The Black Ops 2 zombies experience is almost over, and I'm going to end this eternally thankful that I don't have to continuously run through these games solo, ending up failing post-round 15 anymore.
This was a very close runner for the roughest solo zombies experience I've had with a Call of Duty title - immediately behind Moon from Blacks Op 1. It's a bit of a shame, purely because I really like this map, but there are too many inconveniences that breach that gap between challenging and frustrating.
Just like Buried, there are layers to Origins that aren't initially apparent to the naked eye. You start amongst the thick of a World War trench network, full of bunkers connected by tunnels, with a couple of extra key areas thrown in for variety. These include a church that hosts a World War tank you can ride around the map and an Excavation Site right in the middle, which is the epicentre of the hidden world.
Below the Excavation site, you'll see a shrine which gives you access to one of the big additions to this package - the elemental staffs - which come in 4 flavours. These are Wind, Fire, Ice and Lightening, and once crafted, can be powerfully wielded with the relevant theme assigned to the staff. This area also contains a Portal to another world where you can enchant the staffs from within, making them even more powerful, and the trophies lean heavily on this whole game mechanic. The map contains alot of depth once you scratch the surface.
The blend of World War with Sci-Fi is an interesting crossover, but it's a great testament to what is ultimately the biggest strength that Zombies has - creativity. There are tons of other interesting differences too. Power around the map is now sourced from 6 generators rather than an an individual switch, which are also responsible for accessing the mystery box and perk machine within close enough proximity to it. Zombie blood is a new droppable power-up, which throws zombies off your scent and effectively makes you invisible for a certain amount of time. The Maxis Drone is a craftable item which floats around, half the time a murderous killing device, cutting down zombies with firepower, and half the time a revival tool which can hover and revive downed teammates.
However, some of the unique challenges the player will face from this map also come from some of the newly added mechanics. The giant robot that towers above the map and patrols it looks very cool, but will also suddenly stop you in your tracks by crushing you with it's massive feet unexpectedly at times. The muddy trenches will also slow player movement down, making it hard to escape hordes or transverse the map smoothly. There is also a new addition of the Panzer Soldat enemy, which looks a little bit like the Big Daddy from Bioshock, and will chase you round the map, using abilities such as a claw that can grab you from range and pull you backwards, and a flamethrower that will burn you to death.
When you're trying to survive and keep runs alive in the name of earning trophies, these mechanics become an annoying inconvenience, and I succumbed to all of them at least a couple of times each when striving for progress towards some of the trophies that required venturing into deeper rounds.
There are 10 new trophies added, and again, the formula is still the same. A handful of miscellaneous tasks that aren't that challenging, with a couple that are. There is a focus on the new elemental staffs, with trophies awarded for building and wielding all 4 of them in one game. You'll need to do these steps as a standard part of the Easter Egg, but absolutely have to make sure that everyone in the party exchanges staffs at some point so everyone can wield them. This is crucial to remember, and should be a added step to completing the Easter Egg properly before you end the game.
However, the harder trophies in this set really do ramp up the difficulty, and it also contains the toughest Easter Egg within the Blacks Op 2 DLC;
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Little Lost Girl - In Origins, release Samantha.
Overachiever - In Origins, Complete all 4 Challenges in one game. |
The "Little Lost Girl" trophy, awarded for releasing Samantha, is the Easter Egg for this DLC pack, and is by far the toughest out of all of them.
The main reason it's the toughest is simply because it required our party of 4 people to reach round 24 before we managed to complete the final step for the trophy to unlock, which took us around 4 hours in total. I began this at 2AM and finished just shy of 6AM, which was extremely tiring, so I'm glad I had a competent team to compensate for myself running on fumes by the end of this process.
Just by way of a quick side note, it is actually possible to achieve this Easter Egg solo, but after doing some careful research, I opted against this - It's even more time consuming and will require you to reach a much higher round than 24, and I just don't have the confidence to gamble on my solo ability to that extent.
The Easter Egg also requires alot of preliminary work before you actually begin the proper steps to completing it. You'll need to build all 4 elemental staffs, which requires finding 16 different parts, and some of these parts are randomly dropped by zombies, so you may have to slug through a handful of waves in order to find them all. Once this is complete, you'll then need to upgrade them to their ultimate forms. The Easter Egg is heavily reliant on the staffs, and they're used for multiple steps within this process, but finding all 16 parts and upgrading them to their ultimate forms feels like an Easter Egg in it's own right.
In comparison to the other Easter Eggs within these DLC packs, this is absolutely the most demanding. It's a long way off completing the Die Rise Easter Egg, which, by comparison, was casually wrapped up within 5 rounds.
The "Overachiever" trophy, awarded for Completing all 4 challenges in one game, is also a fairly big demand, especially for anyone who tackles this in solo zombies, such as myself.
It's best to break down the challenges and go through them one by one;
- Activate all 6 generators in 1 game
This one isn't too bad. The generators have a cost, but they're cheap at 200 points and you also don't need to worry if the templar zombies take one of them of back - Once you've activated one, it'll count for the remainder of the game. It can get a bit hairy in later rounds, as templar zombies will come at you along with regular zombies, and some of the generators will require you to spend money clearing debris to reach them, which will naturally come with later progression.
I think this is the toughest challenge, and definitely conditional of the fact that you make sure you're very thorough within the early rounds when the zombie hordes aren't as hectic. You can buy the M16, which is a single shot rifle, from the starting room, which will give you precise headshots very early. Once the hordes start to build, and you don't get the chance to be as accurate, it can become harder to accumulate headshots, and you'll probably need a high powered LMG to get the job done effectively. You'll reach a point where crowd control becomes essential, so weapons like the Raygun are preferred, but also won't give you headshot kills, so you've got to ensure you strike the right balance
This one can also be tough. Accumulating 30,000 points isn't too hard, but spending them can be an issue. Spinning the mystery box infinitely to the cost of 950 points per spin was my chosen tactic, and clearing debris will be helpful too. The only issue with this is the fact that it'll be limited, as will buying perks, and the mystery box is the only points-deducting activity you can perform indefinitely in order to reach the 30,000 points total.
This one isn't too bad, but will require a total of 80 kills. The 4 chests, placed in specific locations across the map, will fill when a zombie is killed near it. 20 kills are required to fill a chest to it's maximum capacity. This creates alot of close quarter encounters, and you'll need to ensure you don't get cornered or pinned in, so it's vital to be aware of your surroundings. The chest locations are also all located within muddy trenches, which slows your movement down. I tried to tandem this step with the 115 headshots, as it made sense to accumulate these at the same time.
The strategy I settled on eventually was as follows;
1.Turn on all 6 generators first whilst actively accumulating headshots in the lower rounds, opening up all avenues to each generator in order to clear the way whilst beginning to spend points - It was also critical to pull some decent weapons from the mystery box by the time the final few generators were turned on.
2. Fill the 4 chests in their relevant areas whilst trying to accumulate headshots, but just making sure the hordes were controlled as a priority as not to become overwhelmed and fail the run. Ideally grab the Juggernaught perk by this point too.
3. Survive rounds in order to build up enough points to spend them all, accumulate headshots at any opportunity and use these points to infinitely spin the mystery box.
This did eventually work for me, but it took me 6 attempts. Most of my deaths occurred somewhere between steps 2 and 3, usually trying to squeeze for headshots in higher rounds and being chased by chaotic hordes, making accumulation progressively difficult. I did also die whilst spinning the mystery box in step 3 within a location that didn't have an exit from a horde of zombies that pinned me in. Annoying.
I would reach somewhere between round 10-15 per attempt, and my successful run was actually at round 16. Not bad for someone who generally hates embracing the challenge of solo zombies, but I knew it would only be a matter of time once I'd developed a sound plan and just shown a bit of patience by sticking with it.
The zombies challenge in Black Ops 2 does reach it's peak here, and I've spent way more time on this map than any other - I would actually possibly go as far to suggest I've spent more time with Origins than the other 3 zombies maps combined. The Easter Egg hits differently here, thanks to it's complexity and length and the challenge from the "Overachiever" trophy is the toughest out of any trophy within any pack outside of the Easter Eggs.
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