So we’ve had the first day of the Escalation DLC pack for Call of Duty Black Ops, containing four new multiplayer maps: Hotel, Stockpile, Zoo and Convoy – was it worth the wait and the money?
The short answer is yes. Whereas the First Strike pack was very much a continuation of the small Team Deathmatch maps which seem to personify Black Ops, particularly Kowloon and Stadium, the Escalation maps are all much larger and seem more suitable for mass Ground War and objective based matches. It’s a much needed change of pace for the game, even though the overall design means that larger maps feel slightly less fluid and impressive than those of big rival Battlefield due to the lack of open spaces and vehicles.
Because the Escalation maps are so large, but also densely packed with objects, you can sometimes feel quite isolated and spend some time either sat in a corner or running around without seeing the enemy – particularly in smaller Team Deathmatches. But given that we’ve had so long to perfect the run-and-gun technique, it was about time we tried something different, even though sniper rifles still don’t get the wide fields of vision that they were given in some maps in Modern Warfare 2.
Convoy:
The most familiar map in terms of playing style, Convoy is based around the familiar ‘crossroads’ design used in maps such as Berlin Wall and Overgrown in MW2. Put one long road straight down the middle of the map, one route to cross over (or under in the case), and fill the four quarters with additional routes and hiding places.
But having said that there are a few little tweaks, such as the elevated road sign gantry to hold against the lower end of the road, given one spawn a slight advantage depending on the intelligence of your enemies, and their willingness to run straight down the road. There are also some quite nice holding points on the flanks and overall it’s a pretty fun map.
Zoo:
Despite screenshots all looking very reminiscent of MW2’s Carnival, Zoo feels like a larger beast of a map, with a circuitous feel – it’s possibly to lap around the edge of the map without straying into the middle area. A couple of places work quite well as holding areas, and there are plenty of elevated spots to get a couple of kills from before moving.
Stockpile:
Again, there’s the choice of lapping around the outskirts, or just diving into the middle – in this case, the middle is a large building with plenty of chances to get some quick kills. In objective games, this probably requires the most teamwork as the main building is pretty tricky to hold unless you make good use of the controllable door to close one entry point and then work together to guard the other points of entry.
Again, the map is jam-packed with other buildings and cover, meaning that there’s plenty of hiding places for those trying to flank a team – and for those trying to counter that exact tactic.
Hotel:
Probably the most interesting concept, and probably the least successful of the new maps in our initial opinion. The elevators continue the fashion for including gimmicks which seem like they could be useful in theory, but actually prove to be pretty rubbish (See also First Strike and Ziplines for an earlier example).
Hotels have proved popular in a variety of games – for instance Rainbow Six: Vegas, but the lack of ‘channels’ for the map means that you quite often find yourself in an isolated room wondering whether to keep sitting still or to go hunting for gun battles which will be over by the time you get there…
Escalation overall:
Overall, if you’re still liking Black Ops, then the Escalation Map Pack is well worth getting. Both Black Ops DLC packs seem a little highly priced if you’re just intending to play multiplayer, as some of you will do, although Call of the Dead will hopefully inspire some more zombie love…
All of the new maps look pretty good, and there are no major bugs or issues with any of them yet, which is nice. Not only is there a bespoke playlist for Escalation only maps, but Treyarch seem to have learnt from the launch of First Strike and liberally spread them through the other playlists as well – certainly they’ve been coming up a lot in Ground War today, which is good news if you have more than 5 friends in Black Ops and still want to try the new maps.
Considering the outlay, it’s a shame that a new Killstreak or Load-Out couldn’t be included in each new DLC pack – something else to mix up the playing styles and novelty a little more would be extremely welcome. But not only is the pack worth getting to encourage teamwork and some objective matches, hoepfully it’ll also encourage some bigger changes to the formula for the next full game in the Call of Duty series as rumours keep growing.
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