You can have up to three contracts active at a time across three different categories, and the available contracts change regularly, potentially ensuring a good amount of variety as the weeks pass. Tougher contracts cost more, but they also have bigger payouts (get five headshots without dying, cost: 250 points payout: 3,500 points and 3,500 experience). If time expires before you get stabby, you're out 50 points. For example, if you pay 50 points for the stab-a-guy-in-the-back contract and make good, you'll earn 100 points for your troubles. If you do so within the allotted time period, you receive a tidy payout. These are like the many multiplayer challenges that reward you with experience points for completing combat goals, only you have to pay to complete them. Having to pay your way gives you more loadout options at lower required levels than in previous Call of Duty games, and the fact that points are so crucial to improving your arsenal makes them as just as sublimely satisfying to earn as experience points.Ĭall of Duty points also enable two cool new mechanics, the first of which is contracts. Customization options like face paint, player card backgrounds, and the new create-your-own-icon tool are all accessed by spending points. Guns are still unlocked as you level up, but again, you have to pony up the points to put one in your loadout. Most perks, weapon attachments, killstreaks, and equipment items are available early on, providing you shell out the points to equip them. In addition to earning experience for your battlefield performance, you earn Call of Duty points, which you can then spend in a variety of ways. The key new element, however, is currency. New weapons and maps freshen things up, and one of the new killstreak rewards-an explosive-laden remote-control car-is a delightfully deadly device that embodies the frantic, slightly goofy side of virtual online combat.

You earn experience for doing well in battle, and as you level up, you gain access to new and powerful ways to customize your loadouts. At its core, this is the familiar top-notch Call of Duty action that players have been enjoying for years. The mode that will likely keep you coming back to Black Ops for months to come is, unsurprisingly, the competitive multiplayer. Though the campaign is a rip-roaring good time, it clocks in at a mere six hours long. Nothing like a remote control car strapped with C4 to ruin your enemy's care package party. The core running-and-gunning mechanics remain as exciting as ever, and the gameplay variety throughout the campaign keeps the action moving at a great clip. Some put you in the gunner's seat while others put you behind the wheel, and though the vehicle handling is unremarkable, the thrill of blowing stuff up and speeding through hostile terrain is undeniable. In addition to the on-foot action, you use a number of vehicles to achieve your objectives. The environments are richly detailed, and though the campaign is not without a few technical hiccups (like occasionally problematic checkpoint markers and the odd teleporting ally), these moments aren't likely to hinder your enjoyment. A dramatic breakout from a brutal Soviet prison is one early highlight, and later missions feature frontline conflicts, urban firefights, and mountainous incursions. Your interrogation-fueled flashbacks are not beholden to the linear flow of time, allowing your missions cover a wide variety of geography and gameplay. The blurry edges of your consciousness conceal information that must come to light, and the erratic visual effects and eerie audio echoes that accompany your interrogations sometimes bleed into your mission memories, which creates a great tone of uncertainty that plays out in surprising and satisfying ways. It's not a very original mechanic, but it gives a coherent context to the action, and a few strong characters and dramatic moments give the story some genuine intrigue. Each excursion into the field is a memory, and these missions slowly come together to build momentum as each interrogation cutscene puts another piece of the puzzle in place. You are an elite covert operative, and your globe-trotting adventures form pieces of a puzzle-a puzzle that your mysterious captors are trying to put together by interrogating you. The single-player campaign is set largely during the 1960s and takes you to Cold War hot spots like Cuba, Russia, and Vietnam. Now Playing: Call of Duty: Black Ops Video Review By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's

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