The Worst Thing About CoD: Black Ops

I finally isolated the worst thing about Black Ops. It actually isn't that the game lacks polish in just about every aspect of it. The only thing that seems to have any real time spent on it was the voice acting. But even though they went all out for the voice cast, they did it wrong. Completely. Look at the cast.

Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, Ice Cube, and Sam Worthington. That would probably make a good movie. The problem is this is a videogame that lacks every single element that makes a movie enjoyable. That's not the only problem. Let's look at the offenders individually.

Sam Worthington. I know he's the next big action star and everything but there could not have been a worse choice for an American soldier in a videogame. For one, he doesn't hide his accent at all. His Australian accent was what got this whole rant started. It was extremely distracting in the game. Video games provide a level of immersion that really can't be rivaled by other media, and miscasting a voice is probably the fastest way to ruin immersion. On top of that, why would you want someone who is famous for their LOOKS in your game where all you will hear is their VOICE? With a game lacking as much polish as Black Ops, the money spent on Worthington could have gone into the game itself.


Ed Harris: I have no idea why he would even do this. I'm assuming they paid him a lot of money. Ed Harris is a good actor, but I didn't know it was him voicing Hudson. Which is the problem with most of the voice casting in this game.

Gary Oldman: First of all, Gary Oldman is one of the best actors in the entire world. He disappears into roles better than almost anyone else. The guy has an amazing range. So they cast him as Reznov, the Russian sidekick to Mason. The only problem is he's doing a Russian accent the whole time so there is no way to even know it was Gary Oldman. I'm pretty sure that someone like him has a high pricetag. I'm also pretty sure that there are hundreds of great voice actors who do great Russian accents for probably half the pay. Nobody is going to know it's Gary Oldman anyway, so why bother hiring him?

But all of that is Treyarch's modus operandi. They can't make a game worth shit so Activision markets the game insanely well. There was nothing in the entire game that was done as well as Call of Duty 4, which released in 2007. In fact, I would go as far as to say Ice Cube was the only thing that the game got right. He is extremely recognizable as well as delivers the lines with the proper emotional tone.