Apprehension - GrandmasterJ
Apprehension is a map that looks like Black Mesa but the story is about terrorists capturing scientists. There are also aliens here so if you ignore the story completely this map plays like yet another Black Mesa map.
Author: HeAdCrAb KILLA
Date of final release: 2005
Maps in package: 1
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | June 5, 2022 | 5000 characters
I played the first half of this map quite a few times, there was a door that we just couldn't seem to open. But we revisited the map and tried again and it seems the map opens via a computer console in a security office. I know I've used that console many times in the past, why did it work now suddenly? I restarted the map and did some testing. You have to hit the button three times to open the door. Granted, there are three red lights that switch to green when you use it, but also I didn't notice that until my fourth playthrough of the map and only after I was specifically looking for it.
Beyond the button confusion, the map was pretty good. The first part starts off with friendly soldiers and two paths, through a vent or out a roll-up door. The vent leads to a room with some headcrabs and another roll-up door, both of these doors lead to an outdoor area with some not so friendly soldiers, aliens spawn in a bit later. Through the next door is an intersection, your main goal is the door straight ahead, the door to the left opens up to a hall with a security booth, this booth has the button you have to press a bunch to open the other door. There is a room with zombies, a revolver, and ammo along with HEV and health in the hallway. Further down the hallway are more enemies and a door locked behind a retinal scanner, we're going to need a scientist.
The map is very generous with health, HEV, and it has quite a bit of ammo as well. At multiple areas there were HEV and health chargers thrown in, and in one area there were two rooms with two sets of each station side by side. It was heaven. There were a couple of ammo dumps, but not nearly as much as the HEV and health dumps.
Now we get to the meat of the map, the door I had trouble opening before leads to an elevator that goes to two doors, one leads to a room full of weapons and ammo, most notably the rocket launcher, and the other door leads to a freight storage area. Enemies will come in from above and a big robot will pop in at the end of the fight. There are multiple areas to go, we went down a path and found a scientist at the end, then brought him up the elevator to safety. Then we repeated that and got another scientist. We were working on number four and this guy was different, his path had a lot of twisting and tight hallways and he kept stopping the whole time. It took forever getting him to the elevator and when we did he walked off at the last minute and we went up, leaving him behind. Then we went down to get him and we heard a cartoon "D'oh!" before the elevator went right back up. The scientist is under the elevator.
Long story short, 10 or so elevator rides had failed to crush the scientist so we effectively could not go down to see if there were any more to rescue. I was feeling confident we could get them all out alive, but I guess not. I mean I guess they are still alive but good luck making it through that scientist's titanium skull and spine.
We bring the eggheads over to unlock the door, which leads to a dark outdoor cliff hallway filled with zombies. At the end we get back into the facility with more friendly soldiers and open up a door that immediately links us back to the previous area. Through a cafeteria is another hallway with another security booth with another button that opens up another door. This door leads out to the final arena where players have to defend against waves of enemies. There are turrets up here but be careful, my teammate got fatally stuck inside one. After all the enemies are dead, or the time is up, or whatever, the cavalry arrives and saves the day, but more importantly, they end the map.
Besides the design of that one button being so unintuitive that I thought the map was broken, I had a pretty good time. I knew from the map description that there was some escorting to do, and it wasn't that bad. I was expecting infinitely respawning enemies and way more twisty hallways making these guys stop every two seconds. But no, kill all the enemies and then take your sweet time saving them. You only need one, so even if one of the little idiots runs off the elevator and then runs below it, forever sealing off this part of the map the map is still beatable.
Pros:
- So much HEV
- pretty good ammo stocks as well
- it's an escort mission but it has very little bullshit, I had every confidence we would save them all
- you only need one scientist to live!
- really good action, both aliens and humans fought each other a lot and that was fun
Cons:
- a single unintuitive button stymied my teammate and I for multiple playthroughs.
- navigating the tight hallways with even just the one scientist was not fun
- the dumb scientist blocked the elevator, and the elevator couldn't even smash him out of the way
Score: 7.5 / 10
Comments
Post a Comment