Bluecell Puzzle - GrandmasterJ
This map is a beta and ends abruptly. It also doesn't really have a story. However, it does contain eye gouging amounts of blue and some fun gameplay.
Author: Keen
Date of release: 2007
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Bluecell Puzzle
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | January 28, 2023 | 3923 characters
Here is an old abandoned map that plays pretty well for being unfinished. Of course looking at the map description I see that the original map's spawn is broken and when we tried the map we died immediately on spawn and had a message telling us "no spawn points available". So if you want to play this map you HAVE to get the fixed bsp. Maybe this map will get repacked one day and people won't have to deal with the confusion.
Players start off right in front of a barnacle and a deep pit into water. You could just jump down or you can grapple up and get a gauss gun. While the barnacle is not the focus on the map you do need it to pass some areas. The very next part is a long hallway with some blue transparent vortigaunts. Mp5s litter the ground and around a corner is a teleporter. We cleared the whole hallway first and then went back to explore the teleporter. We appeared a couple of feet away by where we came in. This is a very useless teleporter. This map indulges in this kind of silliness. Also nearby is a secret that can be accessed by jumping up onto a blue protrusion (I don't know what else to call it) on the wall and jumping through the ceiling that unlocks more weapons at spawn.
Progression is marked mostly by turning wheels, the kind you have to hold down to turn and all of the ones in this map take quite a while. Sometimes it is clear what the wheel does and sometimes it is not. There was one interesting puzzle that involved pushing boxes into a big crusher but most of the gameplay is combat, wheel turning, finding out what that wheel was connected to, and barnacle grappling. Spawn never updates but shortcuts do open up and they generally flow very well.
The map has some… uh… striking visuals. There is one blue texture that is used for almost every surface and it's this solid blue back with what looks like blue pictures of bacteria on it. It does look interesting and I am always happy with a map that doesn't look like Black Mesa, but dear god is it ugly. Some details do look nice like the semi transparent big plant leaf things scattered about. There is also a picture of Princess Diana, her eyes have blue spikes and her mouth is a grate, I don't really know what to make of that. The map also has some music, as best I can tell the music is some ancient meme song about Star Trek.
Combat was pretty good. The map gave us some pretty good weapons and kept giving us plenty of ammo, health, and HEV regularly so we were well stocked. The map had lots of vortigaunts so we had to kill them fast or gib them to prevent them from resurrecting each other. It also had some surprise enemies positioned well so they would catch us unaware.
The map itself is a blue eyesore with some interesting details, some fun puzzles, combat that was good except for some enemies that were nearly invisible, and lots of ammo to blow through enemies. The map was fun, I like the gameplay it offers, the one puzzle was fun and incredibly satisfying to solve. The long wheel turning time got old very fast and there was a lot of it, at one point I had to go down a hallway of instant crushers (which was a pretty bad part of the map) and then turn two, one after the other. The atmosphere was wacky and very blue, a little bit of an eyesore but it was an experience all the same.
Pros:
- The map certainly looked new and interesting
- fun mix of gameplay, combat, a puzzle, and barnacle grappling
- good supply of ammo, health, and HEV
- shortcuts open up a lot
Cons:
- turning the wheels took too long and there were a lot of them
- I'm not a fan of the somewhat invisible enemies
- the whole map is a huge eyesore
- the crushers at the very end were not fun at all
Score: 7 / 10
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