A Day in Hell - Dunkelschwamm

  

    A Day in Hell comes in two flavors, a daytime map with a house filled with human grunts and a nighttime map with a house filled with zombies that teleports players to an arena to fight human grunts after they've finished clearing the house.

SCMapDB page

Author: MassAsster

Date of final release: 2003

Maps in package: 2

Map review of A Day in Hell

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | December 29, 2021 | 7535 characters

    A Day In Hell is a 2-part mediocre Sven Co-op mapset that is entirely functional and nothing spectacular. What I will say to its credit is that it mostly works, it's about average quality, it's full of rookie mistakes, and it's full of action.

    A Day In Hell is split into two maps: The first is a daytime assault on a house complex full of grunts. The second map is the same house, but at night, and full of zombies, bullsquid minibosses, and gonome bosses. That same second map has a secondary mission which I'll talk more about later.

    The first map feels more like a proof of concept than anything. There is a large house, it is full of grunts, and you must kill the grunts. There's occasional boss grunts, and there's a single tripod turret near the end of the map. By killing all of the grunts in the house, the basement unlocks and it's a very short battle arena before the map ends on what I can only assume was an attempt at a cliffhanger cinematic. The map is tedious, and how quickly you get through it will be mostly dependent on how many players you have to throw at it at once. The map only gives you a revolver, an uzi, and a shotgun to begin with, and only beginner pick-up ammo between them, so dying to enemy fire is preferable to attempting to heal one another. Once you shoot enough people the map is over.

    The second map, as stated above, takes place in the same house. This time, however, it is nighttime and the house is full of default They Hunger zombies. Throughout you'll find yourself facing down bullsquid minibosses and gonome bosses. As is an issue in many maps designed before the devouring updates to the monsters, these bosses can be a problem if you have too few players to keep constant barrages up while dying and replenishing ammo. If you can't, the bosses will eat a fallen player and immediately replenish all of its health. This is especially a problem in this map, as it shares the lack of ammo issue with the first map, but also gives the players fewer weapons at the start. In a way, I almost don't begrudge this issue, as it resulted in my fellow player and I trying to find ways to break this amateurishly pieced together map and cheese the bosses. I'd be lying if I said that kind of ingenuity isn't fun.

    After playing through the areas of the first map in the second map, a new area unlocks: an assault style daytime battlefield with two facing encampments- one owned by the player and the other by respawning grunts and assassins. The mission is for the players to rush the encampment and destroy their comms radio. The radio is visible from the other encampment, but shooting it will not destroy it- only a crowbar attack will. This isn't telegraphed in any way, leading to confusion and our assaults being based around scouting for a clue of how to win rather than rushing toward a clear goal. This section of the map is commendable for giving the players actual ammo and weapons with utility, such as grenades. However, since it's just a neverending grind against grunts with an unclear goal, very little cover for the duration of the players' rush. Again, with fewer than three players here grinding against the enemies is near to impossible, so lots of ingenuity will help.

    With the recap out of the way, it's worth noting some of the issues the map had. First of all, the goal is never entirely apparent. This isn't a huge issue in the first map, as the first thing the player will do when faced with a bunch of soldiers is shoot them. In the second map, however, there becomes an issue later on with it being unclear if zombies are respawning in the outdoors areas in the dark, or how many will need to be killed to unlock the next area. That issue persists into the second mission of the second map where you must crowbar a radio console in the enemy encampment to win, but the only instruction given is "Destroy the Grunts Communications" and shooting or grenading the console does nothing.

    Additionally, the map is just full of what I consider rookie mistakes. Doors are ridiculously tall, but that's fine given that it gives players more room to get in and out of rooms- however, the doors are also often textured incorrectly, swinging on the knob instead of the hinge. Some rooms are also set up in ways where enemies can easily get stuck in the way of a door, and given that all of the enemies must be killed to proceed and the players don't have any grenades until the last part of the second map, this can bring the map to a halt until players figure out some exploit to fix the issue. On top of all of that, the lack of ammo until the last part of the second map is really off-putting and results in players choosing suicide frequently to replenish their munitions, which severely breaks up gameplay and further irritates the rashes of respawning and healing enemies. It's also bad that the house in which the majority of the map takes place is mostly very cramped hallways with touch-triggered doors into rooms full of enemies, making players maneuvering around one another frequently lead to accidental ambushes.

    The final criticism I have is that the map is full of visual cliches, from oft-reused custom zombie models to bland environments. I think there's times, especially in the basements of both maps, that some more dramatic lighting does shake things up. For the most part, however, the first map is an eyesore and the second map does not take to its dark environments well. The environments don't even match up very well, with the basement giving the appearance of a haunted house but apparently housing the source of a secret biological agent instead- but then in the second map the zombies and apparent bio-organic weapons are given names like "lost soul" and "gate keeper"- I'm just not sure this mapset has any tone that it's gone for. Any grasp at a tone is lost completely when the second map teleports you into a brightly lit modern warfare scenario.

    That said, there were things I liked about the map. I liked trying to break it at times. I liked that, in the second map, weapons would begin appearing in the spawn area as progress is made. I liked a ladder in the basement area of the second map that looked like an incredibly steep staircase. I liked the paintings on the walls and the failed attempt at a cutscene in the first map. I liked how a bunch of ammo and a medkit station were available to the player in the second part of the second map.

    For the most part, I'd say that this is a completely mediocre and average map. It's playable, it's not great at anything but it's not really terrible at anything either. It's very playable and there's no issues that I would call particularly glaring, more of just a few things that are frequently annoying. If you're looking to add some variety to a maplist for a server that already has all of the best action maps on it, A Day In Hell wouldn't be a terrible addition. If you're looking for something fast to play with a friend this works pretty well too.

Pros:

• Good spawn area
• Simple action
• Some of the broken bits encourage improvisation on the part of the players
• Good equipment in the last part of the map

Cons:

• Unclear objectives
• Maps' visuals are inconsistent and often not great
• No ammo
• Janky doors and indoor environments in general

Score: 5 / 10