Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises of all time, and one of the most played games on Xbox LIVE – even if you do not even own the game, it’s likely that you will know someone who does. The latest title in the series, Call of Duty: Black Ops received its first piece of downloadable content on February 1st, 2011 for 1200 MS Points on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
Is it worth bothering with? Is it overpriced? How does it play? – Well, whilst one man’s meat is another man’s poison, the arrival of new maps on the Marketplace for hardcore fans, the price of DLC can be irrelevant because enjoyment is almost a certainty with the arrival of new locations. It’s a case of “how can you NOT buy it…” Although, with many gamers likely to be sitting on the fence, or waiting it out a few months for a price drop – having played all the new maps, why bother missing out on all the action for a few quid when you could be having a great time today… get downloading? (seriously)
For 1200 MS Points you get a bundle of 4 totally brand new locations to shoot through and an all-new Zombie level called “Ascension”. So just to clarify – this is five completely new and unseen locations unlike the Modern Warfare 2 map packs. If you can cast your mind back 12 months you might remember the uproar of fans complaining that they were paying for content they already had and felt ripped off paying for maps already included with Call of Duty 4. So, at least Activision has learnt this time around – and with Treyarch, there’s no World at War Maps to be seen here, but what are you getting Berlin Wall - best described as a “no man’s land” filled to the brim with Snow, grey skies and Auto-Turrets that will shoot you dead in an instant! East and West Germany are on either side of the map with the “no man’s land” standing in the centre, and it is only with the use of some perks could you cross that area and manage to survive because of the Auto-Turrets. Once you are well aware of the map locations you will soon learn to avoid them, but if you are a slave to the sniper – this map is for you! Wide open spaces, plenty of vantage points and the enemy mostly confined to the other side. Berlin Wall is a fantastically designed map which makes camping useless – yes USELESS, due to the varied paths through the buildings and open spaces make them ripe for the picking.
Discovery – an abandoned German research station set in the Antarctica. Another snow filled map on a large-scale with plenty of internal and exterior locations to hide yourself from the enemy. It might remind you of a Modern Warfare 2 Map Pack location called “Salvage” but on a larger scale. This map is also ideal for snipers because of the sheer map size, and mass amount of hiding spots – and easy to get killed whilst you admire the stunning Northern Lights glistening in the sky. It’s not one of the best maps in the pack, because death-match gameplay can feel quite a trek unless you’re equipped with a tactical insertion, and it’s a bit same-old-same with players already having Array, Summit and WMD Maps – this resembles them all. It does have one thing which separates it – destructible environments which is a Call of Duty first, but can you find them. I shalln’t spoil the surprise, but it is disappointing.
Kowloon – Play on the stormy rooftops of Kowloon City, as this map is based on a level featured within the campaign. It’s definitely the best looking map of the bunch and the most fun location to play – it even has zip lines featured within the maps to drop from one area to another! It does have varied indoor parts where you can hide and shoot from the windows – but the majority of the map is a maze of rooftop pathways and corners. If you have played the campaign level already, it’s actually not all that similar except for the rooftops, buildings and scenery being of similar styIe. So if you thought this was just a rehash of the level – you’re wrong, it’s actually been built from the ground up and great for Team Deathmatch and Free-For-All addicts.
The final Multiplayer map is called “Stadium” and is a 1970’s style Hockey Rink. Within the grounds of the map, the Stadium is one side and quite a lot of office buildings the other side – it is perfect for fast-paced action where you just like to run around, shoot and hope for the best. It also feels like this is the Black Ops equivalent of “Carnival” from Modern Warfare 2 (the funpark) where the map is bright, outdoors and you can pretty much run around carefree because the whole environment looks “fun” and not too serious. It’s on par with Kowloon as one of the best maps in the pack and nice to take your soldier around locations not already familiar within the campaign. It is such a shame that when you go to the Ice Rink you can’t stand on it – it’s highly detailed, but makes you imagine how cool it would be to slide your soldier around the ice… maybe next time.
If you are not a fan of the Zombie horde-style game that first found fame from Treyarch’s last game Call of Duty: World at War, then this might not appeal to you. But if you do have a hunger for Zombie killing, Ascension will be sure to satisfy your desire. You play on a Soviet Cosmodrone where all h**l has broken loose and the countdown to the Zombie apocalypse has begun! Oh and everything is in black and white until you find out how to turn on the power. This is done by being able to open doors and further explore your surroundings, but heavily relies on team effort.
All Zombie levels within Black Ops are the same – you know the procedure by now; start, find a window, shoot the Zombies until you can afford better guns, then the further in you get the more open the map becomes and the more zombies fill the location. In Ascension this is where you most definitely get your money’s worth. The map is absolutely HUGE with a capital H – it’s just massive, totally ginormous, really, really whoppingly colossal. Hopefully you get my drift? The Pack-a-Punch weapon upgrades return and the addition of two new grenades, one of which creates a black hole to ensure the zombies are distracted from you (remember the monkey-thingy from World at War?) and the other is multiple exploding grenade that kills a lot more Zombies at once in comparison to regular grenades found within the level. This is an outstanding Zombie Map and certainly the best yet which also comes complete with 4 new Achievements totalling 150 Gamerscore, which you can only get by playing Ascension – so if you didn’t like Zombies before, maybe the Achievements will encourage you to “give it a go”.
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