Call Of Duty: Cold War is officially the very first game I have purchased on the PlayStation 5. I was super excited to play the game on the brand new next-gen console. Before I went to the Zombies game mode, I took a little time to glance at the visuals, and I was already stunned at how great Cold War looked in 4K resolution.
The Die Maschine map is set in Morasko, Poland. As you start the game mode, you will get an intro cutscene of a woman named Sam making a phone call in East Berlin, East Germany in the year 1983. This call was to Officer Weaver, who was in the situation room in the CIA headquarters. Langley, Virginia. Sam called Weaver for assurance that that the situation room received “the package”. She insisted that Weaver watched the tape in order to prove her theory.
The tape showed ‘Die Maschine’ (‘The Machine’ in German). The video also showed a group of soldiers killed by zombies. Through the middle of the video, Sam warned Weaver that there is another clip in the tape that was “shot one week later” of the clean up crew burning what looks to be dead zombies. Then they buried Die Maschine until “2 weeks ago, now it’s happening again” then the intro ended with Weaver insisting that that woman turns herself in and also offered protection for her, but she refused because the “Omega group have plans for the outbreak zones” and insists she “have to stay in the field” and ends the call with “this is the only way”
Treyarch have outdone themselves with the design of the Die Maschine map, with its stunningly high levels of detail on objects and photorealistic looking weapons. Especially on the PlayStation 5 version with the 4K resolution. What I loved the most about this map is there are few areas you can easily train zombies such as the respawn. Therefore, the most casual zombies players would also enjoy this map.
The pack a punch Easter egg is very easy to complete, all you have to do was turn on the power, activate both terminals, get through an anomaly, get through the aether tunnel, retrieve a missing piece of the pack a punch machine and assemble them. Pack a punch could do with some improvement. Only a few selections of weapons are most reliable when going for Easter eggs and high rounds. One of them being the Hauer 77 shotgun and the M16 assault rifle, which both are extremely dependable when going for Easter eggs and high rounds. This wasn’t very much the case in previous Black Ops titles. For an example in Black Ops 3, the effectiveness of all weapons remained the same, even if you are on round 200.
In Cold War, when going for Easter eggs and high rounds, it’s best to equip one of the aforementioned weapons or the Raygun and wonder weapon. This isn’t necessarily fun as most players would like to have a range of weapon choices to upgrade. Getting the wonder weapon can be a little tricky because you have to collect about 30 souls from the zombies in the living room, which is a very small area of the map. The best way to go about this is to train the zombies in a large area of the map, and then lure them into the room.
It was great to see Treyarch keep with some of the same perks that were used in previous Black Ops titles. Speed Cola, quick revive, stamina up etc. are some of my favourite perks I use to improve my zombies performance. However, it is very unfortunate that other perks such as mule kick were not included in the game. Mule kick was also another perk I enjoyed using, because having to be able to equip 3 weapons was of great advantage for me.
I tried the new perks elemental pop and deadshot daiquiri, but they both had virtually no effectiveness to my play style. However, they could be much more useful to other gamers. The new extraction feature was very interesting. Instead of having to die to end the game, you can also call in for extraction if you no longer wish to continue. Another cool new feature being the chopper gunner, which is extremely helpful in eliminating a lot more zombies quicker.
Although the Die Maschine main Easter Egg was relatively short, it was still one of the best Easter eggs Treyarch has ever created. The story behind it, the steps that needed to be taken, the animations, the boss fight etc. made this a truly enjoyable adventure. The only thing that prevented the Easter egg from being perfect, was that there was no end cut scene. Instead, you just go to the extraction point.
Ultimately, although there are some things left to be desired, Treyarch has done a very good job with the Die Maschine map as well as the zombies game mode overall. Good news is there will be much more features to come in future DLC content for Cold War zombies and surely the upcoming maps will be better.