Abandoned - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Abandoned is an official map included in the Sven Co-op 4 and 5 releases. The map takes place in an abandoned section of Black Mesa during the events of Half-Life.

SCMapDB page

Author: Nih

Date of final release: 2017

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Abandoned

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | January 1, 2021 | 4124 characters

    Abandoned is a fairly decent action walkthrough map that's made for more players than I played with, and it shows. The map has a very loose and flowy progression which is somewhat refreshing at times, somewhat bumbling at others. The brutalist, industrial setting is convincing, but also stands to issue with many doors of differing importance often being lined up one after the other next to one another without much to distinguish them other than their position in the order.

    Much of the map is made up of mostly well paced action sequences. It begins a bit rough at first for the arsenal given, but as the player's arsenal opens so too does the map's combat. The players are given very strong weapons, particularly the spore launcher, which is very helpful in some of the massive battles which take place. This is one of very few maps I've played which uses multiple Tors throughout instead of as a boss, but the player's arsenal at that point makes sense of such a ballsy move.

    Unfortunately, some of the arsenal is made particularly difficult to reach if the players are respawning, which becomes a problem later when having more powerful weapons in a hurry becomes important.

    The enemies throughout are a hodgepodge of Xen aliens, Race X, and Black Ops assassins. After plenty of level the focus begins to shift more toward the assassins, and some neat mechanics are implemented including friendly turrets which can be activated.

    Late into the map a timed sequence begins. If you have fewer than at least 4 players, which I did at the time, this is the end of your playthrough. There is tons of level after this, and it's full to the brim with assassins and aliens on the stronger end of things, but you are only given 5 minutes to complete it. The only way to complete this section on time is by having tons and tons of bodies to throw at it, as every respawn is going to take time to arm up and return to the battle. There are slowish blast doors along the way, random shit that gets in the way, and it comes to an abrupt end when you turn a corner and dozens of assassins gun you down, or a baby gargantua, or another Tor. I don't understand why people do this kind of thing- and to top it all off, if you make it to this point and run out of time the level ends so now you need to play the level all over again. I don't know why this needed to be a part of the level, as it adds more stress than tension and only serves to risk ruining the players' experience with the map if they aren't equipped to win the race against the clock. It's an addition that mostly subtracts from the map, and I think it would be almost objectively better if the timer element were removed altogether.

    The mapping itself is well brushed for the most part and there are some interesting environments. The lighting is a bit bland and makes the environments look somewhat flat, and the heavy use of electrical arcing effects resulted in some latency issues for the server. There are a couple areas that are memorable, such as an elevating bridge and the flooded hallways at the beginning of the map, but most of it is more of the samey bunkery-complex environment that Half-Life lends itself to so naturally.

    If you have a bunch of friends maybe you could check this out. I wouldn't recommend putting this on a server list unless you have high traffic.

Pros:

• Lots of really decent combat
• Fun weapons and equipment given pretty quickly
• Some fun environments
• Really interesting layouts to some of the arenas

Cons:

• Timed section is an unnecessary barrier which locks out smaller playing parties
• Heavy use of special effects was a drag on the server
• Over the course of the map, despite moving spawn locations, reobtaining equipment after respawning takes a while
• Sometimes it's difficult to track the layout of the map due to samey looking areas or doors and halls which fail to imply any importance

Score: 6 / 10