One of the new features announced for Black Ops multiplayer is the offline mode “Combat Training”. In Combat Training, the player (And perhaps friends) face off against A.I. Bots (computer controlled enemies) in either Free-For-All or Team Deathmatch game modes. Treyarch has not said much more on this gametype since it’s reveal on September 1st, but there is plenty we know already.
Treyarch said that they created Combat Training as a way of helping new players get the basics and practice playing before jumping into real online gaming, where stats are tracked and CoD Points are won and lost. However, the game mode actually has a wide variety of other purposes! Have you ever unlocked a new gun while playing Call of Duty and wanted to try it, but didn’t want to risk your stats or Kill/Death ratio for that round?? Combat Training should help to fix that problem! With Combat Training, you will be able to do anything you want without changing your online profile at all! Another great thing is that you can play every map in Combat Training, so you can practice on the maps you don’t perform well on, and learn the best tactics for almost any situation.
One interesting note, however, is that Combat Training only allows the players to practice on Free-For-All and Team Deathmatch modes, and not more tactics based modes like Search & Destroy. Treyarch’s MP Design Director, David Vonderhaar, responded to a question about this in the official CoD Forums. His comment was that the A.I Bots are not developed enough to take objectives yet, such as capturing flags and arming/disarming bombs. He did say a more intelligent A.I. was a possibility for future Call of Duty titles.
Combat Training may also become an invaluable resource for competitive gaming clans. Clans can use Combat Training to practice tactics and train new members. Plus, with Theater Mode (Which we will look at next) clans can review their matches and see what everyone did, and what they need to work on. Then they can take those lessons learned in Combat Training, and take their fight online.