Ally - GrandmasterJ

 

    Ally starts players in a tent with a crowd of friendly grunts. It took me too long to figure out these grunts are the allies.

SCMapDB page

Author: yulo

Date of final release: 2010

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Ally

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | March 25, 2022 | 3271 characters

    Ally is a short map that starts players behind a wad of friendly soldiers that pits players against increasing swarms of robo grunts. The level consists of a spawn area and a hallway divided by a series of security doors opened in a separate room, at the end of the hallway is a wide open outdoor room with a final large swarm of robots.

    The spawn area has an mp5 with two boxes of ammo and four underbarrel grenades with an M16. Ammo was scarce with two players, near the end my teammate had to go without any ammo because I took both boxes. As the last robo grunt fell he had one bullet left. The underbarrel grenades are the most useful for clearing out the resilient robo grunt crowds. They explode on death so hitting a crowd repeatedly with grenades would sometimes make chain reactions or compound the explosions. I love underbarrel grenades and they were a good choice here, but I wish I had more so my teammate and I could both have enough.

    Past the spawn area there is a very thick door that has four robo grunts. I mentioned before that there is a wad of friendly soldiers in the spawn area, they get agitated once they hear combat and they start moving around, this can result in them blocking players off. This is very annoying and players can easily get trapped and have no avenue of retreat.

    Off to the side of this room is a smaller security room with an evil Barney, a button that spawns a friendly robo grunt, and a button that momentarily opens the door to the next room. Behind this door is a larger swarm of robo grunts, the doors are thick and so it is very easy for one of them to prevent a door from closing and allow the rest of them in. Spawn easily got attacked here but the wad of allies soaked all of it up. This room has another side room with a Barney to open the next door to yet another large amount of enemies. But this last room is the penultimate room, past this last door, which thankfully is not set on a timer from a button in a different room, is a large open area with… a swarm of robo grunts.

    I get the feeling that this map is focused on having allies. It is named Ally, there is a wad of allies at the spawn area, and buttons spawn more allies. But they get in the way more often than not. I thought I could maybe use the medkit to revive some if they died, but my teammate and I poured grenades onto our enemies and blew our allies to pieces. It was kinda sad.

    I don't dislike the combat or the map, but I felt like the allies got in the way. On the other hand the allies totally saved us from getting spawn killed over and over again. Either way, this map has some fun grenade moments if you can stomach turning your allies into paste along the way. I did really dislike trying to go through the extra thick doors on timers attempting to tow allies through.

Pros:

• I like underbarrel grenades and this map has some good uses for them

Cons:

• Not enough ammo for more than two players
• allies get in the way
• I didn't like pressing a button and then going through a door on a timer

Score: 4.5 / 10