Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops moved the series into the Cold War and offered a darker, more paranoid story woven through with secret operations, experiments on the human psyche, and conspiratorial motifs inspired by real historical events. The player takes on the role of agent Alex Mason, whose memories are gradually revealed in flashbacks during an interrogation by an unknown man — from the invasion of Cuba, through the war in Vietnam, to secret operations in the Soviet Union and Hong Kong. The campaign leans on cinematic production with plenty of period detail and tries to keep the player in suspense over what is real and what is just a product of a tortured mind, with the final twist ranking among the most discussed moments in the entire series.

On the PS3, the game ran on an engine derived from previous entries and was technically comparable to the competition, though the PS3 version had minor performance and multiplayer stability issues at launch, which developers gradually addressed with updates. The soundtrack and period music of the sixties, including licensed songs, did a good job underscoring the atmosphere of Cold War paranoia. But the real star was once again the multiplayer, which introduced the CoD Points system for buying weapons, perks, and cosmetic customizations, the popular cooperative Zombies mode on the Kino der Toten map, and the ability to create custom emblems using a simple editor.

Black Ops did very well both commercially and critically, cementing the series' position as a dominant force in online shooters and mainstream pop culture. The Zombies mode founded its own subgenre within the series, one that remains popular to this day and has grown into its own mythology. Looking back, the campaign feels like a dreamlike, at times confusing ride, but it's precisely this ambiguity that gives it a character distinct from the more straightforward entries in the series and still sparks discussion about how to interpret the ending.

Why play it: For its dreamlike, at times confusing campaign that still sparks discussion about how to interpret the ending, and for the Zombies mode that founded its own popular subgenre, Black Ops is worth attention even after all these years.