Secret Place - GrandmasterJ

 

    Welcome to a place of secrets. This map is a heaping pile of secrets and sometimes they actually work. The map works best when you are simply wandering around looking at the sights.

SCMapDB page

Author: Robootto

Date of final release: 2003

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Secret Place

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | November 13, 2022 | 2780 characters

    I'm always uneasy with secret maps for the sole reason that it is hard for me to tell if I've found everything, I'm pretty bad at finding secrets so I'm usually missing like half the map. To add to my difficulty the author for this map is Robootto, who is known for off the wall and barely functional (and sometimes completely nonfunctional) maps. So a secret map where the secrets might not even work, great.

    So the map starts and I start breaking through an obvious breakable wall. We go through a few of these, picking up the odd weapon and some ammo, my teammate finds some intangible walls we can walk through, things are going well. There is some combat here and there, dying is difficult because the map is like a maze and a combination of darkness and flat texturing makes doorways hard to see, players have to traverse a maze hoping to find where they left off. Eventually my teammate and I emerge outside to a pillar of water. We start to swim up. It's a very long swim straight up this pillar, in order to not drown we have to poke out of the water and fall down before we can edge our way back into the pillar and keep swimming up. At the top is a room with giant block letters that say "GOD IS IN THE". There is no resolution, only baffled reflection. There is a small room with a Barney behind the letters. God is not in the Barney, I checked.

    In order to make sure we didn't miss anything we started noclipping around. Yes, we missed a lot of stuff. I tried retracing some of the hallways and rooms we discovered, but couldn't really find out way back to any areas we've been before. I don't know if we just haven't found the legitimate way to get there or if there is no way to get there, I can't tell with Robootto. There is a lot of interesting stuff to see, like a room with the G-man that will kill players that get too close.

    There is some stuff to see, but also a lot of flat texturing and darkness. It's a big maze full of secrets that is either really full of secrets or totally broken. I had some fun with this map, exploring it was pretty cool. I wish I could have gone everywhere in the map legitimately but I'm thinking that may be impossible.

Pros:

•     If you like mazes and secret maps then you might like this
•     there were some interesting things to see

Cons:

•     lots of flat texturing and darkness
•     I think the map is broken, or at the very least there are areas players can not reach without cheats
•     very little ammo, we don't need much ammo but if we're going to be lost in a maze with breakables
•     its a confusing maze

Score:     3 / 10