Activision Blizzard has got to be feeling pretty good about getting Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 onto Nintendo Wii U. Now the publisher doesn’t have to spend $500,000 extra dollars forcing Treyarch to make a jalopy version of Call of Duty for Wii, a task the studio’s been put to sporadically since 2008 when it made the down port of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the waggle console. Those savings will be a nice little asterisk for Activision come the end of the fiscal year when it boasts to growth-starved investors that Call of Duty is now generating even more revenue without raising development costs. Nintendo’s investors will be happy too.
Forget the suits, though. Will actual Call of Duty players care about Black Ops 2 on Wii U? After all, the series’ more than 20 million annual customers already have an Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or PC to play on. Will Nintendo’s tablet controller really add something to the world’s favorite shooter?
Based on my time spent playing the game at Nintendo’s event in New York City on Thursday, I can say without a doubt that the controller does add something, but its value to players is debatable.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 on Wii U has one major advantage over other platforms: Local multiplayer. The ability for two people to play Black Ops 2 in the same room on the same console, with one player using the television and the other on the controller’s touch screen, solves the inherent drawbacks of split-screen play. Having played a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s split-screen—which uncomfortably arranges two widescreen play fields above each other, adjusted to the side—Black Ops 2’s Wii U solution feels smooth. The fidelity on the Wii U screen takes a hit, making the multiplayer stage on a shipping dock demoed at other Call of Duty previews over the summer look more drab than usual, but it works. No one will play this way in serious competition since the Wii U’s double duty rendering the game on both screens makes running at 60 frames per second impossible, but this is casual living room play; it only needs to run well, not perfectly.
Which is why the controls are a problem. The Wii U version of Black Ops 2 creates some real cognitive dissonance when switching between the tablet controller and the Pro Controller. The button layouts on each are significantly different on their default settings. Pressing X on the tablet controller for example makes your character crouch, but you have to press in the right analog stick on the Pro Controller for the same action. When people play this game together in the same location they’re going to want to trade off and on with the tablet and the television, just like people were at the demo in New York.
Black Ops 2’s current Wii U controls are going to greatly frustrate that process. The Pro Controller itself is a problem. In Nintendo’s effort to make the controller markedly different from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3’s controllers—even abandoning the fine design of the Wii’s existing Controller Pro—it’s placed the analog sticks above the controller’s face buttons. As simple a thing as reloading your weapon becomes awkward and cumbersome using this device.
In solo mode, the tablet controller offers you the sort of perks you’d expect. Choosing your load out, an interactive map of each stage; Wii U’s tablet controller brings the design sensibilities of DS games into the living room, and that’s no bad thing. Black Ops 2’s competitive multiplayer is too fast paced to make these perks too useful, but for campaign aficionados they’re welcome additions.
Nintendo has its very own flagship Call of Duty for the first time and Activision has one more portal for sales. By 2013, when the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 hit the market, things will go back to the way they were with Nintendo’s machine playing host to a technologically inferior port. In 2012 though, Nintendo’s got a novel version of the game to sell at launch. If only it were 1996 and split-screen gaming was still the hottest thing around.
I don’t see the problem. COD’s controls are fully customizable. Just change them. Simple solution.
The port of COD4 was not Treyarch’s first foray onto the Wii. Their first game was 2006′s COD3, which was a launch title. COD4 didn’t get a Wii version because Infinity Ward was still up-and-coming. The next COD game on the Wii was WaW, not COD4, and it sold well enough that Activision directed Treyarch to port COD4 to the Wii in time for the release of MW2, making COD4 Treyarch’s third COD port on the Wii, not its first.
I know this article is a personal opinion, and I respect that. But I will also put mine. When I got to try Black Ops 2, my first thought was great, another shit call of duty title coming to wii u, and wii will ruin it. I love the wii u, but I didn’t think cod was a good idea. But then I played it. It was amazing. Compared to game quality on ps3, it was at least 50% better with just the tablet, it made the game much more realistic. In realy life you don’t have a freaking map in the top left corner of your eye, you have to look down on a gps, which the gamepad acts as during this, and also you no longer have to freaking pause to change classes, and let yourself get killed while choosing classes and other stuff. Call Of Duty black ops 2 is a lot better on Wii U. I compare it to trying it on PC, xbox, ps3. Wii U version looks, and feels better. The gamepad also adds an awesome, innovation to gaming. The Wii U is way beyond what ps3 and 360 can do, and that is good enough to replace both systems. Anyone who gives it a chance, will like it a whole lot more, I GUARANTEE IT! It performs, and plays way better than any console to date. Also next gen consoles will cost an estimated 600-800 US dollars. NO WAY. That is shit pricing and I will never buy it. Wii U all the way people.
I’m sure you can change the button layout what games nowadays have you played where you cannot I would’ve thought about that one before I wrote that and wow did not know you could read the future and see how the new Xbox and ps will be I think they’ll be around the same wii maybe a little weaker but it’s just do you want to kinect, game pad or whatever Sonys thinking of
yes there are button layout settings, a lot of the reporters don’t get to see this feature though. People said all the same things baout ps3 that they are now saying about Wii U. “Its going to fail” “Hard to play” “Button layout is hard to use” “graphics don’t seem much better”. But after the system is released, they see how good it is, and after about 5 months pass, they will see next gen graphics running on wii u. I guarantee that.