“full-on TRT in a game!"
PC | PS5 | XBOX SERIES
HOW I PLAYED: I played Black Ops 6 via Xbox GamePass PC on my R7 7800X3D, RTX 3080 Gaming PC. I played at 1440p ultra settings with DLSS set to balanced and was hitting 100fps and above.
STORY — 16/20
INTRO
Black Ops 6 plunges players into a relentless thrill ride set in the Desert Storm era. Our main protagonist William "Case" Calderon and his band of CIA operatives are sent to extract the Iraqi minister of defense. The mission starts off as planned but is interrupted when they discover a new dark faction "The Pantheon" has entered the mix and has their own ulterior motives for our protagonists and the CIA.
CUTSCENES
As soon as I saw the first cutscene in Black Ops 6 I said to myself "Holy SHIT! Is this a Michael Mann movie?". Seriously, you can totally tell Call Of Duty and Activision have 100's of millions of dollars spent on these games. The cinematics in this game are on par with huge box-office action movies.
WORLD BUILDING
Call Of Duty has never been known for super deep world-building, you basically get a mission brief and you are set loose to go full guns blazing or sneak around like a deadly assassin. And to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way! Straight forward and to the point! Nothing wrong with that.
OVERALL STORY
I am not an FPS player, and I have only recently played a few Call Of Duty games (Black Ops 1 &2, Modern Warfare). But This game brought me back to being a kid in elementary school playing Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64! This is straight up just the "grown-up" version of that. And I LOVED IT. The story was an action-packed THRILL RIDE and I was quite taken away by some of the mid-game "twists" I am genuinely interested in hearing what hardcore Call Of Duty fans thought of the campaign's more "interesting" elements that were mixed in.
The overall story was right up there with a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movie with impossible stakes getting even crazier as the story gets to its pivotal 3rd act. Kudos Black Ops 6 writers!
GRAPHICS — 14/15
CHARACTER MODELS
I was one of the people who thought Alan Wake II had the industry's best character models until I played Black Ops 6. All of the character models have INSANE detail and look incredibly life-like. Perfectly encapsulates the actors playing the characters in this game.
ENVIRONMENTS
From Iraq to Downtown Washington all of the environments have a jaw-dropping amount of detail in them. I was shocked to find out that there isn't any Ray Tracing in Black Ops 6 as pointed out by Digital Foundries Alex Battaglia via X.com. For an FPS game, I still had many "wow" moments looking at my surrounding environments, which I had plenty of time to do while I was caught running out of ammo and running away trying to reload my weapon.
SPECIAL FX
Everything looks great! From gunfire muzzle flair to grenades exploding and electricity traps. It all looks top-tier in Black Ops 6.
AUDIO — 13/15
AMBIENCE
With a mix of licensed music and perfectly created ambient tracks, Black Ops 6 has it down to a formula to keep the player JACKED full of adrenaline. I genuinely felt immersed in the world of a CIA spy during my playthrough.
BOSS MUSIC
First off... this game HAS bosses! Which was a nice surprise! And the boss music was serviceable. But I think it would be a bit much to expect an operatic epic like in a Final Fantasy game. So I was happy with what we got, which is generic high-intensity background music.
SOUND DESIGN
Top tier, and I think you have to have INSANE sound design in a good FPS game. I could hear nearby footsteps and the individual sounds each weapon made. All incredible. Also, the voice acting is Oscar-worthy in this game. Activision spent the big bucks getting some big-name actors to play characters in this series and they are definitely not "phoning it in" for an easy paycheck.
PERFORMANCE — 9/10
FRAME RATE
I was easily hitting 120fps on my PC, but I was super surprised to see this game still supports the previous generation of consoles (PS4, Xbox One). And on current generation consoles, the game is hitting mostly 60fps targets on Xbox Series and PS5, which is what I would expect. And the Series X and PS5 even have 120fps modes which I think is great for Activision and Raven to do.
STABILITY
I never ran into a single game-breaking issue in my entire playthrough. I had some minor visual pop-ins from time to time, but other than that I had a perfectly smooth experience and I played this game on launch! KUDOS
GAMEPLAY — 35/40
CONTROLS
These controls were refined and felt amazingly fluent! Again I am not an FPS player and I don't know all the S tier Strats for Black Ops 6. But from what I hear the new movement is very highly received.
MECHANICS
Only playing the campaign I enjoyed the mechanics in the game. I liked the simple mission board structure and also using money in the game to upgrade stats for weapon damage etc. Raven Studios and Activision KNEW, what were they doing when they incorporated the new "Body Shield" mechanic. I have watched countless TikTok and YouTube videos of people's "Highlights" using this mechanic and I think it is a hilarious Meme-able addition to CoD mechanics.
PACING
There is ZERO fat in this game's campaign and I love it! You go from one high-octane mission to the next. I never felt like the story was being derailed for any padding reasons. It is a rare occurrence when a video game respects the player's time instead of wasting it to artificially pad up the game's runtime.
UI/UE
Again, this series is nearing 20+ years old, and you can tell that they have a tried-and-true system when it comes to the UI/UE. All the menus were easily navigated. MY ONE SMALL GRIPE is the game launcher. This may be just an Xbox GamePass thing, but launching the game to then launch the game a second time and waiting for two launches to load is tiresome.
BOSS QUALITY
I am legit just happy there were bosses in this game! They were totally out of the blue, but I loved that. I think this game had better bosses than Alan Wake II.
ENEMY VARIETY
There are different standard enemy mobs and then some with extra armor and then pure TANK BOIS. I think with the game's aesthetic and atmosphere Raven Studios has done a great job with enemy variety.
GAMEPLAY VARIETY
I thought I knew what I was in for with the campaign, but I was hilariously pleased to find a section that looked straight-up ripped from the 2023 indie hit "Only Up". The missions are varied and have a good mix of tasks and objectives that make the gameplay feel varied. Then you also have the whole multiplayer aspect which is what CoD is known for, AND the ZOMBIES portion of the game which is a big hit with fans.
I am TRASH at FPS games so I did not play either of these as I doubt I would last more than 10 seconds per match round...
Art imitates life hey?
REPLAYABILITY
The campaign was great, and I found myself enjoying replays of the missions. But I know for 99% of fans the multiplayer PVP is where this game holds its replayability.
BONUS — 1/4
The PC version has remappable controls. I was kind of surprised for a game this big that it didn't include more accessibility options. But ... what can you do?
OVERALL — 88/100
Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Is full-on TRT in a game! Balls to the wall, full throttle, Dominic Torreto in a CAN peak action cinema! I had a WIKID good time playing this campaign. It was super refreshing to play a good solid TIGHT 8-10 hour campaign, that wasted ZERO time with BS padding and drawn-out dialogue. If you are low on creatine and need a good PUMP before you hit the gym... then definitely check out this game!
TLDR: 88/100 (GREAT) Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 delivers an intense, action-packed campaign set in the Desert Storm era, following CIA agent William Calderon as he faces off against a mysterious new faction. With blockbuster-level cinematics, incredible character detail, and fluid controls, the game offers non-stop excitement and respects players' time with a tight, filler-free 8-10 hour experience. While the campaign is a standout, multiplayer and zombies modes add even more replay value, making this a thrilling, well-crafted addition to the franchise.
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