Shanghai Harbor - GrandmasterJ

 


    This map is all about fighting the mafia(triads?) in China. It's got the Shanghai aesthetic down pretty well and a very well made harbor.

SCMapDB page

Author: MysticMDT

Date of final release: 2010

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Shanghai Harbor

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | December 12, 2021 | 2632 characters

    This map has a really nice vibe to it, the architecture and the enemies go together well to suggest a high stakes shootout between the mafia and the players.

    The map starts with me getting shot. I am not a fan of enemies in the spawn area so this immediately put a sour taste in my mouth. Luckily the rest of the map washed it out, that was the only time enemies shot me at spawn and they were quickly dealt with.

    I died a lot in this map. Each room is filled with male and female assassins. Players have a good selection of weapons they start with but it is still quite challenging with how fast these things run and the occasional grenade. It is fun to corner an assassin and jump on their head to prevent them from backflipping away.

    There are bodyguards as bosses, which are very difficult enemies that feel like bosses and give the players a message upon their death informing everybody of the mission progress. This is a real nice touch, it gives me a good sense of progression.

    Eventually we came to a confusing room with gonomes and respawning headcrabs, I don't know what that had to do with the mafia storyline but we killed them and moved on. The respawning headcrabs were a pretty big annoyance and I don't understand the rationale for adding them in.

    The map updates with checkpoints along the way always keeping players close to the action. One of the most memorable moments of the map was a harbor with a shark and an apache battle with a rocket launcher on a bench out in the open. The last boss was in a villa across the water and it was pretty cool fighting with an apache against that backdrop. Then the apache was dead and the snipers came out. After some more tense battles the last boss comes out with a chaingun and murders us multiple times. After he dies walk through a door and the level is complete.

    Despite the rocky start the map is a real delight from start to finish. It definitely needs a bit more people as the assassins are pretty deadly despite being confined in close quarters. It's always very nice to play a map that takes the effort to set itself somewhere other than Black Mesa.

Pros:

  • Very fun setting, well done level design
  • lots of straightfoward action
  • plenty of weapons and ammo
  • fun and difficult bosses
  • Fun harbor set piece

Cons:

  • I really hate getting shot on spawning in, my MotD was still up.
  • the respawning headcrabs were a strange addition

Score: 8.5 / 10

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