Zed-itorial: Did Black Ops 2 Zombies Fail?

[Black Hand Smith]

Hello. Welcome to Zed-itorial. A new forum Series I am introducing where I talk about Different aspects of Zombies through my own personal opinions. Today I want to ask a question. Did Black Ops 2 Zombies Fail?

Many people say the Golden age of Zombies was the Black Ops era. With maps such as Kino der toten, Ascension Call of the dead, Shangri-la and even the Moon. We got much more character development and a much deeper story that not only surprised us but kept us coming back for more. Then after 2 years of waiting we got Tranzit.....and it all went downhill from there. With Shitty map after shitty map we went to Die Rise, Buried and even the Promising Origins turned out to be the equivalent of waiting for shit to turn into Gold. So what went wrong with Black ops 2 that made it so Bad? 

For starters I think the Hype is one of the contributing factors as to why we hated Black Ops 2 Zombies. After a Map like Moon and the Plot twist at the end where the Earth is completely destroyed. Takeo vows to destroy every last remnant f Group 935 and Samantha vows to return to her own Body. Now the question we were all asking ourselves at the time was. "So, earth is destroyed, where or when are we going next?" Black Ops 2 answered that question with Tranzit or like the fans like to call it....Transhit. To be quite Honest, Tranzit is actually not as bad as we make it out to be. Sure, it's bad but the shit factor comes mostly from the failed Expectations, the lack of story, and the fact that there was not much content in the map. Had Tranzit been the first Map in Call of Duty Black Ops I believe it would have been a Hit. Why? Well, because it wouldn't have had to be a follow up to an already growing story. W@W didn't actually have much of a story even with Der Riese. The story was Basic. Experiments with Zombies occur and the zombies escape. You have a group of characters who all look like copy and paste versions of campaign characters and it was Fun! There was no time travel, there was no MPD, there was no Evil Entity. It was a plain and simple story encased within medium sized maps. If you ignore everything from Black Ops then tranzit actually brings some new things to the Table. It brings in creepy new creatures with a scary looking design, it brings map hazards which must be avoided, a Mode of transportation, a Grief Mode. All of this is fine for a Map even if there was a lot of Fog. However everything changes when you add Black Ops 1 to the Mix.

The Ending of Black Ops zombies promised us a continuation of the story as well as possibly developing Samantha Maxis as not only a demonic announcer but as a playable character. Maybe even learn why Maxis is so over protective about Samantha, Explain how her mother died and how she ended up the way she was. Maybe she misses fluffy and has some interesting things to say. However instead they decide to focus on other things in Black Ops 2. Which would be fine if they knew where to take us next and how each place would further the story but that is the problem. They never went anywhere interesting. After the Moon you expect something out of zombies mode. Yet Black Ops 2 Fell short. Overall Tranzit was just a random town which actually had a pretty interesting underground area. Yet those areas are so small they don't even have easter eggs in them. I would trade every single Area of the Map just to Make Half the Map be the town, and the other half be the hidden underground research station. They had so much potential to slip us a secret notebook or have pictures pinned to the wall down there but they screwed it up.

The other thing that really bugged be was the easter eggs. When tranzit came out I think everyone had the same reaction to the egg. People were wondering if that was it. After having such lengthy eggs in Black Ops we came to expect something big from Tranzit. However it fell short and didn;t even reward you very well for completing them. Also the fact that every egg in Black Ops 2 had the exact same goal. To light up a tower. In my opinion coming from a person that writes concepts and stories I have noticed that writing a 5 map series or more usually deteriorates it's quality. When you try to stretch out a story things become botched or come out strangely. The ending to buried had potential but the Buildup was Terrible. It feels like they only had this one Idea and then they decided to Stretch it out for 3 whole maps instead of providing a unique story for each Map. Which when you look at it, is entirely true when it comes to Black Ops Zombies. In Black Ops , each map was connected yet provided a unique experience and a unique story to it. In ascension there was a strange Russian trapped inside the Aether which you had to free. In Call of the Dead, the story was about 4 Movie stars that get caught up in a zombie outbreak while making a zombie movie, Shangri-la was about a pair of Explorers which are now trapped in a timeloop while searching for Agartha, and Moon was....Well. just look at moon. Moon took everything from the previous maps and made a story about a Girl in a Magic Pyramid and the Evil Richtofen who would soon take over the undead. Each Map, like I said before, was it's own unique thing. In black ops 2 on the other hand. Had 4 survivors in a destroyed town with little background and no story. Then in die Rise it was a different location but the exact same story. Even the T.V radios were pretty much the same. Buried was still the same story with a different location and nothing else going on. Which brings be to the Highlight of Black Ops 2. Mob of the Dead

Mob of the Dead is a fantastic Map, with a Fantastic Atmosphere and a fantastic story. We had Characters that actually had backstories that you wanted to know more about. It had a villain that you didn't expect. An easter egg that flowed with the Gameplay perfectly and Objectives that made things so much more fun. Motd may not have furthered the Zombies story at all but because it is detached from the main story, it could take more risks and try different things. Which is what was missing from Every other map in Black Ops 2. Motd is Colorful yet very dark in it''s design.....Origins on the Other hand is a tragic accident. 

When Everything was going to shit DLC 4 was it's last chance at redemption. We expected an all zombies dlc but instead we got Origins...which really doesn't matter as long as the map was interesting. Was it interesting? Hell yeah, You had robots running around, you had the original characters returning, You had planes flying around, a giant blimp, templar zombies GOD IT WAS REFRESHING.....and then the game starts...... God.... You know how Motd could be dark yet at the same time have so much color in it? Well Origins is the opposite. Origins is so full of mud that the map just looks so dull and lifeless to look at. Every other map in Black Ops 2 except for maybe tranzit, knew how to blend their colors together so that even if the theme is Gritty, or underground you could still look at the map and admire it's look. However Origins looks like you are staring at mud all the time. The characters in Origins were great really. They may not have been like the ones we were used to from Black Ops but you could still tell it was them. Just less damaged. And then, which you all know was coming from the moment you clicked on this forum post....The Ending to Origins...... The Ending to Origins is the biggest FUCK YOU to the Player EVER in a Cod game....Well, besides the ending to call of duty Ghosts but we will get to that topic another time. You spend this whole time building up things and then when you finally have Zombies somewhat back in place, you screw it all up with the Ending. I've seen better twists in an M Night Shyamilan movie. Whether or not this ending will be considered canon or if it's something different in disguise I believe it is up to treyarch to decide. If they want to start over, That's fine. Start over. But please learn from your mistakes in Black Ops 2 and try to make each map good instead of trying to make the payoff good. As long as the maps are good even if the payoff isn't really as great as we expected we can at least know that the other maps have things that make us want to go back to them. Even then, Buried got boring after 3 games and the payoff was irrelevant. Which means I have to talk about the characters

The characters in Black ops 2 zombies are Generic but not at all terrible. Can they be annoying? Well, yes. But they were pretty decent characters when you actually take the time to look at them. The only problem with them is that while The Original characters were Copied from Campaign mode they developed their own personalities with each map. Each map you learned something new about them and their pasts. For example Richtofen had a sister, and Dempsey had a daughter who you don't know if she's alive or dead or worse. However in Black Ops 2 the Tranzit 4 are Completely original characters with their own designs yet they don;t develop at all. In tranzit you get the basic stories about all 4 of them. Which is fine for a first map. However after Tranzit the characters just don't seem to go anywhere. In die rise you get some form of development for stuhlinger which could prove an interesting dilemma for the new crew yet after die rise it is never touched on again. Buried was especially painful when they try to cram a whole bunch of Backstory into a small cutscene. Development shouldn't be crammed into a 3 minute intro, it should be spoken through Quotes which they say randomly. It not only gives them personality but it also gives the Player an idea of who the character really is by listening to what they have to say. The tranzit 4 would have made Decent characters for any other zombie game but for something as complicated and story driven as zombies they aren't a good match

So in conclusion...was Black Ops 2 Zombies a Fail?.....Yes....it was a fail... It was a fail when compared to the previous accomplishments in Black Ops. But as a stand alone game mode it was Ok at best. The story is butchered, the characters are a mess, the locations aren't interesting at all, some not even good to look at. However at the end of the day you are still going to play it because you just love killing zombies and demolishing an entire train with the feeling of your controller vibrating as you shoot. So...I'm done here. Maybe I'll talk about other things some other times