Azac - Dunkelschwamm

    This is a short map that puts players in a very defensible building with respawning monsters outside. Players who can get past the enemies can explore a short walkthrough portion until hitting the map end.

SCMapDB page

Author: Yaxez

Date of final release: 2005

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Azac

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | September 10, 2022 | 3040 characters

    Azac is a map from 2005 which features lots of action, some cute moments, and overall clunky presentation.

    Players at first begin in a very clunky spawn area: a tower which is traversed via narrow elevator (great for co-op /s), enough equipment for approximately one player until the equipment respawns, and an attic which players must clunkily slide down a cliff face 3 stories down to a fighting pen surrounded by laser gates warding off respawning zombies and gonomes. The laser gates can be toggled on and off from within the spawn area, I'm presuming for the express purpose of trolling other players. I never got to the bottom of that spawn area with full health, but I did get frequently get down there with enough health. Still, it's an annoying and awkward opening.

    Wading through the zombies and marching forward, there's a rather open area with a rather ugly brushed bridge where soldiers rappel in for battle. Since I had rushed ahead and brought zombies and gonomes with me, we were able to take advantage of the infighting to take them all out. Proceed into some tunnels full of baby gargs. A shortcut opens up- handy. Proceed to an actually rather neat shootout with a bunch of soldiers where you can easily just rain grenades on them to annihilate their numbers. Then you run forward and the map ends.

    There's a couple parts where the progression is hidden a bit in the brushwork- in particular a breakable wall and a jumping puzzle. I think the bland appearance of the map really made these blend in, but I did manage to guess the location of the breakable wall the first time without seeing its tell and my teammate found the jumping puzzle, so I guess they're just well hidden progression.

    Most of the map doesn't look great. It looks (and kinda plays) like a lot of early maps for Sven by mappers with little experience under their belts. I don't think Yaxez was inexperienced here, but they mapped like somebody who was. The progression was awkward, the goals were unclear, the falling down the cliff face bit offers areas where the player can easily hop out of the map- it's just a silly mess of a map. Still, it is completable, and thanks to a beefy arsenal and some slapping action segments it isn't boring, really. Still, its blocky use of vanilla textures gives a very boring and uninspired appearance.

    Overall, it's a map that works and delivers some silly action. If you're scraping the bottom of the barrel for action maps for your server rotation, you could do worse. I wouldn't really go out of my way to play it though.

Pros:

• Short and sweet
• Some not terrible action segments
• Lots of variety of locations
• Well equipped players

Cons:

• Wonky spawn area
• Unclear progression
• Varied locations are unfortunately very blocky and uninspired in execution
• Not terribly memorable.

Score: 5 / 10