POW in the Year 3910 - Dunkelschwamm

  

    POW is a bombastic map, from the crazy map description to the crazy above screenshot. POW is an action packed prison break map with some good looking set pieces. 

SCMapDB page

Author: Necromancer

Date of final release: 2012

Maps in package: 1

Map review of POW in the Year 3910

(originally posted on SCMapDB) 

by dunkelschwamm | December 11, 2021 | 3686 characters

    POW in the year 3910 has a charmingly silly and nonexplanatory story in the MOTD which I urge any and all players to check out before rushing in.

    POW in the year 3910 is a very competently designed, paced, and brushed walkthough map which is fun for any number of players. Locked in a futuristic prison, the players must fight their way through guards, mutants, and robots big and small to escape. The map is quick to jump into action, has frenetic gameplay enhanced with easily-gibbed enemies. There are a lot of models here that I recognize from other maps, including the gonome-based licker from one of the Resident Evil maps, the giant flamethrower Robot Grunts and robotic alien controllers which I believe I've seen in some other maps before. Regardless, the futuristic, action-packed theming is consistent and water-tight throughout.

    There are a few parts of the map I found a tad annoying at times. Sometimes when the spawn points would update they would be knee-deep in the action, making it very dangerous for a player when they first spawn in (especially given you don't spawn with a weapon in this map). Additionally, I didn't like that you don't get a medkit in this map- I always feel the medkit is a pretty iconic and crucial part of the Sven Coop experience. There were some laser timing puzzles at one point which are over in the blink of an eye, but I found them pretty annoying and one of them felt like the pattern was a little too random to time out. Finally, there are weapons which you can only pick up once or will become off-limits as you discover new spawn areas, which feels like punished progression sometimes. Just let me keep my SAW, please!

    Anyway, for every tiny nitpick I have, I have so many good things to say about the map. The brushwork is very competent throughout. I love the setpiece of boarding the spaceship. I love the way enemies gib very easily. I love that the map is constantly moving the spawnpoint up so you're never getting left behind if you die. There's an incredible scene where you break down the core of a security gate, resulting in a massive cinematic explosion which rivals even some of the better build engine explosions. I liked the length of the map, which felt pretty perfect. I really, really liked the pacing overall. It felt like we were just constantly throwing ourselves at the security forces, and that was a really fun feeling from beginning to end.

    At the end we saw that there were several achievements available to us built into an achievement room. Unfortunately, the map doesn't so much tell the players what any of the achievements mean, only their jovial achievement names, so ultimately the distinction of having achieved any of them was met mostly with confusion by us.

    Overall, I think that POW in the year 3910 is an exquisite example of everything a walkthrough map should aspire to be. Certainly include this in your map rotation if you include anything walkthrough, action, or sci-fi. Certainly give it a play. You won't regret it.

Pros:

• Lots of very fun explosive setpieces
• Very quality craftmanship throughout
• The gibbing enemies are great
• Great pacing, especially aided with constantly updating player respawn points.
• Lots of great use of the theme
• Just utterly charming

Cons:

• A couple of the setpieces weren't as fun, especially the lasers.
• Sometimes enemies overwhelm the active spawnpoint.
• Some weird progression of weapons being given and then taken away.

Score: 9 / 10