![]() You can’t earn points in spectre mode, and your time steadily runs out (get back to your body in time or it’s Game Over), but it’s way more fun than just dying. More friendly to the solo survivalist, Mob’s most interesting new feature is the Spectre mode, whereby the dead stay on the battlefield in the form of ghosts who can use electrical energy to instantly kill zombies and power-up junction boxes. And the cream on the cake? The four protagonists are voiced by a group of Hollywood hard-nuts renowned for their work in crime capers: Ray Liotta, Michael Madsen, Chazz Palminteri and Joe Pantoliano play the unlucky would-be prison-breakers and add an element of hammy, sweary charm to the whole affair. This time they’ve added Mob of the Dead, a mode that sees four hardened cons trapped in Alcatraz prison as it’s overrun by the red-eyed undead. Taking the experimentation of the Turned mode released in the Revolution pack, Treyarch have mixed up Black Ops’ Zombies once again. Thankfully then, the second half of the DLC is much more enjoyable. On the whole, the four maps are serviceable, but don’t do much to stand out alongside those already available. They should definitely take a few cues from these ideas in future, and sprinkle on some extra environmental danger amongst all the bullet-dodging. You can imagine what happens if you run blindly through an encroaching river of lava, and it adds an extra dimension of danger to the map that’s not really present in many of Call of Duty’s battlefields. Magma, on the other hand, is very cool, taking place in a Japanese city that has fallen victim to a volcanic eruption. ![]() ![]() If you could snipe from Big Ben’s clock-face or blow up the London Eye, Treyarch would have a customer, but in spite of Encore’s impressive aesthetics the map itself is no more interesting or exciting than what has gone before. The Encore map is set in London after a rock concert and, while it’s nice looking, doesn’t really feel all that new despite the view from the battlefield of various famous landmarks. It also stands out by being so clean the whole map is carved out of polished chrome and glass, and you almost feel bad blowing holes in it and jumping through windows. The second map, Vertigo, puts you atop a skyscraper and expects you not to fall to your death as you run around like a lunatic, and the various levels complete with tight corners and small rooms make it a great map for Hardpoint. Observing the scenery isn’t likely to do your K/D spread much good, but Studio’s warren-like battlefield is great fun to navigate, and is probably the pick of the bunch. It’s a great map to play in, especially the first few times as you always feel like you’re seeing something new. Studio, for a start, is Firing Range from the original Black Ops, redesigned as a Hollywood back-lot complete with a hodgepodge of various sets like a pirate movie or a western. ![]() They’re a decent mix despite their failure to top the heights offered by Nuketown (which is now free and compulsory), but they do have a certain appeal. Firstly – and not so impressively – it brings four new multiplayer maps into play. As to the question of who does the better DLC – well, that one has just been answered with a bullet. Of course, it’s neither the Zombies mode nor the campaign that draws people to Call of Duty, and there’s a constant argument over which of the studios does multiplayer better (for my money, Modern Warfare 3 is still slightly more playable than Black Ops II, despite some impressive new features in the latter). Infinity Ward / Sledgehammer may come along and refine what Treyarch have done each time with Modern Warfare, but there’s nothing as silly and enjoyable as Zombies in their games, and I stand by Black Ops II having the best campaign narrative in the series’ recent history. The second DLC pack for Black Ops II is further proof that, regardless of sales and popularity, with the two alternating developers of Activision’s annual Call of Duty franchise, underdogs Treyarch are the visionaries, the risk-takers, the outfit prepared to have fun within the core framework.
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