Alien Die - GrandmasterJ

 

    This is one of those maps that is meant for fun, the whole map consists of monsters in traps. While some monsters do wander out of the traps overall it's not dangerous.

SCMapDB page

Author: LordSlayer

Date of final release: 1999

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Alien Die

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | March 11, 2022 | 2620 characters

    Alien Die is a short and simple map where you kill aliens. Most of them are trapped in glass boxes so players can kill them at their leisure. Two zombies and a headcrab spawn on traps that don't trap them in a glass box and they walk right off and can be very annoying wandering around the map slapping me when I am not paying attention to it. There were also three scientists walking around the map but they died real fast to wandering monsters, there may have been more who died before I saw them.

    I like the idea this map had, but I'm not so sure about the execution. There was one box with a houndeye and vortigaunt in it and a button would turn on a laser that killed them. Unless I wanted to see their death animations I don't really see the point. There was a treadmill that a zombie spawned on top of with lasers at the end. But for some reason the zombie spawns and shoots out way faster than the treadmill and somehow doesn't get killed by the lasers. That laser is instant death most of the time but somehow that zombie can escape on spawn and become annoying. The wandering headcrab can escape its rough, janky trap by keeping the button turned on and walking away.

    There were some traps I did like. There is an ichthyosaur trapped in a very small tank of water (and it can attack through the sides) and a button will smash it with a big block. I don't know why but gibbing that monster was incredibly satisfying. There was also a trap with a turret and a laser. The turret gunned down the monsters but the laser insta-gibbed. There was another tank where the button caused explosions directly on the enemies.

    The map looks rough. It's from all the way back in 1999 so that's to be somewhat expected. Nothing looks downright ugly except the buttons. For some reason a lot of the buttons have misaligned textures and the sides are some awful stripy texture. Some of the buttons are stretched out weirdly too. The brushwork is very blocky and walls are thick.

    There are plenty of weapons strewn about as well, so grenades can be thrown over the glass walls and wandering zombies can be blasted with ease.

    Overall, the map was fun, but only held our interest for maybe ten minutes at most.

Pros:

• Fun idea
• Crushing the icky was great fun
• plenty of weapons and ammo

Cons:

• annoying enemies that can escape their traps
• bad buttons
• some of the traps were definitely flops

Score: 4.5 / 10