Bunker Fight - Dunkelschwamm

 


    A walkthrough map that is mostly hallways through various rooms. Enemies spawn in big wads right in front of players and we have to chip away at them with revolvers.

SCMapDB page

Author: Trempler

Date of release: 2003

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Bunker Fight

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | June 12, 2023 | 4164 characters

    Bunker Fight is a walkthrough action map with one principle: player vs buff npcs in corridor. I wouldn't say the monsters in this map are overpowered to a gross degree (especially with other maps I've played) but I would certainly call them buff. Maybe even "buff AF".

    First of all, this map looks pretty nice. You move through corridors painted as various environments, and I didn't really track the narrative of it as we moved, but it catches the usual Black Mesa bunkery affair with some fun lighting at times. The lighting is an issue at other times, but I'll get to that. The environment does change pretty frequently, which I think is generally a good thing in a walkthrough map, and each environment is well rendered with something interesting in it. For example: the big dirt mound in the outdoor segment was pretty neat to look at.

    The combat itself bounces around a bit. There's some really fun combat with xen aliens, and some decent fights with gonomes, and some not-so-great fights with snipers. There's some fights with assassins which are a pain because their heightened health mixes poorly with their ability to shoot through player armor, but this is the type of challenge I enjoy overtaking in Sven Co-op so I was amenable to this generally.

    What I was less amenable to was the tools given to take them on- nothing but 357s and standard 9mm handguns. We spend time recharging HEV for what's to come when we respawn, but are immediately taken out by a sniper around a corner and have to walk all the way back through- not fun. This would get alleviated by a checkpoint, but…

    Okay, if we hadn't resorted to cheats this is where our playthrough would have ended. There's a checkpoint which triggers right next to a "xen eye" enemy (buffed bullsquid forced to be stationary). The xen eye quickly killed us when we entered the room, but we triggered the checkpoint. The checkpoint begins, and we are in a room within an illusory wall in the checkpoint room moving through a fun respawn gimmick to the checkpoint- and are killed by the xen eye which we cannot see. What's worse, we spawn with the crowbar equipped and have to cycle to any bullet weapons to fire at the 1000 hp bullsquid who one-shots us with its ultra-accurate acid spit which we cannot dodge. To make matters worse, when we cheated and killed the xen eye so progression would become possible, the new (and very necessary) weapons are hidden in the darkness on two crates they blend right in with. There are no flashlights on this map, so we couldn't see them until my obsessive ass scoured the checkpoint room and found them. To proceed, the players must crawl through a vent so respawning at this point to proceed is immediately inconvenient. Terrible checkpoint, 0/10.

    From here the map's combat opens up a bit, as using the MP5 and Shotgun really help dispatch foes. Toward the end you also get some explosives, which are minorly useful against the final barrage.

    Overall, I think Bunker Fight is a pretty fun walkthrough map. I'm sad I must do so with the caveat that dying before killing the xen eye at the second checkpoint will end your run. There's a couple foundational design decisions which I think hold this map back, namely the buff enemies vs the anemic arsenal early on, as well as inconvenient respawning. But, overall, it's a straight-forward and fun action grindfest.

Pros:

  • Decent arsenal after halfway through the map
  • The map looks great!
  • Really fun interesting xen eye monster
  • Good variety of encounters and environments
  • Really fun custom models

Cons:

  • Annoyingly buffed enemies, especially the snipers
  • The second checkpoint is massive problem that would have ended our run if not for cheats. This is a huge problem
  • Anemic arsenal until halfway
  • The explosives feel like too little too late
  • Recharging at the HEV stations takes forever and then goes to waste when a single sniper shot from around the corner instas you
Score: 6.3 / 10

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