Ascension

"The risen dead have overtaken a Soviet cosmodrome and all Hell has broken loose. The countdown to the zombie apocalypse has begun."

- Ascension level description Ascension is the eighth Zombie map that appears in the Call of Duty series, which was released on February 1, 2011 for Call of Duty Black Ops on the Xbox 360 and will be released a month later on the PS3 and PC. It takes place in an abandoned Soviet cosmodrome. The map includes Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, Takeo Masaki, and Edward Richtofen and includes new weapons like the Gersch Device and Matryoshka Dolls, as well as new perks such as PhD Flopper and Stamin-Up. A new enemy, called space monkeys, also appears in this map, replacing the Hellhounds and the Pentagon Thief.

Off-Wall Weapons:

 * M14 - Centrifuge Floor 1
 * Olympia - Centrifuge Floor 2
 * MPL
 * PM63
 * MP5K
 * AK-74u
 * Stakeout
 * M16
 * Claymore
 * Sickle (Replaces regular knife & Bowie Knife) - Lunar Lander B

Mystery Box Weapons
Power-Up Weapons:
 * Dragunov
 * CZ75 (single or dual wield)
 * Commando
 * SPAS-12
 * AUG
 * FAMAS
 * Galil
 * L96A1
 * China Lake
 * Ballistic Knife
 * Crossbow
 * G11
 * FN FAL
 * HK21
 * HS10
 * RPK
 * Ray Gun
 * Thundergun
 * Matryoshka Doll
 * Gersch Device
 * Spectre
 * Death Machine

Doors

 * Centrifuge Floor 1 - Door (750)


 * Centrifuge Floor 2 - Door (750)


 * Stairwell Floor 3 / Base Level - Door (1250)


 * Lunar Lander B [ Б ] Access Door (1250)


 * Lunar Lander D [ Д ] Access Gate (1250)


 * Lunar Lander F [ Ф ] Access Gate (1000)


 * Lunar Lander F [ Ф ] Access Door (1250)


 * Pack-A-Punch Access Gate (1250)


 * Power Room Door (1000)


 * Power Room Gate (1250) To gain entry to the Pack-a-Punch Machine, all lunar landers' landing pads must be used. Once a player has ridden all three back to the Centrifuge Room, the player can activate the rocket by pressing the button to the right of the power switch. After the rocket has taken off, the large door concealing the launch area will open and the Pack-a-Punch Machine will be to the right. It costs 5000 points as usual. Unlike Kino der Toten and Five, players can stay in the Pack-a-Punch room for as long as they like. There are two barricades in the Pack-a-Punch room to make camping there harder.

Perks
Ascension features two new perks, both costing 2000 points. Double Tap Root Beer, however, does not make an appearance. Each player can only have four perks at a time, with the exception of already having four and obtaining the bottle power up to obtain five perks at once.


 * PhD Flopper; located outside near the Lunar Lander launch pad that has the Fragmentation Grenades. This perk makes the player drop a small 'nuke' when diving to prone (so long as the dive would normally cause the player damage). The 'nuke' kills all nearby zombies. In addition, the player cannot damage himself from holding a grenade. It also reduces splash damage that may be received from the Ray Gun.


 * Stamin-Up; located near the AK-74u, towards another Lunar Lander launch pad. This perk gives the player increased movement speed, similar to Marathon or Lightweight. Since Ascension is a rather large map, it is more useful than one might think, especially during Space Monkey rounds where a player may have to get to a Perk-a-Cola machine that is being attacked.

Radios
See main page: Ascension Radios

Space Monkeys
Space monkeys are in fact the hellhound and Pentagon Thief round replacement. Similar to how the Pentagon Thief has the ability to steal a player's weapon, space monkeys have the ability to remove player's perks. This is done not by directly stealing a perk, as is the case with weapon stealing with the doctor, rather, the space monkeys navigate their way to one of the Perk-a-Cola machines that any player may have. They seem to attack the first perk from each player, so if a player has Quick Revive first they will mostly go after that perk machine. Players can tell which perk machine is being attacked by paying attention to their perk symbols, at the bottom left of the screen; while a perk machine is under attack its respective symbol will begin pulsating. It is recommended that the team split up to individual perk machines and defend the machines depending on their first perk. When playing solo, it is best to defend the perk most valued at the time. After the monkeys temporarily disable the machine all players with the perk will be subject to lose the disabled perk. Defending the perk machine under attack by killing the monkeys is the only way to prevent the perk loss. Also, after the death of the last monkey, just like with the Pentagon Thief and hellhound rounds, a max ammo drops; however, a new power up drops as well, which assigns a random perk to each player in the party. The new powerup only appears if you finish the monkey round without ANY damage to the perk machines you made purchases from. They will attack players from a few feet away by jumping on the ground, which is like being near a Gas Zombie's explosion, also they hit the player normally when close. Be careful while throwing grenades at monkeys as they can and will throw them back at you.

Node Puzzle
The man speaking at the beginning is actually giving the players a mission to complete the node puzzle to repair the Kassimir Mechanism. Once the mechanism is repaired, the players will each get death machines that last for ninety seconds.

Easter Eggs

 * Three teddy bears holding sickles are located around the map, a song called "Abracadavre " by Elena Siegman (Remember to hold Use/Reload while your cross-hairs are on them to "find" them).
 * 1) The first teddy bear is in the Centrifuge Room. When you go up the stairs, right and on the end of that walkway is the first bear.
 * 2) The second teddy bear is behind a gate on the left, nearby the lunar lander with the claymore in the area.
 * 3) The last teddy bear is nearby the "Speed Cola lunar lander", past the Speed Cola, when you have the wall in front of you. Turn right and on top of the wall there is the last teddy bear.
 * There are Matryoshka Dolls of the characters scattered around the level. They will say something to the player when the action button is pressed, depending on who the player is.
 * 1) Tank's Doll is in the lander room beside the Stamin-Up Machine. Where you walk through the door he is on the flaming barrels on the left.
 * 2) Nikolai's Doll is on the top of the shelf directly to the left of the Speed Cola Machine.
 * 3) Takeo's Doll is on the shelf directly to the left of the PhD Flopper Machine.
 * 4) Richtofen's Doll is on the floor below the power switch. It is on the table to the left of the door leading outside.
 * A small easter egg is in the room below the area where the Mystery Box and Power Switch are located. If the player goes towards the damaged windows, turns left and looks at the table, there will be papers, a black binder, two other binders in the back, and a Matryoshka Doll. If the player aims their cross-hairs at the black binder in front of them, there will be an alien like voice and their character will respond to it in a way, sometimes with the information about their past. This is infact just Matryoshka Doll version of Richtofen
 * There are red telephones similar to the ones in "Five". It is unknown what makes them ring.
 * 1) Next to the power switch
 * 2) Left of the launch pad in the centrifuge room
 * 3) To the right of the PhD Flopper machine
 * A pair of car batteries found underneath a stairwell in the centrifuge/spawn room have "ЅРДЯКУ" written across the front.
 * When the rocket is launched, it is possible to destroy it by using a gun with high damage, such as the Ray Gun.
 * The Death Machine appears more frequently on this map than the others

Trivia

 * The player must buy a perk before the Space Monkey special round initiates.
 * The sickle found on Ascension is the replacement for the Bowie Knife. It costs 3000 points and is more powerful than the Bowie Knife.
 * The Space Monkeys seem to come out of Lunar Landers that fall from the sky in certain locations; however, these landers do not kill a player nor do they cause damage.
 * There is a rocket on the map that will launch when all 3 launch pads have been used.
 * Sometimes the windows are repaired with metal pipes rather than boards.
 * Game files suggest that Ascension was originally planned to be released on disc, but was later removed.
 * The spawn room contains a centrifuge which self-activates every couple of minutes. This centrifuge can kill both zombies and the player(s).
 * This zombie map is the largest yet, at over double the area of Der Riese.
 * There are no Crawler zombies on Ascension.
 * The zombies in Ascension are Soviets rather than Nazis. These include space-suited zombies and gas-masked zombies.
 * If looking at the moon from the electricity room, one can see Element 115.
 * The four main characters' appearances have changed. Each now has more scratches and are covered in dirt, and Richtofen wears a spacesuit.
 * There are televisions next to each Mystery Box location to tell the player where the box is, just like in "Five". Sometimes they will flash the Illuminati symbol.
 * The game starts off with a black and white filter which will remain active until the power is turned on; only then will there be full color.
 * Zombies sometimes stumble to the right as they walk toward you.
 * If a space monkey destroys the perk machine, you will still be able to buy the perk after the end of the special round.
 * Takeo is often heard saying "The undead rack disciprine" (The undead lack discipline). This is a joust of a Japanese stereotype of not being able to pronounce the letter "L" because of Engrish terms
 * The Mystery Box's beginning location will always be in the power room.
 * Double Tap Root Beer is absent from this map.
 * The Space Program Announcer is said to sound like Dimitri Petrenko.but this is a speculation.
 * In later rounds, due to the fact some zombies are former Spetsnaz soldiers, the zombies will sometimes perform the "Off-the-X" maneuver; hinting that although zombified, they have memories from their previous lives.
 * Just like in Shi No Numa and Verrückt: some Zombies will spawn from the ground instead of outside the map.
 * With Soviet zombies being combated on Ascension, all factions from World at War and Black Ops have been fought in zombie form.(Except for the Cubans and Vietnamese from Black Ops.)
 * The main picture of Ascension resembles the online multiplayer map, Launch. This is also the first Zombies to be located in the USSR.
 * In the loading screen in Ascension, the shadow of the three rockets show element 115.

Videos
thumb|left|300px|Ascension, easter eggs thumb|right|300px|how to defeat the space monkeys without getting perks stolen

thumb|300px|left|Musical easter egg song 'Abracadavre'