BiG DaH's Kage

Call of Duty: Black Ops – Shangri-La Strategy, Easter Egg, and Stuff!

Ok… so here it is… the 3rd map pack from Treyarch featuring a whole new Zombie level called “Shangri-La” and the scenery is beautiful,  the zombies are ugly, and the monkeys are back again, but does it live up to past zombie map experiences? Well, I’m not quite sure yet because it’s only around 8am and I’ve had a few rounds solo, but here’s what I’ve found out so far…

Monkeys are always around except this time they’re not wearing power ranger pajamas like in Ascension, instead, they blend in almost perfectly with the background and are extremely hard to see when you’re concentrating on shooting zombies faces off. I found that out the hard way when a monkey came running around a corner and all I could do was hear it’s screeching little yelp and then I got smacked, luckily I was able to get away that time but I can see these little bastards becoming quite a pain in the ass later on when you’re hurting and need to just get away for a second.

Zombies are still combo hitting, so don’t expect this level to be any easier than Call of the Dead, with the exception of not having a roaming zombie (at least in the beginning) like George Romero was in Call of the Dead. Now I’ve heard that a flaming zombie is going to show up at some point to take over George’s role but I have yet to see it, which means that all you have to do is take some time in the first few rounds to explore and do whatever it is you want to do before things get insane.

So, another question we all were wondering was if Treyarch was intending to make this map harder than the ones before since that seems to be their motivation these days. I am going to say that yes, this map does appear to be delivered without vaseline, so don’t expect to run around in a circle too easily as I’ve only identified a few places where that might be possible, and even in those places there are entrances all around you. Another thing is that there is a new kind of floor you have to walk on inside one of the temples you first go into, it’s made out of mud with stone floors that appear only when the walls come down from the ceiling in a trap kind of way, hard to explain but you’ll understand as soon as you play it (I’ll also try to get some video up here at some point). The same room is also apparently tied to an Easter egg since there are some huge wheel type things on the walls with symbols on them that you can turn by pressing the usual action button (X on Xbox360, I believe it’s the box button on PS3).

The 3 rocks are back again as expected and to find them you’re going to need some sharp eyes or a little help from someone else (I happen to be someone else so you got lucky there). Here are some screen shots and rough directions on how to find them:
Rock 1 – It’s in the area where you first start out, but on the other side of the area from where you initially spawn. It’s tucked into some plants between broken pillars but here is a screen shot to assist in your search

Rock 2 – Located right outside the “mud room” before you go across a little bridge (or right after you come across the one heading back into the “mud room”)

3rd Rock – This little bastard is hiding behind an opening that you can’t go through on the opposite side of the map from the mud room. It’s in a room that I will better describe later, but to get to it you have to open two doors to get in the room it’s hiding in.

As always, once we know the map a little better I’ll update this page with more precise information on how to get to them, but basically Treyarch put the first one in the middle area, the second one on the “east” side and the 3rd one on the “west” side. Balanced and such so you can’t get to all of them unless you’ve gone a few rounds and made some cash. Pretty much like the others and how we would have expected it.

Initial Strategy

Now, for the strategy part of this… this map is definitely one where you won’t be camping very much (real shocker there eh?), there are entrances all around you to all the areas you can hang out in. I have noticed already though that you can use the water spouts you’ll find on the map inside the caves to act as elevators to shoot you back up to the main starting area. The reason why this is important is because I can see in the future a bit of a “Figure 8″ style running game with zombies chasing behind. Basically we can try to start off in the beginning area, run to the “east” side of the map, go downstairs into the cave, ride a water spout back up to the main beginning area, then run to the “west” side, go downstairs into the west-side’s cave, take the water spout back up from that side to the main area, then run over to the east side again, rinse and repeat. (I have yet to try this but will report back later on it’s success or failure)

I do expect to see some videos popping up on YouTube of people finding ways to run in a small circle to get the zombies in a “train” behind them since that’s one of the major strategies a lot of people like to use to get into the higher rounds, but I personally just think that’s a cheap way to go about getting far in the game. I mean, what fun is running around in a circle the entire time? To me, I think there has to be a more fun way to do it, and a more legitimate experience to be had. With this map, I can see all 4 people getting stuck and trapped in all kinds of areas, so the perks are going to be critical, especially Quick Revive since this is a real close quarters map. You’ll be finding yourself able to get to your downed buddies easier than in Call of the Dead since Shangri-La is so small feeling, but…. so will the zombies.  That’s why it will be important to be able to revive them as soon as possible.

Little Monkeys

On to the little monkey guys, these little wise guys are part of the whole power-up changing situation and who knows if anything else… Basically, when you kill a zombie that drops a power-up like InstaKill, Max Ammo, etc… the little monkeys that watch you from the beginning start freaking out and call in other monkeys who come to take that perk away.

Lemme try to explain it a little differently so it makes more sense…

1) You kill a zombie that drops a power-up

2) Monkeys watching you start freaking out

3) Other monkeys show up and try to take that perk away and / or kill you if you pick up the power up.

4) If they pick up the power up, depending on where you are in the map, the monkey will start heading back to the temple in the beginning of the game and try to get up to the top of it so you lose the perk

5) The entire time the monkey is running away with your perk, it’s changing every few seconds, so you can try to wait and get the power up you want or risk losing it altogether

Also, you can kill the monkeys by either shooting them or getting a “Nuke” power-up (the power up that looks like a bomb and blows up all the zombies). If you kill these monkeys I think it may stop them from calling the power-up changing monkeys but I’m not positive about that just yet because we didn’t get any power-ups after those monkeys were gone. They also re-spawned after what we think was triggering something else (we’re not sure what we did just yet).

One last thing to point out before I get back into it… xO JEE Ox noticed he had the golden rod down in the lower right corner of his screen when he was playing as Richtofen, in the area that the vodka bottle would appear in Call of the Dead’s Easter Egg or where anything you pick up appears on the screen in the other maps. We’re pretty sure this has something to do with the Easter egg on this map too.

Easter Egg

(Special thanks to  xO JEE Ox – S IP i IK E – NotStaffed – CommanderBly501 – Deej601 for being part of figuring this out!)

Speaking of “the” Easter Egg (assuming there’s only one), we think we’ve got it almost figured out but I don’t want to post about it yet until it’s complete. What we’ve found so far is that you’ll need 4 people to push some buttons that pop out in the starting area center ruin thing, then you’ll find yourself in an eclipsed Shangri-La, you need to make your way over to the “west” side and push a button that appears on a building with a statue on the side. Then you’ll hear some guys talking about being stuck in there  and they need help getting out (sound familiar?).  So, once you speak to them, you’ll notice some tiles appear on the floor with a bunch of symbols on them, one person needs to tell another person what symbol they’re looking at while the other person finds the same symbol on another tile at the other side of the map, with a little coordination, you can make the tiles disappear, but you’re timed during this.

It goes like this…

1) “John” stands on a tile and says “Ok, I have the Triangle” and then steps OFF the tile so it doesn’t change

2) “Peter” then runs around and tries to find the Triangle on the other set of tiles.

3) Once Peter finds the Triangle, he stays standing on it (you have to stand on them for the symbols to appear)

4) John then gets back on the same tile he originally saw the Triangle on and they both disappear.

After you do that, you’ll notice something starts to happen, a long pole with a silver ball comes out of the top of that building the guys are stuck inside of. If you go around and hit all the gongs on the map, (you’ll also notice some are duds that kill the “chord”), you’ll see a yellow glowing light and symbol on top of that building they’re in. You need to find the 4 gongs which make a sound (it takes a second for the sound to come in) and then when all 4 are ringing at the same time, the guys start saying the water is rising and could there be a way to open “the gates”. I think hitting the gongs comes after opening the gate they’re talking about since it seems to activate that bulb thing on top.

If you fall down the water spout elevator shaft right next to that temple building where the guys are stuck, you’ll end up downstairs in one of the box locations with a large trailer full of Element 115 meteors like the ones that start the hidden song. We’ve figured out up until this part when you have to stand on the pressure plate there and all the guys start saying they “need more weight” but you should just stand on the pressure plate.

3 people need to stand on that metal pressure plate while a 4th person comes down the water slide, when they hit the metal grate you’ll hear the guys saying it worked and they got free.

Then, hit the 4 buttons by Quick Revive again to make it eclipse and go find the box, hit the box and you should be able to get the new shrinking gun, head over to the top of the water slide and you should see a silver ball sitting in the pathway out there. Shoot it with the shrinking ray gun rifle (you need to make it eclipse and then hit the box to get this gun we think). This is where we keep getting stuck because we never get the damn gun out of the box (This is the part where we start cursing you Treyarch for once again introducing “luck” into a game. Seriously, this is f’ing stupid)

Also, we know people have finished the egg,  just sucks that the rest of us have jobs and school that prevent us from playing the game straight through because we had a great time figuring out what we did before anyone else had posted about it.

Speaking of people who apparently get to spend all day long on the Easter Egg (yes, I am slightly jealous of this!), credit goes to everyone who helped NextGenTactics figure it out and of course congrats to their crew on finishing it.  Here’s their video of the whole process they did and I’ll update the text part of this post with all the steps soon so it’s easier to just read and go do….

Oh, one more thing…. us guys here in the GamerKage crew don’t think this is the end (or perhaps the only) Easter Egg on this map…

We don’t know what it is, but we all feel like there’s something still missing, so we’re gonna keep looking around and messing with stuff, as usual we always welcome people to join in our search and fun so don’t hesitate to leave a comment or get on the forums with us at http://forums.gamerkage.com (or you can just click the link at the top right of the page).

So… what do you guys think about Shangri-La?