Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation DLC Guide – Call of the Dead (Call of Duty: Black Ops)

The newest DLC pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops is here, and it packs a whopping four new multiplayer maps as well as a brand new Zombies mission featuring none other than George Romero. Even though he’s an old man who has spent decades sitting in a director’s chair, Romero is one fierce enemy, and it’ll take some tips to figure out how to take him down.

The mission itself is a fairly straightforward task that requires a lot of repetition, but if you don’t know your way around some of the most pivotal parts of the map, you’ll end up being a sitting duck.

We’ve also included a comprehensive look at all the new multiplayer maps in ‘Escalation,’ which you’ll find following the Call of the Dead walkthrough below.

Call of the Dead

Romero is, of course, the creator of Night of the Living Dead, considered to be the birth of the modern zombie horror genre. Basically, he is the father of zombies, but unlike the mindless drone attitude of his undead creations, Romero is a real beast and it’ll take all you’ve got to take him out.

Mr. Romero is the first enemy you will see as the mission begins, but don’t even bother attacking him just yet. Doing so will spell certain death. Instead, the best course of action to take is just walk around aimlessly until zombies start appearing from all over the place.

Above: “Hey quit biting me, I’m trying to balance my checkbook.”

While you’re waiting, it’s a good idea to go ahead and buy one of the weapons (we recommend the Garand) available along the bridge. This will use all 500 of your initial points, but you’ll be able to make that back in no time once the droves of undead start to clutter the screen.

In the very limited beginning of the stage, just keep taking out the zombies until you’ve stockpiled a good amount of points. Don’t get too greedy, though, because if you stay in that beginning area too long the army of zombies will become too much to handle.

Once you have, say, 2000 points or so, head to either of the ships blocking the path and spend 750 points to remove it. From here, climb up the stairs and roam around until you find the mystery box, two flights of stairs up.

Open up the box and cross your fingers for a strong weapon. Now you can start taking out zombies by the bucket-load, and upgrade your weapons with the various spots around the relatively small map.

Once you have a kick-ass weapon and a good load of points at the ready, walk back to the beginning area and head to the Revive machine, which will sell you Revives for 500 points a pop. Sit and wait for George to arrive. If he doesn’t, head back through the rest of the map to find him and try to lure him back. Most of the time, though, he will eventually find his way to you.

Above: “Come on Land of the Dead wasn’t THAT bad!”

Now it’s time to unleash the fury, but be warned. Romero is one tough mother. You’ll no doubt need to use up a lot of Revives, and/or will need to reload your weapon. This mission is all about lather-rinse-repeat. Deal as much damage to the zombie lover as you can and then trudge back through the zombie-infested areas to rack up more points and ammo. After a while, it’s not so much difficult as it is repetitive. Honestly, don’t even try this mission if you’re not prepared to do all the above 10 times, at the very minimum, without being killed.

Of course, all the above becomes much easier if you’re playing in offline or online multiplayer. It’s nearly impossible to do it in Solo mode, but if you insist on the challenge, one strategy is to just start over and over again until you get a Scavenger from the mystery weapon box.

So after all that, you get the satisfaction of killing the man who created the modern-day zombie. Is that worth all the aggravation? You be the judge.