Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Dunkelschwamm
The map is split into a base and across a chasm is a road where aliens come from. Defend what I assume is the rock from the aliens coming from what I assume is a place that lacks softness.
Author: Elvis
Date of release: 2004
Maps in package: 2
Map review of Between a Rock and a Hard Place
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by dunkelschwamm | March 27, 2023 | 4677 characters
Between a Rock and a Hard Place is two maps for Sven Co-op that, for all I can tell, are identical. There's the normal version and the large version. I can't tell if the normal version is large or if the large version is actually quite normal in size. Either way, we played both and didn't find any difference.
The rub is simple: the players occupy a 2-story base set into the wall of a cave. Said base sits across a chasm from multiple enemy spawn points. That's an almost deceptive description, as enemies spawn plenty from over the bridge as well. And inside of the players' base. There's enemy spawners everywhere, really.
The layout of the player base has a loading dock looking area on the ground floor with some crates, and namely the MP5 pickup and ammo. Just outside the ground floor is the only health recharge in the map, exposed to the battlefield. Climbing upstairs (through respawning headcrabs lmao) there's an upstairs corridor which respawns some ammo, the shotgun, and has some fairly sturdy breakable windows which can be knocked out for sniper spots. All throughout, doors open to dispense zombies, gonomes, snarks, and friendly Barneys and Otises (Otii?). It keeps things shaking.
The no-man's-land outside includes a bridge which is occasionally swarmed by rappelling Blackops soldiers. The area beneath the players' sniper position occasionally drops grenades, but it's hard to get to and we didn't notice until our third time around. A corner across the bridge respawns a somewhat concealed crossbow beside a corpse. These weapons are fun, but deadly to pursue during waves of enemies.
The waves of enemies trickle in, but get denser and denser. Vortigaunts, houndeyes, zombies, gonomes, alien grunts, alien controllers, baby gargs, blackops, and snarks spawn in, each with proper alliance settings. This ensures that the battles get hectic on all sides, which was a saving grace for me quite often. It's a lot of fun dealing with the Half-Life AI crossfire in all its glory, and this map does a great job of putting that on full display.
The arena itself is quite nicely brushed, and wide-open. There's lots of great places to throw satchel charges, and as the map opens up you get the chance to. Every now and then a scientist appears to run across the map to unlock new weapons for you. My teammate and I were resigned immediately to the terrible scientist AI meaning the escort missions would be impossible for just the two of us. But, it turns out clearing a path for them to b-line for our base was pretty easy. Every now and then they'd get caught up and run in the wrong direction, but we were always able to keep them safe until they got to their objective. Once they get to the base, they unlock new goodies: armor and satchel explosives and ammo, a sniper rifle, uzis and an M16, an RPG, and tripmines get added to the player's base as the scientists arrive. Once they've done their business, letting them die seems to have no consequences. They just pop open a crate and become meat shields. Definitely ensure their safety though, as those goodies are crucial to making the map your bitch.
Once enough time has passed, and you and your teammate haven't died too many times (we think we died too many times our first run, ending the map- maybe something else ended the map?), you get picked up by a helicopter while being defended by a bunch of robogrunts. It's a fun end to the map.
Overall, I think Between a Rock and a Hard Place was a really good defense map. Defense/horde maps are rarely my favorite because of their static nature and lack of progression, and I REALLY hate escort missions, but this map did both very enjoyably. It's also very good looking to boot. I think with more people it would only become more enjoyable, but I can't imagine more than 4 people would feel very balanced. I highly recommend for friends or server lists.
Pros:
- Great consistent action
- Monster infighting used to great effect
- Lots of great weapons, and unlocking new ones was a fantastic treat
- It even looked good
- The end with the helicopter is great
Cons:
- Sometimes getting a little overwhelmed can result in spawn-camping from the blackops or alien grunts
- Win/lose conditions are unclear throughout the map
- The map just kinda spawns snarks on the player every now and then and that's bullshit. It's like water torture.
- The two different maps is very confusing. One says "large" but they're the same???
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