Going back and pulling out my Xbox 360 the other day, I decided to boot up BO2 again. It still holds up phenomenally to this day. The HUD is just clean and I loved how they had a different HUD to fit each map. The HUD is also nice as it keeps the left side of your screen relatively free of clutter. The movement is much smoother than in BO1, yet probably not as smooth as BO3, but the difference didn’t affect gameplay. The overall atmosphere also just felt more like zombies. BO2 is the game where they were slowly going the more magical route but it hadn’t gotten too pronounced yet. BO3 itself was full fantastical which is where the story started to bore me a little bit.
Regarding playable characters, I love the BO2 crew. Honestly as a crew they were the perfect crew for a modern zombies setting and their dialogue is hilarious.
Going back to maps, I don’t think BO2 has a single dud. Even the worst map on BO2 (nuketown zombies) is still better than the worst map on BO3 (zetsubo no shima). The map design was also unique. We finally got locations outside of military facilities. On release we got Transit (which besides the controversy, the idea of the map was at least really cool), with it being an apocalyptic town. We also got Die Rise (a zombies map between two skyscrapers), Buried (a freaking buried western town), Mob of the Dead (a freaking zombies map at Alcatraz), Nuketown (a zombies map based at a nuclear test site), and finally, Origins (a zombies map in WW2 trenches). BO2 also had the perfect amount of part searching. Buildable traps and shields for example. It only started getting complicated on Mob of the Dead and Origins. But on maps like buried, the beauty of it, was that you could figure out what every part did within playing a few games. Like feeding Leroy Booze. Even building traps, they kept all the parts in a literal tool store which made sense and made it so you’re not going on scavenger hunts for everything. Even the chalk on the wall was a great addition and a fun way to get free points and put wall guns where you wanted.
Now let’s look back at BO3 from a map design standpoint? Every map besides Shadows of Evil was at some form of military research facility. DE is at a Nazi castle. Zetsubo no shima is at a Japanese research facility. Gorod Krovi, a Russian research facility. Oh, and Revelations which is a mashup of multiple maps and facilities. Tbh I didn’t enjoy this because it just felt like nostalgia-baiting. Like when marvel movies have pointless cameos instead of having a good story.
See where I’m going with this, though? I think there’s a lot of nostalgia around BO3 which is why it gets hyped up so much. But BO3 heavily relied upon zombies chronicles as a crutch whereas BO2 actually had fun and unique maps. More glazing for BO2. Look at buried and how you get to PaP. You have to go through a haunted house and fight ghosts that steal your money. This forces you to camp at pack which adds another challenge to the game and risk/reward of going to PaP. This is much better than having to search around the maps for parts to open PaP.
Now going back let’s also not forget that BO3 introduced camo grinding, a feature that now has people basing their opinions about zombies on how easy maps are to grind camos. I’ve literally seen comments from people saying they should do away with the mystery box cuz the RNG makes it “too hard to grind camos”. Like come on. Zombies is supposed to be about having fun and killing zombies, and doing the easter egg when you really want a challenge. This is what BO2 and the games before did so well.
I will die on this hill that BO2 is the best iteration of zombies ever made. It just takes so much from the prior games and improves upon them without going too far to where it’s unrecognizable. Oh and final thing, having an option for “easy” and “normal” mode was a great addition and allowed for even better casual play while still allowing people to play on normal difficulty.
48 Comments
It actually plays like classic zombies unlike bo3
That’s what I’ve been saying.
Finally someone with some sense that isn’t just dick riding 😂
I didn’t read any of ur post (sorry, I’m lazy) but you’re 100% right. Bo2 is the golden standard for zombies. Bo3 did a lot of things right but it was too… cartoony?
Also, I don’t like how revelations and zombies chronicles are basically the same thing.
Bo2 is so great. It has a realistic and believable feeling to it which I love especially when they pair that with incredible atmosphere and maps. The immersion is there.
The mechanics were also top tier, allowing for a skill progression within your movement. It wasn’t too harsh for noobs because the zombies weren’t too aggressive or fast, and pros can still have fun playing too by learning different skills in training like doing strafes and cutbacks.
I started playing as an 11 year old, and I was really bad, and I still play bo2 today as a hardcore player doing first room challenges (there’s a whole leaderboard on ZWR). It’s been 12 years and I’m still not bored of this game. I’ve also been playing casually again and it’s still just as fun.
Bo2 caters to everybody because of how simple it is. In zombies now, they’re trying to get too complex. You can make a simple thing complicated, but you can’t make a complicated thing simple.
The only thing bo2 lacks is content. If bo2 had as much content as bo3 I think people would prefer bo2 as the “best all around zombies game” graphics aside. (Bo3 still has the best graphics out of any zombies game, but Bo2 is on par if you install reshade to enhance the graphics)
BO2 zombies was an amazing sequel to BO1. The only thing I wish was a bit more fleshed out is the perma-perks. If there was some system of tracking what is and isn’t activated, that would make the game complete.
The reason BO2 didn’t become the standard is because it took them until the second DLC for people to be interested in the game. Tranzit and Die rise completely killed the interest from the community whether you personally liked them or not. People thought they were a massive let down compared to what came before them in BO1 and felt like zombies was dying. Kinda like what happened with BO4 but maybe not as bad. Mob was when interest started coming back but obviously it’s not gonna be the same as when you do what BO3 did and have an entire strong roster from the get go
My only gripe with bo3 zombies is that it’s too easy. It doesn’t have that survival feel that WAW, bo1 & bo2 have. Even if you take away the gobblegum, it’s still too easy, in my opinion. It’s fun though, don’t get me wrong, but I like the challenge that classic zombies has.
Yes
Tranzit,nuketown, die rise as the only maps to play in the first 5 months, can never be my goat.
I like where BO2’s difficulty is at, I like the weapon picks and that the box matters, and I also like the variety of maps it has. There’s something for everyone
I also think BO2’s Blundell additions tend to reach higher heights than BO3’s. I like a lot of his maps, but it’s a hard argument to make that any of them touch mob of the dead and origins
it’ll never be as beloved as BO3 is, because BO3 set itself up to be a cult classic via more or less sending a middle finger to the casual community, but I do enjoy playing it more, and I think a lot of zombies chronicles maps would have been more fun in BO2 than they are in BO3.
>!Also BO2 overall is a way better game than BO3 is. Campaign and multiplayer sweep the hell out of BO3!<
I completely disagree with the bo2 doesn’t have any duds tranzit is one of the worst maps from waw-bo4 nuke town as you said is not a great map and I personally do not like die rise one bit I think the overall maps of bo3 are better than bo2 the only map I didn’t like on Bo3 was revelations which kinda felt lazy to me but was still an ok map I like that bo2 has the map specific huds and that’s cool but it’s up to personal decision.I think the casual gameplay isn’t really what they we’re aiming for with bo3 the maps are more complicated in bo3 than bo2 but not far off. I respect your opinion that you think bo2 is better but I think bo3 is better
prepare to get downvoted by bo3 glazers
The only reasons why I prefer BO3 is the fact that half of the BO2 maps suck imo (it only started getting good with MotD), the 2 hit system is a bit frustrating since Zombies can double hit and Chronicles + Customs is divine
I couldn’t possibly disagree more. I think most of the BO2 maps are mediocre at best, terrible at worst. I’ve never liked BO2 zombies, and everyone who knows me can attest that it’s always been my least favorite by far.
whoever thought it was a good idea to make the perks randomly fall out of the sky on Nuketown can die in a fire for all I care. it doesn’t even make sense, where did they come from? for me it makes the map ridiculously tedious to play. when it can take up to round 25 until you finally have jug or pack and it’s just based on luck. it’s not a fun challenge, it’s just unfair RNG.
I really don’t need to get into Die Rise and Tranzit, their faults have been expounded upon to no end, everyone knows what’s wrong with them.
the survival maps are just boring. there’s literally nothing to do. you get perks (if they’re even there) and then you have a tiny ass, usually pretty ugly space to run around in. you know, because they’re parts of Tranzit.
and I know this is not a popular opinion, but Buried is mediocre at best as well. it has some great ideas executed terribly, as well as some regular terrible ideas. Arthur is cool on paper but *constantly* gets in the way, to the point that I intentionally lock him back in his cell every single time I’m done opening the map. the witches house is cool once, then quickly becomes tedious every time you want a free perk or pap. the high round strat is ridiculously boring, worse than almost any other map. you don’t even shoot a weapon, you just let the traps kill zombies while you slow them down with the paralyzer. and the easter egg is awful. it’s nearly impossible to complete if every player in your party doesn’t know *exactly* what they’re doing. do you hate randoms? wait until you have to do Sharpshooter with them.
the only 2 actually good maps in the game are Mob of the Dead and Origins. and even then, mob’s easter egg is also shit. you just go to the bridge 3 times and do some nonsense steps in between, just to get to the one step that’s actually original and fun.
Why can’t we just enjoy them all without going “Errm actually your cod zombies is bad” I’m sick of these posts.
Leroy carrying the box???? What’s this for? I’ve only ever had him punch it so it wouldn’t move.
BO3 and BO4 make BO2 and all the other CoD modes look amateurish. BO2 is about as good as Extinction, for me, and that’s not an insult toward Extinction.
Big facts, BO3 is too easy compared to the original zombie trilogy
In my opinion, Black Ops 2 first doesn’t have a bad map. It feels like classic zombies and they did so much new stuff that fit very well. What black Ops 3 does better is the double pap, and the gun customization. I personally can’t stand most the maps on Black Ops 3. Zets is unplayable, don’t really enjoy Gorod, and don’t really like SOE. Also don’t like how they removed the dolphin dive, the guns aren’t that great, and all the guns in the box are wall guns which make it less fun.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the game mechanics themselves being better in bo2, but your takes on the maps are outlandish. B02 not having any duds is a lie when tranzit, die rise and nuketown are three of the absolute worst zombies maps oat. And saying nuke town is better than zns is dastardly work
I completely agree, finally a fresh take
You think Nuketown of all maps is better than ZNS?
That’s how I know you’re high. For the maps variety, you’re looking at it too in depth. View the broader picture.
For DE, it’s a castle
For ZNS, it’s a pacific island jungle
For GK, it’s the ruins of Stalingrad. There’s plenty of variety there to be had. These maps don’t look the same at all.
What BO2 has over BO3 is that the maps do have more unique touches and features. Origins isn’t very similar to buried which isn’t similar to mob and so on, where aside from shadows the maps all have the same perks, and play a lot more similarly.
What that game has over BO2 though is that the map quality standard from map to map is excellent. Bo2 had some duds (Nuketown, Tranzit, Die Rise) but BO3 really doesn’t have any. All of the maps in BO3 are at minimum, great maps. Some are absolutely superb.
BO3 camo grinding? Yeah getting every gun with red hex doesn’t get you anything and that really doesn’t take any skill to get it, it’s trivial and it doesn’t mean anything unlike in Cold War.
Really this argument just doesn’t hold that much weight apart from bo2 being the most diverse zombie game.
You can have your preferences for bo2 and that’s fine and good on you, but I don’t think your arguments are particularly good. You can make much better arguments in favor of BO2 I think.
lol there’s people in here saying they like the “classic feel” of BO2 while they run around with magical staves, a golden spoon that one hits until round 34, flinging across roofs on die rise and taking 50k points out of a bank on round 1.
Yeah that good old classic feel of BO2.
bo2 has too many mid/straight up bad maps to be the goat, even if it’s my personal favorite to just boot up and play
BO2 Zombies is that badly drawn horse meme
Admittedly, I did enjoy TranZit, but it’s objectively not a good map
It has 3-4 banger maps, but bo3 has 14 maps, including origins. The worst map arguably would be Zetsabou, while bo2’s worst map is arguably the worst map in the series. (Excluding forsaken ofc)
Agree with ya, only thing is I really think bo1, cold war, bo1 then bo3. Hell I may even like bo4 more than 3. 3 feels overloved, has 4 terrible maps and the only redeeming factor is chronicles. I know damn well bo3 zombies would be forgotten about if it weren’t for chronicles
How the fuck are you gonna say that BO3 has more of a nostalgia factor than 2?
Saying the maps in 3 weren’t unique because they all had research facilities is disingenuous as fuck, every single one felt miles apart. The difference between 3 and Marvel movies with shitty cameos is that every map in 3 is almost certainly top 10 minus Revelations.
Still don’t understand why people are acting like you can’t just “have fun and kill zombies” in these maps either.
With some small tweaks and customs it could be better but nah
A lot of this I have to believe is personal preference, because as much as I love bo2, saying stuff like it didn’t have any duds is just dishonest. Tranzit (while fun with friends) is a poorly designed map. The devs have even talked about how they wanted it to be better but couldnt do so because of console limitations. The fact that parts of the map (like packapunch) are almost impossible to access solo is just plain bad.
Also, maps in bo3 are not “research facilities” in the way people usually mean it these days. Eisendrache is a castle, Gorod is an entire city, Revelations is a mix of different maps. Admittedly Zetsubou is a research facility, and so is the Giant (a remade map) but 2 out of 6 is a pretty good number. And the maps stand on their own, they dont “use zombie chronicles” as a crutch. Zombies chronicles is just extra cool stuff, brought to bo3s system since people really like it.
As for worst map, die rise, tranzit, and nuketown are all considered by the larger community as quite bad maps. Even buried gets flak now and again for its over reliance on finding parts and how easy it was to get to high rounds on. Zetsubou meanwhile is often considered a low tier good map (despite its bad reception on launch), due to its fun wonder weapon, actual cool map design, easy to complete easter egg, etc.
Additionally, the colour grading for bo2 was really quite bad. Other than mob, all of the maps were either dusty orange, or grey. Everything felt washed out. Compared to bo3 where we get lovely harsh browns and reds for shadows, classic dark and blue tones for the Giant and der Eisendrache, bright greens and oranges for Zetsubou, silver, grey, orange and red for Gorod (admittedly a map I dont like that much), and then the multiple locations/atmospheres of revelations.
For crew, the bo2 crew is admittedly very fun, but I still wouldnt put them over the original or bo3-bo4 crew. The bo2 crew is basically stereotypes and carboard cutouts, and only receive development really through the comics. Doesn’t mean theyre a bad crew (theyre still insanely fun) but its hard to compare them against the crew we’ve had for much longer and who many adore for even just nostalgia alone. The og crew started out in much the same way, but have developed a lot more in essence.
Tl;dr – I dont know how much of your post is opinion, how much of it is nostalgia, and how much of it simply not being there for launches/inexperience, but bo2 was a mess. Blundell took over and made the next two or so games in part because it was so poorly received. Thats not to say its a bad game (I just rebought it on pc recently and have been enjoying it), but it certainly doesnt have that same quality that bo3 has. Bo3 has its own issues and problems of course but thats another whole convo lol.
Also, all the games up until the new games (cold war, vanguard, etc) still feel like classic zombies to me. Mechanically, almost all up until then are very similar. Obvi bo3 added/changed some mechanics, but not to the point that the newer games have with armor systems, perk upgrades, etc
Edit: Also, its not really camo grinding in bo3, since theres only 4 camos per weapon, no major unlock camo (like gold, diamond, dark matter, etc), and you can get them incredibly fast, some only needing 100 kills with the weapon when normally games youll be getting 1000 kills or more. Badically, you just get the ones for the guns you use, and then youre done. It takes like 1-2 games max, so not really grinding, moreso just unlocking stuff as you play. Not very difficult unlike new games.
Call me crazy, but zetsubou is great. Revelations is the problem child(not an un-fun map, just not a great one)
If you think anyone care about ur opinion enough to read all that, u are smoking fucking meth. Either way play wtf you wanna play. We don’t care, we still think bo3 is the better game, ur opinion is completely irrelevant to anyone else and the fact that you post this just screams that ur begging for attention. Like the games are 10+ years old man we’ve had this discussion time and time again
Personally I gotta disagree, Victis is my least favorite crew, would much rather chaos or shadows crew over them. Tranzit, Die Rise, and Nuketown I consistently state in my opinion are some of the worst zombies maps I’ve played. Buried I think is brain dead easy and ruins it for me but I understand why it’s liked. Mob and Origins peak tho
Youtubers. Simple as that. It was their pretend friend’s favorite game they also enjoyed.
Bro started yapping about Bo2 zombies for so long that I didn’t bother reading it.
BO1 > BO2 > BO3 imo
Nuketown > zns?
For me, picking the ultimate experience is hard between bo2 and bo1, I think after both it did lose the classic feeling (but I do love bo3 still)
I loved Bo2, the goat imo… However the modding and custom maps is something I’ve come to greatly appreciate with Bo3, especially after the release of vanguard! It’s a shame modding wasn’t a thing with all CoDs 🙁
Black ops 2 has pretty sub par maps outside of mob, buried and origins. Not only that, Black ops 3 has by far the best gameplay, presentation, content and just overall support.
Bro zets is leagues above every map on bo2 besides motd and origins. That statement alone discredits a lot of what you said already
Agreed 100% also imo Bo2 is the best looking Zombies game
The worst map in Black Ops III by Black Ops II standards would be the best after Origins.
For me I just don’t like the maps much.
Buried mob and origins was all I liked from it. That was it.
Town was a nice cool chill zombies map and Nuketown is a cool twist. But that’s it.
#Bro just didn’t play bo1
said it forever bo2 is better than bo3. even the worst map (tranzit) had so much charm. die rise is hated but I think it’s the most underrated map in zombies history for sure. then you get possible the 3 best consecutive maps in history. bo3 went too hardcore with shadows, the gobble gum system sucked and made high rounding leaderboard only possible with money, plus it was too easy with the addition of special weapons. DE might be the goatest map in history, that’s the only thing that carries that game. The other maps were good, but not bo2dlc level. Die rise is 100x better than zns
Bo3 has a worse art direction and sound design. I never liked it personally. Also the story just became fan fiction alien garbage