Call Of Duty Black Ops III thoughts of the game.

[retroman]

Just want to see what you think of the game so far. I have done multiplayer only so far and love it. To me it seems like they took the level size of COD Ghost, and what was popular in COD AW and put it together with BLOPS II. Over all I think this is the best COD since BLOPS II. What do you think?

[Az]

I realize I'm out of the loop but....

So I get on Live tonight and notice they had a CoD sale, BOIII for $39.99, then see the 360 version is multiplayer only? Are you kidding me? Who would pay full price for an online multiplayer only game, with pretty much no offline component, on a system that's on it's last legs and will be rendered completely useless in a short amount of time?

It seems like before when they made ports to consoles being phased out (PS2, Wii) the online component was the first thing that got the axe and you were lucky if you even got some type of split-screen. In one generation things have done a complete about face to the exact opposite. Am I supposed to feel blessed that companies are throwing me a previous-gen bone that's 50% of the content with 90% of the price?

[Leo_A]

You think some sort of death signal from Microsoft is imminent that will brick Xbox 360's?

While I don't defend asking $50 for it, it's not surprising that they focused on online multiplayer. That's what the vast majority of the fanbase is buying these for, including a substantial number that still have yet to upgrade but want to continue playing online with the latest update to this annual franchise.

Sounds as if you'd be best off following my tactic, since clearly you don't hold much interest in the online component. I buy these when they hit $10 or less for the short single player campaigns. And I hold off buying even if the prices reach that point, if I've yet to upgrade to a newer generation console.

I'm in no rush and I may as well enjoy all the bells and whistles instead of a stripped down version of the same game that's done cheaply and lazily like this conversion. Unlike some impressive efforts this generation like Forza Horizon 2 and Rise of the Tomb Raider that play to the strengths of the 360 hardware and do justice to the experience despite a drastic difference in hardware capabilities compared to their XB1 counterparts, I see little reason to mess with a game like Blacks Ops III on the PS3/360.

[The 1 2 P]

According to Activision the majority of their player base skip the campaign completely and play nothing but the online multiplayer component. So from that standpoint the move they made with the 360 and PS3 versions makes sense. But I personally won't buy the 360 version until it's dirt cheap, especially since I just bought the Atlas Pro Edition of Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare for the 360 today for $35 total and that includes the game, the season pass and a bunch of extras. I definitely don't mind multiplayer-only games(I'm still enjoying Titanfall very much) but the price has to be right.

[Az]

You think some sort of death signal from Microsoft is imminent that will brick Xbox 360's?

I think paying full price for a game with absolutely zero offline component that also requires an additional paid subscription fee *just to play online* on a system that is all but dead is ludicrous, especially when the previous dozen games in the series on the same console are nothing like that. We all buy digital goods knowing they're just glorified rentals, but full price when the system is almost on life support? This shoddy release screams for a free to play (or fee to play, in game micro transactions, $2 pot-leaf gun camo, whatever) model instead of how it ended up being released.

Maybe 3-5 years ago I could have seen this being a viable release if at an expensive price point. With Black Ops 1/2 I can still play all the modes plus still have multiplayer splitscreen and additionally still use all my DLC even if I let my gold membership lapse for a millisecond. When MS/Activision starts pulling the plug on servers in the next year or two for individual games (or the entire 360) Black Ops 1/2 doesn't turn into a Game Gear TV tuner-style paperweight, I can have just as much fun with it as I do right now with Outtrigger, Alien Front Online, and other network-centric DC games.

Much different scenario from Black Ops III which will be rendered completely and absolutely useless. Given the series' reliance on the DLC and season pass cash cows yet they don't even plan on releasing map packs for the 360 does not bode well for the servers being up or consistent network updates. While I lump Amazon reviews into the same category as Gamefaqs reviews I certainly never expected to find all the angry 1 star "this is bullshit due price versus lack of content" comments.

Sounds as if you'd be best off following my tactic, since clearly you don't hold much interest in the online component. I buy these when they hit $10 or less for the short single player campaigns.

Exactly what I've always done with this and the BF series. I own all the 360 releases of BF and CoD, I think I paid $39.99 for BOII around launch but other than that I've never paid more than $10-12 each for any of them. At that rate they're an excellent buy and serve as a gigantic deterrent for buying map packs. Why pay $15 for 5 new maps when I could pay half that and get an *entire new game* in the same series? I really like BFBC2 but didn't get into it until a year or so ago. I was dying to pick up the Vietnam expansion but at $15 I knew that I couldn't get that much use out of it being that wonderful catch 22: You can only play it online.... but nobody plays it online. Instead I spent $5 on BF3 and $8 on BF Hardline which was definitely a better investment.

[Leo_A]

When MS/Activision starts pulling the plug on servers in the next year or two for individual games (or the entire 360) Black Ops 1/2 doesn't turn into a Game Gear TV tuner-style paperweight, I can have just as much fun with it as I do right now with Outtrigger, Alien Front Online, and other network-centric DC games.

Xbox Live isn't going away anytime soon. There are an awful lot of dedicated 360 gamers that will be regularly utilizing their system for years to come. There's no reason for Microsoft to not only anger them, but lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars by discontinuing online support for this very successful and still growing platform. Not to mention that it rather deflates their big backwards compatibility initiative if suddenly that were to happen...

And there's absolutely nothing to pull on Activision's end. The Call of Duty franchise on the Xbox 360 is all P2P based. Microsoft's Xbox Live handles the standard functionality like matchmaking while the players themselves host their own games. That's why you don't see hardly any online discontinued games on the Xbox 360 outside of EA published content (They insisted on their own dedicated servers as a prerequisite to supporting Xbox Live on the 360).

As long as Xbox Live is up, 95% of online enabled 360 releases will continue to function thanks to being P2P.

Much different scenario from Black Ops III which will be rendered completely and absolutely useless..

As said, most fans of this franchise sadly are basically only interested in online anyways. There's little issue there that years from now when Xbox Live support is discontinued for the Xbox 360 that this game will be crippled for those fans, since they essentially only bought it to play online anyways. They will have long since moved on to scores of successors by the time that happens, the crowds will have long since disappeared since they did likewise, and any diehard fans of Black Ops 3 surely will be playing it on next-gen hardware instead of this watered down port.

I'm afraid that this decision on where to focus makes sense if they insist on doing this cheaply instead of right. I don't like it any more than you do though and I hope it fails.