Hey, you reading this–you likely know the gist: Escalation adds four new competitive multiplayer maps and a new variation of the Zombie mode to Call of Duty: Black Ops.
To those of you who just said, “Great!” and pulled up Xbox.com to preload them to your 360, farewell and good tidings. The rest of you schmucks who’re debating whether or not this latest add-on to Black Ops is worth your 15 bones, “GRAB MY HAND!” and jump out of this exploding helicopter “WHILE WE STILL CAN!”
In many ways, the common Call of Duty player won’t notice many differences between Escalation‘s maps and the current fare. Hell, I had to double check that I was playing in the correct game type a few times. Aside from the addition of alternating geography in Convoy and certain static switches that activate doors or elevators in Stockpile or Hotel, respectively, the Escalation maps fall right in line with the Call of Duty DLC checklist: capable of handling several game modes without severe balance issues, providing interesting nooks and crannies for players to develop strategies upon, etc.
The only flagrant issue I found with the new multiplayer maps is that the prevalence of tight, confined corridors in Hotel and Zoo nearly render longer ranged weapons inert. Other Call of Duty maps suffer the same issues, but players with a preference for assault rifles or sniper rifles should sharpen up on their SMG or shotgun skills and keep those loadouts up to date.
The big draw of Escalation is the “Call of the Dead” mode. Misleadingly marketed as a stand-alone, Left 4 Dead-esque campaign of sorts, it’s sadly just an addition to the traditional Zombie mode that puts players in the shoes (and therefore, likenesses and voiceovers) of real-life personalities Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michael Rooker, Danny Trejo, and Robert Englund. The king of zombies himself, George Romero, is present in the mode as well, though he embodies an almost unbeatable god-like figure wielding a powerful electric stage light.
None of the characters harbor any notably funny or memorable quips, seeming content to draw from lame, self-referential jokes or the corniest of one-liners, the majority of which fall flat in spite of themselves. Romero is the most guilty of the group, belching out self-deprecation with the timing of a drowning elephant. It actually caused me to steer as clear from his character as possible, which was inconveniently not the major objective in the mode.
The map also does a poor job of explaining the vulnerability of Romero. Too many players ignored him completely, suggesting they thought he was immortal. My teammates often continued shooting him with the weakest of weapons at the outset of the match, furthering his rage and wreaking havoc on our gameplan for survival.
Escalation falls flat where it could have really shined. A cooperative zombie campaign with a smart, well-written short narrative could have (and should have) been a notable example of the franchise being capable of showing us great and unique things. Instead, it feels like an aborted one-off that was lesser than its vision; almost a compulsory response to Left 4 Dead. As for the competitive maps, they’re largely more of the same. There’s not much here that will draw wayward Call of Duty players back into the fold for more than a few hours.
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Things We Liked: Familiar Call of Duty standard of quality to the competitive maps. Interesting new environments. Call of the Dead is an interesting idea.
Things We Disliked: Couple of maps were claustrophobic in design. Call of the Dead falls short of its apparent vision. No real motivating factors to reinvigorate discouraged CoD players.
Target Audience: CoDfish. Zombie addicts. Someone rich who found an extra $15 on the ground and simply can’t stand to keep it.
(Call of Duty: Black Ops – Escalation DLC Pack – Developer: Treyarch. Publisher: Activision. Available for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live. PC and PlayStation 3 versions will be released at a future date – Xbox version reviewed. A copy of the game was provided by the publishers for review purposes. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)
