Call Of Duty: Black Ops II

Treyarch’s unexpectedly experimental shooter still surprises and discomforts, though not always intentionally

- JEREMY PEEL

For a firstperson shooter, there’s no greater honour than a musical theme from Trent Reznor. It’s only ever been bestowed on two games: Id Software’s Quake, and Treyarch’s Black Ops II. Both were studios at the peak of their pop cultural powers, commanding the kind of crossover appeal that publishers dream of but rarely achieve. In 2012, a new Call Of Duty campaign was still a catalyst for water-cooler conversation, including one in Reznor’s studio. “I think I have played them all,” he told USA Today at the time, “with the exception of one or two that may have come out when I was on long touring jaunts.” The theme Reznor composed for Black Ops II is a muted, bass-led mood piece. It growls more than it barks, and when it finally bites – with teeth, to use the language of Nine Inch Nails – it comes as a shock. “There is a lot of reservation and angst and sense of loss and regret and anger bubbling under the surface,” said Reznor. “So it didn’t make sense to have a gung-ho, patriotic-feeling kind of theme song. It has to feel weighty.”

In that explanation, and over five-anda-half minutes of industrial unease, Reznor captures the character that distinguishes Black Ops from its peers in the COD canon. This is a sub-series composed from the disjointed memories of traumatised soldiers. In the original Black Ops, Treyarch looked over the CIA’s history of foreign intervention and mental programming with a distrustful eye. In the sequel, it catalogues the generations of pain left behind by the people weaponised in those conflicts.