Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer Details – In-Game Currency & Gambling?

Written by Ender on September 5, 2010 · Filed under Games 

Well it’s almost that time of year again when another Call of Duty hits the shelves. This year it’s Treyarch’s turn to try and match last years record breaking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which was made by the much troubled Infinity Ward, with Call of Duty: Black Ops.

If it wasn’t for the online aspect of the COD games, I doubt they’d sell anywhere near as many copies, so the pressure is on Treyarch to come up with something good and to add a few new additions as to put their own stamp on the online multiplayer.

A few details have been released about what’s in store for the next installment of COD, and from what I’ve read the majority sounds the same old formula with a couple of new killstreaks. However there are a couple of completely new ideas which should give Black Ops the edge to maybe even surpass MW2.

There are four maps which have been announced which are:

• Cracked – A map set in a rundown shantytown in Vietnam
• Summit – A military facility map which is on the top of a mountain
• Radiation – A nuclear power station
• Launch – A missile facility where a rocket is set to launch and if you’re unfortunate to get stuck in the room when it sets off, you’ll see lots of fire heading your way and get a nice suntan.

Obviously there’ll be more than that upon release, well I should hope so, and it’ll be interesting to see what else is added. Killstreaks are fairly similar with a couple of them being renamed and instead of Predator missiles you get a remote controlled RC-XD which should be great fun to use, as well as some new ones like SAM turrets and Napalm attacks. You know you’ll be trash talking people over headsets with “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning”.

Deathstreaks have been removed and there’s no news on whether the Nukes will be making an appearance again. There are a couple of new weapons which you can find in the care packages such as ‘The Grim Reaper’ which is a chaingun (holy crap) and The Death Machine which is a high powered RPG which from the sound of it will not only kill you, but trim the textures off the map around you.

A completely new addition to Call of Duty is a mode called “Combat Training” which allows players to hone their skills offline before jumping into the chaos of online games. Obviously if you’ve already played COD games in the past, you won’t really need this. But if you’re a newcomer to the franchise and feel it’s a little bit too early for you to be humiliated in front of eyes from all over the world, then this will come in handy.

Treyarch have also added their own currency system, which is aptly named COD Points or CP for short. The points can be earned whilst playing online games similar to XP and can be spent whenever you feel the need. It’s a nice way of adding something different to how you unlock certain items/perks, some of which can only be unlocked by collecting so many CP instead of unlocking them through ranking. There’s also the option of earning extra CP and XP through time challenges called Contracts which could be similar to the Special Forces mode in Modern Warfare 2. The contracts are split up into three different categories which are:

• Mercenary – Rewards you for kills and using killstreaks
• Operation – Rewards you for team based games
• Specialist – some unusual challenges set up for players

As well as earning CP, you can also gamble with it in Wager Matches which are all Free-For-All games and something that could become highly addictive. Certain games will only give you weapons such as a knife and handgun with only one bullet, which will make things really tricky and separate the bullet sprayers from the deadly slashers. If you get killed by a certain weapon in one of the games, you could lose all your CP which could either be great fun, or controller bashing annoying.

Either way it’s a great addition to the multiplayer side of COD. Apparently because all Wager Matches are Free-For-All, it will stop people from farming CP as players are randomly selected, but going by other COD games, it won’t be long before someone finds a way. Just look at the joke of the leaderboards in previous COD games.

There are plenty of other nice additions to Black Ops multiplayer like customising your avatar, and it’ll be interesting to see if all these changes turn out to be nothing more than a gimmick or if they really do improve the overall feel of the game.

Either way it’s going to be interesting. So what do you think to all these additions? Think they sound fun, or is there too much stuff that’s changed? Are these currency system additions a pre-cursor to a Call of Duty online monthly subscription-based game? Let us know in the comments below.

Via – Eurogamer