SEXR - GrandmasterJ

 

    SEXR is a rats map set in the author's bedroom. It's not meant to have linear progression, the map description clearly states it is meant to be a lobby map. Despite this there are areas that act very much like a linear sequence of objectives.

SCMapDB page

Author: SharkMan

Date of final release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of SEXR

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | December 12, 2021 | 5209 characters

    I really love the rats maps in Counter-Strike so when I was very excited when I saw this map. Overall I liked it but there definitely came a point where I wanted the map to be over. I think we reached the end of the map, there wasn't really an indication of whether we did or not.

    The map takes place in a bedroom. Players spawn in all over the room, I spawned on top of a computer desk. On top of different furniture are different weapons. Two major problems with this set up is that there were no ladders to get down from these spawn points. There were some barnacles around to help but the grapple points were in places where they could be grabbed only in specific spots. Most times if you spawn on top of something you have to jump down and take fall damage, or try to land in a specific way on something to take less damage. Without ladders or barnacle grapple points we couldn't reach these areas after jumping off, locking off some weapons.

    It resulted in a very annoying start, chronic lack of guns and ammo through the map, and frustration in spawning far away places where I have to take fall damage. I was always just barely on the edge of having fun the whole map because dying (which I do a lot) was so incredibly frustrating.

    The way forward is through the dresser. This part had some nice fast paced frenetic action, even if the tight corridors also end up killing me, sending me back to jump off a ledge without the guns I want. After that climb up the CDs. This map has a real bad habit of having invisible ladders. The CD stack is one but there are two others that look just like normal walls. The top of the CDs teleports the players (there is nothing to indicate that there is a teleporter present) to the top of the map next to a few waves of shock troopers and an impressive view. There is a mounted gun here that works better than most mounted guns I've used in Sven. An Apache spawns in and my teammate happened to have spawned on the bunk bed, the top corner of the room, so the apache just flies directly on top of him. It was just ridiculous, the apache did have a fun looking toy helicopter model.

    Here is where I and my teammate got confused. There is nothing to indicate where to go next, I eventually noticed a hole over a post-it note on a cabinet. We got on top of the cabinet and jumped down to the tiny lip the post-it provided where we died from the fall damage. My teammate did eventually survive the fall and get in, but later I would discover there is an invisible ladder directly above the hole meaning we could have climbed down to it the entire time. Also I got bored with it and decided to go for the plane near the bunk bed, I started it up and it went in a loop before I fell to my death. My second attempt (I now had to land on a moving place) I jumped from the wing of the plane to the window in an incredible acrobatic performance if I do say so myself. Once again, there was an invisible ladder so this was completely unnecessary.

    After clearing the room in the cabinet (we jumped to our deaths due to no visible way down) a garg came out of a hole in the wall. There is a car on the floor that travels in a set path when turned on, much like the plane. I had turned it on so it would shove the garg out of the way periodically, it made the fight real easy.

    Through the new hole in the wall is a series of very annoying encounters from deadly lasers and autoturrets with too much health to a very narrow hallway filled with pit drones. Also the gate between these two areas will kill you if you get caught in it. At the end of this hallway there are two paths, one leads to a room with buttons that teleported me into what looked like a credits room. I couldn't tell as I was immediately eaten by a barnacle. I tried going in there again but snarks killed me before I could hit the buttons. The other path puts the player out on top of the aquarium which I think is the end of the level, at least, that is where I got before I decided I was done playing this.

    The aquarium is accessible early via jumping off the plane on its route, the water and the tank do not match up perfectly at the sides so when swimming you may sometimes fall and take damage.

    Oh, also there is a corner with infinitely respawning Barnies killing infinitely respawning scientists. It is very annoying.

    It was a frustrating map, but I had fun.

Pros:

• Very fun design, I love rats maps
• good use of func_vehicle. It is not easy to make good vehicles
• a few good fun action sections
• I liked the explosive turrets, not so much the gatling gun turret.

Cons:

• Awful spawn setup, limited access to weapons, guaranteed fall damage, inconvenient spots
• It has the barnacle, which I was sure was the answer to the awful spawn area, but it just wasn't
• invisible ladders
• After the garg the gameplay starts to suck real bad.
• No clear indication of ending
• The aquarium looks nice from afar but the water has gaps between the glass and is shoddy up close

Score: 6 / 10