplay footage from E3 made sure the game looked half-decent. Still not as good as other games coming out, say Halo: Reach, Crysis 2, and Medal of Honor (singleplayer), but it's good enough, but hopefully Treyarch fixes everything. The textures look waay too low-res to be in a 2010 game.

So campaign is interesting. What about multiplayer? No. That's it. No. There's still not enough changes to make me want to play. The game winning killstreaks are gone (yay), and you have these new killstreaks (napalm bomb, anyone?), as well as gore, Create-a-Class 2.0 (you get to customize multiplayer skin), but it's not enough innovation. And that's what I'm looking for in a game. Innovation.

Killstreaks are still customizable, as they were in Modern Warfare 2, released nearly a year ago. Create-a-Class 2.0 attempts to overthrow the Halo-style custom characters, but Halo: Reach is proving that it still reigns champion in that department. And graphics aren't enough to fool anybody.

The killstreaks are nice, but not good enough. Maybe some user-controllable killstreaks? Like for example, instead of a Harrier strike, you could've called in a transport helicopter of your respective side (so the US side would call in Blackhawks/Seahawks) and you would man a minigun on the side. The helicopter would fly around, and your minigun could not penetrate walls. A single RPG could take you down, and it would take gameplay to A WHOLE NEW LEVEL. Maybe replace the Pavelow with an improved transport helicopter (replace the Blackhawk/Seahawk with a Chinook/Seaknight) that can persist up to 2 RPGs.

Something like that would bring something new to the table. Which is why I'm not particularly interested in this game or Medal of Honor, and possibly Crysis 2. Neither bring anything new to the table of multiplayer. And multiplayer has become a big part of our community. If multiplayer feels stale or is not new, I'm not buying. Medal of Honor felt EXACTLY like Call of Duty 4 with a little Bad Company thrown in there for good measure. And it still has a lot of problems.

So, in short, Black Ops does interest me, but it won't guarantee a day one buy. Once I see more innovation, I might consider a rent since the mark Call of Duty's staleness has left upon me is quite huge.