History VideoGame / CallOfDutyBlackOps

** In Kowloon, a Boeing 747 is seen taking off, barely clearing the rooftops of the titular walled city. The 747 had its first flight in 1969, and the variant seen in game is the 747-400 (identified by its canted winglets) which didn't enter service until "1988".

* AnachronismStew: ''Black Ops'' has a surprising amount of weapons that weren't even patented, let alone produced during the 1960s setting the game is in. Even if they were the earliest weapon prototypes that the CIA could utilize (and they do HandWave it as such), they're still considered to be pretty damned early for its time. In fact, there are so many anachronisms that it's easier to list the weapons that ''aren't'' anachronistic.

** The [=AKS-74U=] was first produced in 1979, the base model having been produced in 1974. The RPK-74 also did not enter production until 1974, and is also equipped with further-anachronistic alternate ironsights when used without optics - again, the earlier 7.62mm RPK version would have fit just fine.

** The Stakeout is a less-justifiable example, as the standard Ithaca 37 was developed in the early '30s, and was in limited use with the US military as a trench gun during both UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and Vietnam, but the version from the game (with a factory-shortened barrel and a pistol grip, rather than a sawed-down stock) did not exist until 1981.

** The KS-23 is also anachronistic, slightly less so (it began development in the early 70s but the first production examples weren't available until 1981) but in the scheme of things still just as much as the SPAS (it first shows up from the opening mission in '61, and from then on is almost entirely exclusive to the Viet Cong who never used it).

* CutsceneBoss: [[spoiler:Dragovich and Kravchenko, where at most, you're only made to [[PressXToNotDie button mash]] against the latter.]]

* EveryCarIsAPinto

* HopelessWindowDeath:
** In the flashback level "Project Nova", Reznov is forced to watch on the other side of a gas chamber's porthole as the PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo Dimitri Petrenko dies a horrifying death from Nova-6 nerve gas.
** Hudson and Weaver go to Rebirth Island to find Dr. Steiner, who wants to defect to the United States. However, Mason and Reznov get to him first, and he's shot before Weaver and Hudson can break through the bulletproof glass window between them.

''Call of Duty: Black Ops'' is the seventh game in the originally UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-themed FPS series ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', developed by Treyarch. Like ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', it starts a new sub-series set in a new setting, but unlike ''Modern Warfare'', it takes place during the height of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. It serves as a sequel to the Treyarch-developed ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyWorldAtWar''.

A sequel, set in [[TwentyMinutesInTheFuture the year 2025]], with flashbacks in [[TheEighties the 1980s]] has been released. Please put all sequel-related tropes in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII'' page. 2020's ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar'' acts as an {{Interquel}} between this game and ''Black Ops II'''s flashbacks, set circa 1981.

[[Characters/CallOfDutyBlackOps The Characters page]].

Black Ops has a total of 26 [[https://callofdutymaps.com/Call-of-Duty/black-ops/ Multiplayer Maps]] and 11 Zombie maps with 4 of them returning from World at War.

And thus begins Black Ops.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Mason averts the total extermination of America at the last moment and kills the BigBad, TheDragon, and TheEvilGenius behind Nova-6, but he very likely killed or took part in the killing of JFK five years before and eventually is marked for termination along with Hudson and Weaver.]][[note]] all three live, but Hudson will die in the follow-up game. [[/note]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Mason averts the total extermination of America at the last moment and kills the BigBad, TheDragon, and TheEvilGenius behind Nova-6, but he very likely killed or took part in the killing of JFK five years before and eventually is marked for termination along with Hudson and Weaver.]]

* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeznORdAkGY "ROCK U"]] by Namie Amuro was used as the theme song in the Japanese version.

* ZergRush: The NVA's common tactic. Especially in missions like 'SOG', where you'll see NVA soldiers endlessly gushing out from a hill in the horizon like an army of pissed off red ants. This is actually TruthInTelevision to an extent, though it's revealed that the presence of Russian tanks is what's bolstering them to suddenly break out of the the stalemate.

* PrisonLevel: "Vorkuta" is set in the infamous Soviet {{Hellhole}} Prison of the same name. Here, Mason and his newfound ally Viktor Reznov, alongside hundreds of Russian prisoners, stage a GreatEscape that also seeks to destroy the prison itself in the process. Ultimately Mason, with Reznov's help, manages to get out alive.

* {{WMG}}: As a game centered around the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, as well as the computer at the main menu room, it is prone to have fan UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories.

* CollapsingLair: Near the end of the final mission.

* GreyVersusBlackMorality: Mason and his CIA Unit: imperialist, capitalist pig dogs who nearly restored a fascist dictator to Cuba, torture scientists, and cause a ''lot'' of collateral damage in their rampages through civilian places like Cuba or Hong Kong. You don't even get penalized for accidentally shooting up Cuban rebels. On the other side is Dragovich's group: a pack of total psychopaths who happily betray their own countrymen for having objectives that might slightly not match up to their own [[ForTheEvulz (or for no reason at all)]], recruit open Nazis to refine a chemical weapon that causes a horrific and agonizing death, test the weapon on prisoners of war, civilians, and ''[[WouldHurtAChild children and babies]]'', and want to wipe out an entire continent with said weapon to install their version of Soviet totalitarianism onto the rest of the world.]]

* HellishCopter: Not even considering the various choppers that get shot down through the course of the game, there is the helicopter that gets taken out by a ''harpoon'' tethered to a railing at one point. One level starts out in a freshly crashed one.

** Ed Harris running the Black Ops his character from ''Film/TheRock'' was famous for -- even corresponding to the same places.
** The way Reznov yells '''EVERYONE!''' at the end of "Project Nova" calls back to Gary Oldman's VillainousBreakdown as AxCrazy [[NaughtyNarcs DEA agent]] Norman Stansfield in ''[[Film/TheProfessional Leon: The Professional]]''.

** Ice Cube "plays" a [[Film/XXxStateOfTheUnion Navy SEAL]].

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Sam Worthington voices the protagonist in Black Ops. It appears he has come no closer to perfecting an American accent since ''Film/{{Avatar}}''. It's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL_Pc2Aj48s most notable]] in the scene where [[spoiler:Bowman]] dies in "Payback".

** Also, "[[Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival Fortunate Son]]" from ''Music/WillyAndThePoorBoys'' is being played on the radio in January 1968, almost two years before its release in November '69; "[[Music/TheRollingStonesBand Sympathy for the Devil]]" from ''Music/BeggarsBanquet'' at least got the year right, but was months too early (released on December 6th, whereas the mission is set on February 11th - the album didn't even begin recording until March). The biggest musical anachronism, however, is probably "[[Music/CeliaCruz Quimbara]]" from ''Celia & Johnny'', which plays over a radio in a mission set in 1961 despite the song not being recorded and the album not coming out until 19''74''.
** The computer terminals where in you can play ''Zork'' and/or access emails from various individuals appear to be running on a variant of Unix, and yet the operating system itself was released in 1969, a year after the game takes place. Then again, [[MindScrew the terminal also holds emails and other documents dated as far forward as 1978]] (not to mention ''Zork'' itself, the form it appears in first releasing in 1980).

** In addition to everything listed in AnachronismStew, the game makes one glaring mistake about the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The game treats Castro's subversion of his assassination as a master stroke of spycraft, but in reality, any secrecy surrounding the invasion was blown when THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on it before it happened. The CIA and the rebels ultimately went ahead with the invasion figuring they could make it work anyway. However, the failure to destroy the Cuban Air Force and Kennedy's refusal of a second round of air cover, in additon to all the other problems they suffered, doomed it.

** Although it is a send up to the movie ''Film/TheDeerHunter'', neither the Viet Cong nor the NVA ever made POW's play Russian Roulette. They much prefered other tortures like beatings, food deprivation and forced labor. Funnily enough, this was actually a major criticism of ''The Deer Hunter'' and actually caused a minor international incident.

** Also, "[[Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival Fortunate Son]]" from ''Music/WillyAndThePoorBoys'' is being played on the radio in January 1968, almost two years before its release in November '69; "[[Music/TheRollingStonesBand Sympathy for the Devil]]" from ''Music/BeggarsBanquet'' at least got the year right, but was months too early (released on December 6th, whereas the mission is set on February 11th - the album didn't even begin recording until March). The biggest musical anachronism, however, is probably "[[Music/CeliaCruz Quimbara]]" from ''Celia & Johnny'', which plays over a radio in a mission set in 1961 despite the song not being recorded and the album not coming out until 19''74''.

** The computer terminals where in you can play ''Zork'' and/or access emails from various individuals appear to be running on a variant of Unix, and yet the operating system itself was released in 1969, a year after the game takes place. Then again, [[MindScrew the terminal also holds emails and other documents dated as far forward as 1978]] (not to mention ''Zork'' itself, the form it appears in first releasing in 1980).

** The level set during an uprising in Vorkuta takes place in late 1963, a year after the real gulag was closed and a full decade after the real uprising.

** Even attitudes about the Vietnam War are anachronistic. In the opening to "The Defector", the interrogator claims that the Tet Offensive and the battle of Huế were "when America really started losing the war", which makes sense from a modern perspective (the Tet Offensive was what turned a lot of public opinion against the war), but in terms of the game's chronology makes absolutely no sense, since the interrogation is only three ''weeks'' after that - the battle itself, much less the war, is still going on by that point, and Tet still should be seen as a major victory for South Vietnam and the US (the South Vietnamese military doubled in size, Huế and other positions lost to the North were retaken, and the Viet Cong took so many casualties the NVA had to handle everything by themselves from then on).

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In addition to everything listed in AnachronismStew, the game makes one glaring mistake about the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The game treats Castro's subversion of his assassination as a master stroke of spycraft, but in reality, any secrecy surounding the invasion was blown when THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on it before it happened. The CIA and the rebels ultimately went ahead with the invasion figuring they could make it work anyway. However, the failure to destroy the Cuban Air Force and Kennedy's refusal of a second round of air cover, in additon to all the other problems they suffered, doomed it.

** Finally, this trope is played with in that, although the Vorkutlag was already closed by the time of the game, it is correct in that Vorkuta was the main holding place for American Prisoners.

-->'''Mason:''' Poor bastards...
-->'''Woods:''' They're Nazi bastards, they don't deserve sympathy.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: '''Mason:''' "Too late to back out - Slam it in!"

-->''Mason:'' Poor bastards...
** ''Woods:'' They're Nazi bastards, they don't deserve sympathy.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Underbarrel flamethrowers. While the exact model seen is pure fiction, Finland has experimented with the [[https://www.forgottenweapons.com/suomi-m31-and-underbarrel-flamethrower/ M/44 — an underslung flamethrower for the Suomi KP/-31]]. It never went into full production; only 40 of them were made.

* AbortedArc: Mucking around with the hidden terminal reveals a vast and possibly AncientConspiracy that was manipulating both the West and East, all the way up to being [[WhoShotJFK JFK's REAL killers]] and threatening Hudson with a similar fate. ''Black Ops II, 3, and 4'' dropped this arc, and the only remnant of it in ''Black Ops Cold War'', is Price's presence, who was manipulated by the conspiracy into hunting down a supposedly rogue Hudson.