Big Cave 2 - GrandmasterJ
Climb down into a cave system with a lot of science hallways and industrial rooms. The cave itself certainly is big and the map ends once it is explored in a linear fashion.
Author: amckern
Date of release: 2019
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Big Cave 2
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
As advertised, this map has a BIG CAVE. The story isn't real clear, but we traverse the cave and get to a small door to end the level. It's sort of a beautiful and confusing experience.
Players start in a small camp with a tent, big fan thing, and some ladders down into the BIG CAVE. The tent has a clear window and we can see that it's got a teleporter, but the door doesn't open. We can climb on top of the tent and see that there is no texture on top, so we can see through the level and see a huge vertical climb down ahead of us. The CAVE is at the bottom of a very long shaft with the ladders. The walls have some big brushwork rock laid over more rock and it's pretty impressive looking. It also allows some glimpses through the level and into the skybox.
There are two separate shafts with a ladder going down, I take one and my teammate takes the other. Mine goes by a window where I get to see my teammate bust in and kill a bunch of monsters. The window doesn't break so I go down lower and find a vent with a grate that does not break, on the other side is a HEV charger on a wall. There is an M16 here so it wasn't a total loss, but there is absolutely zero ammo for it in the entire level and I don't get it with underbarrel grenades. I have to climb all the way back up this huge shaft and back down the other one to catch up with him.
We do eventually find the HEV charger that was teased at the bottom of my ladder. When we find it the vent grate just spontaneously explodes and now we have a shortcut. Later on we open a door that leads to a teleporter and we think 'hey great, now we can get right here from spawn'. But then we were going on and we both died and respawned in a whole new place. We unlocked the teleporter at spawn and shortly thereafter made it obsolete by moving spawn itself. It's an interesting choice, I am all for more shortcuts to prevent lots of time wasted trying to walk back to where I died. It just feels odd how this map presents it, a vent opens up at the end of a long ladder ride, an obvious teleporter room opens up, and then spawn changes entirely. There were more shortcuts and I'm sure we powered through the map and probably missed a couple.
Weapons were scattered around the level. We start with standard pistol, crowbar, medkit combination and have to pick up our weapons along the way. We get them pretty quick and there is even ammo scattered around periodically through the map. When the spawn point changes there is something of an armory in that the shotgun spawns up some stairs and to the left, the M16 is around a long corner, the rocket launcher is down a hall, and the mp5 is nowhere to be found. It sucks when shortcuts block access to certain weapons.
The BIG CAVE itself is left for the end, the first half of the map is a lot of scientific and industrial looking corridors and rooms before the first hints of the BIG CAVE interior come into view. When we do see the BIG CAVE it all it's bigness the lights are off and somebody put a bunch of crates in the way. We got on top of the crates and tried to jump onto a large walkway with a ladder. Except we kept bouncing off an invisible wall and the ladder was just painted on. Turns out there was a door facing us when we entered the main chamber but it was pretty dark and we didn't see it. Also there are a lot of painted on doors in this map and the door just didn't look like I could use it.
I find a switch, flip it on, and suddenly there is light, we can see the BIG CAVE and also a gargantua, this is after we get rockets so it's a piece of cake. Blowing up the garg takes out a bunch of crates so we can finally jump over to the platform we saw before. The invisible wall is gone and the ladder has been wished into existence so we fan finally escape. We go up a ladder and find a grate. My teammate hits it with a crowbar and it breaks. There is exactly one breakable in this level and it is that grate.
It may sound like I'm being real down on this map, and I kind of am. But I will say the whole thing looks beautiful. Even though there are long hallway sections they are always varied and have some extra dimension. Like a hallway with monitors studded in the walls enhanced by a glow effect on each one. It features heavy use of colored lights, varied architecture and textures, and even a lot of sounds. The long ladder climbs both had shaking effects with rock gibs raining from above, it may have been a long ladder climb but it definitely gave the impression of a rickety climb and that kept things interesting. There was one part of the level with water tanks in the ceiling with these tube things going back and forth. They made a squishing/squeaking sound that my teammate called "David Lynchian" sound design. The BIG CAVE itself was textured with standard Black Mesa dirt, but the appeal of the CAVE is the BIG and the contrast to the interesting and intricate machinery and construction around it. This BIG CAVE is home to some sort of facility and for whatever reason we are here killing some dudes and aliens that also happen to be here. Also the skybox is great.
The map is pretty long, with lots of combat, and hallways as well as the advertised large cavern filled with angry soldiers and aliens fighting over a Stuff Factory. The map has just awful flow to it, going down the wrong ladder at the beginning was not fun, the unbreakable vents (except for the one that was breakable), the use of an invisible wall to block of a platform I could very easily jump to, and just a ton of other small things like suddenly having my spawn moved without me noticing or ever having used the teleport tent at my original spawn. The map had weapons spread out and even some ammo and HEV. I'm rarely satisfied with the amount of supplies I get in my maps but this map had them spread enough that neither my teammate and I were really hurting. All in all a breathtaking experience that's a little bit annoying to play.
Pros:
- The map looks great
- ammo and HEV spread through the level
- a lot of small details that turn boring hallways into interesting hallways
- tons of shortcuts, teleports, and updating spawns, almost too many
Cons:
- The map looks good but still has rough edges, like the tent at spawn without a textured roof
- the path of progression is unclear, the vents all get broken by trigger except one, unclear overall
- that invisible wall to block that platform I can totally jump to is extra lame
- no central area to collect weapons, spawn point updates past some weapons, locking them off
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