Black Ops was the next Treyarch instalment of the Call of Duty franchise. Now that Treyarch had been established to the community as the Zombie developers, they included Nazi Zombies into Black Ops as a stand-alone game mode. This time you play as characters who do more than just mutter and shout, you play as someone with a voice, someone narrating a story which allowed us to slowly get pulled into the darkest corners of the lore.

Kino Der Toten

Additions: This is the first playable map unlocked after completing the campaign, here the initial changes are slowly revealed. Whilst all the new aspects added to the maps in World at War remain the introduction of new ideas, such as the Crawler, came into public view. The NOVA-6 Crawler is a new zombie that moves around on all fours and emits a gas behind it blurring the player’s vision. The Thundergun was the new Wonder Weapon, a weapon capable of blasting compressed air toward oncoming enemies sending them flying.

The main Easter Egg in this map comes in the form of a film reel. This can be collected when you activate the Teleporter, which usually takes you into the projector room (with the Pack-a-Punch machine), and get taken into a new room for a short period of time, grab the reel on a table and head back to the projector room to insert the film. There are a possible three Reels to pick up each match from the four random rooms you briefly get teleported to.

The Story: From the Film Reels and hidden Radios we see that Dr Maxis, with the help of Group 935, is attempting to gain control of the Zombies so that they can be “deployed”. Kino was used as a facility to control the Zombies, in order to create an Army to wipe out all enemies. The NOVA-6 Crawlers were created from a failed experiment, the NOVA-6 gas was a biochemical weapon that was meant to kill large amounts of people quickly, so that the Element 115 could reanimate them. However NOVA-6 destroyed the eyes, possibly making the Zombie uncontrollable. Through dialogue we discover that the DG-2 had hit the Teleporter, so as the group fled Der Riese they were sent not only to a different location, but to a different time. Kino is set in the future, at a time where many of Group 935’s facilities have been overrun with Zombies.

Five

In this next map you are thrown into a Pentagon besieged by zombies. Unlike the previous editions, you do not play as any of the 4 main characters established in Shi No Numa, instead you play as Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro and Robert McNamara. This map doesn’t really fit with the lore of the other maps and is seen as a stand alone in the Zombies sequence.

Additions: No real changes are seen in this map. However there is a new Wonder Weapon, Winter’s Howl, which can freeze and slow down Zombies. A new special and rather annoying enemy is presented in this map, the Thief. This enemy has only been developed to annoy, he cannot down the player but can steal the player’s main weapon and run off with it. If he is not killed quickly enough he will disappear with you weapon.

There isn’t much of an Easter Egg in this map, however to obtained the Pack-a-Punch the player must find all switches to get to DEFCON 5 in order to open up the panic room.

Ascension

Right here’s where things get weird. Up until now, the most complex Zombies got was to turn on the electricity or connect teleporters to get the Pack-a-Punch or Easter Eggs. Ascension is the first map that includes multi-stage complex and specific tasks in order to free a ‘Mystery Man’. From now on I will provide a fairly detailed, or at least a jumble of confusing words, guide on how to complete the Easter Egg. But first

Additions: Two new Wonder Weapons grace this map. The Gersch Device, a tactical grenade that creates a black hole/vortex to suck in anything around it. The second weapon, another grenade is the Matryoshka Doll, this is basically a Cluster Bomb. New Perk-a-Colas make their appearance in the map too; PhD Flopper, which removes all self-inflicted explosive damage and causes a powerful mini-explosive when the player Dolphin Dives (dive into prone) from a height that normally hurts the player. Stamin-Up is another Cola available in this map, allowing the player to sprint for longer. In terms of new enemies the player will have to content with Monkeys, and not just ordinary Monkeys, Space Monkeys. The special enemy round is now Space Monkeys, these quick little pests attack the Perk machines and can remove the player’s Perk if the machine gets too damaged.

Easter Egg: Prerequisites: 4 players are needed for this Easter Egg. The players will also need, a Gersch Device, two upgraded Ray Guns, an upgraded Thundergun (both obtained by Pack-a-Punching the weapons), and the Matryoshka Dolls:

-Head to the PhD Flopper and look for a large exploded gate that acts as a barrier to the map. Just beyond it will be a glowing Generator, throw a Gersch Device at it until the Generator gets sucked into the vortex. Next to one of the Lunar Pads (near Stamin-up), there should be a TV under the stairs showing static. Holding the action button on it will reveal the Illuminate symbol. The player should receive a message mentioning the activation of Node 1.

-During a Space Monkey round (the power needs to be on and at least one player must have a perk) four small red buttons will appear next to four Perk machines; opposite Juggernog, left of PhD Flopper, left of Stamin-Up, and on the far right corner of the room Speed Cola is in. These buttons must be pressed simultaneously. A message about the activation of Node 2 will be heard if done correctly.

-For this Step the Pack-a-Punch Machine should be accessible, you must have launched the rocket to open the Pack-a-Punch Room. Create some crawlers and led them to the opposite side of the map from the Pack-a-Punch room, all players must head to the Pack-a-Punch room and look for the clock on the wall (the hands will be replaced with Ballistic Knives). All players must stand still in front of the clock for roughly two-minutes (one of the hands on the clock will move counter-clockwise to signify your timer). During this time the players cannot move or shoot, just wait, once this is completed a Nuke like explosion will occur killing any remaining Zombies and Node 3 will be activated.

-Now this step is a little tricky. The players will notice large letters floating above the map, the player must collect these letters in the order to spell LUNA. To get the L, the Lander must be in the Spawn Room and called to the Lander Pad near Stamin-Up. For U, call the Lander back to the Spawn Room from it’s current location. For N, from it’s current location call the Lander to the Pad near Speed Cola. Finally for A, from it’s current location the call the Lander back to the Pad near Stamin-Up.

-For the final step head back to the main Pod (in the centre of the open area near Stamin-Up and the Lander Pad). There should be a small glowing orb on the ground in front of the Pod. Now this is where the players need the Gersch Device, Ray guns, Matryoshka Dolls and an upgraded Crossbow (or Crossbow and Speed Cola). One player needs to throw the Gersch Device at the orb, as soon as the Vortex opens on the orb players needs to fire their weapons at the Gersch Device and one player needs to throw the Dolls into the centre. If enough firepower has been put into the Device the Orb will fly up into the sky, rewarding the players with a Death-Machine for 90 seconds.

The Story: From the radio messages around the map two new characters emerge; Dr Gersch and Yuri Zavoyski. Here Dr Gersch is talking about the construction of the Gersch Device and moving Yuri to a new experiment, the AT64-A experiment, building rockets and sending monkeys into space. As time progresses Gersch talks about Project Thunder and the creation of the Thundergun, whereas Yuri starts suffering from some psychosis hearing a female voice. This voice turns out to be Samantha Maxis who makes Yuri trap Gersch and presents the start of the playable map. The Ascension Group is a Russian led organisation that has been mining Element 115 from the Moon (yes that is correct), and possibly managed to open up the gateway to the Aether where Samantha Maxis, Dr Maxis and Dr Gersch are trapped (hence why Gersch was a glowing Orb and Samantha seems to be a disembodied voice). It is also here we learn that the Wunderwaffle caused some sort of Power overload and created two realities and teleportation, I don’t understand either. However from the Moon map later on we discover that Samantha may be in the Aether but she is actually controlling many events that occur in this point forward. Richtofen, Takeo, Tank and Nikolai all Teleported here from Kino to try and find out what has been occurring since they time-travelled from Der Riese. These events occur simultaneously to those during the Five or Pentagon map, as phone calls from the cast of Five can be heard.

Join me next week when things start to get a little more complicated in Call of the Dead and each week will be dedicated to just one map.