Original Post
Call of duty black ops : First strike!
First Strike Trailer
First Strike Multiplayer Preview
[SIZE=3]The gaming world has been pretty down on Call of Duty lately, but today is still a big day for the franchise’s latest release, Black Ops. Today BlOps gets its first DLC, the First Strike map pack. The pack includes four new maps–Berlin Wall, Stadium Kowloon and Discovery–as well as a new zombie map, Ascension. As with previous CoD downloadable content titles, First Strike will be available on Xbox Live before it hits the PC or PS3.[/SIZE]
Kotaku has already had a chance to test drive the maps and a posted some initial thoughts. So far things look reasonable exciting, though the article notes that the zip lines in Kowloon (from the single player game’s Hong Kong section) were not great and that the Antarctic map, Discovery, has some issues as well. Berlin Wall has no-man’s-land zones where players are attacked by machine guns and it sounds like the best of the bunch.
The DLC will be available today for the Xbox 360 for $15, but we don’t know when (or if) it’s hitting the PC or PS3.
Question: So who is going buy it? This might be the first CoD map pack in a long time that I skip. I haven’t loaded up Black Ops in a few weeks and I don’t think I’d get my $15 out of this pack.
No word on when First Strike will be available on PC and PlayStation 3. At E3 2010, Microsoft announced it signed a multi-year agreement with Activisionthat will see all future Call of Duty map packs released first on Xbox 360 through 2012
Stadium will seem the most familiar to one and all. An ice hockey complex where grenades fall like rain, it provides instant recall to the likes of Firing Range and (despite not being as symmetrical) Nuketown. It's a map filled with winding routes through the main concourse, but it's also punctured by narrow corridors that lead to open windows where camp-friendly players are a little too protected from the hustle-bustle downstairs.
It's a fast-paced map, and one where death seems to come at any time and from any angle – a fact not helped by a variety of dark corners custom-built for lurkers. As the meat-grinder of the new levels it certainly fits the bill, and it's a neat touch that you can blast the puck around the rink, but it also contains the least design imagination and the most danger-spawns.
Berlin Wall is also a good map for the weak-lemon-drink snipe brigade, those who like nothing more than a prolonged camp in an open window with a variety of distant heads to pop. However, overall there's a great balance of inside areas rubbing up against the great outdoors, so games rarely end in frustration for those who would otherwise be left with continual deathcam replays provided by the smug-on-high.
Pick of the bunch artistically, meanwhile, is Kowloon – a map built around the same concept as the solo Black Ops level that taught us that the best way to get someone to talk is to lacerate their mouth with broken glass. It's also, however, a pain in the arse to navigate when you're first getting your bearings – and don't even think about going in with the Valkyrie rockets killstreak. You're exchanging gunfire up on the rooftops of the city, meaning that the action is on various different levels and gradients.
And what of that most 21st-century update of MB board game classic Ghost Castle, the much hallowed Zombie mode? For those to whom zombie points mean prizes, and unlocked doors, Ascension is a vital addition to the shambling horde. It's vast (which also means it's fairly hard to learn and navigate) but it's wonderfully imaginative in both its execution and the means of execution for those deadheads soon to take a bite of peach.
Starting off in a rather fetching monochrome, and filmed in glorious Technicolor later on, the level takes place in a bonkers Russian techno-lab complete with jet-powered Landers to spectacularly transport you and your chums around the level, and rockets to launch. What's more, in a move that almost makes the zombie mode as unlikely to happen in real life as the Black Ops solo campaign, perk-hungry space monkeys patrol the level every four rounds, dead set on stealing your hard-earned goodies from the vending machines.
Other ridiculous new offerings include the Gersch Device, a Black Hole bomb that can stave off the horde through the medium of sucking them into another dimension while you and your strangely accented friends regroup. Matyroska dolls, meanwhile, the stacking affairs that are strangely popular in gaming of late, are essentially lovingly hand-crafted cluster grenades – a rather scattered attack, but an effective one nonetheless.
First Strike, then, is a well-balanced collection of different styles of map, its highlights undoubtedly favouring those who tend to play away from Free For All and Team Death Match. Cynics would say it's weighted a little too heavily on gimmicks and point at the price tag and guffaw but, as discussed earlier, my future brother-in-law Dave won't give a space monkey. This is a fine addition to one of the only games he plays, and plays religiously, and he won't think twice about forking out the equivalent of a tenner for it. Once, of course, he's called me to find out what MS Points are and I've called him a moron.
As for Bobby Kotick and Activision, the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar of modern game publishing, they've got access to Dave's wallet and they won't let go. Lock up your sons and hold down X to barricade the nearest window: your nearest and dearest will be next. Resistance is futile.
Last edited by dark999; Feb 11, 2011 at 07:09 AM.
Ujelly??
