Here at Gamescom we got world exclusive hands on gameplay of the hotly anticipated multiplayer section of Call of Duty: Black Ops II and I have to say that Treyarch did not shy away from making this the best and most improved Call of Duty online experience since Call of Duty 4.
First off they’ve completely overhauled the customization in the game: customization consists of 10 slots which correspond to 10 items including perks, weapons, weapon attachments, equipment, special equipment and wildcards. Wildcards are Treyarchs way of adding a little spice to your class. There are up to 3 slots for wildcards that include things like: equip an extra perk, equip a third attachment to your weapon, you earn more points (which I’ll explain later) etc. You don’t have to use all your slots and they’re are fully customizable to fit your playstyle, for example one of your classes might have a primary weapon (1) with 1 attachment (2), a secondary weapon (3), 3 perks (4, 5 & 6), C4 (7), and 3 wildcards (8, 9 &10). And another one of your classes might have just a secondary weapon (1) with 2 attachments (2 & 3), 2 perks (4 & 5), a frag grenade (6), a smoke grenade (7) and 2 wildcards (8 & 9). 
Instead of Killstreaks, Treyarch have implemented a Pointstreak system. This means that everything you earn points for in a match contributes towards your streak, meaning players that help out teammates, destroy enemy equipment and play the objective can still earn Pointstreaks. You don’t even have to kill anyone to earn them if you so choose. Because of the 2025 setting of Black Ops 2 the Pointstreak rewards get pretty high tech. The lower point rewards stay the same with the UAV, carepackage etc but with the addition of a Hunter Seeker which is a handheld plane you throw that seeks out the nearest target and dive-bombs them then detonates. It’s such a useful tool and I have a feeling it’ll be most peoples go-to low pointstreak. On the high end are things such as the Hellstorm which is basically a swarm of missiles you can use to target a small point or carpet bomb a large area.
As if that wasn’t enough they’ve announced two new game modes. One entails multi-team battles in a single match. There can be any combination of up to 16 teams in one match with a maximum of 18 players. This was one of playable modes on show and the variation I played was 3 vs. 3 vs. 3 vs. 3 vs. 3. Gameplay was a lot more frantic because there are more people to kill than usual Team Deathmatch but the added intensity made the game more exciting and fun. Just in case you were wondering the FTG team of Imp0ssibl3 and I teamed up to win in a landslide victory. The other game mode on display was king of the hill-like game. Two opposing teams have to capture a point on the map and when it’s been captured, the location of the point changes and this repeats until the points cap is met or until time runs out. I also played this game mode and thought it was quite fun. It’s a new team based game mode that plays a bit like King of the Hill in Gears of War. 
There’s also a new spectator mode they showed off to appeal to e-sports. Treyarch really went above and beyond the Call of Duty to deliver a new level of innovation to this franchise.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II is released on 13th November 2012 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
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