Lab Flee - GrandmasterJ
Rise up brother, and let us flee this lab! Players are regular human beings trapped in a laboratory and trying to escape. We fight what I assume are our fellow prisoners to escape.
Author: eMTeG
Date of release: 2002
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Lab Flee
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
In Labflee we flee a lab. There isn't a story attached so I like to assume we're aliens, but not xen aliens since they are out sole enemy. The map is a walkthrough map with a central hub providing access to the different areas. Doors to new areas open up as we clear other areas out.
Players spawn inside the spawn exit sprites, it can be disorienting. There is a table with an mp5 and one magazine for it, shotgun and one box of shells, and crossbow with one magazine. I sucked it all up in front of my teammate's eyes and since the weapons don't stay he had to wait for them all of that to respawn before he could have anything. That's a big issue at the start, not enough ammo. Also the supply rooms don't include later weapons, specifically the egon gun.
The map itself looks pretty good, it has some cool looking Black Mesa themed areas. I did notice that the door frame on the very first door had some bad texturing and saw the same on other door frames and even some corners in hallways. It is an odd oversight, a blemish on an otherwise clean map. The map also features elevators both of which are pretty annoying to use since they would automatically move a lot, even the one with a button control.
Enemies spawn in waves in certain rooms, repeatedly sometimes like in the central hub area. The enemies are mostly alien grunts and vortigaunts, crossbows blow them to bits and shotguns handle the rest. Since ammo is so tight and the enemies come in thick I found myself running out of ammo and dying quite a bit. On respawn I had to scavenge different branches of the map to pick up the supplies I wanted. The map has good weapons but they are time consuming to pick up and gather enough ammo. The map did have teleport shortcuts, but they were to and from the weapon pickups we had to seek out, the mapper knew it was an inconvenience and tried to remedy it. Players start with full HEV so that's a huge plus. There is also ample battery and medkit pickups, we were flush with health and armor.
The map is pretty good. It's decent looking, got some nice architecture in places but some misaligned textures in others. The combat is fast and frantic with a good arsenal, but gathering that arsenal and ammo can be a chore. I didn't like the elevators, but I never like elevators in goldsrc games. Overall, a decent walkthrough map with a few annoyances.
Pros:
- fun combat with a good enemy composition, except for the snarks the grunts kept dropping
- the egon gun is great in this map
- players start with full armor and there is plenty more around the map
- there are teleporter shortcuts
Cons:
- not enough ammo, especially in the early stage of the map
- tedious to get the other weapons
- there are elevators
- some texture issues
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