Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War  is a first person-shooter action game that is fun to play with friends. This sequel to the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, connects their storylines and maps playable by gamers and was released Nov. 13 from the company Activision.

Cold War is based on the real-life events of the 1980s Cold War between the U.S. and Russia. Throughout the game players are put in different areas around the planet to fight each other. Players can be put on either the NATO (America) or Warsaw Pact (Russia) team at random to fight. The characters, which people can play as in Multiplayer or Zombies mode, are the people seen in the campaign mode. The pre-made characters vary in gender, race and personality.

Campaign is the story mode where the player is a CIA operative on the NATO team. They start in Amsterdam and run across rooftops to catch the Soviet spy, then travel to Turkey to find another member. The CIA operative travels to Russia to take down the Warsaw Pact and kill the leader. 

Multiplayer mode is where gamers can play with or against each other on different maps and with a wide variety of game modes. There are 11 different modes in the game to give the players’ new objectives each time they enter a match. Players have a choice of what they would like to play as their goal of the match.

The Zombies mode consists of four players fighting through continuous waves of zombies. There is an endless number of rounds, so gamers play until they die. Players can upgrade their weapons and spend in-game  money on opening different passages to expand up the map. Zombies is a fun game mode to test how a player  reacts under stress and limited space.

There are 10 map variations for a player to battle other players.  For example, a gamer can fight in Moscow or the cold Crossroads of Uzbekistan as well as run around warships in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean or across the desert in Angola, Central Africa. A solid map would be Satellite because it has different types of landscapes which provide variation to which weapon is best used around the map. The  favorite would be Checkmate because it’s small and has one main focus point where everyone camps.

The graphics of the game have gotten significantly better since the beta version was released. When looking around the maps, each room and site have small detailed items and decorations to make them seem most realistic such as posters, books, paintings and wall designs. Compared to the other Call of Duty games, Black Ops Cold War is more like a new interpretation of the older versions of the series games. The same styles and game modes of the older games are still present, but they have been adapted to bring newer gameplay to the audience such as alter the game modes for fresh gameplay or change the layout and style of certain maps.

Some issues that were initially in the game were server lagging and occasionally the game crashed. There were also some audio glitches that happened throughout the game. Activision has released patches and updates to the game to help it run smoother.

Cold War can be played on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC. Cross-platform connection is available, so gamers can play together without restriction.  

Overall, the game is entertaining and has an immersive storyline that makes it fun to play, but there is work to be done with it like some bug fixes like sound bugs and movement flow, to make it better and more enjoyable to play.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War sells for $59.99 and is rated “M” for Mature.