Battle Zone - Dunkelschwamm

  


    A never-ending stream of screaming Barneys fights a never-ending stream of soldiers on the other side of a moat. Walls and towers act as fortifications and a small shack at the far end of the map serves as an objective of sorts.

SCMapDB page

Author: Terminator

Date of final release: 1999

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Battle Zone

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | November 6, 2022 | 2036 characters

    Battlezone is a Sven Co-op arena map. A fort with respawning Barneys (and players) sits across a moat from a similar fort with respawning HECU grunts. The moat has leeches in it. There are ladders in the walls of the forts which lead up to elevated guard towers with bridges between them. In each fort there are strange brick kiosks within which HEV and weapons respawn. At the far end of the enemy fort is a house full of weapons and respawning enemies.

    The main gameplay loop of this map is endlessly fighting grunts while maintaining MP5, M16, underbarrel grenade, handgun, and satchel charge ammo, aided in part by Barneys. The far house also contains many more weapons, including grenades, a crossbow, an egon gun, and a hivehand. This is a loop this map does decently well, though it's rather easy to dominate the grunts with high HEV and lots of respawning explosives.

    Worth noting that if a player falls in the moat there's no getting out of there other than being slowly nibbled by leeches.

    The visuals of this map leave much to be desired. There's definitely more of a function over form philosophy at play, and everything evokes roughly, approximately what it is meant to be in the simplest shapes possible and using stock Half-Life textures.

    There's worse arena maps you can play. If you're looking to pad out a server list with arena maps, this is a viable enough candidate. I don't think the map ends, though, so keep an eye on that.

Pros:

  • Endless action gameplay
  • Some very fun weapons which are suitably difficult to find.
  • Good allies
  • Really solid arsenal with respawning ammo and equipment

Cons:

  • Gets pretty old pretty fast if you're not way into shooting hgrunts
  • Pretty ugly
  • Very basic layout without much to it
  • Can't crawl out of the moat, but slowly die, which is just annoying.

Score: 5 / 10

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