Treyarch | 2008 | Xbox 360 (2008-2012), PC (2013-Now)
In '07, when I was seven, my dad was letting me play some PC games since my brothers didn't really let me on the modern consoles all too often. He liked shooters back in the day so he would buy all the cool new ones and man, talk about a good year for 'em. Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Team Fortress 2, STALKER SoC, Ghost Recon AW2, and Unreal Tournament 3 are all games I remember getting to try that year. To say they set me up for enjoying FPS titles is an understatement, hell some of 'em (TF2, STALKER) I still even play to this day.
In '08, Call of Duty: World at War came out. I was a fan from the second I laid my hands on the game. I have some fond memories playing multiplayer, I really loved using the PPSh and the Trench gun. I also loved the campaign to the point where I cleared it on Veteran, something I think I've only ever done for the second and fourth entries in the series. I wish there was a counter for how many times I died to grenades because the spam was just...
But you know what? None of that is what I go back for. World at War is a game I always keep installed because of that extra content you unlock after beating the campaign, what's possibly my favorite little arcade-y mode in a video game of all time, Nazi Zombies.
I pretty vividly remember the first time I saw Zombies. I was eight, I was scared of a lot of things, and I think I quit the game just about when the first shambling idiot broke all the barriers off a window and climbed in. It took me a week to retry the mode, I was scared of it, but when I did I got a whopping three rounds in before going down. Tens if not hundred of runs on Nacht Der Untoten later and I got to the best I ever did by myself, Round 21. I was so proud if I ever got past 15 and then I would always hit myself with ray gun splash damage and go down. Whoops.
As the year went on, the map packs rolled out. Verruckt came out and it looks like my highest logged record is 12 because I remember hating the map, Shi No Numa came out and I never got past 19 because I would get stuck in some corner and die, and then Der Riese came out and I somehow pulled off a 27 by sitting on the catwalk until I was forced to bail and run circles around the map.
Speaking of Der Riese, I remember being so proud of that 27 until I saw this exact video from 2012 with some music that matches it to the time where two people managed to get that same round without even opening a door, having perks, or linking the teleporters up for Pack-A-Punch...
It's February 3rd of 2024 when I'm originally writing this page. A few days ago, I had a nostalgia wave run over me because youtube decided to recommend me a six hour and 45 minute long video about the storyline of Zombies, from World at War to Black Ops 4, which made me remember that I bought a $5 copy of World at War from a Best Buy with some Christmas money in 2013. I think I got it to play custom zombies maps but I never actually did.
I dug around in my bedroom, found that copy of World at War in a shoebox instead of being with my other PC games, installed it, found out that 1920x1080 would crash the game, ran the search engines for a bit looking for fixes, discovered this Plutonium doodad which fixes that issue, and got to trying things out again.
It's still so good.
Aaa.
Nostalgia.
Woo.
(If you're wondering, no, I haven't watched that whole lore video thing yet but I might start it pretty soon here.)
| The 'ol Xbox | The 'ol Nostalgia |
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I'm like mildly annoyed because I can't seem to find the Xbox copy of World at War I own to put next to the Xbox for the photo but I do have a good 270 or so games between the ones I got and the ones my brothers gave me when they didn't want their stuff any more, whenever I find it I'll redo that photo...
I may as well also just log what the highest round I get on each map is so what the heck, why not put that here? When I'm starting this page (Feb. 3rd, '24 as-said above) I don't actually have pictures for Nacht/Verruckt/Der Riese because it's just a big 'ol notebook I kept as a kid where I would write high scores but whenever I beat those rounds I'll be sure to update things.
| Nacht | Verruckt | Shi No Numa | Der Riese |
| ---21 (~2011)--- | ---12 (~2009)--- |  |
---27 (~2012)--- |