Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012) is a direct sequel to the first Black Ops and, as the first entry in the series, set part of its story in the near future, specifically 2025, while the second storyline unfolds in the 1980s during the Cold War. In the campaign, the player alternately takes on the roles of veteran Alex Mason and his son David, who face a new enemy – narco-terrorist Raul Menendez. The game was the first in the series to offer branching decisions affecting the story's ending, a new Pick 10 loadout creation system, and the strategic Strike Force mode, in which units can be switched in real time. Multiplayer also introduced the competitive League Play mode, and Zombies expanded with the sprawling open-world map Tranzit. It was developed by studio Treyarch.

The PlayStation 3 version launched alongside the Xbox 360 and PC editions on November 13, 2012, five days ahead of the Wii U release, which additionally featured exclusive functions using the GamePad controller's second screen, such as the map or weapon selection on the touchscreen. The PS3 version naturally lacks these features, with controls handled conventionally via the DualShock 3, but the game does offer full support for offline two-player split-screen in both campaign and multiplayer. Technically, it matches that console generation of the time – running at the standard resolution and frame rate for the generation, without any of the graphical enhancements later brought by the remastered collection.

Content-wise, the PS3 version is complete and identical to the Xbox 360 and PC editions, including the full campaign, multiplayer, and the Zombies mode. In this case, the differences between platforms concern mainly performance and online infrastructure, not the game's content itself.

Black Ops II was also the first entry in the series to offer multiple possible campaign endings depending on the player's decisions. Even on PlayStation 3, players had access to all of these mechanics unchanged; the only exception was an exclusive Zombies episode released a year later for Wii U, which the PS3 version did not include.

Why play it: Players on PlayStation 3 get the complete campaign and multiplayer unchanged, missing out only on the exclusive Zombies episode released later for Wii U.