7. The Music
We're now living in an age where video game scores are becoming as melodic and orchestral as straight up film music. Gone are the days where we relied on chip tunes or faux music crafted solely by composers that tried to mimic the music of the day. Not to mention, film composers Michael Giacchino and Christopher Lennertz both got their start through EA franchise titles and graduated to television and films. To a certain extent the process works in the reverse as well, as we've seen Clint Mansell supply music for Mass Effect 3, and now Academy Award winner Trent Reznor (doesn't that feel amazing to hear) has jumped into the fray with his theme to Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Reznor's theme almost sounds like a permutation of In The House, In A Heartbeat from 28 Days Later, but what may seem like a plagiarised start turns into pure Reznor awesomeness. However, Jack Wall takes over for the rest of the scoring duties after that point, so don't let the promotional videos fool you. Nevertheless, Wall's music is just as good as Reznor's submission, and manages to be about as epic as one would expect from a franchise that has had both Brian Tyler and Hans Zimmer behind the podium for the musical end of things. As if the score wasn't enough of a musical draw, the selections of certain tunes for key moments really emphasizes the storytelling. In particular, you open with a particularly moving/chilling sequence showing Raul Menendez's back story/rise to power. As the story plays out, Elbow's The Night Will Always Win unfolds parallel to the images we're seeing before us, amping up the emotion of the situation we've witnessed and preparing us for Raul's ultimate endgame.