Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 Apocalypse DLC - Multiplayer & Zombies Reviewed

rating: 4

It's been a fairly hectic DLC season for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, with sixteen multiplayer maps, four Zombie maps, one multiplayer gun, one Zombies gun, one slightly embarrassing Zombies mode- and a shed-load of downloadable camos and calling cards. We've travelled from ruined Shanghai, to hellish zombie-infested Alcatraz, to a buried Western town in Angola (go figure), from skateparks to paint-ball arenas, and from water plants to ruined bridges.

But just under two months after DLC three, Vengeance, we have our fourth and final DLC map pack, Apocalypse, which brings four new multiplayer maps and the grand finale of Zombies. Can Apocalypse bring a generally solid DLC season to a respectable end?

The Multiplayer Maps

Apocalypse brings four new multiplayer maps to the mix - Dig, Frost, Takeoff and Pod. In the three DLCs we've seen thus far, there's been a standout map, two good-but-not-great maps and a clunker, but oddly enough, Apocalypse breaks from these categories, in the sense that all the multiplayer maps are of pretty much the same standard - very good, but not great.

First up (and considering the standard is so similar, the ranking for this is a tad more random) is Dig, a remake of Courtyard from World at War. Dig is unsurprisingly, a dig site, where chest-high walls and circular chokepoints are the order of the day. It's a very fun head-to-head map, with the lack of full body cover meaning that literally no-one is ever safe. It's the sort of unpredictable map where you can get hit by a grenade thrown on the over side of the map, and it both suffers and benefits from this. Add in some incredibly close-quarters spots and you've got the very essence of COD multiplayer, packed into one map... and yes, that does also mean headglitching, sniping and spawn killing. Still, Dig is a fun little head to head map that plays pretty well in almost every game mode.

Second is Frost, set in a post-snowstorm Amsterdam. Frost goes down the traditional Call of Duty route of being split in two by a map feature - this time, it's a frozen river with a bridge above it. Like Dig, this structure makes Frost a great head-to-head map, with some pretty heavy engagements as the two teams meet on the bridge and the frozen river below. It does mean that camping at the river is perhaps a little too prevalent (if you find a good spot you're set for the game), but it's nice to see more maps that have slightly more centralized areas rather than the usual flanking battles you see in an awful lot of Black Ops 2 maps. Frost isn't exactly a classic map, but it's certainly a lot of fun.

Third, it's Takeoff - another remake, this time of Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC map Stadium (and yes, it's a DLC map remade in another DLC). Takeoff's a map that could pretty much only be found in Black Ops 2 - a futuristic rocket facility... floating in the middle of the ocean. It's a typically barmy map for the barmiest Call of Duty yet, and that's partially a weakness from Takeoff, which doesn't feel quite as original as it thinks it is. Despite the well worn idea though, it's a great map - the most eye-catching of this set of maps and providing a nice range of engagements for pretty much every player. However, the major flaw in Takeoff is a problem with the shared map design - it's way, way too sniper friendly. Admittedly, I'm a little biased against snipers, but the sniping spots provided are just a little too over-powered for my liking, and let down an otherwise fun map.

Taking the not-so-coveted bottom place is Pod, a map that doesn't really deserve the bottom spot. It's a clever and unique idea - a failed utopian society in Taiwan, littered with the gutted corpses of several pods. Pod's a fairly solid map - there's some fun close-quarters engagements in the pods and longer lines of sight outside, but it all feels a little bit like an exercise in wasted potential. Even the behind the scenes trailer showed players diving from the high pods and the possibility of hopping between pods - but with several areas cut in development, Pod ends up being a map that isn't quite as good as it could have been. It's still fun, but there's the feeling that it could have been much more than it actually is, and comes off looking surprisingly unambitious for a map that promised a lot.

Click 'Next' for a review of the final Black Ops 2 Zombies map, Origins.