Army 4 - Dunkelschwamm

  

    This map is not a sequel. There is another map just called 'army' that has nothing to do with this map, I think the '4' refers to the version number. The map uses default textures and is one long hallway.

SCMapDB page

Author: Wildcat

Date of final release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Army 4

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | July 24, 2022 | 4589 characters

    Army 4 is a walkthrough map of impressive length and unimpressive mostly everything else. For much of the map you are pitted against soldiers, though at times it throws in aliens where convenient. Players subvert these enemies by shooting them with the lots of guns the map gives them. Players can dominate simple corridor-style open battlefields with convenient concrete walls with ease. Tanks are no match for players as they chuck grenades and counter-strike the tanks' supporting black ops snipers. Even shock troopers, dropped from the air as though conjured by the very spirit of lazy and inconsistent map design, do little to stand in the way of the player.

    And that's because the player has guns, HEV, cover, and the enemies get to mill around in boring corridors where they either get too congested for their own good or battle players in a stats-off whittling each other down while doing little to save themselves. Most of the time it doesn't come to that, and players can use the corners of the level's pathing to provide cover while delivering decisive shots to enemies. I feel like this breaks down later in the map when it's just hallways full of avalanches of enemies. Overall, I feel like the majority of the map is kind of just boringly set up fire fights, but there are some extreme highs and extreme lows. On the low end, you have hallways where tons of aliens spawn in at once, deafening the players as teleporting sounds stack. On the high end, you have hallways full of enemies who can be lured into perfect traps. Most of the time it just feels like you're working your way through bodies, though.

    The map features some tanks, but not well. By getting them to target me and shoot the wall beside them, I got at least one of them to destroy itself and all of its buddy NPCs with splash damage from its own gun. I really like some of the brushwork on these. Most of these tanks can be destroyed by shooting them or throwing grenades at them, which is great, but this causes some confusion at one point in the map where a mounted gun requires a round-about map puzzle to destroy. I wasted a lot of ammo on it, and eventually figured the best way to get around it was to climb over it, which helped me right over the fence. Turns out this map is incredibly easy to sequence break- all you gotta do is climb up on the concrete walls and you can walk around from too high up to your heart's content, seeing parts of the map you're not supposed to yet.

    Speaking of broken sequences, there's a bit toward the end where there are two buttons and a door. In the comments I read that there's a third button, but searching where that comment suggested did not show one. After watching a video of somebody playing this map, it seemed that after clearing out of the rooms that we did the player should have been able to see a message and the final door opens. This did not happen for us, so we cheated past the final door. I don't think this does much to bias our review, but I do think it's important to include this in the review because I think this map is pretty broken. From being able to climb out of it, to the last puzzle not working, to enemy spawning in sounds stacking to be way too loud, to basically every single door in the map suffering from horrible z-fighting. It's sloppy work. It's not terrible, and it's playable, but it's sloppy.

    To make matters the worst, dying and respawning in this map requires a lot of walking through a lot of very visually boring corridors- most of which are full of doors which open pretty boringly by sliding. This added several minutes to our playtime that could have been spent not being frustrated if we weren't playing this.

    I probably won't replay this map, but if you're looking for a walkthrough action map with little imagination or ambition this probably won't disappoint much. I don't recommend it for server rotations because I fear the ending may be bugged.

Pros:

• Straight-forward action
• Some of the tanks look really nice
• Lots of guns and HEV
• I like the interplay of friendly and hostile grunts

Cons:

• Arena and map design is very lazy
• Poorly brushed maps suffer heavily from z-fighting and sequence breaking opportunities
• The walk of shame with each respawn is nuts
• Enemy ambushes are over the top
• Inconsistent and poorly planned tanks and mounted gun segments
• Ending is broken???

Score: 5 / 10