Dial "A" for "Arson" - Dunkelschwamm
Based on a level in Gex by the same name, this map features a rooftop battle in a wacky city that players traverse through platforming and ladders. There is good music but also constant annoying sound effects.
Author: Agent Zero the Koraa Hunter
Date of release: 2018
Maps in package:1
Map review of Dial "A" for "Arson"
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by dunkelschwamm | March 23, 2023 | 5630 characters
Dial "A" For Arson is a Sven Co-op map aiming to recreate a map from Gex. I have not played Gex, but am sorta aware of it, and knowledge that wall-climbing is a major element of Gex was crucial in figuring out the way forward.
The theme is rooftops in an urban skyline at night. Players battle snipers, bodyguards, "city rats" (baby voltigores), "mutants" (baby gargs), and robogrunts. To do this, they use pistols and then MP5, crossbow, sniper, hivehand, SAW, and spore launcher once they're found in the map. There's also wrenches which help break destructables, which is necessary for progression in some areas. Since everything is on rooftops though, and mostly with enemies capable of ranged combat, the wrench does not get much use outside of interacting with the environment. Sometimes you can knock enemies off the rooftops, sometimes you can lure them off. The combat is kinda easy sometimes, as long as you can keep distance and deal with one sniper at a time.
The true menace of Dial "A" For Arson, however, is the platforming. There isn't a terrible lot of jumping from platform to platform, thankfully. However, in its place is infernal Goldsrc ladder, jump-pad, and moving platform physics. The moving platforms are the least horrible offender, as getting stuck on them (which happened to me at least 5 times in my playthrough, despite there only being 3 or so moving platforms where this can happen) can be undone with the simple "unstuck" command. The jump pads are slightly more appalling, and always cause damage when executed completely. They are also hard to correctly execute, seemingly requiring that a player dismount from a jump-pad into a specifically placed push brush and hope the trajectory works out. There are only a couple of these, however.
The most appalling is truly the ladder physics, which is pained on walls with little visual indicator of where a wall would be climbable and another wouldn't. Some buildings have perfectly climbable faces, some buildings have unclimbable faces, some buildings only let you climb on faces with specific textures but not other ones, some buildings let you climb on lit windows but not on others. This seems to be entirely dependent on where it happens in the map, and requires that the player intuit that the map's only progression is through wall climbing. At the final jump pad there are lots of opportunities to misinterpret this finally stretch as a wall-climb, but the only way to test this fails in a player falling to their death. There is another puzzle which requires players crawl around a building's surface which is entirely wrapped in ladder, but if the player tries to move around a corner the ladder dismount tends to launch the player off the building to their death before they can touch the ladder face around the corner. Additionally, there is ground around this ladder wall, but it's thin enough that if players attempt to walk on it the only outcome that can happen is accidentally glancing the ladder wall, dismounting, and launching off the narrow ledge to your death. It's right before the first checkpoint, too, so you have to repeat everything in the map up to that point every time you're launched off. It's a really annoying puzzle and, despite eventually beating that particular ladder wall, I did turn on cheats presuming the map may require noclip to be digestible. The ladders on this map alone are probably knocking a point off the score.
There was a pretty cheap collapsing platform bit early on that kind of wiped my smile off early on. It became a distant memory going forward, but felt worth mentioning.
The map itself looks pretty good! It's too bad the visuals often don't depict which surface is climbable (except in the lit window instance), but the city skyscape is moody and fun to explore. A lot of buildings are big blocky nothings, but some are just detailed enough to do everything the scene is supposed to. It looks a lot more Half-Lifey than Gexy, but hey what'll you do? Some sounds from Gex are included to really complete the Gex mood, but all that contributes is some jazzy background music and annoying voice lines.
Overall, I think this map is pretty good! Combat mostly boils down to hunkering down on a rooftop or ledge and using whatever weapon you have with the best range to pick off pesky hitscanners whilst they squirrel around on a distant rooftop, but that's not terrible. The platforming segments really slow things down, but there's usually a checkpoint nearby when that gets too frustrating. If any of that sounds good to you, give it a go!
Pros:
- Lots of enemies used in interesting, unconventional ways
- Good weapons and equipment
- Checkpoints really help keep gameplay smooth
- I think the map achieved a certain atmosphere which gave it a lot of memorable personality
- Enemies who would be annoying as shit to approach directly can be cheesed
Cons:
- Ladderwalls are inconsistent, finnicky, and cause frustrating accidental player death
- Other crucial elements, like how the wrench is necessary to destroy certain walls, and which walls those are, aren't signposted very well
- All of the platforming in this entire map is either broken, janky, frustrating, or all three
- Because combat is so easy to cheese and mostly involves shooting distant enemies with lots of health and waiting for them to fall over
- The Gex voice becomes too much too fast
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