Older gamers picking up Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops may be in for one wholly unexpected blast from the past.
It seems that Treyarch has been busy packing little extra side-games into Black Ops. We all knew about the return of Nazi Zombies, but like a Transformer, there’s more here than meets the eye.
Instead of having a typical menu screen, Black Ops‘ menu puts you in the shoes of a special operative trapped in some kind of interrogation facility – and with some clever manipulation of the controls, you can break free of your shackles and explore the room. To the side of the room is a computer, and by accessing it a player can boot up the first hidden minigame, Dead Ops Arcade – seen here to the right.
Whereas the command “DOA” brings up Dead Ops Arcade, however, inputting the command “ZORK” brings up something else entirely: If you couldn’t guess from the input, it’s Zork. Yes, that Zork. Father of the text adventure genre, you-are-likely-to-be-eaten-by-a-grue Zork.
As far as we know, it’s the full and complete version of the classic text adventure, which should be good for at least a few hours’ worth of nostalgia from older gamers who remember playing the original. Younger gamers, on the other hand, just might not have the patience for a text adventure, and will probably gravitate back to Dead Ops Arcade – or the rest of Black Ops – before too long.
How many other minigames will players find in Black Ops before all is said and done? You have to give Treyarch credit, though: Even if Dead Ops and Zork were the only two easter egg side-games present here, it’s still really cool that the developers put them in the game in the first place.
(Via MTV Multiplayer)
