Originally released two years ago for game consoles and PCs, Call of Duty: Black Ops ($50) has just debuted in the Mac App Store, continuing Activision’s most popular franchise to date. Set in the 1960s and featuring guest appearances by virtual versions of JFK and Fidel Castro, Black Ops is a traditional first-person shooter with atypically excellent intensity, graphics and audio, focusing on the CIA’s covert “black” operations during the Cold War.
Helping to justify the price tag in a world of $10 apps: Hollywood-caliber voice work by actors Sam Worthington, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, and Ice Cube.
Call of Duty: Black Ops isn’t some simple shooter—expect several days worth of active play time, a deep story line, and some serious multiplayer action: it even includes the previously separate First Strike downloadable content pack, with four extra multiplayer maps, plus the Zombie campaign, though the Rezurrection DLC is still sold separately.
Just be aware that Black Ops also has very specific hardware requirements, requiring 12GB of disk space, an ATI Radeon HD video card, 4GB of RAM, and at least 2.4GHz of CPU power. At the time of release, Nvidia graphics cards aren’t supported; publisher Aspyr Media actively recommends against playing the title on 2011 Mac Minis, MacBook Airs, and 13” MacBook Pros.
