Poolarea - GrandmasterJ

 

    Welcome to the surreal pool. This map has some trippy dimensions and overall weird construction, giving the map a surreal and liminal feel to it. 

SCMapDB page

Author: Robootto

Date of final release: 2001

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Poolarea

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | May 30, 2022 | 5513 characters

    At this point in my map reviewing career I've played a lot of maps. I'm still not even 15% of the way done yet. But I have played a LOT of maps by this mapper, Robootto. I've come to expect a certain caliber of map from him. Maybe its the fact that I've just played two maps in a row that weren't actively malicious to the player, but this map is different than what he usually creates.

    The map starts off in a strange room with a weird line in the wall, some weird tile blocks on either side of a steep staircase, and a bunch of ammo for weapons we don't have. There is a door here that is breakable and part of the wall with the weird line is breakable, there are a lot of breakable walls in this map, if not for noclip we would not have looked hard for these areas because Robootto maps don't usually have much in the way of things to see and interact with. 

    Up the stairs is an intersection that has a file cabinet with an M16 and grenades around a corner and a crossbow in plain sight. To the left is a bullsquid in a locker room with a mysterious nonfunctional button, beyond that is a sauna with a rocket launcher and fiery pit. To the right is another breakable door to a bathroom, a zombie, and a tau cannon. Straight ahead is a room with a zombie, a floor with a missing texture black and purple checkerboard (I got this map through Robootto's Big Map Pack so maybe the direct download has the textures it needs), and two HEV suits that I don't need because I already have one. I should mention that up until now players can hear a bunch of HECU radio chatter and even a turret, it is very annoying.

    Between the two HEV suits there is a ramp down into what I believe is supposed to be a hot mud pit treatment, and a very long swimming pool in a very high ceilinged room. Along the side of the pool are ledges, which do not sit flush with the wall allowing players to see down into. . . somewhere, that allow players to walk to the far side instead of swimming. At the far end is a gargantua that players can take out with the rocket launchers from afar. At this end there are a series of strange staircases, catwalks, and diving boards. There is a female assassin lurking around with some headcrabs and a friendly Barney. The walls here have colored lights and give the area a surreal lighting. There is a long jump on one of the diving boards on the second level of the structure, and a button on the very top of the big diving. . . ramp thing. This button slides to the side when pressed and resets after a while, I can not figure out what it does. 

    I thought I was done with the map, but I noclipped around and found a lot more of the map, there is one patch of wall that is a different color than other walls around it. Robootto usually has garish misaligned walls so I didn't think anything of it at first, but behind it was another pool area with a diving board and strange tower things coming out of the middle of the water. There is a gluon gun and some energy ammo here. At the far end is another breakable wall leading to a hallway of assassins and human grunts and it ends with a room full of turrets and grunts. This room overlooks the pool area from above spawn, looking at the diving structure. There is a console here that tries to change map to a map that doesn't exist.

    After I we explored everything again my teammate noticed that there was a window to the big noob box outside. When I was noclipping around I discovered the noob box, complete with its own lighting, and revealed the full sloppiness of Robootto's brushwork. I wrote it off as more sloppiness but my teammate was able to get on top of the map by way of tau cannon jump and he took a look around. There is a flock of birds flying around! When you consider that players were meant to get out here it makes the noob box less of a noob box and more like a feature. The light, fauna, and strange sight of the outside of the level floating in a big room lends itself to a surreality. The whole map is surreal.

    Honestly, I had a lot of fun with this map. It kept having new surprises for me and opened up in unexpected ways. It was consistently interesting, I could tell what rooms were trying to be and there was still lots of abstraction, especially with the diving board structure. There was a moderate amount of combat, I liked fighting aliens here because it really helped the map's otherworldly vibe. I think playing Robootto's maps has primed me not to expect the amount of interesting and useful things behind breakable walls, but this map has a lot of that. The whole map had a very good selection of weapons and ammo. Things really came together here.

Pros:

• Really interesting surreal mood to it that is reflected in architecture, texture, and lighting
• good amount of weapons and ammo
• lots of fun side areas behind breakable walls
• map design had great balance of recognizable rooms and abstraction
• I love the idea of climbing outside of the map and making that a feature, the flock of birds is great

Cons:

• there are two buttons in the map that apparently do nothing, is this supposed to be misleading?
• players can hear HECU and a turret in the starting rooms, it is very annoying
• Really sloppy work all around, gaps through the level and it looks worse from outside the map
• The breakable walls could have been marked better and have lower health

Score: 6.5 / 10