Call of the Dead

"A shipwrecked crew of fearless explorers is hopelessly stranded in an abandoned Siberian outpost. Their dream of discovering the true origins of the Element 115 unravels into a hellish nightmare."

- Call of the Dead level description.

Call of the Dead is a Zombie map included in the Escalation map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Treyarch called it "a unique Zombies experience" and is "a very special creation for all Zombie fans." The level is the first to feature actual celebrities fighting the zombies and features a celebrity as one of the zombies. The map takes place on a ship and the land next to it.

Overview
"It's anchors away for mayhem! In this epic tale of survival inspired by legendary writer and director George A. Romero, a group of four fearless explorers fight for their lives amidst an army of bloodthirsty Russian zombies. The story begins with our heroes stranded in the frozen wastelands of a forgotten Siberian outpost. On the hunt for the origins of the enigmatic Element 115, they head for the site of an ancient meteorite impact crater but their ship mysteriously runs aground. In the midst of a horrific snowstorm, our intrepid adventurers inadvertently unleash an unearthly horde of ravenous Zombies. From the island's deserted lighthouse to a shipwrecked ocean liner and a precarious zip-line in between, it's kill or be killed. And with shiploads of zombie Russian soldiers, scuba divers and sailors that rise out of the frozen ground and icy waters it's not going to be easy, especially considering the deadly surprise that one particular (and somewhat notable) Zombie has in mind."

- Call of the Dead Plot Summary

Call of the Dead is the largest zombie map yet, with multiple areas. Players spawn on the shore with up to three other teammates, as soon as the players spawn George Romero spawns out of a lightning bolt in a nearby pool. There are two chalk weapon outlines there, as with the last three Black Ops zombie maps, the Olympia and the M14. Players can open either one of two different boats. One leads to the lighthouse, and the other leads to the ship. The Power switch is located at the top of the ship, which has the Flinger on its side.

A new perk, Deadshot Daiquiri, is located at the very top of the lighthouse, with a price of 1500 points. It causes the aim-assist when entering ADS to auto-focus on the head as opposed to center-of-mass, as well as having the effects of Steady Aim and its pro version. Also, when using a sniper rifle, there is no sway. The Matryoshka Doll returns. The new Wonder Weapon, the V-R11 makes its debut in this map, with the ability to transform Zombies back into humans, them running away in fear and getting killed afterward by other zombies. Another new weapon is a Scavenger that shoots explosive bolts, shares its bolt-action trait and its reload with the Intervention. There are five radios which feature Richtofen discussing various experiments. There are also 4 radios that if used in the correct order, once the controls next to the power switch are set correctly as well, will cause a submarine to rise out of the water between speed cola and the boat across from it.

When George A. Romero appears at the first round he appears in a "Calm State", him slowly walking towards the player while shouting threats. He also appears to have extremely high amount of health (as he can withstand a very high amount of Ray Gun or Scavenger shots), damage triggering his "Berserk Mode", causing him to run at the nearest person and wildly attacking and spontaneously roaring and growling. Note the fact that the player can only get points for shooting him in his "Calm State", and only outside of the water. Contrary to popular belief, the V-R11 does not turn George A. Romero back into a human, only managing to turn him back into his "Calm State". Luring him into the icy waters also "calms" him down. Killing George A. Romero in his calm state with something other than the V-R11 will give the player a Random Perk Bottle and a Death Machine. However, if the Stand-in/Ensemble Cast achievements have been completed, he will instead drop the Lightning Bolt perk rather than a Death Machine. The most effective weapons to kill him are the Death Machine, upgraded M1911, upgraded Ray Gun and the Scavenger. An interesting note is that his spotlight indicates how much health he has left: blue means approximately full health, flickering orange approximately half and orange telling he is about to die.

The map also features the Original Characters Trapped in a small dark room, after an overdose of Element 115 apparently influenced the Kassimir Mechanism and caused the four of them to teleport to the future. Freeing them serves as the map's major Easter egg and gives the Lightning Bolt Power-up, granting the player a Wunderwaffe DG-2. However, it is a Power-up, meaning it cannot be Pack-a-Punched, and disappears when the player runs out of ammo. Additionally, the player cannot switch his weapons, buy another one or revive teammates while equipping it. Max Ammo's replenish the Wunderwaffe DG-2's ammo.

Opening Scene Transcript
The screen is black and George A. Romero can be heard speaking.

Romero: "I've always liked the "monster within" idea. I like the zombies being us. It's like zombies are the blue-collar monsters."

''The lighthouse appears on the screen with a flash of lightning behind it. Zombies start to attack Danny Trejo and Robert Englund and both of them try to fight them off.''

Trejo: "We're completely surrounded!"

Englund: "We're completely fucked!"

Englund is stabbing a zombie with his pitchfork and Michael Rooker is then seen killing zombies with two Sawed-Off Shotguns.

Rooker: "Are you girls kidding me? I've been praying for this shit! Come on!"

A door to the lighthouse opens behind Rooker, and Sarah Michelle Gellar kicks a zombie corpse down the stairs that lead to the door.

Gellar: "Boys... let's get to work."

''Action music starts playing and all four characters continue killing zombies. A zombie comes to attack Rooker from behind. Rooker turns around and attempts to hit the zombie on the shoulder. The zombie stops attacking, looks at the camera, and starts talking.''

Fake Zombie: "For god sakes, he missed me again!"

Romero: "Cut! Are you blind, man?"

Romero takes one of Rooker's shotguns and goes to Englund to demonstrate how Rooker was supposed to knock out the zombie for the movie.

Romero: "Like this."

Romero hits Englund in the face with the butt of the shotgun.

Englund: "OOOWWWW!"

Romero: "See?"

Trejo: "No jefe (boss), I do it like this."

Trejo bunts the bottom of his machete on top of Englund's head.

Englund: "Danny!"

Gellar: "I do it like this."

''Gellar roundhouse kicks Englund in the chest, knocking him on his back. A zombie then comes out of a window prop.''

Romero: "Get back to hair and make-up. You don't look dead enough!"

A fake zombie attempts to take the real zombie by the shoulder to escort it to hair and make-up.

Fake Zombie: "Come on, let's go."

The real zombie throws the fake one to the ground, picks up Romero and runs away with him.

Rooker: "That ain't in the script."

Trejo: ''"We're writing a new one! It's called "Maggot! Sack! Massacre!""''

Englund: "This is a real nightmare!"

Englund stabs an approaching zombie with his pitchfork

Sarah stabs a zombie in the back with a sickle

Gellar: "Let's slay some stiffs!"

All four characters then engage in combat with real zombies.

Ending Scene Transcript
Romero: Years ago I did research for a World War II movie. I came across some old Nazi documents. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Element 115, necromancers, raising from the dead, real creepy stuff. The coolest thing? Some of that crazy shit happened right here.

Starting Weapons

 * M1911
 * M67 Grenade
 * Knife

Off-Wall Weapons

 * AK74u - Near the lighthouse entrance on the bottom floor, across from the door that leads to the slide.
 * Claymore - In the room near Double Tap, on the wall.
 * M14 - On the bridge near the spawn area.
 * M16 - On the wall right where the Flinger is.
 * MP5K - On a wooden board on the way to the lighthouse from the spawn, right before the first staircase.
 * MP40 - Near stairs down to Juggernog on side of a cargo container, just after the player jumps off the boat with the power switch.
 * MPL - On the first level on the boat, right next to the first barrier leading to the power room.
 * Olympia - On the bridge in the spawn area.
 * PM63 - On the wall leading toward the bottom entrance to Juggernog.
 * Stakeout - Behind the lighthouse near Stamin-Up.
 * Sickle - On the wall down the ice slide, across from Speed Cola
 * Semtex - Near the bow of the ship on a cargo crate.

Mystery Box Weapons

 * AUG w/ Swarovski Scope
 * Ballistic Knife
 * China Lake
 * Commando
 * Crossbow
 * CZ75 (with or without Dual Wield)
 * Dragunov
 * FN FAL
 * Famas
 * G11 w/ Low Power Scope
 * Galil
 * HK21
 * HS-10
 * L96A1
 * M72 LAW
 * Matryoshka Doll
 * Python
 * Ray Gun
 * RPK
 * Scavenger
 * SPAS-12
 * Spectre
 * V-R11

Power-Up Weapons

 * Death Machine
 * Wunderwaffe DG-2 (Complete Original Characters Trapped Easter Egg)

Features

 * This is the first Zombies map to only have one window in the spawn room.
 * It has two Ziplines: One goes from the ship to the coast and the other goes from the lighthouse to the ship.
 * George A. Romero guest stars as a boss but instead of having his own round, he will appear at Round 1 and will follow the player until he is dealt with.
 * Call of the Dead features the first female playable character in Nazi Zombies and the second playable female character in the Call of Duty series.
 * All of the original Perk-a-Cola machines and a new one called Deadshot Daiquiri are available on this map.
 * The Flinger flings players off the ship and onto the bottom of the lighthouse
 * A new Wonder Weapon called the V-R11 reverts a zombie back to it's human state.
 * Water on the map will cause frost to accumulate on the player's screen, blinding and eventually freezing the player. It also over time will act on Zombies much in the same way as the Winter's Howl freezing them in blocks of ice allowing them to be easily shattered. When encased in ice a hit from a player or zombie will free them from the ice.
 * The Lighthouse's beam will showcase where the Pack-A-Punch Machine is on the map once the power is turned on. This is because it moves around the map.
 * The weather occasionally changes from snowing hard with a fog, to a light flurry with easy visibility. Whenever the weather changes, the player will make a comment on it.
 * A large lightning cluster will happen when the Pack-A-Punch Machine is leaving or entering a location.
 * This is the first map where the Wunderwaffe DG-2 is available as the Lightning Bolt.
 * There is an Ice Slide that leads to the Sickle and Speed Cola.

Strategies
Main article: Call of the Dead/Strategies

New Perk
Deadshot Daiquiri is a perk featured in Call of the Dead exclusively, so far. The perk's icon consists of a dark gray background color with the foreground being a head in front of a set of cross-hairs. The perk works in three different ways: it makes the cross-hairs smaller identically as Steady Aim, making sniper rifles and the G11 have no idle sway and it works as improved aim assist; when the player would aim down the sights while looking near the zombie, it would lock to the head of the zombie, instead of chest. In PC, it only increases hip-fire accuracy similar to Steady Aim.

Trivia

 * This is the first map where the Pack-a-Punch Machine changes locations and the second in which the Pack-a-Punch Machine can become unavailable.
 * This is the second map not to have purchasable fragmentation grenades, instead Semtex takes its place as the first was Dead Ops Arcade which did not feature fragmentation grenades at all.
 * There is a picture of a crashed ship by a lighthouse on Der Riese.
 * This is the second map to feature real playable characters, the first being "Five".
 * It is impossible to do the easter egg without the power turned on, causing many people to feel that they are doing something wrong.
 * This is the first map since Verrückt to not have a special round where a different type of a zombie appears.
 * Call of the Dead, just like Kino der Toten and "Five", has no specific initial Mystery Box spawn point, so it spawns randomly every game.
 * Spanish can be seen written on a ripped poster next to the door the original characters are stuck behind.
 * If the player is downed in water, the gun will be much higher on the screen. When aiming down the sights with this, it shows the a lower part of the gun instead of the iron sights.
 * It's the third Zombies map to not include any purchasable traps at all, the first being Nacht der Untoten and the second being Dead Ops Arcade.
 * The loading screen shows a film advertisment for the movie "Call of the Dead". The upper left corner is noticable as the cartoon from the previous map "Ascension". The upper right shows a fern leaf. This shows that the zombies maps are part of a story book. Meaning there will be at least one more Nazi Zombies map.

Videos
thumb|360px|left|Call of the Dead Intro and Outro