Between the Lines - GrandmasterJ
Some mysterious stuff is going down on Earth so the players pop through a dimensional portal to what I assume to be Black Mesa to catch the G-man. Fight through the facility as soldiers and aliens fight each other and watch out for ambushes.
Author:eMTeG
Date of release: 2002
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Between the Lines
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
As far as maps go I would say this one is very average. We have the standard Black Mesa texturing, even if the story is trying not to be standard Half-Life fare. Players start off with the basic pistol, medkit, crowbar loadout in a spawn room with weapons locked behind glass. Going through a teleport throws players into the level proper.
I wasn't happy to start a level off with seeing all these weapons locked off and then getting thrown into combat with nothing more than the standard weapons. However, I quickly found an mp5 and my teammate realized there was a shotgun right where the teleporter dumped us. Collecting these weapons also got rid of the glass and unlocked them at spawn as well. So that problem got solved very quickly.
After we had some decent weapons the combat improved. There are lots of hallways leading to multi-leveled arenas filled with both HECU grunts and alien grunts, headcrabs, and vortigaunts. I think I saw like two alien controllers. The map had this one trick where right above the entrance to a room would be another level with a bunch of enemies on it so players get shot from above in the back. The point in the level where they pull this trick coincides when we get the M16 with underbarrel grenades, so a well placed shot is usually enough to liquefy these traps.
I died many times to enemies appearing behind me. I have no doubt some of them were ones I missed and they managed to flank me good, but I have also seen something get triggered and more enemies spawn in all around me. It's a minor complaint but I'm very salty at having cleared a whole room of human grunts only for two bullsquids to spawn right on top of me, killing me dead.
At a certain point we hit a button and die, then I see that a door near where the spawn teleport dumps us is open and I go through it to see the 'government man' and then the map ends. It was very short.
This map started off rough but immediately improved. It was pretty short but that's not a bad thing, I think it did all it set out to do. It did have update the teleporter from spawn to new areas, cutting down on travel time. Unlocking weapons was pretty good too, even if it was taunting us when we first started the level. This is also how we know we missed a gauss gun secret in the map. The map description states there is a secret and there is a gauss gun in spawn but we never unlocked it, maybe you will!
Pros:
- Lots of fighting between human and alien forces, it's very nice to see that as a main feature
- high enemy density with underbarrel grenades is always satisfying
- updating spawn, weapons unlock as we collect them and the teleporter moves up with us
Cons:
- putting the shotgun right outside the spawn teleport just to unlock it is an unnecessary step
- the map only had the one trick of enemies behind and above players, it was real one note
- I got caught in a wave of enemy spawns a few times and that was annoying
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