Black ops 2 or something else?

[dpodblood]

I guess I just like having the disc**

Oh, and not that I'd ever resell it (I still have all my old COD games) but I wasn't aware that I can't resell them??

Either way, I can't get the darn thing to install so I'm pretty screwed either way!!!!!!!

You can't resell any Steamworks game** Once the serial key is activated on Steam it's tied to your account, and you can't play without activating**

Part of the reason I have started buying through Steam even for new releases is that it's not taxed** Where I live sales tax is 15% so it's pretty significant**

 

[de8212]

Oh, good point** I will just do that in the future** But honestly I rarely play games**

Something hokey must have been going on with my PC** I rebooted and it's installing**

Probably won't have a good chance to play today, maybe late tonight**

 

[0___________0]

It's the same engine, with superficial tweaks, and ported to DX11. However, DX11 has nothing to do with the engine itself, it's like saying a book originally written in Japanese was written in English just because it was translated over. Microsoft is pushing devs to DX11 to force XP (and hopefully 32-bit windows with it) out the door.

http://gamerant.com/black-ops-2-doesnt-need-new-engine-dyce-149032/

The biggest clue is that the X360 and PS3 are the primary dev platforms, platforms which lack entirely anything to do with DX11-specific features. People would freak out if the PC version had any notable differences other than resolution options over the console versions, and you'll notice that there is no difference between the PC and console versions of Blops2. Hence, no DX11 features at all (otherwise the PC version would feature graphical elements that would be impossible on console).

Is this a bad thing? Well from a business standpoint, when your primary platforms, the consoles, outsell the PC versions something like 50-1, we're lucky to see PC ports of the COD games at all. And with the consoles, there's pretty much no reason to even try a new engine, the COD games are as good as they're going to get on ancient hardware and still hit 60fps. From a PC gamer perspective, they are antiquated as hell, but if someone enjoys them, more power to em.

What is dishonest is trying to make it sound like Blops2 is anything more than minor tweaks on the COD4 engine, just like it has been all along. That's simply the truth.

I swear, people on these boards can't read.

The question isn't upgrade or not an upgrade, but how much of an upgrade.

While I will concede that the engine used only receives minor upgrades,

How big of an upgrade is the only debate, to argue that there has been no upgrade, no improvement at all, is a point you can't successfully argue.

It's undeniable that BLOPS 2 looks better than past CoD titles, and far better than the games made off the original engine, id tech 3. It's been upgraded, I don't even need to spell out all the features that have been improved or added. The only question is how much of an upgrade it is. My original comment still stands, the engine has been upgraded. Once again I find myself having bold stuff, look at my quote, you see where I said "minor upgrades"? I never said it has colossal improvements over the CoD 4 engine. Yeah, those are still upgrades.

 

[Smartazz]

I'm a little confused. Are there dedicated servers or not? If there isn't I'm not buying it. I loved Black Ops but MW3 was too laggy.

 

[Regs]

I'm a little confused. Are there dedicated servers or not? If there isn't I'm not buying it. I loved Black Ops but MW3 was too laggy.

They're dedicated, but they are pretty much identical how iwnet works in matchmaking. As in it plays pretty lag free (no p2p), but no one has control over the servers and you go threw the matchmaking process to find a game to play in.

 

[Smartazz]

They're dedicated, but they are pretty much identical how iwnet works in matchmaking. As in it plays pretty lag free (no p2p), but no one has control over the servers and you go threw the matchmaking process to find a game to play in.

Not ideal, but I guess that's fine. Does it play more like Black Ops or MW3?

 

[KaOTiK]

Ok, so I won a copy of this on Steamgifts yesterday and played a bit of it today. I've never played much of the CoD series, played a few in single, the only one I played multi was when I borrowed my friends copy for the PS3.

I don't remember the maps in MW2 being nearly as small as the ones in BO2. I mean these maps are fucking tiny. Again, I don't remember spawning being like this, or at least this bad, but I swear close to 75% of my deaths are with in 10 seconds of spawning and getting killed from behind. There has been cases where I killed a guy and he literally respawns 20 feet away behind me (I had it happen to me as the person being killed as well).

Seriously, is this what is considered fun now for a multiplayer shooter?

Graphically it isn't very good looking, some parts look ok, but a lot of it is just bleh. Found the sound weak as well.

I did think the customization of how you want to setup your guy as you unlock stuff was pretty good and neat though.

I played like 2 missions in single player and just turned it off, I'll give it another shot but it did nothing to actually pull me in or even care to keep playing.

Looking forward to trying the Zombie mode as that was the main reason I decided to keep the gift instead of just giving it to my friend.

I'm just baffled and am wondering if I am truly missing something or what about the multiplayer. I played it for a few hours to give it a fair shot, but man, between tiny ass maps and the spawning system I just found it boring and in all honesty, pretty crappy experience. Is this seriously what sells millions of copies now every year? While I had issues with MW2, overall I did enjoy the multiplayer (prestiged nearly 2 times before my buddy wanted it back), but this, wtf?

 

[dpodblood]

Played for about 4 hours tonight. Enjoying the crap out of it so far. There are some small maps, but most I would consider medium sized. Hijacked is defiantly the new nuketown and is just as annoying. The game feels like a mix between MW2 and BLOPS1, but is better than both mechanically and graphically. Obviously this is no BF3 graphical powerhouse, but for a COD game it looks pretty damn good. Gameplay is extremely frantic, and fun. Shockingly I have a much better KDR in hardcore than in normal mode. The spawn system is certainly a lot better than in BLOPS1, and thank god for dedicated servers. It is instantly noticeable how much less latency I get in this game compared to MW3. Probably spend the rest of this week playing MP and get into the campaign on the weekend.

 

[Regs]

Not ideal, but I guess that's fine. Does it play more like Black Ops or MW3?

So far, I actually like the game in all aspects. This game so far is making MW3 look like trash. Treyarch make it seem they were the original creators all along and I think they finally out did themselves.

 

[dust]

Don't know if this has been posted but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp8P9oI1IrY

A little bit of gameplay. The future stuff looks a little good but it's still the same damn game we've been fed all these years.

 

[DeadFred]

Don't know if this has been posted but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp8P9oI1IrY

A little bit of gameplay. The future stuff looks a little good but it's still the same damn game we've been fed all these years.

The wing suit looked pretty cool.

 

[Regs]

Metacritic is filled with nothing but haters. Only a day after release and you have a site littered with people giving negative reviews. Does not make sense to me only after a day. Just because a game does not fit your shooting style on every damn map, or some one who customized their classes to exploit your style, does not make it a bad game. You even have reviewers saying "there are no dedicated servers" obviously don't know what they're talking about. These are just players who want the old MW back with the clan hosted dedicated servers. I too was hesitant of matchmaker system, and it still has it flaws, but I do think it is better than the old days when servers would die out if you don't have a lot of clan support, tyrannical administrators, or crazy rules in every server.

I agree that 60 dollars for a rehash is criminal, but I don't expect a different game when it is called "Black Ops II". People are just being a little unrealistic.

 

[gorcorps]

Metacritic is filled with nothing but haters. Only a day after release and you have a site littered with people giving negative reviews. Does not make sense to me only after a day. Just because a game does not fit your shooting style on every damn map, or some one who customized their classes to exploit your style, does not make it a bad game. You even have reviewers saying "there are no dedicated servers" obviously don't know what they're talking about. These are just players who want the old MW back with the clan hosted dedicated servers. I too was hesitant of matchmaker system, and it still has it flaws, but I do think it is better than the old days when servers would die out if you don't have a lot of clan support, tyrannical administrators, or crazy rules in every server.

I agree that 60 dollars for a rehash is criminal, but I don't expect a different game when it is called "Black Ops II". People are just being a little unrealistic.

Most of those reviews seem to be from CoD haters in general who haven't played them in years. That's why I like Amazon's system that will specially label reviews of people who have actually bought the thing they're reviewing.

 

[pontifex]

Metacritic is filled with nothing but haters. Only a day after release and you have a site littered with people giving negative reviews. Does not make sense to me only after a day. Just because a game does not fit your shooting style on every damn map, or some one who customized their classes to exploit your style, does not make it a bad game. You even have reviewers saying "there are no dedicated servers" obviously don't know what they're talking about. These are just players who want the old MW back with the clan hosted dedicated servers. I too was hesitant of matchmaker system, and it still has it flaws, but I do think it is better than the old days when servers would die out if you don't have a lot of clan support, tyrannical administrators, or crazy rules in every server.

I agree that 60 dollars for a rehash is criminal, but I don't expect a different game when it is called "Black Ops II". People are just being a little unrealistic.

lol, 99% of those reviews are people who don't even own the game. it's been like that since mw2.

 

[cmdrdredd]

To be fair though dedicated servers are a big deal on PC sometimes because it creates an even field for clan matches or tourneys. You can host the game on a neutral computer and everyone connects to that. Nobody is getting a 0ping time which does create an advantage. Also there are some players with fast download speeds but very slow upload depending on the ISP. I used to know someone who got 3Mbit down but only 256Kbit up.

 

[dpodblood]

To be fair though dedicated servers are a big deal on PC sometimes because it creates an even field for clan matches or tourneys. You can host the game on a neutral computer and everyone connects to that. Nobody is getting a 0ping time which does create an advantage. Also there are some players with fast download speeds but very slow upload depending on the ISP. I used to know someone who got 3Mbit down but only 256Kbit up.

BLOPS2 does have dedicated servers though.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I am just saying that it was a big complaint previously and for a long time it seemed like the devs didn't listen.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Anything else. The sooner this franchise stops being the biggest pre-ordered, selling, etc game every year the better off we all will be.

 

[Arkaign]

Anything else. The sooner this franchise stops being the biggest pre-ordered, selling, etc game every year the better off we all will be.

It doesn't sell very well on PC, barely enough to make it worthwhile. It is massively popular on console though.

 

[Arkaign]

I swear, people on these boards can't read.

It's undeniable that BLOPS 2 looks better than past CoD titles, and far better than the games made off the original engine, id tech 3. It's been upgraded, I don't even need to spell out all the features that have been improved or added. The only question is how much of an upgrade it is. My original comment still stands, the engine has been upgraded. Once again I find myself having bold stuff, look at my quote, you see where I said "minor upgrades"? I never said it has colossal improvements over the CoD 4 engine. Yeah, those are still upgrades.

You're the one who was trying to make it a big deal that this was a 'DX11' title, despite using no feature of DX11 that would require it to be used. They could have put it on DX9 and had no difference. If anything, given the benchmarks, they did a terrible job with the DX11 port, probably didn't even optimize it.

Look at this :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34237607&postcount=11

He has a point. Due to terrible optimization, someone with a GTX690, 7970x2 or SLI GTX680/CF 7970 and a 120hz display, can't even run it at 120fps to match their monitor. Considering the graphics really are almost zero improvement over COD4 (in some ways worse with the art direction and muddy textures), this is horrendous. And those benches are with a $1000 CPU that requires a $200+ mobo (usually $400+ for the good ones) overclocked to 4.8Ghz!

May as well play this on console and skip the PC version. More people play console, less cheaters there, and it will be popular for far longer there.

 

[0___________0]

You're the one who was trying to make it a big deal that this was a 'DX11' title, despite using no feature of DX11 that would require it to be used. They could have put it on DX9 and had no difference. If anything, given the benchmarks, they did a terrible job with the DX11 port, probably didn't even optimize it.

Look at this :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34237607&postcount=11

He has a point. Due to terrible optimization, someone with a GTX690, 7970x2 or SLI GTX680/CF 7970 and a 120hz display, can't even run it at 120fps to match their monitor. Considering the graphics really are almost zero improvement over COD4 (in some ways worse with the art direction and muddy textures), this is horrendous. And those benches are with a $1000 CPU that requires a $200+ mobo (usually $400+ for the good ones) overclocked to 4.8Ghz!

May as well play this on console and skip the PC version. More people play console, less cheaters there, and it will be popular for far longer there.

I only used a few words to say that it uses the DX11 APIs, that's a far cry from "a big deal". It became a big deal because dredd kept harping that it was still DX9. Yes, it is obvious now that it has poor optimization, I made my comment before the game was released; as the DX11 APIs can do stuff slightly faster than the DX9 APIs, and it renders stuff a little more nicely, if implemented well.

Anyways, I think we're in agreement at this point now.

 

[Arkaign]

I only used a few words to say that it uses the DX11 APIs, that's a far cry from "a big deal". It became a big deal because dredd kept harping that it was still DX9. Yes, it is obvious now that it has poor optimization, I made my comment before the game was released; as the DX11 APIs can do stuff slightly faster than the DX9 APIs, and it renders stuff a little more nicely, if implemented well.

Anyways, I think we're in agreement at this point now.

Cool. It's not my idea of fun to crap on something that many people like. For those that have fun with it, more power to em. As far as console, there really aren't a lot of good alternatives for good FPS games. The single player modes in the COD series have always been entertaining if a bit short.

My main criticism of the series is their indisputable base of console development which has stalled the game as far as the PC variants are concerned. Tiny maps, low-res textures, and an almost insulting level of laziness when it comes to the ports we get. To add insult to injury, they drop off in popularity quickly on PC due to these very issues, so you get a lot more value playing on the console version where MW1, MW2, Blops1, MW3 all have tons of players at any given time. The graphics and gameplay quality are fine for a 2007-era game, but it's hard to swallow year after year of them on a basic 'installment/expansion' basis for the PC. It's much easier to understand on console, where the hardware basically gives them no choice, particularly if they want to stay at 60fps instead of 30. That part is also a bitter pill, the PC version looks no better than the console version other than resolution, but the X360 has something like an X1xxx gen ATI GPU, but gets better FPS than a 7870 @ 1080p? (from the benches using the 3960X @ 4.8) Ouch.

I hope that makes things more clear as far as my perspective. In the end all that matters is if people are happy with it, and feel they got their $'s worth. I still wouldn't recommend it on PC, but think it's fine for the PS3/X360, especially considering the huge community. You can probably almost always find one of your friends playing it, and it will be popular for years.

Cheers.

 

[YBS1]

He has a point. Due to terrible optimization, someone with a GTX690, 7970x2 or SLI GTX680/CF 7970 and a 120hz display, can't even run it at 120fps to match their monitor. Considering the graphics really are almost zero improvement over COD4 (in some ways worse with the art direction and muddy textures), this is horrendous. And those benches are with a $1000 CPU that requires a $200+ mobo (usually $400+ for the good ones) overclocked to 4.8Ghz!

BS....I don't know what they are doing wrong but the game runs like liquid here. If it's dropping under 120fps I'm not ever noticing it, and every time I've glanced at the counter it's pegged. Two 680's and the beta driver. Should note, multiplayer, haven't played SP yet.

I should also add early in I think this is the best COD ever, there are some things I would of course change but all in all a bang up job by Treyarch. Serious flaws may surface after some additional play time but it seems good so far. No server browser really sucks and I'm pissed there is no HC Domination, but otherwise happy.

 

[Arkaign]

Says they are running Nvidia driver version 310.54.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii-test-gpu.html

66FPS minimum, 85FPS average, at 1080p Very High Quality settings w/8X MSAA for the GTX680.

The PC I tried it on was a Phenom II X6 1090T, 8GB DDR3-1600, Radeon 6950 2GB. It ran okay, a little jerky now and then, definitely not 120FPS like it should have been with that config.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Says they are running Nvidia driver version 310.54.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii-test-gpu.html

66FPS minimum, 85FPS average, at 1080p Very High Quality settings w/8X MSAA for the GTX680.

The PC I tried it on was a Phenom II X6 1090T, 8GB DDR3-1600, Radeon 6950 2GB. It ran okay, a little jerky now and then, definitely not 120FPS like it should have been with that config.

The CPU is holding things back.