This series is a direct sequel to Cold War, which hopefully means that Black Ops now has some kind of thread that ties the Black Ops series, instead of being random stories that don't necessarily fit into the mainline MW continuity.  This game brings us to the early 90s, where see see a familiar character return...well, a couple of familiar characters, and some new ones too!

Story Summary (from Wikipedia)

In 1991, amidst the start of Operation Desert Storm, CIA operatives Troy Marshall (Y'lan Noel) and William "Case" Calderon, along with handler Jane Harrow (Dawn Olivieri), are deployed to the Iraq–Kuwait border to extract Iraqi minister of defence Saeed Alawi (Jordan Bielsky), but are forced to go off mission when Alawi claims to be targeted by a rogue paramilitary force called "Pantheon". After surviving an encounter with Pantheon forces, the team prepares to extract Alawi, but he is executed by Russell Adler (Bruce Thomas), a rogue agent who fled from the CIA after he was framed as a mole for the Nicaraguan drug lord Raul Menendez. Adler allows himself to be captured, telling Marshall to relay a message to fellow operative Frank Woods (Damon Victor Allen): "Bishop takes Rook". Afterwards, CIA Deputy Director Daniel Livingstone (Lou Diamond Phillips) reprimands the team for Alawi's death, ignores their warnings about Pantheon, and suspends Woods, Marshall, and Case from duty.

Woods reveals to Marshall that Adler's message refers to an abandoned KGB safe house in Bulgaria—code-named "the Rook"—that the two discovered in 1976, and decides to go there with Marshall and Case to investigate Pantheon; Harrow stays behind to cover for their absence. After using Adler's files to recruit ex-Stasi technical genius Felix Neumann (Seamus Dever) and assassin Sevati "Sev" Dumas (Karen David), the team moves to break Adler out of a CIA black site hidden under Washington, D.C., while a political event hosted by Governor Bill Clinton (Jim Meskimen) takes place above ground. The team extracts Adler just as Pantheon assaults the black site, but they are blamed for the attack instead and are declared fugitives. Adler reveals that Pantheon has been engaging in weapons deals with Saddam Hussein; with the help of MI6 agent Helen Park (Lily Cowles) and allied SAS forces, the team assaults one of Hussein's palaces in western Iraq, where they find "the Cradle", a psychochemical weapon that originated from an abandoned CIA biolab in Kentucky.

While Adler stays behind to track down Pantheon's head scientist, Matvey Gusev (Yuri Lowenthal), Case, Marshall, and Sev investigate the biolab. Case accidentally inhales Cradle gas and hallucinates fighting off undead creatures while hearing a woman's voice, which explains that Pantheon was originally a secret CIA division overseeing Cradle's development as a performance-enhancing drug, with Case being the only test subject, before Livingstone shut down the project and disbanded Pantheon. When Case regains his senses, the team discovers that Pantheon has already stolen the biolab's stores of Cradle, and also find a recording revealing that Harrow is working with Pantheon. Using clues in the recording, the team steals financial records from a casino in the European principality of Avalon, which reveal that the casino had been wiring money to Gusev in Iraq. Afterwards, Case and Marshall reunite with Adler in Kuwait and work with his old ally, U.S. Army Captain Lawrence Sims (Reggie Watkins), to capture Gusev, who reveals that the Cradle is being stored in Vorkuta.

The team raids Vorkuta, and while they are unable to stop the Cradle from being moved, they capture Harrow and bring her to the Rook for interrogation. Adler injects Harrow with a truth serum, prompting her to reveal that she joined Pantheon after they leaked information claiming that Adler killed her parents, and that Pantheon is planning to use the Cradle to carry out a false flag attack on the Capitol Building with the goal of discrediting Livingstone and replacing him with Harrow, putting them in control of the CIA. Pantheon forces assault the Rook and rescue Harrow; Case gives chase and boards Harrow's escape helicopter, causing it to crash in the river. Under the influence of released Cradle gas, Case strangles Harrow to death before presumably drowning. Marshall tries to radio Case, explaining that Livingstone managed to evacuate the Capitol. Two weeks later, the team meets with Livingstone, who asks them to continue working as an independent clandestine unit in order to eradicate Pantheon and its true leaders, who are conducting operations in Avalon. Meanwhile, Pantheon operative Jackson Caine (Rick Pasqualone) infiltrates Livingstone's office and accesses his computer.

Overall Thoughts

For this game, I noticed that you basically access it (and other COD games) through a COD launcher.  Why does everything need a launcher?! Isn't my console launcher enough? It is a bit of a minor annoyance that I need to turn on my console, then fire up the COD launcher, and then start up the game.

I enjoyed this game.  I liked the meta game of building your fort/base at an abandoned KGB facility in Bulgaria.  By retrieving cash in various missions through safe-cracking mini games, you get to improve your gameplay and your base.  I wish there were additional places to find funds in the game so I could max out everything. The story was entertaining and something that engaged me.  It was also not a straight "oh, there's the bad guy" kind of story, so the plot was interesting. Again...I hate zombies, but after playing 3 other COD games back to back, I knew it was coming, and I was mentally prepared to encounter it, make the best of it, and just get through it. I also liked the little story drops in the form of cassette tapes with audio notes. It was a good way to encourage exploration and see what you could unearth to add more depth to the story.

Achievements

Time played: 14h 48m

Achievements: 15/107

Gamerscore: 290/3000