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Game vs game · side by side

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One vs Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is an FPS game from Treyarch (2005) while Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is an FPS game from Treyarch (2023).

Quick answer: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One has the higher Metacritic, 78 to 76.

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

2005 · Treyarch

78Metacritic

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

2023 · Treyarch

7.0GamingPickz Score

$59.99

Steam: Very Positive

What each one is

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is filed under FPS. In contrast, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War under FPS.

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision for GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It is a side-story of the original game Call of Duty 2, which was released on PC and Xbox 360. Both were released in 2005.

Description from Wikipedia

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Black Ops Cold War, the direct sequel to Call of Duty®: Black Ops, will drop fans into the depths of the Cold War’s volatile geopolitical battle of the early 1980s.

Description from its Steam store page

Story, characters and reception

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One
Reception

Reception According to review aggregator Metacritic , the game received "generally favorable" reviews from critics. During the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts Sciences awarded Big Red One with the " Outstanding Achievement in Story and Character Development " award. The PlayStation 2 version of Big Red One received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association… (Wikipedia)

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Plot

Campaign In January 1981, CIA operatives Russell Adler ( Bruce Thomas ), Alex Mason ( Chris Payne Gilbert ), and Frank Woods (Damon Victor Allen) are sent to Amsterdam to target Qasim Javadi (Farshad Farahat) and Arash Kadivar ( Navid Negahban ) for their roles in the Iran hostage crisis . With intelligence gained from interrogating Qasim, the trio tracks Arash to an airfield in Turkey, where they witness him executing everyone in the vehicle he arrived… (Wikipedia)

Reception

Critical reception Reception Black Ops Cold War received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic , which calculated a weighted average rating of 76/100 across all platforms, based on 42 reviews for the PlayStation 5 version, 31 reviews for the Windows version, and 21 reviews for the Xbox Series X/S version. OpenCritic determined that 61% of critics recommended the game. The single-player campaign received a… (Wikipedia)

At a glance

Call of Duty 2: Big Red OneCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
GamingPickz Score—7.0/10
Steam rating—Very Positive (80%, 23,046)
Critic aggregate78/10076/100
PriceUnknown$59.99
Install size—175 GB
Steam DeckUntestedunsupported
Released20052023
DeveloperTreyarchTreyarch

Prices and Steam ratings are read live and move over time.

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One vs Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, point by point

Each facet side by side. A round is marked won only where a figure settles it; feel and "which is better" carry no mark, because no number we hold decides them.

  1. Genre and premise

    Call of Duty 2: Big Red OneFPS game
    Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold WarFPS game

    What each is filed as. Each game describes itself in full above; we do not judge a premise.

  2. How it plays

    Call of Duty 2: Big Red OneNo descriptive tags
    Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold WarFPS, Action, Zombies

    The tags players apply most, in order of votes. A read on feel, not a verdict.

  3. Reception

    Call of Duty 2: Big Red One ✓Metacritic 78
    Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold WarMetacritic 76

    Metacritic's critic aggregate, from the game's Wikipedia reception where it was never on Steam.

  4. Content and scale

    Call of Duty 2: Big Red One—
    Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War23,046 reviews · 10 add-ons · 175 GB

    Reach and footprint, not quality: more reviews or a bigger install is not a better game.

  5. Price

    Call of Duty 2: Big Red OneUnknown
    Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War$59.99

    Read live from Steam and subject to change.

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One takes 1 of the marked rounds to 0. That is only what a number can decide, not which you will enjoy more.

Which to pick, by what you want

  • The better reviewed of the two: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (Metacritic 78)

Where they differ

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is also

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is also

SingleplayerFPSMultiplayerActionZombiesCold War

Tags players apply to one game and not the other.

Difficulty and who each is for

By the tags players apply, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is middle-of-the-road on difficulty. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is middle-of-the-road on difficulty.

System requirements, side by side

Call of Duty 2: Big Red OneCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Minimum GPU—NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 670 / NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650
Minimum CPU—Intel® Core™ i3-4340
Minimum RAM—8 GB
Install size—175 GB

Can your PC run them? Check each against your own kit: Call of Duty 2: Big Red One · Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

Accessibility features

Steam store pages declare 0 accessibility features for Call of Duty 2: Big Red One and 1 for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. A declaration is a floor, not a review.

If you like one, also try

Close to Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

Common questions

How different are Call of Duty 2: Big Red One and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in scope?

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One lists little scope data. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has drawn 23,046 Steam reviews, ships 10 add-ons and installs in 175 GB.

Is Call of Duty 2: Big Red One or Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War better?

Neither carries enough reviews for us to score it reliably, so we do not call a winner. The table above shows what each does have.

Which is cheaper, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One or Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War?

One or both do not have a current listed price, so a straight comparison is not possible. See the table above.

Should I get Call of Duty 2: Big Red One or Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War?

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One has the higher Metacritic, 78 to 76. It also depends on what you want: the "which to pick" section above calls out which is cheaper, lighter on storage, better on a Steam Deck and the safer bet by weight of reviews.

Do you rank one above the other for a fee?

No. Neither game, nor anyone else, pays for placement or a verdict here. The order and every figure come out of the same public data the rest of the site uses.

All comparisons

How we compare, and what we will not do

The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment (adjusted for sample size), the critic aggregate and popularity, computed by the same code every ranked list on this site uses. The Steam rating label is Valve's own, reconstructed from the positive percentage and review count. Prices are read live. We do not write an opinion of which game is "better": we report the numbers and say which wins each measurable question above.

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