Welcome, young Nooblet, to Crazy Cheat's Crash Course Guide to the world of Call of Duty: 
Black Ops.
Now then, this guide is making the assumption that Black Ops is your first ever First Person 
Shooter, ie. A shooting game where you get the view from the eyes of your character, often 
abbreviated to FPS.
The basics of the game are simple: Kill the enemies, try not die, and, on some game modes, 
try to capture or defend some things.
I'll try to divide it up into bite sized little pieces, so here goes

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Game Modes:
To stop you getting confused, I'm start on this first.
All game modes (which are the rules and settings for the games) are divided up by 4 main modes:
-Core:
Players have 100 Health, normal Heads-up-display (HUD), and a minimap which will show the locations of enemies when they shoot (except if they're using silencers). This is the standard game mode.
-Pure:
No attachments, perks, or equipment killstreaks set 3,5,7. Apart from that, identical to Core.

-Hardcore:
More realistic. Health is 30 (I think), no HUD, no minimap, and Friendly Fire is on (Shooting friends).

-Prestige: 
Core, but for experienced Players


After picking one of these, you're offered even more options:
Team Deathmatch:
This is probably the main Game Mode, and the one I advise playing until you're well practiced in the game. 10 minutes for 2 teams of 6 to reach a score of 75 kills. First one to reach 75, or the team with the best score after 10 minutes, is the winner.

Mercenary Team Deathmatch:
Team Deathmatch, but without parties. In otherwords, no friends.

Free For All:
Team Deathmatch, but without the teams. Kill anyone you see.

Domination: 
2 teams try to capture flags, and get points for the amount of flags they hold.

Headquarters:
Teams try to capture and hold a neutral headquarters. 5 points every 5 seconds for holding it.

Sabotage:
A neutral bomb is in the centre of the map, and the teams try and plant it at targets on the enemies side of the map.

Demoliton:
One team defends 2 bomb sites, while the other teams tries to blow both up.
At the end of one round (by time limit, or both sites being blown up), they switch sides.

Search and destroy: 
Just like demoliton, but with a 4 round score limit, and players only have 1 life per round. Switch sides after 3 rounds. Avoid.

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Basics:
Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to controls and whatnot.

It's fairly simple:
To shoot, press R1. This will imitate pulling a trigger, and so depending on the gun, can either start firing fully automatic, or a burst of 3 bullets, or a single shot. 
If you press L1, you will aim down the sights of the gun, making your shots much much more accurate, and necessary for people that are more than about 15 feet away. If enemies are closer than that, your best option is usually to "Spray", which is shooting without aiming down the sights, or from the hip. This is much more inaccurate, but better at close range.
If players are close enough to bump into you though, the best option is to press the R3 button, which will make your player slash at the enemy with your knife, and if it connects, is always one hit kills.

Next up are grenades. Pressing R2 will pull the pin on a grenade. Release to throw. Same applies to L2, but it will throw your special grenade instead.

If you press the L3 button, you will begin to sprint. You run faster, but you can't shoot while sprinting, and after sprinting you can't shoot for about a second, while can be life or death in an encounter.

X=Jump
Square=Reload, use
Triangle= Switch weapons
O=Crouch, hold to lie down
Directional Pad up= Pull out equipment
D-Pad Left= Use Grenade Launcher, Flamethrower, Masterkey Shotgun
D-Pad Right=Call in Killstreak

That about sums it up for controls.

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CoD Points:
Black Ops introduces a new system to the CoD Franchise. Playing games get you CoD Points, which you use to buy perks, weapons, face paints, camos, attatchments, and everything customizable really.

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Guns:
The best guns vary from person to person, but here's a quick runthrough of my favourites.

MP5k: Not a very good gun, but the best that you get at the start. 
Try to keep fighting to close range though, as it's innacurrate

Famas: This gun is great all round. Decent sprayer, and reliable at long ranges. Well worth the money.

Galil: A great gun for aiming in, but not so good at spraying. I advise using it with a silencer.

AUG: Basically a better version of the Famas, with better spraying, and more powerful.

AK-47: Powerful, and alright accuracy.

That's basically all you need to know.

Perks:
Perks are Bonuses that you select to help your gameplay. Each costs 2,000 CP, except the Defaults. If you complete all the challenges for a perk, you get the Pro version of the perk, which gves you more of a bonus, and costs 3,000 CP.


Tier 1:

Lightweight: Default. Move faster
Pro: No falling Damage

Ghost: Invisible to spy planes.
Pro: Invisible to infared sensors, aircraft, and sentry guns, and no red name or crosshairs when enemies aim at you.

Scavenger: Pick up ammo and lethal grenades from dead enemies.
Pro: Start with full ammo, and replenish specials.

Flak Jacket: Reduced Explosive damage.
Pro: Reduced damage from fires, resets fuses on grenades you throw back.

Hardline: Killstreaks require 1 less kill.
Pro: Switch out your Care Package for another killstreak.


Tier 2: 

Hardened: Default. Increased bullet penetration
Pro: More bullet damage to enemy killstreaks, reduced flinch when you're shot.

Sleight of Hand: Faster Reloads
Pro: Aim down sights faster

Steady Aim: More accurate hipfire
Pro: Aim faster after sprinting, recover faster from knife lunges

Scout: Hold your breath longer while aiming in.
Pro: Switch weapons faster.

Warlord: 2 attatchments on your weapon
Pro: 1 extra lethal and tactical grenade.


Tier 3: 

Tactical Mask: Immune to Nova Gas.
Pro: Reduced effect of Flash bangs and Concussions. Shows the positions of flashed and stunned enemies.

Marathon: More sprint.
Pro: Infinite Sprint

Hacker: See enemy equipment and turrets.
Pro: Hack enemy equipment and turrets, so it's friendly, and booby trap enemy care packages.

Ninja: Quiter footsteps
Pro: Silent footsteps, enemies footsteps are louder.

Second chance: When dealt lethal damage, given another chance to kill enemy with your pistol
Pro: Longer bleedout time, friends can revive.


Recommended: 
Scavenger if you're inaccurate, even if not still helpful. Otherwise ghost.
Sleight of hand, always.
Hacker: The only useful 3rd Tier.

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Killstreaks:
Basically, if you get enough kills without dying, you get to use a special thing, depending on how many kills you have. 
You can only select 3 different Killstreaks to have at any one time.
You start off with Spy Plane, Care package, and Attack Helicopter.


Spy Plane, 3: A destructible plane flys around the map, and scans for enemies.

RC-XD, 3: A controllable little car strapped with explosives that you detonate whenever. It will be destroyed if you can hit it, but it's fairly hard to hit.

Counter-UAV, 4: A destructible plane that flies around the map, and disables enemies mini-map

SAM Turret, 4: A smoke grenade which indicates to a helicopter where to drop a crate containing a placeable turret that shoots down enemy aircraft.

Care Package, 5: Same basic work as a SAM turret, except the crate has a random killstreak, a minigun, a rocket launcher, or ammo.

Napalm Strike, 5: An airstrike that drops a line of napalm on an area of your choice.

Sentry Gun, 6: Same base as Care Package and Sam Turret, with a placeable automated minigun which shoots enemies.

Mortar Strike, 6: Mark 3 locations for bombardment.

Attack Helicopter, 7: Call in a helicopter that will shoot enemies. Destructible.

Valkyrie Rockets, 7: Airdrop a package with 2 controllable Rockets

Blackbird, 8: Calls in an advanced UAV, which is constantly on, and shows the direction of the enemies.

Rolling Thunder, 8: Call in a massive carpet bomb in a large line. The explosions often penetrate deep into building.

Chopper Gunner/Huey, 9: Control a Minigun mounted on a Helicopter.

Attack Dogs, 11: Call in dogs that will hunt down and kill the enemy.

Gunship/Hind, 11: Control the movement, guns and missiles of a helicopter.


The best killstreak for you depends on how good you are, but for the moment, I would go with either a 3,4,5 or 3,5,6


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Well, that's all I got guys.
If you have any questions, or things you think should be added, leave me a comment in my bio.
Cheers,
Crazy Cheats.