Battle Zone - GrandmasterJ

 

    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 GrandmasterJ | November 6, 2022 | 2301 characters

    This is a pretty common map design, an arena with some respawning enemies. The map is laid out as two sides of a river or canal or moat or whatever you want to call it with a bridge across it. Two walls with ramparts on the top are on either end. The player side has some friendly Barneys who do not stop yelling with underbarrel grenades (and by extension, M16s), shotguns, grenades, satchel charges, HEV, and the MP5. On the far ramparts and bank human soldiers spawn in endlessly.

    Falling into the water is pretty annoying but players can climb back on the bridge with some patience. The gap to access the ramparts is pretty narrow but with patience players can sneak by. Of course, soldiers are spawning in at a very fast rate so players will be taking near constant damage. The HEV allows us to live longer than usual through this. But the only real spot of gameplay is trying to reach the shack at the far end of the map, in enemy territory. There is a TNT crate and a soldier that respawns very quickly on the ground floor, I've seen him spawn in seconds after I kill his predecessor. The top floor is filled with guys, I grenade them easily and find the crossbow up here. The windows are unbreakable so there is no sneaky sniping from up here. Blowing up the crate on the first floor reveals a button that opens a hatch to a basement with more weapons. Human soldiers spawn in here too but the room is so small that they usually end up floating and blocking us in.

    That's really the map. It's yet another horde arena shooter. It has an interesting battleground but the level geometry is annoying more often than not. We've got plenty of weapons but the enemies spawn so quickly we usually end up getting shot a lot anyway. Nothing special really stands out about this map.

Pros:

• Lots of explosives to play with
• the map has HEV and it really helps
• Secret area and weapons add some objectives to an otherwise directionless map

Cons:

• Level geometry was annoying in several areas
• enemies spawn really quickly
• some areas were cramped but still had respawning enemies

Score: 4 / 10