Call of Duty: Black Ops is the seventh installment of the Call of Duty FPS franchise, set during the Cold War era, and casts the player in the role of various special forces soldiers conducting covert top secret operations colloquially known as ‘black ops’ that governments keep secret. As with past Call of Duty games, the player can swap between numerous characters involved in missions worldwide, including Vietnam, Russia, Cuba, and Laos. The two main characters are soldiers Alex Mason and CIA agent Jason Hudson, both members of the black operations outfit known as the Studies and Observations ensemble (SOG), who are entrusted with examining and dealing with the Nova-6, a Soviet experimental chemical weapon.
As with its predecessors, Black Ops includes online and offline multiplayer support and standard game modes such as Free-for-All, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag, during which players will collect XP points and move up the rankings. World at War, a zombie co-op option from Treyarch’s previous Call of Duty game, allows two players to play together offline and four players online. Players can earn CoD Points, which are rewarded as XP is made, with 1 CoD Point provided for every 10XP made. These can then be used to place wagers on memorable ‘wager matches,’ which, if won, award the player with additional CoD Points and XP.
Create a Class 2.0, a new feature in Black Ops, allowing players to more fully personalize their online class, including dog tags, camo patterns, emblems, and rifle sight reticules. For the first time in a CoD game, players can control aircraft such as the Hind helicopter gunship and the SR-71 Blackbird stealth plane.
