Another day, another map pack for the game that you, your grandmother, and your grandmother’s friends all know and play nearly religiously. The game that I am talking about is of course Call of Duty: Black Ops and the map pack is theAnnihilation map pack, featuring your typical four multiplayer maps and a brand new zombies experience. So does this map pack live up to the quality of the previous maps for the game or should you just hold off on it? Hit the break for the verdict as well as an in depth review of each map.

Drive-In

Drive-In, like the title implies is a map done to look like an old ‘50’s style drive-in movie theater. The map features a nice perch in the middle of the movie screen where snipers can climb up to as well as a food court, and the whole parking lot surrounding it. This map is great for short to long-range combat so expect to do well with either a sniper or SMG.

Hazard

Hazard takes place in what was once an old Cuban gold course/country club. You will be running through the golf course, taking cover in blown up bits of wall and inside vacant buildings. I personally found myself perched inside an old fountain overlooking a majority of the map, perfect for my M16 assault rifle. Expect a lot of mid-long range combat on this map.

Silo

Silo is as the title implies. You will find yourself brawling it out in an abandoned Soviet missile silo. Mostly mid-long range combat on this map, as the majority of your playing time will be spent picking off guys who run into windows of the buildings around the map. Also featured in this map is an underground passageway, which you can use to stealthily navigate from one end of the map to the other.

Hangar 18

Hangar 18 is Treyarch’s rendition of Area 51, from the prototype bomber jet all the way to alien life forms laid out around the map. This map is a very fun map to play on and you can expect a lot of close-mid range combat so bring in a quick assault rifle like the FAMAS or maybe an SMG.

Shangri-La

Shangri-La is the new zombie mode in the Annihilation map pack. This map is set around a Vietnamese temple of sorts that features it’s own set of booby traps that can either make or break a game for you, a waterfall, underground structures, and quick sand. This is by far the most unique zombie experience in either of the Call of Duty titles to feature the mode and it is really just an awesome map. Just a warning though that this map ismerciless. Literally everything will change spawns with each new game so make sure you go into this map with some good players. Shangri-La is definitely not a map for zombie newcomers.

All in all, this is a very impressive map pack. It features some great multiplayer maps, and a brand new, unique, and just awesome zombie experience. With that being said, it does have it’s flaws, specifically with the zombies portion of the pack. Shangri-La is hard. As stated before, it is not for the faint-hearted zombie players. So it all comes down to this, is the map pack worth the 1200 Microsoft points or 10 dollars? That all depends on this question: do you play BlOps on a daily basis? If so, then yes. Buy the map pack. Otherwise, you may want to hold off on it.

Score: 8/10