Black Ops Overview

Overview
Black Ops is a first-person shooter. The player assumes the role of a foot soldier who can wield various firearms, of which two at a time can be carried; throw grenades and other explosives; and use other equipment as weapons. A player close enough to an enemy can kill with one knife blow. A character can take three stances: standing, crouching, or prone; each affects rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth. The player can dive prone from a standing position when running. The player can momentarily sprint but will then grow tired. The screen glows red to indicate damage to a player's health, which goes away over time. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, a marker indicates the direction of the grenade, helping the player to flee or throw it back. Among the game's weapons are crossbows with bolts and explosive ammunition, Dragon's Breath rounds and ballistic knives.

Campaign
The player assumes the role of various characters during the single-player campaign, changing perspectives throughout the story. The playable characters are special forces operatives conducting black operations behind enemy lines. In this way, the player's characters have their own traits such as voices and shadows. Each mission features a series of objectives that are displayed on the heads-up display, which marks the direction and distance towards and from such objectives. The player is accompanied by friendly troops throughout the game. Although primarily a first-person shooter, the player pilots a Hind helicopter and guides friendly troops from a SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft.[14][15][16] The campaign features several scripted cinematic moments. One of them is a bullet time effect during the "Victor Charlie" level, activated when the player fires toward the last enemy of a Viet Cong squad.

Zombies
A zombie cooperation mode, titled "Zombies", is included in the game. Originally featured in World at War, it was revamped to be included into Black Ops. It is a four-player online and two-player split screen co-op mode (which can also be unlocked online). In the map "Five", players take the roles of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, and Fidel Castro as they fight zombies at The Pentagon. There is one map based on the original game called Kino Der Toten ("Theater of the dead" or "Cinema of the dead" in German). This map features the characters from World at War -- Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsey, Takeo Masaki, and Nikolai Belinski. Limited editions of the game offers four zombie maps from World at War. There is an unlockable top-down, two-stick arcade-shooter version of Zombies known as Dead Ops Arcade.
Included in the First Strike Map Pack is Ascension. Ascension takes place in an abandoned Soviet Cosmodrome, and like Kino der Toten, features the characters from World at War. Additionally, it includes two new weapons (the Gersch Device and Matryoshka Dolls), as well as two new perks (PhD Flopper and Stamin-Up), and one new power-up (the Bottle). A new enemy, the Space Monkeys, appear in this map, replacing the Hellhounds and the Pentagon Thief.