Between a Rock and a Hard Place Remake - GrandmasterJ
A remake of the map by the same name, there are only slight differences between this map and the original. We must defend against waves of enemies both in and out of our base and protect the random dumb scientists who flood the area periodically.
Author: GiGaBiTe
Date of release: 2016
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Between a Rock and a Hard Place Remake
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | April 1, 2023 | 3678 characters
So this map is a remake, and it's really close to being the exact same map as before. Check out the review of the original if you want, here's a quick recap. The level is divided into two sides by a chasm and players have to defend one side, enemies usually come across the bridge but there is also a narrow tram line across. Players fight both aliens and humans coming out from doors across the way, and even a couple inside our base, until a helicopter arrives and we leave. Periodically a scientist will come and we have to protect him so he can unlock better weapons.
This map is all of the above with a little bit of work put in to make it more beautiful. The enemy waves have been tweaked, most noticeable was the decrease in rappelling soldiers. In the original map those guys came out like clockwork, I perpetually had a satchel trap ready for them. But while they are still here the map seems to have replaced them with a tramful of male assassins finally putting that tram rail in the original to use.
There is a bigger variety of enemies, including some boss monsters sprinkled in. All the weapons are the same and get unlocked in mostly the same way. Some ammo is missing, sniper rifle ammo in particular had to be unlocked via scientist separate from the sniper rifle. The original unlocked both rifle and ammo but in this one the sniper became useless after five shots and we weren't dying that often so we couldn't pick up another one. Its a pretty big rebalance of the map since the sniper is so incredibly useful. We also no longer spawn with a revolver, meaning we have to start with a pistol and then find a better weapon when we respawn. Since enemies flood our spawn this becomes a bit of a problem.
We still have scientists running out but something weird is happening here. Once a scientist completes his duty he will spawn periodically. At first I thought every time a scientist would appear all the previous scientists would also appear, but the more I played the more duplicate scientists would show up unaccompanied by a new colleague. This doesn't seem intentional, but as scientists get rescued we get a load of clones of them as the map progresses.
We lost one scientist near the end and he never got cloned, so I can assume the part of the map that cuts off scientists we don't protect (he got gibbed by a swarm of houndeyes when a Kingpin showed up) works perfectly well. Near the end of the map my teammate was just blowing up scientists and enemies willy nilly.
It's real close to the original. In fact the original map came with another version that was also very close to the original. I feel like I've played this same map three times now. It's not a bad map, there is some solid defensive combat in here. Players have to be really vigilant with those scientists to unlock the good weapons and the combat gets harder as the map progresses. At a certain point a helicopter shows up to end the map.
Pros:
- Solid combat, good difficulty curve as the map progresses
- the map does look pretty good
- good weapon selection, if you can unlock them
- I really liked the tram full of assassins, a well placed rpg turns them into red confetti
Cons:
- not a fan of enemies in spawn
- the swarm of duplicate scientists was confusing and disruptive
- the supplies in the original were great, they are reduced in the remake and I don't like it
- players started with a revolver in the original, that would have really helped here.
| Score: |
Comments
Post a Comment