Call of the Dead - Dealing with George Romero

Having trouble with "The big guy"?

Dislike CotD because of one single zombie?

This guide will help you with that.

Introduction

So. You clicked on this guide most likely because you're having trouble dealing with a certain Mr. Romero while enjoying an otherwise perfect Treyarch map.

To start with, I'll say that for future reference:-
An Anti-George Gun is a gun that was either designed with George in mind or was given a damage buff exclusive to CotD.

I'll probably be using that term quite a lot in this guide, so lets get started!

Generic Tips & Tricks

As you have probably figured out by this point - I play CotD quite a lot, and it pains me to hear everyone criticising the map due to one person zombie. So I'll dedicate this section to generic T&T for those who don't want to go to in-depth. I'm sure you have your reasons.

• Most people probably know this, but as Georgie is doing his thing before the first round starts, you can get some cheap shots on him using either your knife or 1911.
  
• Not a lot of people know this one however, knife shots count as an injury - so provided that you aren't within melee distance, the first thing Georgie will do is look around and yell, allowing you to get approx. 4 extra knife lunges on him.
  
• Believe it or not, while Georgie is having a hissy fit if attacked while out of water, you can actually knife him in a similar manner to the beginning of the game, if you react quick enough you can get as many as 6 knife lunges on him while he's bashing his light, just make sure you mash your sprint key afterwards.
  
• You should always go for the box first, that way you have a better chance at besting Georgie as Wall weapons just don't cut it - even when pap'd.
  
• Georgie's AI has no concept of damage multipliers, so it doesn't matter what you hit him with or where you hit, the only damage that'll be inflicted is the weapon's basic damage. Due to this, it is -not- recommended to pap the 1911, as it doesn't have very good basic damage and mainly relies on explosive damage multipliers to both create crawlers and kill a lot of zombies
  
• When Georgie retreats into the water, he doesn't actually go away, he just sort-of sits underneath the map in the out-of-bounds zone.
  
• With the above in mind, if possible, try to ensure Georgie retreats into the spawn-room water, this is because the area which he retreats to is actually only about 1ft underneath the map, as a result if you pay attention you can see his orange light flicker reflecting off of the small rocks by Quick Revive
  
• You might think the above tip is worthless, but it isn't. Depending on what pool of water the game decides to dump Georgie in, you may not hear the telltale explosion SFX which tells you he has re-entered the map. Therefore it is always a good idea to check for his orange light.
  
• Don't bother hunting PaP. Wait for it to come to you, the rocks it replaces aren't random, they're in a sequence which never changes.
  
• Don't bother killing Georgie unless you have all 4 perk slots filled, since the perk he gives you is completely random.
  
• Get the Scavenger + PaP soon as possible.

My top 5 weapons for the task

Now, as this guide is all about dealing with Georgie, and since to kill anything in Zombies you need either a weapon of some kind, it's a pretty big part of the guide. So I'm going to rank my top 5 weapons for killing Georgie.
(Note that there are two separate lists for vanilla BO1 which also includes on Consoles, and the other is for CotD with mods, which I play around with frequently.
This makes for a total of 4 lists when you take into account PaP'ed and Un-PaP'ed weapons)

{ Vanilla, No PaP }

• 5. RPK/HK21 <- These two are tied for number 5, since they don't deal very much basic damage, but their rate of fire (RPK's case) and ammo in a single clip (HK21's case) make them an effective way of sending Georgie to a watery... well, purgatory I suppose since he doesn't die.
  
• 4. SPAS 12 <- The shotgun that people hate on due to its ammo capacity has a surprisingly high basic damage, meaning its very effective as an Anti-George weapon.
  
• 3. Ray Gun <- The Ray Gun is not as powerful as you may think against Georgie, due to its blast-damage multiplier not being taken into account. But it still has a pretty good base damage, should be enough to dispatch Georgie from full health * using every single shot of ammunition from a "full house" (I.E you haven't fired a single shot from it since picking up max ammo)
  
• 2. Scavenger <- The Scavenger was probably put in solely because people would complain that there's no -reliable- way to conquer Georgie aside from wasting points and ammunition constantly. Funnily enough, people still complained regardless.
  
• 1. Death Machine <- On a un-PaP'ed list, this is number 1 because it takes a total of 90 seconds to kill Georgie completely using it, (AKA 3 Death Machine powerups). Enough said.
  
  
  { Vanilla, PaP } -- This was far more difficult
  
• 5. VR-11 Lazarus <- The only reason this is on the list at all is because it 1-shots Georgie while he's in the water. He doesn't drop any powerups though so unless you're a camping enthusiast and/or playing on multiplayer, its useless.
  
• 4. Mustang & Sally <- I mentioned earlier that I don't recommend PaPing it when you want to fight Georgie, and I stand by that. But I put this at Number 4 because - if downed on solo - for a full 10-20 seconds you can unload on Georgie using this and he'll just stand there like a lemon. Kinda like a less powerful death machine, really.
  
• 3. Sickle <- (This counts since its basically a PaP of the knife), so I -again- mentioned earlier that you can get some cheap shots in on George whenever he's having a hissy fit or if he's emerging out of a pool of water. Well, with the Sickle equipped you can do over quadruple of the damage and you can probably get him down to orange/blue flicker just by abusing his animation overrides *.
  
• 2. Porter's X2 Ray Gun <- A more powerful version of the Ray Gun. Next.
  
• 1. Hyena Infra-Dead <- The definitive Anti-George Gun, what else were you expecting as Number 1? It can nail George from full health in about 2-3 clips *.
  
  
  { Mods, Un-PaPed }
  (The mod name will be put next to the weapon in question)
  ((All of these mods were played on CotD using game_mod))
  
• 5. Yes. I'm serious (Mod of the Dead by Rollonmath42) <- It's a rocket launcher - disguised as the mystery box, except for the fact it shoots explosive Teddy Bears... What?
  
• 4. Every single wall weapon (Griffin Station by Dr. LilRobot) <- I'm kinda cheating a bit by including every single wall weapon as opposed to a single gun, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Just, try it out for yourself.
  
• 3. PPSH-41 (Theater of the Damned by Jrizzo) <- It's a copy and paste of the PPSH in the level where you play as Reznov. So it doesn't have a whole lot of ammo but it rips through George's health fairly quickly.
  
• 2. Don't PaP Please (Mod of he Dead by Rollonmath42) <- Scavenger + Scavenger = Dual-wield Scavengers.
  
• 1. Death Machine (Norowa Reta No Numa by Jrizzo) <- Holy. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. ♥♥♥♥. This weapon literally made my jaw drop as far as it could possibly go, in merely 30 seconds it drained George's health from full to critical - so much so that I finished him off using the Vanilla Sickle and nothing else. God forbid you pick up the death machine powerup first round.
  
  { Mods, PaPed }
  (The mod name will be put next to the weapon in question)
  ((All of these mods were played on CotD using game_mod))
  
• 5. Howl (Mod of the Dead by Rollonmath42) <- An assault rifle that shoots exploding hellhounds, takes care of George alright but WILL kill you if you don't have PhD.
  
• 4. Fine, here ** (Mod of the Dead by Rollonmath42) <- So if you go ahead and ignore Rollon's advice of not PaPing the dual Scavengers, you get a PaPed Scavenger, with a PaPed Raygun, and both shoot explosive bullets. This will kill George in a matter of seconds, but again take care if you don't have PhD.
  
• 3. Porter's X2 Ray Gun (Norowa Reta No Numa by Jrizzo) <- Turns out the BO3 Ray-Gun - both PaP'ed and normal are a lot more OP than the BO1 Ray-Gun.
  
• 2. Zeus & Hera (Mod of the Dead by Rollonmath42) <- Dual Wield Thunderguns, hell even the normal Thundergun 1-shots George, since he was never programmed to react to the Thundergun.
  
• 1. Wunderwaffe DG 3 JZ (Nova Six by Dr. LilRobot) <- George takes literally no damage from the default Wunderwaffe, but the PaP'ed version? Hah.

* Assuming you're playing on Solo
** Can't quite remember the name of that weapon, its something similar to that though.

Miscellaneous Stuff / Extra Info

This is just for stuff I couldn't really fit anywhere else in the guide. I.E various AI quirks/glitches I've found while overplaying this map.

• Sometimes if you kill Georgie, he'll glitch out and will walk to the player 1 spawn point. He won't be able to hurt you and vice versa while in this state.
  
• When checking the rocks by Quick Revive for George's light, you may hear him tapping his club lightly against something.
  
• If you noclip under the water (with godmode on so you don't get OHKO'ed) you'll see a semi-invisible George. His model is gone, but the sparks that envelop him when "dead" as well as the aforementioned sparks on his light are still there.
  
• Judging from the position of the light's sparks, he appears to be tapping the light against his palm idly. (This can be seen more easily if you put notarget on while he's actively chasing you)
  
• If you put notarget on, you can see how his AI functions a bit more clearly. For example when he's enraged he'll seemingly randomly smash his light against the floor to slow anyone in the vicinity down. However it turns out he only does that whenever two criteria are met:-
  A) A player is in sight.
  B) A player is close enough to him.
  
• As mentioned earlier, George is not programmed to react to the Thundergun, therefore if he is hit by it, he'll fly off as a ragdoll like a regular zombie. This has the side-effect of him not respawning, as the game doesn't register him as being "dead".
  
• George has several unused animations, including death animations. All of the death animations have been restored in my GMod port of George as a SNPC.
  
• Despite only taking 1 point of damage from the Wunderwaffe, (remember he has 250,000 hp in solo alone), if he's killed by the Wunderwaffe (Impossible without cheats or modding) he'll actually play an electrocuted animation and he'll die, apparently him retreating doesn't override an electricity-based death.
  I've never tested the last point, I've only heard rumours. It was included here because maybe someone has experienced this and can confirm it. I do know that the PaP'ed Wunderwaffe from Nova Six (As mentioned earlier) doesn't trigger this electricity death animation.

I'll probably add more to this list in future if I find anything else. I hope you found this guide helpful and I hope it makes CotD more manageable for you if you previously disliked the map due to George.

[Fungus Cobb]

Fuck George so much. Garbage game design.

[Mr beast]

Angry white guy he runs around killing sh*t
Some black ppl joined my lobby and he started making a beeline for them mashed them into a pulp with his hammer then he laughed about it

[ZastavaArms_Tavish]

Alternatively kneel on his neck

[Kind]

Just strike, scream, and run

[roachisserie chicken]

no

[saccharine]

does having george chase you in the water reset his health when he touches the water?

[roachisserie chicken]

i didn't mention the ballistic knife because it takes up a weapon slot and mule kick's placement in cotd isn't great.

as for the damage multipliers, i remember reading it on every wiki available at the time, but that's an interesting point about the paped dragunov, i have to wonder how much better it is with deadshot

[DOOM]

I don't know where you got your information about weapons not having damage multipliers against George, and unless this applies solely to PC (I mostly played this on PS3), it is untrue. The Dragunov PaPed is overwhelmingly the best gun to kill him with if you repeatedly headshot him. On 1-3 player games, you can off him without having to get more ammo, and in 4 player games you can remove most of his health with all your reserves. The scavenger comes in behind the Dragunov, it has a significantly lower amount of ammo and doesn't deal too much more damage than a Dragunov headshot, but with flopper it is considerably more reliable than trying to hit all those headshots, since with the scavenger you can just shoot the ground around him. And lastly, if you're gonna recommend the Sickle, why not mention grabbing the ballistic knife too? PaPing it MAY increase the damage dealt with melee, but regardless of whether it does or not, it DOES make meleeing easier.

[shrek's outhouse]

interesting. this'll make it a lot easier when i find 3 team mates to play call of the dead with in near 2023

[roachisserie chicken]

They do, but they don't deal any more damage than shooting him anywhere else.