Nazi Zombies Review

I've put in quite a bit of time in the Nazi Zombie mode in Call of Duty: World at War over the last week or so and have decided to write up a full, proper review. So without further ado, here it is.

Loved

• Co-op. I have a complete love affair with anything and everything co-op. Not only should all games have it, but in today's age of behind-router internet connections, they need something that allows to people to directly connect to each other without jumping through hoops. I know I already mentioned this, but the co-op in this game is fun. I also think they did the friends list/invite to game feature quite well. It just "works" and doesn't require any port forwarding or Hamachi hijinks.
  
• Mystery Box. I'm definitely a gambler at heart and really like any opportunity I have to gamble for weapons. 1200 points for the Thompson or 950 for the mystery box? It was quite honestly never even a question. Five bolt action rifles later always seems to find me buying the Thompson anyway. It's probably because I got the ray gun the first time I ever opened the box.
• Fun. This mode is just a blast anyway you look at it. I definitely have a soft spot for zombies, and this mode doesn't disappoint. The maps have basically gotten progressively better as they've come out (can't wait for the 4th one to hit the PC) while the first is still quite a bit of fun. It's just a blast to spend time trying to figure out the perfect combination of doors to open and the best choke points.

Hated

• Worthless Melee. Your knife is useful for anywhere between 1 and 2 rounds. After that, it is more of a liability than an asset. In my mind, if a zombie is in my face and I stab him in the head, it should do SOMETHING. Half a dozen rounds in and the thing it does is make you ridiculously vulnerable. If you are going to give me a knife, make it worth my time.
• Worthless Traps. Perhaps I haven't seen the vision behind these, but I've yet to find any situations where they are really useful. I can see that they added them in the later maps for more diversity, but in my experience, if you are to the point where you are activating traps, it's probably because you bit off more than you can chew and are going to die anyway.
• Inability to Manually Start Rounds. At the end of each wave, you have perhaps 30 seconds before the next wave comes. In later rounds, especially when the maps are really opened up, those 30 seconds just aren't enough to allow you to prepare for the next round. As a result, many people try to grenade one of the last zombies in the round, blow its legs off and then take care of business while it pathetically scoots around. I don't think you should have to rely on a workaround when they very easily could have just provided a feature to manually start the next round. Perhaps that would have made things too easy, but I really think there could have been a better solution.
• Weapons. This whole game suffers from a lack of excellent weapons. Just like in single and multiplayer, automatic weapons dominate and rifles are basically worthless in everything but the earliest levels. Unless you can pull some serious machine guns out of the mystery box (hopefully something with the word "deployable" in the title) things are just a lot harder. Don't even get me started on how pathetic the flame thrower is. Just hope you pull the ray gun out of the mystery box. There is NOTHING bad about that thing.
  

Didn't Mind

• Maps. The maps are just okay. There aren't any of them that I'm amazingly impressed with. I've heard good things about the newest one, so hopefully it's a solid step up from Shi No Numa.
• Colas. The second and third maps provide colas that you can purchase that will provide you with a perk. Unfortunately, the way the difficulty ramps up, it basically requires you buy them. Also, you lose them if you die, and the revive perk is relatively worthless. Although I must admit that I never drank a Speed Cola and wasn't immediately happy afterward. I'm just going to throw the whole lot of them into a category I call "a mixed bag."
• Dialog. Every 3rd or 4th thing that the survivors say is clever and/or funny (I like the comment the Russian makes about capitalism when picking up the 2x point boost), while all the rest of them sound like something that was thought up by 4 guys sitting around at 2am with 3 beers in each of them. The American after hitting a bomb: "Ka-fucking boom!" Really?
  

Without a doubt, the Nazi Zombie mode is a very solid addition to World at War. Is it worth buying the game for? No. Is it a good piece of a fun and a solid add-on? Without a doubt.