Categories
Information

New Proposals for Drones

A user sent me a link to a proposal by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on drones and other unmanned aircrafts. I’ve been going through the proposal now and here are some points I think are worth highlighting:

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Private Use)
– The UAS shall not be operated within 300 Meters of any person, vessel, vehicle or structure not under the control of the UAS operator; and additionally, during take-off or landing the UAS shall not be flown within 200 Meters of any person, unless that person is under the control of the aircraft operator;

– UAV shall not be operated over a congested areas, except with the permission of the DGCA; it shall not fly over public or private properties, or within 5km of Kuwait’s airport outer fence, Heliports, Helicopter landing Sites, and airfields and shall remain clear of control zones.

– DGCA UAV Registration required for UAV which have a total mass including batteries and equipment greater than 1/2kg. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

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For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Commercial Use)
– DGCAA UAV Registration. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

– DGCA UAS Operating Approval.

– DGCA Security Approval when equipped with camera or other scanning or surveillance equipment.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Over 5KG and Under 25KG (Private Use)
– DGCA approval shall be obtained if operating outside flying clubs air space or the DGCA allocated defined zones.

– UAV shall not be operated near public and private properties;

– Use of video or image capturing device shall be prohibited;

– The applicant shall fill DGCA form to purchase this category.The form can be obtained from proper entity.

So basically if you own a drone or any other unmanned air vheicle you’re going to have to register it. If you’re shooting video and selling the footage then you’re going need to also get approval to operate the drone and approval from the air aviation security department. Finally if you’ve got one of the larger aircraft (over 5KG) like the hobby planes, then you’re going to be very limited on where you could use the aircraft plus you need fill out a form to be able to purchase one.

One thing I found odd is how sometimes they say UAS and sometimes UAV. So I started googling some of the points from the document and turns out they’ve just copied pasted a bunch of stuff from different proposals around the world including from the British CAA and the Emirati GCAA.

If you’d like to download the proposal and check it out, here is the [Link]

Image is a screenshot of drone footage from film Inspiring Kuwait
Thanks Abdulwahab




Categories
Activities Information

Visiting the Bayan Botanical Garden

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If you’re interested in visiting the Botanical Garden at Bayan Palace I have some good news (and a bit of bad news as well). The Bayan Botanical Garden is open to the general public every Thursday. You don’t need special permission or anything of the sort. All you need to do is give security your civil ID and they will let you access the garden.

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The Bayan Botanical Garden contains three different zones with different kind of plants in each. It’s not that big but it’s still pretty cool and most of the plants are labeled with their names. There isn’t a guide book that contains details on the plants so if you’re really curious to know more about each plant be prepared to wikipedia from your phone.

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Now for the bit of bad news. The Bayan Botanical Garden is open every Thursday… from 9AM to 1PM. That pretty much sucks for everyone who has a job. It also explains why the only other visitors at the garden while I was there were housewives with their kids. Still, it’s better than having no access at all. If you’d like to visit the garden, here is the location of the entrance on [Google Maps]

Thanks Maaz!




Categories
Travel

Etihad Airways to the United States

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Ok since I’ve been drinking in the Abu Dhabi airport for the past few hours and I’ve been listening to David Bowie’s Starman on loop… I’m now in a slightly better mood. So, I figured I’d post what was actually cool about flying with Etihad to Los Angeles. This was my third trip to the U.S. in the past 6 months, the first time I flew British Airways, the second time United Airlines and this third time with Etihad.

I personally prefer as direct a flight as possible since I pop a sleeping pill and xanax combo that basically knocks me out for most of the flight. So 5 hours or 10 or 15 doesn’t make a difference for me. Stopping half way is annoying, I just want to settle down in my seat, sleep and then wake up in my destination. United Airlines was a direct flight but their planes were pretty old and they’re now no longer flying out of Kuwait.

Etihad and Emirates both have direct flights to LA but Etihad has one major advantage over Emirates. U.S. Border Control are located at the Abu Dhabi Airport. It’s so odd I’m not sure why they chose Abu Dhabi, their only other location outside of North America is in Ireland. What this means is you get all your security and visa procedures done at the Abu Dhabi airport and then once you land in the States you don’t have to go through any of it. You actually land in the US as a domestic flight, you walk out of the plane, pick up your bags and leave the airport. This is very convenient especially for those who don’t have US or Canadian passports since the immigration lines on arrival to the U.S are usually super long.

The downside of Etihad is there is a high chance you’re gonna miss a connecting flight. A lot of my friends have missed connecting flights in Abu Dhabi because their flight from Kuwait was delayed or in my case, even when my flight wasn’t delayed I still managed to miss my connecting flight to Kuwait. It’s a gamble so just make sure you know the risk.




Categories
Automotive Reviews

Lexus NX 200t

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A couple of weekends back I borrowed the Lexus NX 200t from the dealership so that I could review it for my blog. I had emailed them requesting it since I’d been admiring the car for awhile now and was curious to try it out. Lexus weren’t really know for exciting or breakthrough designs but the NX completely changed my perception on them.

My favorite color on a car is usually black, but not in this case. I was actually disappointed when I picked up the car to find out it was black. The NX is designed with a lot of sharp lines and black just hides all of them. Not only that but one of the nicest design elements in the car are the rear lights which stretch across the side of the car over the rear tire. But in black that part doesn’t show and instead blends in with the rest of the car. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to show off how beautiful the car really is in my photos because of the color, but I also figured there are tons of them on the road already so more than likely you’ve come across a lighter colored version.

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The NX is a cross over vehicle which makes it smaller than a proper SUV but slightly larger than a standard car. They always feel like oversized hatchbacks to me and the NX isn’t any different here. It’s a 4-cylinder turbo engine with front wheel drive but it never felt like it lacked any power on the road. Obviously the fact that we don’t have any mountainous roads helps a lot with that. In the States they have a hybrid model which comes with an electric motor for the rear wheels turning it into an all wheel drive car. Not sure if we have that option in Kuwait, I didn’t see any at the dealership and I forgot to ask them if they had any.

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Like all Lexus cars, the interior was plush with leather all around including on the dashboard. The entertainment system interface still feels outdated which is disappointing. They’ve also replaced their finicky joypad with an even more finicky trackpad. I hated the trackpad, it seemed like anytime I accidentally tapped it the car would change a setting or forward a song or perform some other unwanted action. The trackpad along with the outdated interface were the only things I actually didn’t like about the car. Actually come to think of it, the sound system wasn’t that great, mostly because if there was any bass in the track the rear trunk door would loudly rattle annoyingly. For the passengers sitting in the rear, there’s pretty good legroom. I’m over 6ft tall and as you can see in the photo below I didn’t have any space issues.

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Like I mentioned at the start of this post the NX is a pretty hot looking car. Lexus have managed to carve out a look that can’t be mistaken for any other car on the road except possibly their larger RX series. The starting price isn’t that bad at KD12,950. It kinda seems like a good deal considering you’re getting a good looking Lexus with a nice all leather interior and Lexus reliability. They have an F-Sport version which looks even better with larger wheels and slightly more aggressive styling, but that’s priced at around KD16,000. It’s a great car overall, but Lexus should definitely give their entertainment system interface a major overhaul. If you’re interested in test driving the car you can do so by contacting the dealer. Here is a link to their [Website]




Categories
Geek

My Favorites of CES 2016

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Last week Huawei sent me to CES 2016 in Las Vegas to cover the experience for my blog. The Consumer Electronics Show is one of the largest electronics shows that takes place during the year and the largest event that takes place in Las Vegas period. If you checked any electronics or gadgets blog last week like Gizmodo or The Verge then you were probably overwhelmed by all the CES related posts that they published. Well I’m not going to do the same here, instead I’m going to highlight just some of my favorite things I saw at CES this year.

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The whole experience was insane since the Las Vegas Convention Center is HUMONGOUS. I thought the watch expo Basel World was huge when I visited it in 2013 but CES is so much larger. It’s hard to explain how big it is, I mean just the lobby of one of the halls was larger than any of the halls at the Kuwait International Fair Ground. CES was so huge that it took me more than 2 hours of fast walking to cover all the halls and then after I left I found out I had even missed one hall completely. There was so much stimulation everywhere I looked that I felt like I was having out of body experience at one point.

Anyway, below are some of the things that stuck out for me, if you follow me on twitter (@mark248am) then you’ve probably already seen most of the below but with less details.




Categories
News

Kuwaiti Couple Selfie Goes Viral

In case you missed it, a selfie taken by a Kuwaiti couple in Dubai with The Address Hotel in the background up in flames went viral this weekend and not for good reason. Loads of people thought the photo was in bad taste and started commenting about it on social media. Personally I didn’t think it was funny, but I also didn’t find it offensive or anything of the sort. If anything I thought the Burj Khalifa fireworks show next door while The Address was still on fire was more inappropriate but I guess to each his own. The Daily Mail posted an article on the photo earlier today and you can read that [Here]




Categories
Kuwait

Visiting the Botanical Gardens

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Earlier this year I posted about how the Bayan Palace now has a Botanical Garden. Supposedly the gardens are open to the public on Thursdays after 4PM but you’re required to get permission to visit them. Does anyone have more details on this or know how to get permission?




Categories
Law

Kuwait Law: No More Segregation and Animals Now Have Rights

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As I’ve previously mentioned, Kuwait is currently going through change, for the good and bad although I strongly believe that the changes are mostly for the good. This week Kuwait went through some very important changes.

Around a year ago, the “segregation law” was taken to the constitutional court by Kuwait University students who thought the law was unfair since they weren’t able to register for classes that were available for females only. This was the first time in Kuwait’s history where people were allowed to take a law to the constitutional court, previously only the government or parliament were allowed to do so.

I originally started writing this article last week because I wanted to share what was happening but then I decided to wait until the constitutional court ruling came out which it did yesterday. Lawyers, politicians, professors, non-profit organizations, were all waiting patiently to see what the Constitutional Court would rule, was segregating the sexes legal or not?

Back in 2000, the Kuwaiti Parliament voted by democratic ways a law that seemed to many as being undemocratic. In English media outlets it was referred to as “the segregation law”, and in Arabic media as “منع الاختلاط” which translates to “preventing integration”. But, the actual name of the law was “The Establishment of Private Universities” and was inspired by “The Higher Education Law” that was voted for in 1996. The law is very simple and short, with not a lot of details to its articles, for example ‘Article 2’ states “Student attire, behavior and activities shall be according to Islamic values”. Somewhere along the line though the Ministry enforced segregation on all higher private universities by referring to the law mentioned above.

Yesterdays court’s verdict came to everyone as a surprise. Although the court did not claim that the “segregation” law was unconstitutional, it instead stated there has been a mistake applying the law, as segregation was never mentioned in the original law.

animalmarket

On another brighter note, Kuwait’s Parliament yesterday finally passed an Animal Rights law making animal abuse in Kuwait illegal, as well as banning people from having certain pets like lions, cheetahs, etc. The law also enforces pet owners to take good care of their animals. The law shall be implemented within 6 months.

Feel free to email me [email protected] with any legal questions. I do not have the capacity to answer everyone for free (but I try), and I am happy to announce that I am currently working with a great team and therefore we are able to reply back to all emails with a reasonable time frame.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Image Source




Categories
Food & Drinks Fork Fed Healthier Lifestyle

Fork Fed: Are you Reading your Labels?

nutrition

Hello everyone! I am very excited to be able to write on 248AM. I am a clinical nutritionist that has worked in various areas including food safety, pediatrics and now do a variety of work with adults. I understand that nutrition can be a confusing subject and many of us have different opinions of food and health.  My goal is to help you all make an  informed decision to achieve a better and healthier life!

Many of us are health conscious and sometimes can’t help but feel deceived once looking at the nutrition label properly. They aren’t the easiest to figure out, some are complicated while others are simply deceiving. Here are a few tips to help you navigate through that nutrition label the next you pick up packaged food.

  1. Serving size is KEY! Many manufacturers use the smallest serving size possible to lure you into a lesser caloric amount. You’d be surprised to know that you could be having 5 or more servings by consuming the entire food in your package. To be more accurate with calculating your calories, proteins or fats make sure you check how many servings their information covers, as well as how many servings you’re going to eat.
  2. Calories are not everything. Although many of us believe that this number could be the most important on the nutrition label, but you could be wrong. Where your calories are coming from is far more important. Try to avoid foods that have a bulk of their calories coming from saturated or trans fats or sugars. Also, keep in mind that “Calorie-Free” means less than 5 calories per serving, this number could add up depending on how many calories you choose to indulge in.
  3. Fats are important, but not only for how many calories they provide but more so for which type of fat is being used in your food item. You want to make sure your fats are not coming from saturated or trans fats (they lower the good cholesterol and increase the bad ones). Instead opt for a product that contains more unsaturated fats, and definitely don’t be fooled by a “Zero Fat” label on the package. According to the recent regulations you can now place a “Zero Fat” label in your package if it contains less than 0.5g fat per SERVING! (Again serving plays a big role here)
  4. Carbohydrates could be both good or bad. Instead of focusing on how many grams of carbohydrates you food item is provide, I suggest you look at the source of carbohydrates. Is it mostly sugar? Or is the bulk of your carbohydrate intake coming from fiber? Anything with less than 0.5g sugar per serving is legally labeled as “Sugar-Free.” As for the fiber, you should aim to get more than 3g per serving (especially in cereals and whole grains).
  5. Ingredients are, in my humble point of view, the most important piece of information you can get out of a nutrition label. Foods in an ingredient list are listed from highest content level to the lowest; therefore if sugar, dextrose, or high fructose corn syrup are one of the first 3 ingredients on that list expect to be consuming a high sugar food. It is important that you recognize the foods listed because ultimately you are what you eat!

I personally believe that buying food items that do not require any food labels (fresh fruits, vegetables) is much easier and healthier than buying processed or packaged ones. Either way, make sure you read that label to make your informed decision.

“I think about food because you can’t think without it”

Post by Hyatt Al Sayegh, a Clinical Dietitian and Dr. Sears Health Coach.
Founder of Fork Fed.

Photo Source




Categories
Business Therapy

Business Therapy: Problems and Solutions

business-therapy

In a recent business event in Kuwait, I asked the audience: “What would you do if one of your employees rushed over to you saying, “There’s a long queue at the counter in the new store”?” Most of them replied, “Open another counter.” The long queue issue disappears and everything is back to normal, right? Wrong. While opening another counter might be a quick fix to minimise the customers’ negative experience, a long queue is a result of an issue, not the issue itself. And without knowing what the actual problem is how can you tell if you have the right solution?There are many reasons why such an incident occurred: the employee may not have been well-trained; he or she is just slow; your process is too long; an IT meltdown; the store is poorly designed; or some customers are queuing for the wrong reasons, just to name a few. To start go to the store with your team and observe. Take pictures and videos if possible. Discussing a long queue is one thing, being there or at least seeing photos of it helps framing the challenge. Next, map the customer journey (and the employees’ too). Breaking down the current customer experience step by step allows you to spot pain points that may have led to the long queue or to even bigger issues. One particular advantage is that it allows you to see the business from the customer’s perspective – a critical tool for innovation and development that many managers and business owners don’t practice enough.

What follows is analysing your value chain, a formal way of referring to your suppliers, vendors, or strategic partners’ interactions with the business. What areas is the business weak in because of the quality of the services you receive from your value chain and what areas are strong because of it? This analysis helps to realistically evaluate solutions. Last step is mind mapping. Basically, layout all the data you gathered and look for insights and repeated patterns that can give you clues for possible solutions.

You might think by now that the steps above are theoretical and needless because you understand your business, your industry and your customers well enough to jump straight into the solution. That’s exactly where you’ll miss great opportunities for development. Innovation is a process that depends on design thinking principles and tools. Not knowing such tools makes managers rely only on their own experiences and intuition, which are great but not enough for sustainable growth. This week’s tip: Only when the right problem is identified can you explore possible solutions.

Post by Loaay Ahmed, a strategic business therapist since 1995. He currently lives and works in London, UK, while earning his master’s in Service Design Innovation, and managing knightscapital in Kuwait. For Loaay’s advice on business or work matters, send a short email to [email protected]. Regrettably, only the questions chosen for publishing will be answered.




Categories
Sports

Kuwait Mooseheads Ice Hockey Team

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The Kuwait Mooseheads Ice Hockey Team are looking for new members. If you can ice skate and play hockey then this is for you:

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Looking for something fun, active and social? Miss those days at the rink? Well you’re in luck, the Kuwait Mooseheads hockey club is looking for new members to join us for our weekly scrimmages. We play twice a week at the ice rink next to Discovery Mall. The club also takes part in international tournaments throughout the year. Full equipment is required, and some experience is necessary. Check us out on Facebook or contact Graham via email at [email protected]




Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Weekend

The better the weather the more events that take place and this weekend is a prime example. A few cool things taking place this weekend with my personal favorites being the Holiday Bazaar at Pink Moon, the Ahmadi Music Group Concert the Unbirthday Picnic and the KBSC Yard Sale. KBSC is the new name for the Kuwait Little Leagues and I passed by the same event last year and loved it. You get to watch some baseball games, eat a hot dog and then check out the yard sale, a very not Kuwait like experience so I’m definitely passing by again this year. Check out the full list below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Behind the Crisis
Exhibition: People vs Architecture
Holiday Bazaar at Pink Moon
Pulse: Health and Fitness Expo

Friday
Exhibition: People vs Architecture
Holiday Bazaar at Pink Moon
Pulse: Health and Fitness Expo
Theatre: Around The World In 80 Days
The High Street
Ahmadi Music Group: Family Seasonal Concert
KBSC Yard Sale
Chill-Out Fridays

Saturday
Pulse: Health and Fitness Expo
Theatre: Around The World In 80 Days
The High Street
Ahmadi Music Group: Family Seasonal Concert
Qout Market
Madeenah Tour: Mubarak Al-Kabeer Street
Camel Races
The Secret Garden Project
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Unbirthday Picnic

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Note: Sometimes events get canceled, postponed or have details changed but the organizers don’t inform me of the changes. I also always try to make sure all the information is accurate but mistakes can happen.




Categories
Reviews Video Games

Video Game Review: Star Wars Battlefront

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Star Wars is one of the most recognizable entertainment brands with a huge cult following 38 years after the first film was released. The gaming studio DICE is also a great studio with a reputation for making fantastic large-scale multiplayer shooters. So you’d think putting these two together you’d get a home-run of a game but for some odd reason, Star Wars Battlefront isn’t the game it should be. Instead, it’s an online-only bare bones multiplayer shooter.

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DICE for the uninitiated, are the studio behind the critically acclaimed Battlefield series, a game known for its online multiplayer. It features large scale maps, destructible environments, vehicles, and objective based modes that encourage team work. Battlefield also features a character class system: assault, engineer, support and recon classes. Each class has unique abilities, for instance engineers can repair vehicles while support units can revive fallen soldiers. The Battlefield games also feature an unlock system that encourages you to play more to gain more weapons and more customization features, like skins for your guns, new camo for your soldier or new attachments for your weapons. Battlefield has been my favorite multiplayer shooter because of all these things. All in all, if any studio was going to make a new fantastic Star Wars game, DICE would be it.

But DICE played it too safe. Star Wars Battlefront feels like an introduction to online shooters for the casual gaming audience which in itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are nine multiplayer modes with some of these multiplayer modes having up to 40 player battles (so 20 v 20). Each mode has up to four or five different maps based on the Star Wars worlds Tattoine, Hoth, Endor, Sullust and Jakku. You can choose to either be a Rebel soldier or a Stormtrooper and as you level up you unlock new weapons, gear and abilities. When you’re fighting you’ll also come across various items you can pick up on the battlefield which includes things like shields, turrets or the ability to control certain vehicles. Once in a while though, you’ll come across an item that will let you take control of a hero or villain like Han Solo or Darth Vader, depending on which side you’re fighting for.




Categories
Events Videos

Shakshooka Market at the Secret Garden Project

The Shakshooka Market in the video above took place a couple of weeks back. For those of you who haven’t been to any of the Secret Garden events, this should give you an idea of what you’re missing. [YouTube]

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Categories
Reviews Video Games

Call of Duty: Black Ops III Review

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What can be said about the Call of Duty franchise that hasn’t been said before? For better or for worse, the games don’t really evolve much. I enjoyed last year’s Advanced Warfare, I thought the campaign mode was fun and I enjoyed maneuvering with the EXO suits. It gave the game a sense of verticality that it was missing. Going into a Call of Duty game you already know what you’re going to get. So I expected a short, but fun, adrenaline filled campaign mode, great multiplayer and a decent zombie mode. Sadly, what I got out of the game was something much less. It’s disappointing how far the campaign mode strayed from what they created in Black Ops II which had had branching paths and multiple endings, and had a narrative that was captivating and intense. There’s a lot of content in Black Ops III, but it’s a case of quantity over quality.

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I primarily enjoy playing single player games. So the first thing I did going into this new Call of Duty was just that. You start off by creating a character, choosing the gender and then a face. The problem is the majority of the faces all look the same. Not sure why they didn’t include a simple feature that allows you to pick a face and then a hairstyle or something along those lines. Being able to choose to play as a badass woman was cool though. But then I got referred to as “him” within the first few minutes of the game and that should give you an idea of how much attention went into campaign mode. It’s pretty lazy all around. The Call of Duty games aren’t known for their writing, but they have a reputation for being enjoyable. The campaign in Black Ops III was paced weirdly, the tutorial levels were too long and when major things happened, the game didn’t really do a good job at building any suspense or any sort of climax. Things just sort of happen. On top of that the narrative seems to be pieced together by borrowing basic themes and ideas from other games, like Deus Ex Human Revolution. Your character has a set of special abilities, some of them are cool like being able to control enemy robots or making enemies explode, but some of them are lame, like sending a swarm of cybernetic flies to distract human enemies. If you’ve played Bioshock, these should feel familiar, because they work kind of like Plasmids. When you finish a mission you’re sent back to your base where you’ll be able to walk around and interact with computers to upgrade your abilities, customize your character, look at the collectibles you’ve found or read more about the narrative, which is cool but I didn’t really care enough for the story to really spend my time there.

So what are some things that I liked in campaign mode? There were some fun firefights, some of the abilities you get are cool to use and the game ran incredibly smoothly. One other thing I really appreciated was the fact that you can play campaign mode in split-screen with a friend. It’s nice to see developers still include this especially when you have 343 Industries removing split screen from Halo 5, which I personally thought was a really dumb move since split-screen was such an important part of the Halo games. But I digress, that’s a different post for a different time. Finally, it was cool seeing Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica) in the game, I hope she does more work related to this industry.

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So it’s pretty known fact that most players will spend most of their time in multiplayer. Unlike the campaign mode, I enjoyed my time playing against other people. Multiplayer mode in Black Ops III is slightly different than its predecessors. The biggest change in multiplayer is that you now have to choose from a set of characters called “Specialists”. You start off with four to choose from and you unlock more as you level up (there’s 9 in total). Each Specialist has their own personality, look, their own set of abilities and a unique special weapon. It’s a shame that you can’t customize them much. You unlock different kinds of cosmetic equipment as you play with them, but it just takes too long to unlock anything. There also isn’t a large variety of armor either. Another slight change in multiplayer is that the game doesn’t automatically unlock weapons for you as you level up. Instead “unlock tokens” make a comeback. You gain experience and level up, and you’re awarded with unlock tokens that you can use to unlock new weapons. You still get rewarded for using a weapon consistently with attachments, like scopes or paint jobs. There’s also a good variety of maps (12 to be exact) and most importantly most of them are fun. Like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed Advanced Warfare and I enjoyed the way you were able to move through the maps. I think they’ve improved on that in Black Ops III, but instead of Exo suits you’ll be using thrusters, which is a momentum based system, allowing you to jump more than once, wall run and slide across the ground. All in all, multiplayer is pretty solid.

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Zombie mode is now fully fleshed out and has its own campaign mode called Shadows of Evil. You take control of one of four characters who are voiced by Hollywood celebrities like Jeff Goldblum and Ron Perlman. You’ll be navigating through the fictional Morg City slaughtering zombies while you try to stay alive. This mode is only cool if you’re playing it with other people, it’s not worth investing your time in if you don’t have friends to experience it with. You can go online and play with random players but it’s not as fun, especially if you can’t properly communicate with them.

At the end of the day it’s unlikely Black Ops III will win over any new fans. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of the franchise then chances are you’re going to enjoy this and you’re going to welcome the new (albeit slight) changes to multiplayer. The question remains if the game has the longevity that the previous games had, especially since customization is extremely limited. Specialists are a cool addition, but I don’t believe they really change multiplayer enough. There’s a ton of content here, but there’s no real reason to go back to the campaign mode once it’s over and the zombie mode can be frustrating if you have no one to play with. I’m personally sticking with Destiny for my first-person needs because that game just has more things I enjoy. It’ll be curious to see what direction Call of Duty goes from here now that they’re futuristic. How far will they go? Or will they go back in time and bring back their World War II games? Or maybe they’ll play around with a time travel mechanic and develop a game that features World War II and futuristic stuff? Time will tell.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III was supplied by X-Cite. The game is available on PS3 (online only), Xbox 360 (online only), PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Score:

Post by Patrick