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Call of Duty Black Ops is undoubtedly the biggest gaming release of 2010 - bringing in over $360 million in its first day. Here at G-P Michael Menzel absolutely loved it awarding it a 9.6/10, but we felt it'd be a good idea to get another take on this mammoth release. After almost a week of being on shop shelves does it still feel as good as it did on day 1?

I'll start off by saying I felt that Black Ops' singleplayer campaign is one of, if not the best single player campaign in the Call of Duty series. I have to admit CoD4 holds a strong place in my heart, but realistically a lot of that is simply nostalgia thanks to the freshness of the experience at the time. Black Ops' story isn't going to win any Oscars, but it does offer a compelling and exciting tale with multiple twists and turns throughout. Thanks to the focus on Mason you'll find yourself much more interested to find out what happens in his story. What's irritated me is reading multiple 'big' reviews (which won't be named) who state that the jumping between character to character causes for confusion in the story - this is simply not the case. You'll jump to another character a couple of times but they're always directly linked to events related to Mason, in fact on one occasion you'll even see an event from 2 angles - something which was extremely interesting. This is in contrast to what we usually see in Call of Duty titles - where you hop between character to character with them slowly dropping off as the game progresses (I'm looking at you MW2). The story does require you to focus on what's going on throughout however, as stated above there are many twists and turns, along with subtle hints throughout the game to what occurs in the final stages. Therefore I can understand how some players may have been slightly confused at times, but this is simply not down to the character switching, which in fact is used much more effectively and significantly less than before in the series.

Treyarch have stepped things up big time since their last singleplayer offering in World at War - one which was extremely average at best with only 1 or 2 stand out missions. I personally enjoyed every single mission in the Black Ops campaign, each switching things up throughout. The game is extremely well paced, offering a ton of variety to keep the player interesting with multiple vehicle sequences, all out action, stealth, and even a pretty major era change at one point. I don't want to go into any specifics of the story but Treyarch consistently surprise with new gameplay elements. It's an exhilarating ride from start to finish.

All this talk of the singleplayer is well and good but most people are here for the multiplayer. Something I never thought I'd be saying is that Treyarch really seem to have stepped it up here too. What has been absolutely crucial to Black Ops is how Treyarch have done nothing but listen to the community throughout the past year of MW2. It's true haters are still going to hate, however Treyarch deserve nothing but praise here. MW2 brought with it a slew of crap causing huge imbalances and a large quantity of exploitable combinations effectively leading to the players ruining the experience for everyone else. We all know about marathon lightweight commando pro and it's ridiculous lunge, snipers constantly partaking in downright stupid 'quickscoping', players sprinting around with dual wielding fast firing powerful shotguns, danger close with grenade launcher combinations, and the never ending stream of cheap camping players using killstreaks to grief others. The list could go on with exploited game mechanics from MW2, which although was effectively down to the players adopting and discovering these cheap tactics, it boiled down to Infinity Ward providing these systems to be exploited in the first place. I'm thankful to say it currently appears that Treyarch have completely taken this to heart, with all of these faults being resolved from the get-go in BO. Gone are the bullshit perks, cheap combinations and ability to completely grief others will killstreaks. Instead you're left with a significantly more purist experience, reminiscent in some ways of CoD4, where each area has had much thought and consideration put into it, and high-end killstreaks are quite the rarity.

Although the game does feature some fairly minor bugs in its current state, Treyarch have been very vocal so far and have been in communication with the community to try and discover and fix these updates. In fact thanks to a live update system some minor issues have already been resolved without any kind of visible patch on the users end.  Not to mention Treyarch are known for actively supporting their titles with good portions of DLC. The future looks good for Black Ops. Even if players manage to exploit some systems in the future to give themselves an advantage there's no doubt in my mind that Treyarch will jump right on it and resolve the problems. However as it stands the overall multiplayer experience just simply feels much more balanced and well rounded than that found in MW2.

I'll admit if someone told me I'd be enjoying Black Ops this much 2 months ago I would have probably laughed in their face. I had my doubts about Treyarch, who previously only managed to offer players a simple distraction between the Infinity Ward titles. The roles have completely switched in my eyes. Black Ops offers a superb singleplayer experience that I just didn't want to put down, and a multiplayer component which offers that same addictive gameplay but substantially more balanced. True I still end up shouting profanity at my TV (especially during the brilliantly tense Wager Matches), but that's what Call of Duty is all about. Instead of being completely frustrated more often than not, I'm having an absolute blast with Black Ops. Although it's hard to judge for sure just yet thanks to nostalgia naturally clouding judgement along with it still being early days, I'd be quite happy to agree with someone who said this was the best Call of Duty yet.

If you're looking for a more detailed look into the elements of CoD Black Ops make sure to check out our original review.