Call of Duty: Black Ops (Nintendo DS)

Call of Duty: Black Ops (Nintendo DS) is the Nintendo DS version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. It was confirmed on July 27, 2010. The game itself was released on November 9, 2010.

New Features
Call of Duty: Black Ops has many new features like the Perks system for the six player online multiplayer. N-Space announced that the multiplayer experience has changed dramatically. The game also has a unique two player co-op.

For players who do not like to aim with the stylus, there is an alternative control scheme. There is also an improved user interface. The player can tap an icon to switch the current weapon for a new one, like past DS games, or drag the weapon into an inactive button to add to their inventory without replacing the weapon they are using currently. An auto lock-on feature is available to use in the Recruit and Regular difficulties.

The player also takes control of an attack helicopter and an experimental stealth fighter jet.

The Arcade and Challenges modes will be returning. The game also features achievements.

As the n-Space Studio Head, Dan O'Leary, says, "Call of Duty: Black Ops for the Nintendo DS is going to take the hand-held Call of Duty experience to a new level. From taking the controls of an attack helicopter to flying an experimental stealth fighter jet, players will have a wealth of new features to utilize."

In friend matches and local multiplayer the player has voice over IP chat. However, on online multiplayer there is not any voice chat due to the limitations of the Nintendo's Online rules. N-Space is trying to get Nintendo to let them have voice chat on online matches. There are no more latency checks like in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized.

Bullets are now able to penetrate certain materials much like the console version. Penetrable materials are marked with multiple bullet holes.

Another new feature (though only exclusive to Call of Duty: Black Ops DS) is Killhouse. It is a CQB test time-trial that the player can complete by shooting all the targets. Accuracy of the player is not rated but time of completion of the CQB test is rated. This level also features an extra two rooms (each of them an armory) that can be unlocked once the player achieves a kill with every weapon in game, the same way the armory in the training level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized is unlocked.

Campaign
The DS game's storyline sees players assuming the role of several CIA/SOG operatives. The game's missions are meant to provide a different perspective and fill in the overall story. The main storyline takes place in 1967-1968 and the flashback storyline takes place in 1963. The campaign takes place in Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, and the Arctic.

Campaign Levels
There are 16 campaign levels in Call of Duty: Black Ops DS. The levels are as follows:


 * 1) The Recovery Job: In this mission, the player (as Sgt. Thomas Hayes) must fight to a mission to free agents Cpt. Alex Mason and Sgt. Michael Shaw, who were captured by Cuban soldiers. The agents have been moved and the team must move into the catacombs to escape the mission.
 * 2) Breaking Free: The player (as Shaw) must escape from a makeshift Cuban prison.
 * 3) On The Run: The team must fight through the catacombs to the extraction point where they will pick up Sgt. Shaw.
 * 4) Coastal Run: The player (as Shaw) must fight to the beach for extraction.
 * 5) To The Rescue: The team fly a helicopter to extract Shaw while destroying enemy forces and encampments along the way.
 * 6) Welcome To The Jungle: The player (as Shaw) must fight through the jungles of Vietnam to a village where the Soviets are testing a new weapon (presumably Nova-6).
 * 7) Hung Out To Dry: In this mission, the defector, Sgt. Yuri Raslov, retells the story of his defection. The player must assassinate an Afghani double agent. Then the player must escape to the extraction point.
 * 8) Behind Enemy Lines: The player must fight through Afghani territory to safety.
 * 9) New Alliance: The player must fight against enemy forces from behind an American truck with the help of his new American allies.
 * 10) Light it up!: The player (as James West) commands an American helicopter that is on a mission the destroy NVA and Vietcong forces in Vietnam.
 * 11) River Raiders: The player must man a machine gun on a boat and fight enemy ground and river forces. Then the player must fight to the extraction zone on foot.
 * 12) Last Heli Out: The player must fight to the extraction zone before they get left behind.
 * 13) Stolen Wings: The player (David Vance) commands a stolen experimental fighter jet. The player must fight to allied airspace.
 * 14) To The Motherland: The player (Michael Shaw) must fight into a Soviet office to recover important documents.
 * 15) Payback: The player must fight into a Soviet Biological weapons plant (presumable manufacturing Nova-6) and must plant a beacon to call in an airstrike to destroy the facility.
 * 16) Cold Feet: The player must destroy a Soviet submarine that will be used to deliver Nova-6 to the United States. The player must then evacuate the facility before the explosives detonate and destroy the facility.

Plot
The game begins on March 14, 1968, as Sgt Shaw recounts everything that happened in the game to a superior. He first begins by telling about how he and Mason were captured in Cuba several months ago. Back in August 1967, a rescue team is briefed about Mason and Shaw's capture, and where they might be held.

As the rescue team attempts to rescue the two, they find out that they were led to the wrong place by inaccurate intelligence reports. They escape into catacombs, due to the Cubans now striking their position with artillery. Meanwhile, Shaw is imprisoned in a makeshift prison somewhere several miles away. As a prison guard attempts to make Shaw divulge information at gunpoint, Shaw knocks out the guard and takes his pistol. A prisoner just across the hall tells him if he uses his knife, he can radio for help without notice. Depending on the player's actions, Shaw can either get to the radio stealthily or not.

Either way, just before or after Shaw reaches the radio, prison guards find Shaw, and Shaw is forced to fight his way out of the prison. Meanwhile, the rescue team fights through a large area in the catacomb, and eventually reaches a mining area. The rescue team then makes their way out, eventually reaching a helicopter, and stealing it. At the same time, Shaw escapes and eventually reaches a nearby beachhead, the planned extraction site. The rescue team, now in the helicopter, fight their way across the Cuban landscape, eventually reaching the beachhead and recovering Shaw. The story flashes forward back to March 14.

After recounting Cuba, Shaw then retells his assignment in Vietnam. Some time after Cuba, Shaw's team is inserted into Vietnam. Their mission is to search for any leads on a biological weapon (probably Nova 6) being developed by the Soviet Union. After landing, and fighting their way through several Vietnamese soldiers, one member of the group, Sgt. Raslov, tells how he defected to the United States. The Story flashes back to 1963, where Raslov is a Soviet Spetnaz operative..

Raslov's squad is sent to a city in Afghanistan, with their objective being to assassinate an official who is dealing with both the Soviets and guerrilla fighters. After the official's assassination, numerous guerrilla fighters descend on the squad's position, leaving them no options but to fight their way out of the city and to the extraction site. The squad eventually escapes the city and reaches the extraction site, with a boat there, and as Raslov boards the boat, his squad-mates knock him out and abandon. With only a knife and grenades, Raslov fights his way through the guerrilla fighters, and eventually reaches a town where Alex Mason and his Sgt. Jenkins are pinned down by the guerrillas, who have mistaken them for the assassins.

Raslov helps them stop offensive, and then boards a truck. The trio fight their way through other trucks, fighters on the side of the road, and even a helicopter. They eventually make it to a nearby base. The story flashes forward to Vietnam, where an American attack helicopter sent to assist Shaw's squad searches for a Vietnamese arms cache. The helicopter fights through SAM sites, towers, boats, and convoys, and finally reaches the arms cache.

The Helicopter drops a Napalm bomb on the cache, destroying it, while Shaw's squad is on a River Patrol Boat, making their way upriver to an extraction site, unable to find any leads during the weeks they spend in Vietnam. Shaw mans the boat's machine gun, assisting ground forces, destroying pursuing boats, and convoys. The team stops at a shed to rest, planning to move out on foot at nightfall.

After fighting through the Vietnamese soldiers, the team is temporarily extracted by helicopter, but then is dropped off to destroy one more site. After calling in an airstrike, they fight to the last extraction site. After extraction, Capt. David Vance steals a Soviet experimental fighter jet capable of delivering the biological weapon. After fighting through SAM sites and other fighters, the player reaches friendly airspace. Afterwards, Shaw's squad is sent to a facility deep within the Soviet Union which is the suspected factory of the biological weapon.

The squad destroys the machines there, thereby crippling the production of the biological weapon. The Shaw is then sent alone to a disguised mining operation that actually holds a submarine pen beneath the surface. The submarine is another delivery system of the biological weapon.

Shaw fights way through Soviet troops, and reaches the submarine, planting explosives on it. He is then given 2 minutes and 30 seconds to go back the way he came before the submarine explodes (although the return route is different in a few ways then the route down), and after fighting his way through the remnants of the troops, escapes via skyhook with literally no time left to spare. After the credits, a scene is shown where Shaw, the main character, has finished his telling of the story.

The Superior tells him that he is bothered by the fact that the person behind all of this is still out there. This could be a hint for a possible sequel.

Zombies
For the first time since the series appeared on the DS, a Zombie mode is present on the DS version. It can be played solo or in a local/online co-op, and four zombie maps are included on the game cartridge: House, Overlook, Temple, and Facility. None of the console maps appear in game. The player(s) play as either an unknown American soldier or an unknown Russian soldier.

The pair are probably Michael Shaw (the American) and Yuri Raslov (the Russian) from campaign. The player starts with a Makarov, unlike the console version in which they start with a M1911, and an unlimited horde of zombies, broken up into waves, attempt to break down repairable barriers and kill the player(s). Players can also pick up power-ups, consisting of Nuke, Insta-Kill, Fire Sale, Double Points, Carpenter, and Max Ammo.

The Mystery Box also returns, although the floating gun animation is not present, and a random weapon simply replaces the player's current weapon. It is impossible to get a teddy bear, meaning Fire Sale will only bring down 50% of the prices instead of spawning the Mystery Box in the player's current room. Points are calculated differently, with a maximum amount of points per kill, unlike the console, which is points per lethal shot somewhere on body. A form of dog appears in later rounds, looking similar to the Attack Dogs from World at War and Black Ops.

The first room of the maps always has an M14 for 1800 and an M1891/59 for 300. The second room always will be the permanent Mystery Box spawn for 950, a Remington 870 for 1200 and an M16 for 2500. The third room will contain MK2 fragmentation grenades for 250, M79 for 3500, an XM22 for 4000, a PPSh-41 for 5000 and an M16A1 w/ M203 (Grenade Launcher) for 7500. The first door will cost 5000 and the second door will cost 10000. If a Fire Sale is acquired, these prices will be halved as well as the cost to open the next room.

Zombie Mode on the DS is much harder than the console versions as the zombies can break in easily and kill the player in one hit from Round 1. The Zombies also have incredible health, taking two headshots from a Makarov (sidearm) to get a kill on round two. It also takes about 15 shots to the upper body to get a kill with the M16 on wave five. However, the Throwing Knife will be a one hit kill to the head up to wave eight. Hellhounds have less health than Zombies but they are half the player's height, unable to be knifed while standing, but they do go about as fast as a walking Zombie. On wave 12, five rounds from an M14 can kill a Hellhound.

There are also no 'Wonder weapons' (e.g. Ray gun, Thundergun, etc.), no perk machines and no Pack-a-Punch machine, which makes an already difficult game mode even harder. Once a player manages to get past wave 20 the zombies start to glitch and they fly through the roof and get stuck in corners. However, these glitches are rare. A good tactic on House is to open all of the doors and use the M14 and a weapon of choice and stay in the room that the player first spawns in, and when the zombies come, the player can just run around the room having the zombies chase them. This has been confirmed to work past wave 25. Though it takes skill as most players find it hard to get past wave 10 even if they don't have someone else with them.

In some cases, the zombies are unable to walk over a downed player. This can be useful if both players go into a tight space and purposely let one player go down so the other player can shoot the zombies with no trouble, as long as they shoot all of the zombies before the downed player bleeds out. The downed player can also easily knife the zombies without them retaliating as they are only programmed to attack players who aren't downed. A good place to try this is the small bar in the second room of "Overlook" the gap between the wall and the bar bench is only just enough space for players to walk into so if a player is downed the zombies have no way of getting around to the other player.

The player can also Gib the zombies with the Grenade Launcher. If the player shoots a grenade near a zombie its legs will get blown off, and the zombie will become a crawler. This can also be achieved if a standard grenade is placed properly near the zombie's legs.Also if a player shoots a crawler in the lower body it will get stuck and it won't be able to move or attack the players. Some walking Zombies also stop moving, but then start moving again once attacked.

Available Weapons in Zombies Mode
These weapons are available in all maps:
 * M16A1 (with or without Scope and Grenade Launcher)
 * AK-47 (with or without Scope)
 * M14 (with or without Scope)
 * SKS
 * PPSh-41
 * PPS-43
 * M10
 * MAT49
 * M60
 * XM22
 * RPD
 * M40
 * M1891/59
 * Dragunov
 * Remington 870
 * M79

Unavailable Weapons in Zombies Mode

 * RPG-7
 * M72 LAW
 * Explosive Tip Crossbow
 * Mk. 22 Mod.0 (only available when downed)
 * PPSh-41-SP
 * M14 (suppressed)
 * AK-47 (suppressed)

Zombie Levels

 * 1) House
 * 2) Facility
 * 3) Temple
 * 4) Overlook

Multiplayer
The multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops features lots of improvements like perks, selectable spawn points, changing primary and secondary every time the player spawns, a larger list of friends (64), the ability to join matches in progress, more than six maps and a myriad of host options (including radar settings). Different gametypes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Sabotage and Capture the Flag are also available.

Maps

 * Base


 * Highrise (different from the one in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2)


 * Lighthouse


 * Praelium


 * Stronghold


 * Command


 * Paddy


 * Graveyard


 * Crossfire (different from the one in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)


 * Basilica


 * Caves


 * The Yard

Weapons
Black Ops includes 33 weapons and now features attachments, notably weapon types that have not seen extended use in previous DS Call of Duty games:
 * PPSh-41
 * PPS-43
 * M16A1
 * Mk. 22 Mod. 0
 * AK-47
 * M40
 * M60
 * M14
 * RPD
 * Dragunov
 * Makarov
 * M1891/59
 * XM22
 * Remington 870
 * M79
 * MAT-49
 * SKS
 * Ithaca M37
 * M10

Attachments

 * Silencer
 * M203
 * Scope

Explosives

 * Missiles (seen on helicopter and stealth fighter)
 * Mk 2 Grenade
 * RPG-7
 * M72 LAW
 * M79
 * M203
 * Explosive Tip Crossbow

Miscellaneous

 * Knife
 * Throwing Knife

Perks
Blacks Ops Perks are featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops (Nintendo DS) and can be selected during respawn and at the menu. The perks are unlocked when the player reaches various multiplayer levels, unlike previous create a class, they are not divided into separate tiers.
 * Bandolier: Doubles the ammo for all weapons except grenades.
 * Body Armor: Decrease bodily damage (does not include headshots, explosions and knife kills). Different from Flak Jacket from console game, more like Juggernaut from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
 * Camouflage: The player goes semi-transparent when crouching and remaining stationary.
 * Extra Pockets: Spawn with 2 extra grenades.
 * Extreme Conditioning: The player is able to sprint for a longer time.
 * Fast Hands: Decrease time to arm and disarm bomb during Sabotage.
 * Last Stand: Player will go into Last Stand before dying. The player will be able to shoot with a pistol for a period of time.
 * Martyrdom: Drop a live grenade after death. Returns from previous titles.
 * More Bang: Thrown grenades have a larger blast radius.
 * Nerves of Steel: Decrease weapon recoil.
 * Paper Walls: The player can shoot through walls. Similar to Hardened.
 * Protections: The player will have 5 seconds of invincibility after spawning.
 * Sleight of Hand: Decreased reload time. Not useful as reload speeds are very fast.
 * Steady Aim: Increase hip fire accuracy of weapons.
 * Stealth: The player is never shown on the enemy radar.
 * Stopping Power: The players bullets do more damage.
 * Super Clip: Doubles the magazine size for all weapons.
 * Team Player: Appear as a friendly on enemy radar.

Playable

 * Sgt. Michael Shaw
 * Sgt. Yuri Raslov
 * Sgt. Thomas Hayes
 * Cpt. David Vance
 * Cpt. James West

NPC

 * Cpt. Patterson
 * Cpt. Alex Mason
 * Sgt. Jenkins
 * Sgt. Ruiz
 * Sgt. Paige
 * Sgt. Watts
 * Sgt. Kendle
 * Sgt. Logan
 * Sgt. Taylor
 * Cpt. Kovics
 * Sgt. Vastov
 * Hostage
 * Prisoners (in Breaking Free)
 * Cuban Interrogator

Videos
Video:Call of Duty Black Ops DS trailer

Trivia

 * Dropped weapons will appear standing up (as if propped up and not falling flat), but weapons placed by the programmers will be flat.
 * This is the first DS game that features breaching.
 * This is the first DS game where the player can hear the protagonists' voices
 * In the levels "Last Heli Out" and "Recovery job", Patterson will sometimes glitch and will have the same character model as Ruiz/Raslov.
 * There is no hip-firing crosshairs while playing on hardened.
 * There is no blood when shooting at an enemy, but there is blood when stabbing an enemy.
 * Enemies are able to knife in Black Ops
 * This is the first DS game to have attachments.
 * This is the first DS game to feature Perks.
 * This is the first Call of Duty game to have the knife being held with the right hand.
 * This is the first DS game to have all of the HUD on the bottom screen.
 * This is the first DS game where the allies and enemies in the HUD are indicated with a dot and an arrow indicating where they are facing instead of only the dot.
 * In this version, none of the player's allies can die.
 * This is the first DS game to feature Zombies.
 * In the screen shot with the helicopter and the boat, there is a logo on the side of the boat.
 * In zombies mode, barricades can be broken through and repaired faster.
 * The Hellhounds in this game use a skin similar to the attack dogs from Call of Duty: World at War.
 * This is the first DS Call of Duty to feature a Co-op mode. This is also the second Call of Duty game to feature a Campaign Co-op mode, after the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC versions of Call of Duty: World at War.
 * In almost all missions, a Remington 870 can be found.