Black Mesa: Getaway - GrandmasterJ
Here is a beautiful map with a really well done intro sequence. According to the map description it is abandoned which is a shame since what has been completed is pretty good and well polished.
Author: Vector-T (now known as I-ka)
Date of release: 2019
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Black Mesa: Getaway
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | April 10, 2023 | 5419 characters
When we started this map I was convinced it was a converted Half-Life mod. We start in an incredibly dark room and press a button to begin the map proper, after which we are treated to some very nice cutscenes. We have a great pan down a hallway with a fight between human grunts and alien slaves frozen in time, electrical arcs and bullets frozen in the air. Then I actually decide to read the map description and I find out that this is the author's first ever map.
After the intro (complete with some G-man voice lines!) we start in a small room, we both head right into the security door and pick up pistols and armor. This map has game text that will tell us what to do and provide hints, this is how we learn there is a scientist class. It was near the end of the map when my teammate crouched under a security door in spawn and figured out there was a whole other vent system to get sucked through to be a scientist class. The vents will change your model too, I started as some bald scientist and my teammate was Eli but when the vent spat us out we were both Eli, it literally turned me black.
I totally skipped past the difficulty selection part, but that intro was just really nice. My teammate and I choose 'Hard' and I try to fiddle with the survival button because I don't want to play with survival mode, I am far too suicidal for that. But maybe I did turn it off, I didn't really see a change in the button but we did not have survival mode on.
As security classes we get pistols and armor, the scientist class gets a medkit and a crowbar. We can find weapons around, like crowbars, shotguns, mp5s, and my teammate found a crossbow once. But these weapons do NOT respawn so when we die they go away. We didn't die often (only twice each), but when we did we were loaded so there goes all our weapons. The map feels really restrictive because of this and we were playing carefully to preserve ourselves. When we were both security we didn't have medkits and had to rely on the few health chargers scattered around. Later in the map we fight human grunts and they drop mp5s, providing much relief to us. The combat felt really balanced. We were existing on limited ammo but with cooperation and planning we managed just fine for the most part, this map definitely feels balanced for two players.
The map itself was gorgeous. I'm tired of Black Mesa but this rendition really popped. Lots of surfaces were broken up with recessions, divots, and the lick that gives a real good dimension to everything. At one point my teammate and I were in something like a cistern and he told me to look up, there was that water reflective effect going on with the ceiling. The author must have gotten an animated texture and stuck it on the ceiling, it was great, that one effect made the room feel incredibly natural, I didn't even notice that specific effect but I did notice how great the overall atmosphere was. The majority of the map is this quality.
There were some downsides though, there were a couple of elevators in the water area that didn't look great. I like to jump on elevators as they go so I don't stuck and I got damaged a little bit on the downward elevator. I'm not holding that against the map, but I will admit I kinda hold the map responsible for including an elevator at all.
One thing we didn't realize until nearly the very end of the map is that there were checkpoints. We were trekking through the whole map but my teammate noticed a slightly open security door in spawn, went through it, became the scientist class, unlocked a new checkpoint, and then I didn't die for the rest of the map so I never experienced the one checkpoint in the map. The class selection is just a bit obscured. Plus, my teammate mentioned how the scientist got no guns, just a medkit and a crowbar, and there were medkits in the rooms that we made great use of. It just felt like an imbalanced class.
Overall the map was fantastic. The mapper really breathed a new life into the same old Black Mesa and put together some impressive opening visuals. It's clear that a ton of effort went into this map and it is a shame that is been abandoned. The combat felt tight (if a bit easy for 2-8 players without survival mode on an we selected 'Hard' mode) and doled out just enough ammo and weapons to get the job done. We did lose weapons a lot but we usually got some more later. I was really annoyed at walking long distance back to where I was and when my teammate opened up the checkpoint I didn't need it. I'm going to chalk that up to unintuitive class selection and the scientist class kind of sucking.
Pros:
- Pretty great opening
- The map looks great
- the game does restrict weapons and ammo, but manages to dole out enough, for two players at least
- There is a checkpoint
- lots of cool details and interactive bits, the model changing vents in particular was fun
- the beginning difficulty changing room included a survival button that I think worked!
Cons:
- The class selection was a bit obscured and that caused us to open the checkpoint late
- the scientist class gets to open up security doors. There is one security door.
- not a fan of elevators and this map has them!
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