Psyko - GrandmasterJ
Welcome to the wonderful world of colors. There are ten doorways to ten different color coded puzzle/fights and one final boss room. This map has outstanding visuals.
Author: Lemonsoda
Date of final release: 2010
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Psyko
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | November 20, 2022 | 3917 characters
Psyko is a colorful map with ten separate areas with a color theme (green for slime, pink for pigs, light blue for clouds, dark blue for water, etc.) and a final boss battle against the color master. The visuals are striking and really make the themes pop. From start to finish the map is an absolute charm to play and although there is a lot of combat that gets repetitive at times there are also fun puzzles to solve so the gameplay is not one note.
The map is pretty simply designed, players spawn in a room with two doors on each wall and two trap doors in the floor. One door will randomly unlock and players will then clear that area and find the magic symbol within. Doing so will randomly unlock another door until all doors are open and then a hole opens for the boss battle. The color scheme is bright colors on a black background, with lots of accenting textures, like the waves in the water room. The brushwork is very nice with some intricate and impressive spirals, there is some really interesting looking stuff in the water room.
My favorite room is the pink pig room, it has a part where players must take out these pushable pig brushes and put them in a pen. The next room has a massive pig face vomiting out enemies. It's great.
My least favorite room might be orange pumpkin room, trying to get those seeds by jumping off a janky ramp-ladder thing isn't very fun for me. The sides of the pumpkin room are angled so players can kinda skate and surf on them but not really. Getting the pumpkin seeds spawn stuka bats, lots of things spawn stuka bats but here I am annoyed at them.
As players complete rooms enemies will start appearing in spawn. They don't respawn, it just triggers on map progress, but it's annoying. Plus there are these boring flat colored slime enemies that are the most common enemy in the game. They sometimes blend in with the environment and all their animations are vague movements that don't indicate what they are really doing. I can pump upwards of three shotgun shells into one before I realize its dead. The other enemies are slight recolors of the Half-Life alien enemies, plus the ones from Opposing Forces. Another thing to note is that until the final boss players only have access to the Desert Eagle and the shotgun. There is HEV and ammo in spawn so players are well stocked, but with the limited arsenal and the slimes as the most common enemy, combat started to drag near the end.
Scattered around the map are these big speakers with buttons on them, hitting the button will play music for this area, each song is really simple cutesy background music. Sometimes it differs but for the most part it was one track. I liked it in the beginning but I was over it halfway.
After we collect all the symbols a big hole opens up and we fall into a better armory with HEV, SAWs, M16s, Snipers, Spore Launchers, and explosives. Down a hole, and taking fall damage, is some ammo and a convenient wall of crates providing cover against a big laser, destroying the hanging color blocks will destroy the laser. Then the Color Master comes out and we pour SAW fire into his face and the map gives us a nice cutscene of our color symbols dancing around before the map ends.
Pros:
- Dripping in style. The map looks great.
- the themes worked, the whole map was a cohesive and fun experience
- lots of variation, for the most part, Not just combat, but puzzles and jumping too
- decent spawn supply, I love the HEV
- fun and toggleable music
- solid last boss setup
Cons:
- the slimes were boring and the limited weapons don't help
- I don't like the inclusion of enemies in the spawn area. They were never a problem but I still don't like it
Score: 9.5 / 10
Comments
Post a Comment