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Moon’s Area 51 spawn location has got to be one of the most interesting spawns ever. Instead of directly starting in the main spawn room, you begin in a chaotic hell hole that will destroy you if you’re not careful. This place is so neat, because it allows everyone to get some early points before things pick up, but skilled players can stay longer and train to get jugg or even pack a punch before round 1 even starts. It’s great because its optional, you don’t have to stick around, but doing so is rewarding. Moon starts really strong with a surge in adrenaline that gets your blood pumping.
So from here you teleport up to Griffin station, and obviously the first thing you’re going to realize is…. “Im in space”.... Now this again, is one of the more unique game features we’ve seen in zombies. The first thing that comes from this is the obvious lack of oxygen which will result in your death if you don’t put your PES system on immediately. And the PES system itself has a huge effect on how this map will be experienced. It probably cuts your audio down by 80% so zombies and gunshots become extremely quiet. If you haven’t noticed, Moon is a pretty desolate map to begin with, but once you put that suit on, everything just becomes bleak. You feel alone, and for the first time since nacht, truly isolated. Not having sounds can be annoying though and It’s certainly understandable as to why many dislike this feature. So right out the gates, in an attempt to stand out Moon is polarizing.
But the other big change we see is a reduction in gravity. This is another bold change to the core gameplay, which put off a lot of players. It forces you to be extra careful when moving in a game that already demands it. This also makes zombies move slower, and less predictably. They sort of bob around, and it can be harder to tell if you killed them as they usually just float away. Anti gravity isn’t feature I love, but it certainly adds to the immersion. Plus there are tons of places, where it isn’t in effect like the tunnels and bio dome, so you’re not forced to experience it all game.
One other thing that immediately stands out on Moon is that it looks horrible. Now yeah, I get it. It’s the moon, it’s supposed to look barren, and that’s not what I mean. No, for some reason, the entirety of the map’s saturation feels like it has been intentionally reduced. It’s not just the moon itself that’s grey, it’s everything. The spawn, the labs, all the structures. The only place that looks decent is the purple area in tunnel 6. Overall It’s a grey cold and boring map. And while this first sets a strong tone, over time the novelty wears off. Combining this with minimal sound makes for an experience that at times is just utterly lacking in stimulation. And really, Unless you’re training in the bio dome, the gameplay just feels flat. In the BO3 remake, they do an incredible job of fixing this issue, but that topic is for another day.
Anyway, apart from the core changes, Moon isn’t all that different and actually plays pretty similar to everything in it’s past. It’s got the working parts of a Black Ops 1 DLC map: box wonder weapon, some sort of special enemy, simple pack a punch, more than 4 perk machines, all spread out over a pretty large area. Take out the space element, and it's not a whole lot different from Call of the Dead. Moon is the most expansive Black Ops 1 map, but it’s still a black ops 1 map, and I think fans tend to over inflate its overall content.
So in terms of your standard additions, Moon actually came with a new perk: Mule Kick, yeah that guy, we’ve seen him once or twice. Mule Kick was a much needed addition and through adding a third weapon slot the developers opened up the game a lot, to allow for many different combinations of weapons. This made the crossbow and ballistic knife way more viable and It also helped with the Black Ops 1 ammo problem. And I mean, mule kick has gone on to be in every treyarch zombies map apart from tranzit, so it was a pretty huge addition.
Another new feature on moon was the astronaut. Oh boy. So special enemies are implemented in maps to help spice things up from the monotonous repetitive nature of zombies gameplay. Historically the best ones add chaos while also rewarding you with something equal to their challenge. Hell hounds are a simple boss, with a simple reward. Margwas are a tough boss that give you one third of the most powerful wonder weapon ever. Okay. But see the astronaut doesn’t do either of these things. When you hear the astronaut spawn in, do you feel any semblance of the way you do when you hear a panzer siren?