3. Die Rise Zombies
Die Rise is the new Zombies map, set in a few crumbling and desolate skyscrapers in post-apocalyptic Shanghai. You start at the top floor of a skyscraper, and you have to make your way down, be it with the mildly dangerous elevators or the long and safe stairs route. It's a really, really great map - the map design is unique, innovative and feels utterly fresh to play. It's more in line with the 'classic' Black Ops maps, in that it's a large (and while it's not quite TranZit in terms of size, it's still massive) single map, which makes it more of a map for classic Zombies fans. I won't pretend that I'm good at Zombies - I'm actually pretty bad - and Die Rise is definitely more of a map for the seasoned Zombies fan. It's still fun to play, but it's almost alienating in how tricky rounds get. The bulk of the zombies climb out of un-barricaded areas and spawn in huge numbers, there's huge drops into oblivion around every corner, a good chunk of the zombies wear body armor, and there's a new 'Hellhounds' round, this time featuring weird little creatures who teleport around the map and kill really quite quickly (they're actually called Minions, but I'm taken to calling them 'face-buggers'). Last of all, the new Wonder Weapon. TranZit's Wonder Weapon, the Jet Gun, was widely derided for being too hard to find, eventually not worth the effort (most of the parts were stashed away in the foggy areas of the map), and not available in the mystery box, but the Sliquifier manages to alleviate all of these concerns. It's easy to make - all the parts are on the same floor -, it's actually pretty good, shooting purple goo that can one-shot-kill Zombies and make them slip all at the same time, and while it's a build-able again, it's available to everyone else in the mystery box once you've built it. Is Die Rise good? Yes. Is it better than Green Run? Yes. Is it accessible to every kind of Zombies player? Not really - it's not the map to first play if you're jumping into Zombies here.