Army 4 - GrandmasterJ

 

    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 GrandmasterJ | July 24, 2022 | 4116 characters

    Army 4 is a boxy walkthrough map. The map consists of long hallways with simple, boxy architecture and enemies spawn in clumps as players proceed through the level. There was also a a point where we had to cheat to progress.

    The map stats off with players at one end of a long outdoor cliff hallway, with grenades and mp5s. For some reason the mp5 has the m16 model so it can throw off veteran Sven players. the uzi has the mp5 model, its all very confusing. Enemies spawn in clumps right in front of the player, they seem to be positioned to get one or two behind players as well. More than once my teammate ran ahead and one or two enemies appeared directly behind him. Good thing I was there to cover him. The map architecture is nothing special, it uses default Half-Life textures to make hallways, some of the hallways have interesting features in them like sniper towers, bunkers, or the occasional tank.

    This is an old school Sven map, the difficulty comes from fighting wads of high powered enemies at once. The problem is that there is no updating spawn and players have to walk down the entirety of the map to get to where they need to be. The whole map is a hallway, one long linear path, walking that each time I die really wears on me. By far the worst part of the map is the travel distance from spawn to the front, it adds up.

    The map's first real split from linearity is an outdoor room with a weird tent link building with an auto turret in the front and a military truck parked next to it. There are two doors here, my teammate didn't try the far door and I assumed it was locked, so we both climbed on top of the truck and jumped over the other door, thus sequence breaking. After we both died I tried the other door, the one in full view of the turret, and it opened to a hallway where we could open the other door. The map was not built to keep people off the walls.

    The map ends with a split hallway, three doors and only two open. Although the one I tried to open kept closing on me before it could fully open. I thought maybe a zombie or something was stuck in it but after we went through the other door and pressed a button this door started working fine. We went through that door and pressed a button, which opened another room with no buttons. Now here is where we had to cheat to progress. There is a junction with three doors, one door has a button, another door won't open, and the third door has a button and a control room. According to the map comments the radio in the control room should open the last door, but it didn't. We kept using it like crazy, shooting it, whacking it with crowbars, nothing. I don't know what went wrong, but that last door would not open. We had to noclip through it.

    The last boss is a garg in a really amateur alien room. We threw grenades at it and when it died the map immediately ended.

    One last thing to mention is that there were some good supplies around, in the first half of the map we kept getting lots of ammo and new weapons. Later in the map we get some HEV too. It wasn't enough to offset the long travel time to the action every time we respawned, but we never ran out of ammo and had to suicide to resupply. Enemies would also populate previous areas, so on respawns my teammate and I would have to fight our way back to the action.

    Overall, a very amateur map. I don't know if it's even beatable, I certainly had to cheat to complete it. The map design was generically simple, the respawn was unbearable, but even then it had some good elements like the plentiful ammo and tanks. I feel like with more love this map could really be something, but right now its kind of a slog.

Pros:

• Good supply
• decent combat

Cons:

• drab and uninspired level design
• lack of updating respawn points or shortcuts make respawning an absolute chore
• I don't even know if this map can be beaten without cheats

Score: 5 / 10