Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
UK Certification 18 | UK RRP £11.49 | Region PAL | Developer Treyarch | Publisher Activision
A long month after Xbox 360 users were granted temporary exclusivity on First Strike, the premier map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops has finally launched on the PS3 and is now available from the PlayStation Store. But are these five new maps really worth a third of the cost of the full game?
Four of the five maps in question – Kowloon, Discovery, Stadium and Berlin Wall – are all primed for the fast, frantic and furious action of the main multiplayer mode, whereas Ascension is all about carving up bloodthirsty and brain-hungry hordes of the undead with your boomsticks in Zombies. So, ultimately, if you've never been keen on straying away from deathmatches and the like in favour of maiming the living dead, First Strike will really only be providing you with four new locations to play.
Each of the maps are very different from each other, which is a plus, and a couple have their own unique selling points that separate them from not only the other new additions included in First Strike, but what we have already played in Black Ops' original line-up as well. But why these particular features have been quite so hyped is somewhat of a mystery: Kowloon, which is based on the rooftop battle from the single-player campaign, offers players a couple of zip-lines to swing down on for quick and convenient escapes from enemy fire, Predator-esque stealth attacks, and general monkey-like shenanigans. Discovery on the other hand includes a bridge of ice that can break as a result of explosions and gunfire. The only problem is that players barely follow the walkway to the bridge, and the crumbling of ice isn't nearly as spectacular nor satisfying as you may have been lead to believe.
The other two maps – without such elements of interactivity – are Stadium, which is essentially the new Nuketown in the close combat stakes, and the self-explanatory Berlin Wall: a hotspot for snipers that includes an impartial gun turret that will kill any player, no matter their team, if they walk along a certain snowy stretch of land.
Moving on to the extension of Zombies, the downright huge Russian space centre-set Ascension keeps the formula of pitting a team of 2-4 players online or locally against up to 99 waves of foul flesh-eaters, but adds a wealth of surprises, from undead space monkeys to lunar landers that can transport you and your buddies high into the air and across the map, which is by far the biggest the mode has to offer. It also happens to be the most tense and enjoyable.
First Strike is a good, solid and diverse pack, but it may very well just leave you feeling a little cold once you complete an entire play-through of the maps within about 15 minutes.