Fend - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Fend is named for the Fender brand of amplifiers. There is certainly a big one in this map set. There are two maps here, one is devoid of enemies and the other is filled with enemies.

SCMapDB page

Author: Robootto

Date of final release: 2006

Maps in package: 2

Map review of Fend

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | December 29, 2021 | 4898 characters

    Fend is a map by Robooto. Robooto is a fairly well known mapper whose bizarre machinations are the Goldsrc equivalent of deciding to make a beautiful sketch of an idea you just had and finishing it as a doodle 5 seconds later when you realize how much effort it would take to make anything worthwhile. That mentality is exemplified in both fend and fend2.

    In fend you explore a barren world; a cave tunnel winds corridors into a larger atrium. Within there are intricately displaced brush walls creating cliffsides along the rocky walls. Dominating the room, however, is a gigantic Fender amplifier. The brushwork creating the cable of the amp and the rocky walls are impressive at first, but on closer inspection are full of holes and errors, and don't line up with the ground around them. In the hallways there is also a very simplistically brushed bathroom scene, with a toilet and a sink. You are free to explore around and do nothing.

    The second map is the same as the first one, only now there are respawning enemies and a gonarch. The enemies are slathered on thick, including alien grunts, gonomes, zombies, bullsquids, and vortigaunts.

    Sometimes the player is spawned high up on the cliffs along the amp room. This is the room in which monsters endlessly spawn. Often, in the player doesn't duck right away, they'll be instantly shredded by the alien grunts' hivehands. Often, even if they do remember to duck, the hornets will reach the player and shred them anyway. It's from here that the player is meant to reach the top of the amp with some careful platforming, from atop which the player can find an arsenal of useful weapons which can be turned against the monsters. Attempting to reach there, however, requires exposing one's self to the near-instant death by thousands of hornets, vortigaunt blasts, and bullsquid and gonome fluids.

    If the player does not spawn in that impossible situation, they will instead spawn deep within the tunnels outside of that area. This gives the players a much better fighting chance to gain some ground. By running throughout the area the player can find a sniper rifle which is very useful against the gonomes which often wander into the tunnels. Additionally, it can help with the Gonarch which stalks the tunnels. After getting past the Gonarch there is a surplus of ammo for weapons which the player doesn't have. Due only to the good graces of the M16 update for Sven Co-op granting an M16 with pickups of M203 under-barrel grenades did we have a fighting chance moving forward into the larger arena full of monsters. Since they infinitely respawn, however, it didn't matter much.

    Having thinned the monsters, we were able to poke our heads out for a moment when we spawned high above them. Taking the opportunity, we failed at the platforming section enough times to decide that we would turn gravity low and hop from the spawn area directly to the top of the amp and grabbed the grenades, satchel charges, snarks, hivehand and energy weapons that reminded us we were alive. We spent some time delivering righteous justice to the monstrous horde in the form of banana grenades, satchel charges, snarks, chumtoads, hivehand bursts, and gluon streams.

    After getting tired of repeatedly mulching the respawning hordes, we hopped down behind the amp and found a doorway inside. Inside there are 3 buttons for playing Doom music, and pressing them enough times breaks them and plays all of the music in a discordant overlapping of tracks. There are a few enemies, and a gonome inside of a glowing box which we managed to kill. The map seems to run out of things to do there. That's the thing about Robooto maps, though, is that you never really can be sure when they're over.

    I don't recommend playing these maps. The only reason we found any enjoyment of them is because we cheated and turned the gravity down and a Sven update meant that we actually had one of the guns that went with the ammo we were given. There's no real progression, the maps aren't all that well brushed out or made, they aren't super interesting to look at or traverse… it's just not really worth downloading.

Pros:

• The giant fender amp is neat I guess.
• If you bend the map to your will with cheats you can have fun killing all of the monsters.

Cons:

• It's way too many respawning monsters
• The map is very against the idea of giving you anything to fight the monsters with
• The map gives you ammo for weapons you don't have just to taunt you
• The platforming required for progress is annoying and under the most annoying circumstances possible
• The brushwork is broken or seemingly unfinished in some places.
• No clear ending

Score: 2.9 / 10