Act of Bingus - GrandmasterJ

 

    In the map description the author promises this is the last map he'll ever make. I don't know what the story behind that is, but I just had to experience it for myself.

SCMapDB page

Author: BingusMaster

Date of final release: 2020

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Act Of Bingus

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | January 16, 2022 | 2988 characters

    I don't know why, but I had high hopes going into this map. It wasn't as good as I had hoped, but I will say it was better than my teammate thought it was going to be.

    Players start in front of the Bingus store. I don't really know what a bingus is, but apparently it is some sort of meme. That's the problem with meme maps, the ever shifting meme landscape pushed this map into comedic irrelevancy fast. It also references an ancient meme from before the word meme was pushed into pop culture, my teammate had to explain it to me before I slowly realized that I had experienced that meme when I was a child.

    There is a shotgun, SAW, wrench, and ammo for both guns in front of the Bingus store. Everything repsawns really fast which is great because as far as I could tell, those were the only weapons in the map. The screenshots show dual uzis and a revolver, but I never got those.

    Gameplay is a series of waves spawning right on the street, then running around backwards from the horde of enemies shooting the SAW directly into their face. One wave of enemies was a bunch of floating smiley faces with the 'you are an idiot song' playing. I didn't even notice the song until I to reload my SAW because as soon as they appeared I began firing. The hardest wave was the first one, where scientists with some sort of energy weapon replaced the vortigaunts and kept reviving each other. It was a scramble to keep them from endlessly popping back up but thanks to the AI running away and some careful shotgunnery we pulled through.

    Enemies have some interesting custom models. Baby gargs were these big black bears reminiscent of domo-kun, there were the aforementioned smiley faces, plus weird uboa guys manning the Bingus store counter. It's also worth mentioning that there are buttons that do random things in both stores. One button spewed gibs while another spewed soda. The level design is reminiscent of early Sven maps, badly proportioned and bleak looking.

    The map definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. It's over pretty fast and even though I died many times, my teammate survived the whole thing with only two deaths. Despite the amount of enemies spawned at once the map is fairly easy. The first wave was the hardest. The map ends after players go through a grate that blows open at the last wave. There are a handful of enemies down below and then an anti-Bingus store. After killing everything the map ends.

Pros:

• The ammunition respawned near instantly, if it didn't this map would be near unplayable
• despite the swarms of enemies and my high death count, combat never felt too difficult
• I liked being able to fully flex a SAW
• some interesting custom models

Cons:

• the jokes are memes that are very stale
• level design wasn't that great

Score: 6 / 10