Retrohunt - GrandmasterJ

    This map is not just Duck Hunt, it also has a Frogger section as well. Snipe aliens out of the air on one side of the map and dodge fast cars in another.

SCMapDB page

Author: LentoMan

Date of release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Retrohunt

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | February 4, 2023 | 2792 characters

    Retrohunt is not only a version of Duck Hunt remade for Sven Co-op, but it is also Frogger. Player start off in a room that is half dark alley and half bright NES hunting ground each with a teleporter.

    In the Frogger side of things players are dropped onto a narrow sidewalk with four lanes of fast cars speeding by. When I first went through my teammate telefragged me by using the teleporter right behind me, so watch out for that. Actually crossing the road is an ordeal, as the cars are fast, deadly, and don't appear in an easily timed intervals as their speeds can change.

    Getting across the road (and the floating platforms, this is frogger after all) will put players in little alcoves with a button in each one. Pressing a button will fill the alcove and crush the activating player, once all the buttons are pressed a message to the effect of "good job frogs" displays for all players and the whole thing resets.

    On the Duck Hunt side of things players are given sniper rifles and plenty of ammo and then they get to sit patiently while they wait for either a houndeye or a headcrab get launched across the sky. It takes a long time for a target to appear and while the houndeye was a fairly big target the headcrab was so much harder. I also feel the need to mention that pressing the button in Frogger adds a point to a player's score, but successfully knocking enemies out of the sky in Duck Hunt does not. The concept is dragged down by the very slow rate of fire for the targets and the fact that players engaging in the other half of the map are being rewarded. The game will flash your screen white if you miss a target with the sniper, I do not feel this enhances the gameplay in any way.

    While the Frogger section is a road, alley, and some building, the Duck Hunt portion is bright and cartoony just like the original game. The Frogger section has better gameplay but Duck Hunt hits my nostalgia harder and I really want the shooting part to be more fun. I played this map based on Duck Hunt, not Frogger, and the Frogger part was done better. That's not what I signed up for.

Pros:

  • Two distinct areas of gameplay that both look and play like classic arcade games
  • The Frogger section was made pretty well and really felt like Frogger
  • The Duck Hunt section looked really good, I enjoyed the new textures and the whole setup

Cons:

  • The Duck Hunt area shot targets far too slowly
  • The Frogger section gives points but Duck Hunt does not
  • This map is called retrohunt and yet the Frogger part is done best, it just feels misleading to me
Score: 6 / 10


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Absolute State of this Blog

Image
   I'm a big fan of Sven Co-op, so much so that I was only half joking when I presented the terrible idea of playing and reviewing every map to my partner in crime, Dunkelschwamm. Much to my surprise she agreed and now here we are, 371 maps in to the 1558 maps currently on the Sven Co-op map database . It was done primarily to get people to stop leaving reviews in the comments and to actually put them in the review section. Let me just check the reviews on the map database. . . . yeah, I think it sort of worked. Then we got nervous that wikidot might die and take the site with it so I created this blog as a mirror.      Dunkel was unemployed at the time and my fiancé still had tons of patience for me so it went swimmingly, I think we averaged something like 15 reviews a week. I did the math but circumstances keep changing and so do the numbers, so that's a very rough estimate. We both dabbled in making maps for Sven long ago when the game was relevant and popula...
Read more

Swiss Cheese Halloween - Dunkelschwamm

Image
        Swiss Cheese Halloween is a conversion of an ancient Half-Life mod of the same name. It was made back in the whimsical time of 2002 by an author who goes by Swiss Cheese, hence the map name. SCMapDB page Original mod author: Swiss Cheese Conversion author: Garompa Date of original mod release: 2002 Date of final Sven map release: 2020 Maps in package: 12 Map review of Swiss Cheese Halloween (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | November 27, 2021 | 6988 characters      A classic Halloween mod that's great for nostalgia and festivity, but frequently trips over itself.      Some information: Swiss Cheese Halloween is an old Halloween-themed Half-Life singleplayer mod. It was one of the first Half-Life mods I ever played, years ago. I was excited to play through it with a buddy in Sven, so I got this port. This review is following our finishing of the mod together.      The mod as a whole offers many m...
Read more

Civil Defence - Dunkelschwamm

Image
       Kill a bunch of soldiers and aliens in some generic warehouses and offices somewhere in a red brick city. It's a pretty straightforward map that requires at least two people. SCMapDB page Authors: Daniel Plant Date of release: 2004 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Civil Defence (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 7, 2024 | 3588 characters      Civil Defence is a very simple sequence of gunfighting arenas in a warehouse district setting. Players fight their way out of a building by escaping along its fire escape, then through the district, before moving through a sewers area to the final battle. The first third of the map sees players fighting blackops grunts and assassins, before things take a sudden shift and see the players fighting an odd combination of vortigaunts, gonomes, and shock troopers (with a few itchyosaurs, and eventually a voltigore, thrown into the mix).      The battles in this are intense. W...
Read more