Black Facility - GrandmasterJ
Welcome to a scientific facility that looks and feels like Black Mesa but isn't, probably. Fight and scavenge your way up the elevator shaft to an eventual escape.
Author: Agamemnon
Date of release: 2003
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Black Facility
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | March 5, 2023 | 4123 characters
Welcome to a secret facility somewhere in America that looks like black Mesa but maybe isn't. Regardless, xen aliens and soldiers show up and are mere speedbumps in the path of the players.
We start off at the bottom of an elevator shaft, a zombie immediately approaches me so I climb a rope dangling from the elevator above and wait. My teammate joins the server and the zombie hits him before he has a chance to react. We spawn with 75 HEV so the hit barely scratches him, but I don't think enemies have any business being in spawn right off the bat like this.
We can climb up the rope or walk forward. Going forward shows us a broken generator with a neat little steam cloud effect on it. A scientist informs us we have to bring a big battery to him. Up the rope is a floor full of side rooms and all sorts of other things. We start off with the standard loadout plus an mp5 and shotgun, but we can also find a revolver and hive hand pretty easily and eventually we even get underbarrel grenades, rocket launchers, and various explosives.
Combat was pretty easy and that was because supplies are plentiful especially HEV, it's great. We were never running out of ammo and usually we were topped up on health and armor. Enemies do get dumped on players so we did get our lumps, but most of the time we died from running headlong into an obviously bad situation, like the electrical arcing we had to turn the power off before passing. Also there was a point where I tried to open a door and was smashed by something. On further inspection it looks kind of like a low-res ash pile from Fallout 3, I don't really know what it is supposed to be or if it was supposed to kill me. I've decided it's something that's broken but I don't really know what's going on with that.
There was a teleporter that opened up at the bottom of the elevator shaft that updated a couple times throughout the level. The way the level was structured vertically meant we never had to travel that far anyway, but the teleporter eliminated the annoyance of having to deal with a rope ladder or elevator when going back to the front. It was much appreciated. There are also times in the map where shortcuts open up, the only times I felt like I was wasting time was when I was lost.
The whole map looks like standard Black Mesa stuff, all the usual textures. There is even a heavy focus on vents. At one point we were in a real big vent system and my teammate boosted off me to a higher level we couldn't yet get to. He absolute sequence broke and used a minigun to mow down the last half of the level as I figured out how to charge up the new battery and press two buttons on two consoles myself. He feels bad about going so far ahead and I finish the battery so we meet back up in the elevator shaft, he gets on the roof of the elevator and I get inside and press the button. He's able to jump the fence and get to the next area and proceed to gun down everything that moves. As I try to figure out how I'm going to get there I jump on top of the elevator and look down and try to use the elevator button through the top. It works and soon I am getting one token shot at the last enemy in the room. No co-op required although it kind of tries.
The map ends sort of abruptly. We get above ground, take out the boss, and then we hit the map end. It was a pretty fun experience throughout, if a little generic. Sometimes it felt like the game was pushing cooperative parts but they never really panned out all that well. But there are enough supplies to support a swarm of players in the combat. It's overall a fairly decent shooty Sven map.
Pros:
- plentiful supplies
- updating checkpoints and shortcuts
- solid combat throughout
- we spawn with a solid loadout
Cons:
- Whatever smashed me at the door needs to be fixed
- easy to sequence break
- attempts at cooperation required gameplay just creates annoying obstacles
| Score: |
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