You can go home again...

Kind of

As most of you know, because you are regular readers of the site, the original four Call of Duty World at War Zombie maps were available with the hardened and prestige versions of Black Ops. In fact, Graybush and I are such fans of playing Zombie Mode that we both paid for one and half copies of Black Ops each just so that we could have a third player. As Graybush asked, "is it worth $40 to you to have a third Zombie Mode player?" Well yes, it was. So we did.

This immediately turned on us as the moron Zombie Hunter in question "accidentally" left his Zombie Maps in Arundel a different city (totally not Arundel).

Waffenfabrik Der Riese: It's good to be back

This explains why we did not return to Der Riese in Black Ops until two months after the game was released. Two long months. Two months where we had almost forgotten how to play Zombie Mode.

Almost.

As it turns out, our return went fairly well. Who knew?

So last night Graybush, Stormblade and I returned to Der Riese and discovered that some things are the same and some things are different.

• The graphics were better, darker but better
• boarding up windows is a slightly different process. More delayed.
• The weapons sounds are improved
• character selection is random (Graybush = Richtofen, Stormblade = Nikolai, Blackwalt = Dempsey)
• weapons, from the Tickle Trunk, are the new Black Ops weapons
• the Tickle Trunk still hates us
• there is a lot less ammo available
• a fourth player probably wouldn't hurt

This is where I shoot Stormblade in the back: Unfortunately I was totally out of ammo

We did reach Level 31 which is good for us. We heard a lot of new quotes from the characters. I don't remember any.

Some of the new upgraded weapons were entertaining. The HS10 automatic shotgun upgrades to dual wielding HS10's called Typhoid & Mary which had me laughing for the entire level. I introduced them to Graybush and Stormblade by name of course. Several times. They were amazing Zombie killers until they ran out of ammo (extremely quickly). You can see them in the top picture – "Waffenfabrik Der Riese."

Level 31 Final: Yes, 14 downs, I'd rather not talk about it

We had expected our first foray into the new Der Riese to be brief. Very brief in fact. When SeanMCR joined us we told him to hang on until we were done. He left 30 minutes later. Brief, in totally random HoC style, meant two hours and forty five minutes. We almost hit three hours but Graybush, despite spending over $37,000 on the Tickle Trunk (between Level 30 and Level 31) couldn't manage to get the necessary weapon to get us all the way through Level 31. $37,000 of the $60,000 he had accumulated. Stormblade and I were broke. I had spent $58,500 alone on the Quick Reload and Juggernog Perks as I kept losing them. No idea what Stormblade spent his money on – most of it was frivolously wasted. Art imitating live I suppose.

Anyway, our first foray, while relearning the map we managed to reach Level 31. And Graybush was last in headshots. We expect our next forays should go further.

Although first we still have three other new maps that we have to test out... and we are still looking for a fourth Zombie Killer.

One down: three to go