Game Modes

Multi-team team death-match
This game mode has a maximum of 18 players and can be any combination of 4 teams as far as I was told (4x4x4x4, 3x3x3x3, 2x2x2x2). To be honest as bad as team death-match has been in the past. Id go as far as saying that I enjoyed the multi-team aspect more than any other mode. Its the kind of mode that makes the really big maps that people don't really enjoy playable.

Hard-point
This game most is one of the fastest modes of all the ones I got my hands on, its basically Treyarchs new take on headquarters. The big difference here is that one person must be in the capture area at all times to earn points. Personally I didn't enjoy this mode as much as the others simply because whenever we played it the people who we played against (the public) loved claymoring and electrical surging every doorway, but ill go into items later.

Capture The Flag
The bread and butter of call of duty games. Its difficult to say what is different about this mode to other call of duties and to be honest, there isn't much. Positional play still rules the mode and Treyarch have brought back the touch return (instead of a 2 second return). We never got a chance to look at the game set up options to see if this was a toggle or not. One of the only things that stood out on this mode was how much of the competitive aspect they have brought in. When the game ends in normal time at 2-2. The overtime that is played is exactly the same as our stopwatch rules in every way. The soon as team 1 captures the first flag (lets say at 2:08) of overtime the round will end. The second round will then begin with 2:08 on the clock. Meaning that all overtime calculations are done in game with no way of mistakes being made. This is a simple change but again is a nod to the competitive community.

Domination
In the past couple of call of duties I have really missed this mode and to be honest would love nothing more than it to be included for Blops2. Everything runs the same as all previous call of duties, except that for the most part the spawns seem to work on every map that we played (probably due to Hastr0’s involvement) and again Treyarch take note of the competitive scene and that we play both sides of domination and the winning team is a culmination of both side’s score. So now domination is round based and again Blops2 engine manages the scores and adds them from both sides.

Id also like to add that both demolition and search and destroy are game modes but because I didn't get a chance to play either I wont bother posting anything about them.

Maps

We only got the chance to play 4 maps from the game but I have assurances from people who are in the know, that there will be lots of maps that have been designed purely with e-sports in mind, I wont talk about them as iv been told not too. The 4 maps that we got to play were;

Aftermath
The map is set in a post war section of LA I believe. I mentioned to the other pro’s at the event that the map felt and played very much like Invasion (MW2) or Cracked (Blops). What I mean by this is that there is basically the middle map where all the action takes play and 2 sides for each team. (6/10)

Yemen
The map though I can imagine it seems way to big to be competitive is actually a lot smaller when you get to play it. A previous map that I would most compare it to would probably be Favella (MW2). Its got lots of buildings for people to camp in and to be honest thats the major drawback in the map for me. (7/10)

Turbine
Turbine is a massive map and if I am completely honest its way to big to feature in the competitive community, again only my opinion. This is the map that really made me fall in love with multi-team team death-match. As it was big enough for the 4 teams to be able to control their own point of each map. There isn't too many buildings and being honest the only pitfall is its sheer size. (5/10)

Cargo
I think everyone who played Blops2 will agree that this was their favorite map and its easy to see why. The map is fairly symmetrical has a wide open the space in the middle for team conflicts and though has lots of crates isn't too clutters to cause any problems. Really enjoyed this map on every mode I played on it and can easily see if being one of our maps. (8/10)

Weapons

Assault Rifles
The assault rifles all seemed pretty balanced. The pro players seemed to favour the the MA8 and Type-25. Which are burst and fully automatic respectively. However there was also the Scar, SMC & others. The AR role in my opinion is going to be totally redefined with 1 attachment, fire rate switch (next section).

Sub-Machine Guns
Now this class of weapon seems to have been opened up greatly. Almost every game I watched or played in people were using different SMG’s, my personal favorites where the MSC and the Scorpion. By the end of the week almost all the pro’s were using 3 attachments on the SMG’s which seems to be a mix between these; Laser Sight, Rapid Fire, Grip and Ext Mags.

This is going to seem lazy but due to the dev’s asking us to use a lot of the competitive stuff I didn't really get a chance to use things like shotguns, LMG’s & snipers. So I wont include them in this review. But what ill say is that the pistols seemed totally different to any other call of duty, with almost all of them being semi or fully automatic. I did raise this with the dev’s and they said they'd see what they can do.

Attachments

Im not going to go through every single attachment as to be honest, there is absolutely hundreds of them and I don't have that much time. As you can see from the screen shot below which is the attachments which are only available to AR’s there is a lot to choose from. The most popular ones from a competitive point of view were;

Select Fire - Fully-Auto, Semi-Auto, Burst & One Shot. (left on d-pad to change)

Reflex Sight - Exactly the same as our red-dot.

Fast-mags - as the exact same as dual-mags.

Fore-grip - basically the perk steady-aim.

Laser Sight - ridiculously overpowered, makes the left trigger totally redundant.

Quick-draw - exactly same as the perk.

Perks

Again in the perk section ill just mention the ones that are most applicable to the competitive aspect.

Lightweight - Slot 1
Lightweight allows you to take no falling damage. It also allows you to move faster / run quicker.

Scavenger - Slot 2
Scavenger is a perk that allows you to pick up ammo and grenades from fallen foes.

Toughness - Slot 2
This allows you to flinch less whenever you get shot. This works like the Focus proficiency found in MW3.

Fast Hands - Slot 2
Fast Hands allows you to use your equipment much more quickly (stun grenades and flash grenades). This works like Quickdraw Pro in MW3. In Black Ops 2, it'll also allow you to safely throw back a frag grenade.

Extreme Conditioning - Slot 3
Extreme Conditioning gives the player the ability to sprint for much longer distances.

Dead Silence - Slot 3
Dead Silence is similar to Ninja, which has been in many of the previous Call of Duty games. This makes your footsteps silent.

Dexterity - Slot 3
This works like Marathon Pro from MW2. It will allow you to climb over obstacles and climb up ladders at a much faster rate. It'll also give you the benefit of being able to recover from a melee attack (i.e. a knife attack). Ever knife the air by mistake, only for your character to be stuck in that lengthy animation? Dexterity will allow you to recover from that animation at a faster rate.

Awareness - Slot 3
The Awareness perk in Black Ops 2 will act like Sitrep Pro in the sense that it will allow the player to hear enemy footsteps much more loudly and much more clearly. Not sure if this will actually counteract Dead Silence or not.

Customization

Now the level of customization that Treyarch has given the power to do is honestly insane. The pick 10 system means that for example the objective player for the team can sacrifice a lot of his weapons in order to have say 2 stuns, an SMG and 5 perks. While AR players can drop their secondary weapon and take 2 or 3 attachments on their primary. All this is done through the wildcard system.

You can pick a maximum of 3 wildcards for any class, but picking one obviously counts towards your pick 10 system. Wildcard + Pick10 is going to totally change everything about competitive play, and though people wont agree I think it could be great for us. The wildcard system is shown below.

Primary Gunfighter: Allows a 3rd attachment for the primary weapon.
Secondary Gunfighter: Allows a 2nd attachment for the secondary weapon.
Overkill: Take a primary weapon as your secondary weapon.
Danger Close: Choose a second Lethal.
Perk 1 Greed: Choose a second Perk 1.
Perk 2 Greed: Choose a second Perk 2.
Perk 3 Greed: Choose a second Perk 3.
Tactician: Take a Tactical grenade in place of your lethal Grenade.
Com-Caster Mode, Theatre & Streaming

Com-Caster Mode
This mode is basically what everyone was watching during the stream is allow a spectator to go in and look at an overview of the map to see everyones positions. Shows each individual kill streaks and will let the caster see very quickly all the important information that every caster needs during a game.

Theatre
This call of duty again will have theatre and this time will allow people to save their clips, go in at another time. Cast over their own game-plays and other peoples then upload them directly from the game to youtube (This is the biggest thing for us as competitive gamers). It means that people can record a certain map then go in later on and for example do; a commentary, a review, a walkthrough.

Streaming
Though I didn't get a chance to see this I was told by devs that we would have a way to stream directly from our games online. Whether this is directly on callofduty.com or we have the option of a 3rd party is something that I don't know.

Leagues

This is one of the most important thing for bringing competitive and public groups together, it will give the pro’s an incentive to keep playing the game in publics as well as privates. As for example in Starcraft the top players play in Grand Masters, and one of the first things people do when buying the game is look to see who those players are. It will also mean that Treyarch themselves can promote people in the grand masters by saying “hey, come watch this grand masters players stream” showcasing both the game, and the e-sports aspect that Treyarch has basically built this game for.

Final Thoughts

Without sounding incredibly cheesy I am very excited about this game, its finally our chance to blow every other console gamer out the water (halo & gow). The developers have basically given us every single tool we need to make our own brands via youtube & streaming. They have listened to people like Hastr0 about competitive rules and how its been harbored in the past by poor e-sports interaction (infinity ward) and we as a community need to really grasp this opportunity with both hands and embrace it. Say what you want about it but I for one cant wait for the game.