But wait... You never explained "bid" fight!... And none of the keys around the "d" key make it a word that makes sense, either O.o

BUT, I CAN tell you meant new "bow".  Quit being a hippie and use normal keypress soft/hard keyboards!

Due to Twitter votes, I was left to decide whether to make a mini-vid on "How to Make Call of Duty Better", or roll it in as an intro. It made it in as an intro. Oh, and the Awakening DLC review and stuff.

https://youtu.be/tDpjeZhPdaY

Sorry, but as an avid zombies player, saying that this dlc does not add much bang for your buck grossly undervalues the new zombies map. Go onto any zombies community and the consensus is clear, Der Eisendrache is one of the best zombie maps Treyarch has released. Your video acknowledges that the map is good, but that the overall content value of the awakening DLC is not worth $15, to which I disagree. Let's say the zombies portion is 1/4 of the black ops 3 experience. Der Eisendrache basically doubles this experience and adds in 4 multiplayer maps for similar value ((1/4) * $60 = $15).

I see the way you're looking at it purely as quantitative perspective, but that's not the only factor for value.

The basis for DLC is the use of existing formats: in other words, if Shadows of Evil is worth $15 of the original game, a follow up DLC zombies map that uses the same basis with different models/narratives will not be worth $15 if sold as such.  It lacks the development cost/time in creating the original, as most DLC does.  When generating DLC, it's usually a "what works? let's take that and make more of it" approach.

Having said that, as mentioned, the zombies mode is almost the sole thing of value in this DLC, since I felt the new maps introduced the very factor that made AW such a pain to play: people coming from everywhere at any time.  The loss of strategic focus on the battlefield dramatically reduces what makes BO3's vanilla maps (most of them: a handful of them are also the same clusterf**k) often better.  While you might have happily paid $15 just for the new zombies map, I'd have felt that would have been a bit of a ripoff.

Lots of stuff doesn't necessarily equate to value, especially when some of that stuff is worse than the original.  So I paid $15 for essentially a good zombies map which led me to my consensus.

It was supposed to be " boss" fight. With Swype, you drag your fingers across the screen from letter to letter and it magically knows what you meant to type..... sometimes.

I see your point about "what works? let's take that and make more of it" but at the same time, there is only so much you can change about a game without displeasing the fanbase. In other words, you seem to suggest that they should make massive changes to justify your desire for more "bang for your buck," but in this case, taking the best of your previous maps is better than making revolutionary changes that turn out to be awful. Also, yes they did spend less development time to make der eisendrache over shadows, but as a consumer I don't care about their development process, I care about their final product. From a consumer standpoint, der eisendrache has just as much if not more value than shadows.

Likewise, I also understand that zombies does not define the call of duty experience (without a doubt multiplayer does). Your analysis of the multiplayer maps was well done. I'm also not disagreeing with the score.

I just thought the review ignored some of the great components of the new zombies map and greatly simplified it down: "it's a good add on." Doing this made most of the review/value judgements centered around just the mutiplayer maps while greatly ignoring the zombies portion (In my opinion).

I used the swipe keyboard a few times to try it, the magic is horrible, lol... Mostly because I actually type pretty fast on my phone with two thumbs, making me sometimes FASTER with two thumbs than one just swiping around!

It's true that as a consumer, you only care about results, "this is great, I love it! f**k all about the business sense!".  However, as a reviewer, I have to maintain a sense of balance between the consumer and business side.  Part of what makes my reviews so difficult (and consequently unshare-able) is my lack of sensationalism.  I use zero sensationalism to do reviews, minimizing/leaving behind many personal perspectives: the only thing that a consumer would care about.  Instead, I also look at it as a product provided to the consumer, hence my look at value and content, presentation values and other things that a consumer won't care about as long as the final product overall meets their needs.  This objectivity is hard to maintain, but it's why viewers often don't feel I'm on "their" side even though I'm actually working harder to look out for them in ways they may not be considering.  For me, it's not a matter of liking it or not liking it.  It's far more complex.  Basically, in trying to be a good reviewer, I can no longer simply be a consumer.  If anything, "user reviews" contain many perfect examples of what happens when a purely consumer-minded person attempts to review a product!

As for the new zombies map, there really wasn't that much to say on its "components".  While it varies from Shadows of Evil in some ways, it's largely a similar format, and I said all I needed to say: if you love zombies mode, you'll love this new map! lol

It's great that you try to look objectively at games during reviews. Nothing kills a review more than having personal bias influencing the final judgement.

That being said, it seems that the multiplayer maps seemed to have dictated the review/whether it was worth the money. In a review encompassing the entire dlc, I kinda felt cheated when a mode I liked got generalized to "it's all right, but overall the dlc isn't really much value."

For Der Eisendrache, there are a lot of things you could have talked about.

-Map size, orientation, and layout of Der Eisendrache are well balanced, enabling the ability to circle or "train" zombies which is harder to do on Shadows.

-Der Eisendrache is a lot less "complicated" than Shadows, which enables new players to have fun (you don't have to love zombies to love this map). Pack a punch on DE is basically hold square on 3 spots. On Shadows you have to do 5 annoying and long rituals along with beast mode to power things/get items. Definitely a huge difference.

-Der Eisendrache is the very first treyarch zombies map to introduce a raid boss

-The wonder weapon on shadows (apothican servant) is typically gotten on round 16 and can only be used by 1 person. On DE, there is a bow that everyone can get and upgrade by round 10.

I would have liked to see at least a couple of these things mentioned before judging the map itself (similar to how you go in depth about the strategical implications of the multiplayer map layouts).

Also, I'm not trying to rag on your video (hope that's not what it seems like). I am just trying to give feedback. It's up to you to decide what you do with it

I want you to know I wouldn't reply with walls of texts if I didn't appreciate the feedback (otherwise, I wouldn't even be bothering, lol).  But I also wanted to explain the thinking to you so that you may understand certain aspects that are not always prevalent in either other reviews, or what a consumer wants from what they consider a "peer" review simply because I don't belong to a large conglomerate of a website/network.

On the other hand, the detail you're asking for has been brought up before in other reviews by other people.  The reason I maintain such short videos is because I DON'T go into detail.  I know that some people want that, but I keep it straight to the point.  By your counts on the new zombies map, I should have also talked about how Splash's center is a a constant killzone with a practically lemming-like requirement to get through in Safeguard (and let's just say lemming-mode is NOT how you want to play a shooter... seriously, who wants to just throw bodies at it?!), or how the beach front has an imbalance in entry point and vantage point options based on team in Domination.  I cut these details out because if I covered everything I'm saying through detailed explanations, I'd end up with very long reviews!

However, in your defense, I will readily admit that my time in zombies mode is lacking since I DO, indeed, spend more time in multiplayer.  I also find the lag in zombies mode to be very off-putting (I get that each zombie is synced, resulting in latency between the host, players, and EVERY zombie, but the shot response latency is detestable to say the least unless you're the host).  Thus, I don't think I'd have done quite the in-depth analysis of zombies mode to the degree you expect even if I wasn't trying to keep everything as short as possible!  For that I apologize, as it means you would have liked me to spend more time in zombies mode until I learned every subtle nuance, and that I have not done!  I spent enough time in it to get a grasp on the layout and flow, but I think wave 12 was as far as I lasted in one, and it was because one of the guys was particularly mastered on the map, lol

Cool, it's awesome that you take feedback well.

Knowing that your video's operate under a time constraint certainly puts things into perspective. I agree, you shouldn't have to include tiny details about every single map if you're trying to make the video short. Nor do I think you need to become a prestige master in zombies and reveal every little detail for a good review.

But it also would have been better to at least give some insights on your experience going up to wave 12. Did you find the map layout frustrating? Were you put off by how "complicated" the map was? (common complaint about Shadows) Were the new weapons enjoyable? Were the setting/environment/characters enjoyable (similar to how you described splash's colors)? 

Answering just a few of these questions would give a better insight to someone (zombies fan or not) watching your review