Call of Duty Elite : DLC Impressions #5

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The fifth dosage of Call of Duty Elite introduces 1 map, 2 new Special Ops missions (which will be covered in their own post as before) and a completely new game mode in the form of Face Off.
        
Starting with the single map, Oasis is a pristine hotel, surrounded by palaces in the baking sun-lit setting of the United Arab Emirates. The map is medium in size, with a nice balance of open areas and confined indoor areas, corridors and staircases.

Oasis is a definite change in scenery from the general gloom and war
torn maps of most of the game.

The striking difference between this map and the rest is purely visual. From a gameplay point of view, it doesn't really have any defining features or major focal points. There are a fair amount of ledges and towers that make for ideal sniping oppurtunties, but the mixture of enclosed and open spaces can be said for many other maps in the game.                                                                                     
Aesthetically, the map diverts away from the gloom and dark trend of most maps, and is by far the most visually appealing map in the whole game by a mile. There's even a beautiful but deadly water feature that hugs the perimeter of the map.                                                                                  
It doesn't exactly bring anything different to the gameplay, but the large amount of visual appeal keeps it fresh and exciting to play on, and the nice mixture of open and enclosed areas will always have you changing your approach depending on where you are.

Recommended Perks

Recon will give you a nice advantage on this map, especially on objective based modes where the bomb stacks and flags are positioned in very open areas, allowing you to easily pick out enemies across the larger areas.                                                                                                                                   
Despite the map being medium in size, it also fairly narrow, so Assassin will allow you the advantage on what is a fairly linear map. Stalker allows you to move faster given the fact you'll be weaving in and out of corridors very frequently, but SitRep might be useful because of the many opportunities of planted explosives lurking around the numerous corners and turns inside. 
               
The other part of this DLC relates to the new Face Off mode, essentially small team based matches on specifically crafted maps involving 2v2 or 3v3 matches (though you can actually still play 1v1, which gets boring quickly anyway...).                                                                                               
This is a decent game mode, mainly because it actually fixes a big problem with the regular team tactical mode (which I'll go into further down).                                                                                        
The first 2 maps, Aground and Erosion, come free with the package, and even though they're really too small to review properly, they compliment the mode well and the scale of the maps fits nicely with the scale of players actually participating within the game.                                                           
The big problem with team tactical has always been that you were playing on the maps within the main game, which are catered towards 6v6 combat. It always meant that you were running around empty space far too often and matches lost that fast and frenetic nature that Call of Duty is known for.                                                                                                                                                              
Face Off mode addresses this issue with the inclusion of maps specifically built to suit the smaller team game modes. As a result, matches have a huge emphasis on tactical awareness, and are naturally slower paced, but the size of the maps keep action frequent and never stagnates the game to large extents like team tactical does.                                                                                                
It makes Face Off mode a nice addition to the game, and the fact more maps are due to be released will flesh out the mode nicely. It's completely free aswell, which is an excellent bonus, so definitely download it and give it a try.