Haunted - GrandmasterJ



    Haunted is an interesting concept. The players fight ghosts (normal enemies made transparent and glowy) but it takes place in some mountain facility instead of a location that is more traditionally known for ghosts, like a house or a castle.

SCMapDB page

Author: Fourth Letter

Date of final release: 2003

Maps in package: 2

Map review of Haunted

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | December 5, 2021 | 2014 characters

    I like this map a lot, but I am so irritated at the player spawn being swarmed by gonomes right off the bat. You respawn with a crowbar in hand so you ahve to change to a shotgun while being tickled by gonomes and zombies. It's a huge pain and not a great start to an otherwise solid map.

    There is one puzzle that isn't signposted very well. There is a button on an electrical box that starts a fire. The key here is to push the nearby explosive crate into it and that will destroy the grating on the door above. It took a while to figure that out.

    I liked the level design quite a bit. I'm not sure what kind of building we were in, it kind of gave my museum vibes but less interesting exhibits and more boring offices. But the flow was pretty good, it felt non-linear, there was a lot of fun stuff to see.

    Gonomes were a good choice of enemy as well, gonomes running at the players in dark hallways is very fun. On the other hand, I was annoyed at the vortigaunts behind false walls. Some of the enemies had ghostly render modes to go along with the map theme, but others did not. I appreciate the effects in a map named 'haunted' but I don't know why all the enemies didn't have this effect.

    The second map is baffling, it has very little action, is less coherent as a level, and ends very abruptly. There was also what seemed to be a boss fight at one point that turned out to be nothing at all. It was confusing to say the least.

Pros:

  • Good level design
  • I appreciate the ghostly enemies in a map named haunted
  • Lots of action

Cons:

  • Gonomes swarm spawn
  • vortigaunts behind false walls
  • the explosive crate in a fire puzzle wasn't intuitive and it also killed me.
  • That electrical face thing near the end had boss vibes and instead it did nothing, then the map ended
  • abrupt end

Score: 7 / 10

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