By BROOKLYN ABRAMS
Sheridan High School Student
Editor’s Note: The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
There are many popular video games out there. From Fortnite to Minecraft, there are many options for those who like to play games. My own personal favorites are Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, and Skyrim.
Recently, I have been playing Call of Duty: Zombies. Zombies is a sort of challenge game mode within the Call of Duty franchise. First introduced in Call of Duty: World at War after completing the main campaign, it quickly gained popularity. The objective of the game mode is to survive against an endless horde of zombies while boarding up windows, clearing debris, opening doors, and using weapons. Since then, it has appeared in Call of Duty: Black Ops, Black Ops 2, and Black Ops 3, and more recently Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, developing a story along the way. I only have Black Ops 2, so naturally, I prefer to play that one.
Once you set up the game, there are three maps available to you. Each has two game modes. At the first one, Bus Stop, there is Tranzit and Survival. The second and third maps, Town and Farm, have the same game modes for them, Grief and Survival.
Survival is a game mode where you and up to three other players work together to survive for as long as possible. Grief is where you and up to three other players are put on different teams and can either help or hinder the other team. Tranzit is a combination of all of the maps plus two other locations and multiple lesser, hidden locations. It is a sort of story mode for Zombies.
In Tranzit, you start out in the Bus Stop, where a bus is outside waiting for you. If you decide to leave the Bus Stop on the bus, it will take you to the next location, the Diner, then the Farm, Power Station, the Town, and back to the Bus Stop again. This is on a constant loop. The point of this game mode is to discover what secrets might be hidden and to uncover some of the truth. In Tranzit, there are also hidden Easter eggs scattered throughout the locations and buildable items to help increase chances of survival.
The Perk-a-Cola machines, Mystery Box, and Pack-a-Punch machine are on certain maps. These items are meant to help you survive. The Perk-a-Colas are found on the Tranzit game mode and on the Town and Farm maps. They are perks that give certain abilities, such as faster reload time or more health.
The Mystery Box is an item that when found in certain locations gives you a random weapon, usually better than any weapon you would find on the walls. The Pack-a-Punch machine is found in the Tranzit game mode and on the Town map.
The Pack-a-Punch is used to upgrade any weapon that you have with you at the time, usually giving it a damage boost and more ammo.
Each of these cost points. To earn points, you have to kill zombies, or if you like to be difficult you can rebuild barricades for points, though not as many. The Perk-a-Colas vary in cost, ranging from 1,500 to 3,000 points. The Mystery Box is 950 points each time you use it. The Pack-a-Punch cost 5,000 points.
On any Zombies map, you can find glowing blue outlines of weapons on the walls. These also cost points, ranging from 500 to 6,000. In my opinion, these weapons usually aren’t as good Mystery Box weapons.
Each round starts off really easy, with only a few zombies that are fairly easy to kill, but as time goes on and the longer you survive, the more zombies come and the harder they are to kill. This is why the Perk-a-Colas, the Mystery Box, and the Pack-a-Punch machine are important to your survival. I play this to get better at the Call of Duty games. It is extremely satisfying to get on the game and somehow beat the score you had gotten before that.