Baohu - Dunkelschwamm

 


    A front-doorless fort with a scientist glued to the center, a courtyard, and a button that spawns waves of enemies, the goal is to protect the scientist. Except enemies don't target the scientist so it is hard to lose this map.

SCMapDB page

Author: Ice Box

Date of final release: 2011

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Baohu

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | September 18, 2022 | 3108 characters

    Baohu is a wave defense map which really requires a large number of players to make feasible. The point of the map is to protect a scientist from an onslaught of progressively more impossible waves of bullet-spongey enemies. However, the scientist himself has a ton of health and is never explicitly targeted by the enemies. Rather, the main obstacle of this map will be enemies breaching the base where the players spawn and spawncamp the players. I played this with one other player, and we got as far as a wave of bulky snipers who would unload several sniper shots into one of us the moment we spawned, instantly spawnkilling us, until we resorted to cheats to work our way through the rest of the waves. This map definitely requires a lot of players to make sense of.

    The actual battlefield is extremely simple. There is a simple fort: a gate with a mounted turret above it, stairways to either side, and the scientist in the middle of the open fort behind the open gate. On the back wall is most of the player's weapons, though grenades and satchel charges are also up near the mounted turret. The enemies spawn in a big empty box in front of the fort, 8 at a time (or 1, in the case of bosses). Early on this is pretty manageable, but basically as soon as enemies are strong enough to breach the base you're gonna be in spawncamping zone unless you have a ton of players dealing with this.

    Early enemies include zombies and vortigaunts, with our first really difficult wave being alien grunts. By the time we were fighting human grunts we were having trouble, and as mentioned the sniper assassins was where we drew the line and turned on cheats. Along the way there was a gonome boss who wasn't too difficult. After the snipers was female assassins, bullsquids, and then finally a heavy weapons grunt boss. Ironically, the heavy weapons grunt would probably be one of the easiest parts of this map.

    I really like the arsenal on display, but the enemies' heavy HP counts really neuter any satisfaction of using them. This paired with the spawncamping results in a really annoying experience that I'm not likely to recommend to anybody. It isn't even a whole lot to look at.

    If you have a very active server which enjoys wave defense, maybe put this on with the knowledge it will get at least four players. Otherwise, I say give this map a pass.

Pros:

  • Good arsenal
  • Defending the scientist is a breeze, as the enemies do not target him and he has tons of health

Cons:

  • Spongey enemies are a pain to fight
  • Having players spawn where the enemies are trained to invade means lots of spawncamping, which makes the game unplayable with certain playercounts at certain waves
  • Inconsistent difficulty pacing
  • Bland arena

Score: 4.5 / 10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deluge - Dunkelschwamm

Image
       Deluge is a very atmospheric map made by one of the community's most acclaimed mappers, RNG. This map is very indicative of his style, well detailed moody and oppressive environment, strange monsters, and high levels of interactivity including lots of secrets. SCMapDB page Author: RNG Date of final release: 2014 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Deluge (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | April 9, 2022 | 4625 characters      Deluge is a map by RNG, which you can assume means it is a quality map. RNG brings style, high-production, and a confusing sense of eldritch nonsense that glues the experience together in a way that makes it feel like something that was summoned from another plane of existence rather than mapped out.      The map is a classic arcade-style keyhunt level. After choosing a difficulty (I suggest going as hard as possible, as with two players it felt easy) you hop into a gritty world that feels like brutalist, industrial architecture made its way
Read more

What is this place and why should I care?

Image
Welcome friends, to Sven Co-op map reviews.     My name is GrandmasterJ and my colleague and other reviewer who is not writing this post is Dunkelschwamm.  This blog exists purely because we have zero faith that Wikidot will exist much longer and want a place to host our reviews. All maps are hosted over at the Sven Co-op Map Database, which you should already know about. It is pretty much the only place dedicated solely to hosting the maps for this wonderful mod. All our reviews are written there first and copied over to here for preservation.     If you don't know what Sven Co-op is and/or haven't been to the database take a moment to familiarize yourself. You can download Sven Co-op via Steam right here by clicking this text . You can visit the map database by clicking on this text . But if you are already familiar with those two things and are looking to avoid garbage maps in favor of the best then you have come to the right place.      Dunkel and I have a combined 400 year
Read more

Zombie Squad - Dunkelschwamm

Image
       Suit up squad, it's time to go fight human grunts that this map calls zombies. This map is a horde map taking place in a burned out urban block, supposedly there are points to capture but I didn't see any. SCMapDB page Author: cyberdaemon Date of release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Zombie Squad (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 17, 2023 | 2601 characters      Zombie Squad is a well detailed horde map wherein grunts and hwgrunts (and, like, an assassin) swarm the players from every angle. Thankfully, within the details of the ruins are plenty of weapons, and a reasonable smattering of HEV and health pickups.      The description makes it sound like maybe my experience with the map is broken. There were, like, 3 soldiers which looked like zombies in the map. I think far more were meant to be zombies? Also, the MOTD makes it sound like there's some funny control point business, like there's an objective to the map. Far as I can tell a
Read more