Auspices - GrandmasterJ

    Auspice (ôspəs), noun, a divine or prophetic token. This is an officially released map for Sven Co-op 3.0 taking place somewhere in Black Mesa with good variety of combat, puzzles, and exploration.

Author: Seraph

Date of final release: 2003

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Auspices

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | August 18, 2022 | 5249 characters

    This is yet another Black Mesa map. At this point I'm kind of over Black Mesa themed maps, but the difference with this one is that it is done extremely well and offers pretty good variety.

    The map starts players off outside at night, in a military themed area with bunkers, tanks, snipers, and soldiers. The map goes through some Black Mesa themed areas pretty quick, starting with the military exterior, moving to a lab complex of tight hallways, gonomes, alien grunts, and shock troopers, ending in a big fight in a wide open room with soldiers storming in from above. It moves on to some pipes and vents (this map will revisit pipes and vents) and into an underground tunnel filled with more soldiers. More vents and a cool tram area, and then a hole to the conveyor belt sequence.

    The conveyor belt sequence is a two tiered room with a conveyor belt in the middle. Boxes are strategically placed around the room to force players onto the conveyor belt (they have to go against the flow to proceed into the room) and give enemies cover as they shoot the players struggling up the belts. Also, there are two miniguns before this room so any players who picked those up are out of luck. Grenades that land on the belt will be expedited back to the door players have to enter to get into the room. Halfway through aliens teleport in. Honestly, the conveyor enough is made to be annoying, but the room is just not any fun. It feels like trying to sprint up a sand dune.

    Now I'm doing this review a little differently, I have this habit of just describing the whole experience, and I'm trying to do a speed version of that. This is because the map does change things up a lot and do what it can to give players tons of variety. My teammate and I are pretty good (if I don't say so myself) so we were breezing through the whole map. It kind of felt like I was on a road trip, the landscape flashing before my eyes, but when I get off at a rest stop I don't actually remember what I had seen.

    The map has good teleports that update often, it really helps keep the flow moving and keeps players in the action. Weapons and ammo from parts of the map will spawn at the updated checkpoints as well, it's a huge convenience. The map feels fast and keeps players moving. I did feel the walk from the final checkpoint to the final boss was a bit long, there was a teleport to get to the final boss arena, why couldn't we skip the walking and teleport straight to that?

    But the fast paced action, car ride experience, combined with the amazing shortcuts creates a map that is forgettable. The Black Mesa aesthetic doesn't help things. Don't get me wrong, I love the map, everything about the map is really good. In the description it says that some parts of the map is randomized to give a little more variety on replay, that's fantastic and I didn't even know that going in. It just suffers from a name too many people are scared to attempt to pronounce and a drab overdone environment.

    There is the boss however. The map is really well done but falls down at the boss. After players drop into some goo and fight a bunch of aliens that run into the goo as well (and since most weapons don't work underwater we resort to dropping grenades, which killed us all) they jump into a teleporter and into the final boss chamber. Two laser guns slowly aim and shoot at the players. Players are supposed to destroy the big blocks when the semi transparent shields randomly turn off. After that lasers on the ground will start to strafe back and forth so that players have to start jumping around to avoid. The top part of the shield door will drop and the lasers will stop, players have to blow up a small box at the base of the door, usually by launching spore pods or throwing grenades. It takes forever to blow it up and my teammate and I were just so done with the whole thing. By the time we got the Gargantua out and killed it with grenades (there is a rocket launcher at the back of the hole it came from, why is that a feature in so many maps?) we were ready to stop playing this map.

    Auspices is a solid map, everything from the combat to the weapons was great. The environment looked good as well, it's standard and boring Black Mesa fare but it is done perfectly, even if it leans a little too heavily on vents at times. The map comes to a halt at the conveyor belt room and the boss battle, but I think with a lot more people maybe both rooms could be wacky and maybe get cleared faster, with just two both were a slog.

Pros:

• Well planned, intense action throughout the map
• updating spawn points, shortcuts
• great weapon variety, lots of ammo
• the ammo and weapons will update with the spawn
• the map looked really good, Black Mesa aesthetic was done near perfectly

Cons:

• The conveyor belt room sucked, just having to cross the conveyor was bad
• the final boss room, while visually impressive, was not as much fun actually playing
• I feel like the trip from the final checkpoint to the final boss was a bit too long

Score: 8 / 10