2. Call of Duty Black Ops 3
(BO3)
• Call of Duty BO3 is the 12th instalment of one of the largest first person shooter gaming franchises in the world. The game is set into two
main game types, single player and multiplayer, as well as this there is an additional “zombies” mode which can be played both solo and
multiplayer. The single player aspect appeals to the audience of people who do not like to play online, the main single player offline
game mode is campaign, this is a linear story mode where the player chooses a difficulty to play on based on their ability for example
most games have an ’easy’ and ’hard’/ in CoD’s case a ‘veteran’ mode. Unlike other games CoD does not typically have side quest
missions within their campaign/story mode. Within the campaign there are “player goals” which offer objectives which are usually
something like defeat an enemy or to collect/deliver an item. The campaign of Black Ops 3 is not like other Call Of Duty’s such as “CoD
WW2” where it is based off true events, however Call of Duty: Black Ops III takes place in 2065, 40 years after the events of Black Ops II,
in a world facing upheaval from a Third Cold War, climate change and new technologies. There is also a feedback interface on the
controllers, this is usually featured when shooting or being shot at or if there is an explosion.
• The multiplayer is the most popular aspect of the franchise and is what most of the fans buy the game for. The way the multiplayer
works is a ranking system as well as player statistics and in game awards known as ‘medals’ which are like achievements for doing
certain things like getting a certain number of kills in a row without your character dying. The way the ranking system works is you level
up from level 1-55 initially, you level up by gaining in game ‘XP’ ( experience points) this is gained by the things you do in game such as
completing the objectives or killing the other team. Once you reach level 55 you can ‘prestige’ and repeat the levelling up process up
until ‘ master prestige’ this is where you get to prestige 10, level 55 and from here onwards your level starts going up until level 1000
which is the highest possible level. In game rewards are very popular in the gaming industry as they make the game more addictive and
make people want to keep playing the game, these rewards are both ‘medals’ and ‘ scorestreaks’. Medals are earned from for example
a ’nuclear’ medal is from getting 30 kills in a row without dying, these medals also give you special calling cards which is shown to other
people you play against. Scorestreaks help you in game, you are given score for completing objectives or getting kills and this score
accumulates before you die and can be used to get special in game things to help out your team. Some of this comes under the
‘winning’ part of video games. The ‘scoring’ part is also recorded by the ‘stats’ these stats show things such as your ‘KD’ which is your
kill to death ratio, which highlights the better players and makes people want to play more so they can improve as it records how they
have done so they want to look good.
3. BO3- Audio
• CoD BO3 has a wide range of audio in the game from dialogue to footsteps. The campaign uses lots of audio such as
dialogue but as well as sound effects for shooting, and explosions. The game has a main sound track/theme that is
immediately there as you load open the game and that remains in the background while you’re in the in-game menus. In the
multiplayer in BO3 the audio can be very important, especially towards the more competitive players. It is so important as
you can hear peoples footsteps which indicates where the opposing team players are, certain master sound effects can be
altered on the menus to adjust to people’s preferences. However it is not necessarily the default game audio as people can
purchase headsets which allow them to hear footsteps and the more valuable and higher quality headsets are better which
can give people an advantage. However there are ’perks’ and there is a perk called awareness which enhances how loud
opposing players’ footsteps are, although in contrast there is a perk called ‘dead silence’ which makes your footsteps silent
to everybody so it does balance it out.
4. Representing the Genre• BO3 follows the genre of a long list of ‘first person shooters’ although that term is not very broad and a lot of different games could
come under the category however be very different, as seen within the CoD franchise from World War II games to futuristic
shooters featuring jetpacks. It could be argued CoD does follow the conventions of a first person shooters with the feature of having
a multiplayer mode with a ranking system, it can also be argued they do because of their offline campaign mode too. Many first
person shooters have a campaign where you play as a character or even multiple characters in a linear story and have to complete
missions as well as have a chosen difficulty of the levels according to the player’s choice and ability. It is different to first person
shooters like Battlefield and Rainbow six siege as they are what is known as ‘ boots on the ground ‘ games. This refers to the lack of
exo suits and how there is no jumping and flying around and is more realistic in that respect. At the time of the release BO3 was the
12th installment of a CoD game and only the second one to include ‘exo suits’ this was a fairly bald move following the great deal of
criticism the previous CoD received for this style of game however CoD is produced by three different companies who work in a
three year cycle so they will have had the plans for this in the making for a number of previous years anyway, as well as this
Treyarch did a much better job than Sledgehammer games with their use of exo suits and was widely regarded as far more popular
then the previous unsuccessful CoD title. This shows that it does develop the gameplay as more and more first person shooter
games are starting to explore the theme of not just being a classic ’boots on the ground’ style of game, although whether or not it
has developed the genre for the better is up to people’s personal preference, I personally do not mind and if anything bO3 was my
favourite/second favourite CoD. Both these games (BO3 on the left and Battlefield 1 on the right) are popular
and well known first person shooters, however the photos alone show the
difference in terms of setting where BO3 shows how there is much more
technology and is a game from the future , compared to Battlefield 1 where
there is a horse and a sword which completely contrast each other despite
being the same genre.
5. Game engine/ graphic comparisons
• Black ops 3 Uses the IW game engine. The IW engine is a game engine developed by Infinity Ward,
Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games for the Call of Duty series.
• In contrast, a similar game, Battlefield 1 uses the frostbite engine which is used quite a lot through EA, and
is also seen in their titles such as FIFA. Frostbite is supposed to be a superior engine to Ignite.
• But the real benefit is having all EA's IPs on the same engine, making it easier to share resources, both
human and programming.
• Developers working on one game could be easily shifted to help on other projects if needed.
• Programming aspects like physics, player/crowd models, stadiums/arenas, and in-game features and
modes could be more easily ported from one game to another.
6. BO3 Graphics and console capabilities
• Generally for BO3 the graphics are good, however that depends on what platform you chose to play it on. While gaming on the
next gen consoles of PS4 and Xbox One the graphics were as good as they could be really at the time of release and there were
not many first person shooters with better graphics as they were all similar, so for the PS4 and Xbox One there were no
complaints in terms of the graphics. However the difference between the graphics on the old generation consoles such as Xbox
360 and PS3 are significantly weaker as they are much less powerful consoles, Sony themselves said the PS4 is 10x more
powerful than the PS3
• Under the hood there's an upgraded engine, a new renderer, an improved animation systems, new lighting effects, numerous
other tweaks, and a whole lot more. For PC gamers, all game modes are now accessible via a single .exe, removing the need to
launch separate versions of the game in Steam and swap between .exes every time you change mode. Also worth noting:
graphics setting changes no longer force a level reload, or require the .exe to be restarted, making setting configuration a
painless process.
• System Requirements
• Black Ops 3 developer Treyarch doesn't offer a recommended system configuration for players, but does say that you'll need a
Intel Core i3-530, 6GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 470 with 1GB of VRAM, at minimum.
• “ Stepping up to the plate, we benchmarked our range of GPUs, searching for cards capable of solid, smooth 60 FPS at a High
level of detail in the ever-popular multiplayer mode, which will be the go-to mode for most over the lifetime of Black Ops 3. ” -
https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/call-of-duty-black-ops-3-graphics-and-performance-guide
This image comparison shows the vast difference between
the ’old-gen’ and ’next gen’ consoles and highlights how much
more powerful the next generation consoles are. The image
on the left is the old generation console and this shows how
little detail there is compared to the next generation console
and highlights how much more powerful the Xbox one is and
reinforces how it is a much better playing experience playing
on the more powerful console.
7. Box Art
“Call of Duty” the main
franchise largely takes up the
cover, the company want
people to immediately
recognise their brand. Also it
is in a different font to the
other text and is far more bold
and plain, other than the ‘Y’ at
the end, this choice might
have been made just to make
it stand out even more, I
personally think it is effective
and stands out well, I also
think the white text goes well
along side the other colours
used as it is quite simple and
not over the top. Also you can
see the Activision logo in the
bottom corner follows the
same theme of a simple, solid
plain white logo/font and text,
as well as having one letter
distorted to an extent. So they
may be trying to keep a
consistent image throughout
all the products in order to be
more recognisable and so
people associate these fonts
and styles. and Call of Duty is
the franchise owned by
Activision, where as Treyarch
and BO3 are part of the
franchise.
The font used for the “ Black Ops” is a
different font to the main logo, which
highlights how CoD is the large franchise and “
Black Ops” is the series part of the franchise.
Also the font has quite a futuristic style to it
and to me the very straight lines and how the
“O’s” are done like squares gives me
connotations of robots and the future, which
is appropriate for a game set in a largely
technology - advanced world.
The three orange “III” lines
that represent this being
the third edition of this
series are frequently used
as a logo, which again
shows them trying to keep a
consistent image. Also, on
what is already a dark
themed cover the bright
orange colours compliment
the theme well and also
make it more eye catching, I
also like how it is not just
three I’s in a simple font but
it is done with a fire effect
as it symbolises the
weapons used in the game
and gives general
connotations of battle too.
8. Video Game addiction
• To some, gaming is just a pas-time or a hobby, however others see differently, especially amongst younger people, gaming
can become a serious interest to people where it is something they are incredibly passionate about although personally I am
not sure if “addiction” is the right word for what most people may get classed as who play a lot of games. Formally, to be
addicted to something means “physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance.” However this definition
perhaps suits better to an addiction someone may have to a substance like drugs or alcohol. However a more informal
definition of the term reads; “ enthusiastically devoted to a particular thing or activity. - "he's addicted to computers”.” I
personally see how excessive gaming can become a very big problem in someone’s life although I was surprised to learn it
has been classed as a “mental disorder”. An article I found on the BBC discusses this and one line that stood out to me was ‘
persistent or recurrent gaming behavior so severe that it takes "precedence over other life interests". ‘ I think that is the
point where it becomes an ‘addiction’ as it genuinely takes over someone's life and disrupts them from essential and
important things such as, eating and drinking, sleeping or missing school or not spending time with family. I think video
game addiction definitely exists but is less rare then people think and sometimes someone spending too much time on their
console for example is mistaken for them having an actual “mental disorder” and I personally think that term is probably
rarely accurate when describing someone although I do believe there are people out there with such a serious addiction. I
also think because the word ’addiction’ has such a large negative stigma surrounding drugs and alcohol etc. people may
have my initial reaction of thinking that “ addiction” is slightly to strong a word. Spending a lot of time on a console is far
more to do with the wanting more in game rewards and this quote from the pro forma “It has been theorised this is due to
the in-built reward system within games to fulfil a psychological needs of reward, freedom and social interaction.” has a lot
more to do with it compared to a genuine “ physical or mental ” dependency on playing a game.
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42541404
