Black Ops II as a Reconstruction of the military shooter.
In 2012, the infamous third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line gained notoriety amongst the gaming community for its harsh and unforgiving storyline, and the multiple themes it encompassed. One of the main points of the game in particular was to tear apart the notions and foundations of the modern-military shooter, as popularized by games like Battlefield, Medal of Honor, and of course, Call of Duty. Needless to say, it caused a lot of gamers to question these sorts of games, and some to even brush off the year's annual Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the sequel to Treyarch's 2010 release, Call of Duty Black Ops. Considering that the Modern Warfare series had essentially fallen into many of the traps that Spec Ops pointed out, it shouldn't be that surprising to assume that Black Ops II would follow suit.
How surprising is it then, that the campaign of the game, penned by David Goyer of The Dark Knight fame, would end up making a valiant effort to acknowledge those flaws in the genre that Spec Ops pointed out, and ultimately manage to reconstruct many of the tropes of the genre. Sadly overlooked thanks to the game's focus on multiplayer and the immense praise surrounding Spec Ops's "murder" of the genre, this analysis will help to show how Black Ops II acts as a solid rebuttal and answer to the former's deconstruction, essentially reconstructing the modern-military shooter.
