Our second reviewed piece of downloadable content is, like Ultimate Team, a pretty big one. The first map pack for Call Of Duty: World At War sold one million plus copies in it’s first week on sale, so surely it’s good then? Why don’t you hit the jump and find out.

I looked at this content from two perspectives. This might sound a little weird, but I looked at what the “Map Pack 1″ package had oto offer the ‘hardcore’ Call Of Duty: World At War players, as well as the more ‘casual’ player who jumps online a few times a week to play against/alongside his friends. I think you’ll agree this was the right thing to do.

The new content gives players three new multiplayer maps to do battle in as well as expanding the, very popular, Nazi Zombie mode. The three maps: “Station”, “Nightfire” and “Knee Deep” are very different from oneanother. It might sound a little obvious to say this, but this always helps when looking at a map pack. You don’t want three almost identical maps do you? It also helps that the three of them all offer something different than the regular maps in multiplayer, actually expanding the multiplayer experience rather than just adding a few more generic maps into the rotation.

So let’s take a closer look at them shall we? The first map I tried out was “Station”, yep you guessed it it’s set inside a train station. Don’t let the, rather unimaginative, name fool you this is one of the more complex maps I’ve seen in the past two Call Of Duty games. It is a small map and usually this is best for close quarters combat and I can definitely see this. There are a lot of dark, narrow, corridors which can often be the most crucial areas on the map. You better have your trigger finger ready because there’s nowhere to hide here, if someone gets the drop on you here nine times out of ten your dead. It’s not all about close quarters stuff though, the map is pretty well balanced for whatever type of player you are and it’s nice to see a smaller , more condensed, map that actually provides decent areas for snipers. Overall this map is pretty cool. It’s interesting enough and the ammount of hiding places is great. The devs were able to balance it pretty well, meaning, even though it’s a small map, you’re more than liekly going to be able to stick to your favourite weapon.

“Nightfire” is a map set in war-torn Berlin. This time the devs have chosen to build a larger map and have definitely used the larger space to, once again, create a really interesting map that provides some really cool, fun matches. Like most of the large maps it allows loads of different types of players to compete on an even playing field, which makes for many a good match. The smaller, more enclosed, ground areas are perfect for infantry men, whilst the taller, smoke filled buildings make perfect hiding places for sneaky marksmen. There’s definitely an element of surprise that Treyarch have included with this map, making areas really open (even when you think your boxed in) allowing players to get the drop on you or giving the opportunity to slip away silently. This is probably the most different map of the three in this pack and is probably one of the best the game has to offer. If you could buy these maps seperately i’d recomend this in a heartbeat.

Last, but by no means least, we have “Knee Deep”. This map is another Japanese, jungle-based map which allows for a lot more tactical gameplay and involves a lot of hiding. It reminds me a lot of the “Overgrown” map from COD4 in many respects. There’s a lot of smaller buildings which provide good cover and make objectives harder to defend as well as a large mass of water and weeds which make perfect hiding places. Open areas aren’t left out either, if you want an all out firefight there’s a number of areas on this map that you can do this. That being said, they’re usually surrounded by snipers, so you’ll lucky to get out in one piece.

What impressed me most about this DLC (and the majority of the maps in this game) is that they still feel ‘real’ each time you play. This is really important to a game like this and I feel if Treyarch hadn’t have done this then these maps wouldn’t be worth playing more than a few times.

Of course we’re also introduced to a new Nazi Zombies map “Zombie Asylum”. Personally, I feel this could’ve been given away free in a patch. I guess a lot of people aren’t buying the pack for this (at least, I hope not) and are getting it as a bit of a bonus. Based on the  Berlin asylum you fight through in the single player mode with a few hordes of zombies thrown in (ok, that sounds cooler than it is). Basically, if you are a fan of Nazi Zombies you’ll like this but it’s definitely not worth buying the pack for.

This new Nazi Zombies mode does offer up something rather interesting though. The “Perks-a-cola” machines allow you to upgrade your character on the fly, increasing things like reload speed and how fast you heal as well as offering up now weapons such as a big beam of electricity. Here’s the genius bit though, to use this you must make your way, through the horde of undead, to the top of the map to switch on a generator, which turns on the power to these machines. It sounds easy, believe me it’s not. Your four player squad is also split up, your paired off with a door (which requires power to open) separating the two groups. This definitely adds more interesting, Left 4 Dead, style gamplay into the mix and is really rewarding if you get the job done.

Overall, I think the three maps are really good. They’re well put together, there’s been no glitches (as far as I could tell) and the wide variety of areas definitely will help make the multiplayer games a little more interesting. These are probably three of the most balanced maps on the game, something which COD has struggled with past, and for hardened COD: WAW veterans I recomend this one completely. It’s not without it’s faults, but what is? I think more casual players will get a kick out of this, but I think a lot of these maps will be reserved for the ‘hardcore’.

The one major problem with this pack is it’s price. I think that price has to be taken into account when buying anything, and DLC like this is no different. £7.99 ($9.99) is a lot of money for three (if you count the new Zombie map four) new maps, sure they offer up an expansion to the multiplayer and a new challenge for gamers, but I would rather spend that kind of money on a game like PixelJunk Eden or Magic Ball. I think if the price was lower more people would get this. One million plus people bought this DLC in it’s first week on sale, but i’m sure if the price was closer to a fiver they’d have had a lot more. There just isn’t enough ‘bang for your buck’ (pun intended) here, which is a shame really. For the big COD fans this is, probably, a must buy but for anyone else I say wait for a price drop.

7.8/10

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