Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops II have been re-released today via the PS4 and PS5. And unless you have PlayStation Plus — which you will need to play them online– they are going to set you back a lot of money. If you have PlayStation Plus, you can get each game for $20, and the Season Pass for each game for $10. If you do not have PlayStation Plus, you will pay $40 for each game and $30 for each Season Pass. This is a huge difference. For PS Plus subscribers, the total price is $60. For non- PlayStation Plus subscribers, the total package for everything is $140. That said, this price is only available for a limited time for PS Plus subscribers.
The PlayStation Store keeps going down, presumably because of the rush to get these two nostalgic classics, which come with not just the multiplayer, but the campaigns and both zombie modes as well. To this end, these are not remasters. There are no updates to either game. This is just the two original versions of both re-released, courtesy not of Treyarch, but Iron Galaxy, a well-known porting house.
It is worth noting that Wager Matches and Theater Mode have both been removed. Why they have been removed, we do not know. Iron Galaxy and Activision have not communicated as much. What has returned — in Black Ops 2, at least — is the emblem editor. And this is very surprising for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who played the original. In kill cams, player profiles, and more, players could show off their emblems. As you would expect, all types of offensive and inappropriate emblems resulted from this. Consquently, many figured Activision would just have this feature removed rather than deal with any potential PR headaches resulting from it. But it has not done this. Whether it will moderate this aspect of the game in place of this remains to be seen, but probably not. And for what it is worth, many players are excited that their expectations were not met, as for many, it’s seen as part of the original experience.
Speaking of controversial features, it does not appear that modern skill-based matchmaking has been implemented. The original obviously had some form of skill-based matchmaking, but it was far more rudimentary in comparison. For many, modern skill-based matchmaking has ruined multiplayer games. More than this, the random lobbies of the first two Black Ops games are part of the original experience and the charm of the original. Suffice to say, COD fans are happy that this part of the game has not been tweaked.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the video game conversations happening over on the ComicBook Forum.
