Castle Defence - GrandmasterJ

 


    Defend a castle! This is one of those times where the map name absolute describes exactly what is happening here. Defend a nuke for a set amount of time, which is apparently broken so just go until enemies stop appearing.

SCMapDB page

Author: generic

Date of release: 2010

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Castle Defence

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | July 10, 2023 | 4115 characters

    This defense map could have been really good, but it appears that it currently doesn't have a game end and just continues forever, there may also be map events that do not trigger. It's unfortunate because I think this map does defense really well and I would like to see it working.

    So we start in a big tower and we are informed the power is out, now I didn't really know this at the time, but the main power is our basic stuff like doors and turrets and the auxiliary power is our advanced stuff like reinforcements. I found the main power and turned what I thought was everything on, but only realized later that most of our controls are off. I don't know if the map waits patiently for our power to be on, but shortly after we get turrets up and running the enemies start appearing.

    For a while we annihilate them without really doing anything, then we unlock the armory and start having fun. But the enemies do progress and we do get swarmed a bit, near the end we have constant rpg soldiers attacking and those guys really do a number on turrets. But for all the damage the nuke took, and I know it took a lot because I can hear the hollow metal Half-Life sound of a breakable object when it gets shot, it never went off. I also have to mention that the nuke is just sitting there at ground level and respawning enemies have a clear line of sight to it. There are big doors we can shut via a button but they break and the nuke gets exposed anyway.

    There were also apaches and an Osprey and we had to take them out using underbarrel grenades as we haven't unlocked the secret rpgs yet. Once everything is unlocked we have an impressive method of fun things to lay on the battlefield, like a tank running a circuit of the battlefield. Unfortunately we found it a bit too late to be of any use, but it was fun nonetheless.

    Eventually the enemies just start petering out. Many times I thought they were done only to be caught blindsided by a late spawning group. The torrent becomes a trickle and we just kill time by picking off the stragglers.

    I also want to mention how great the turret setup was. We had these three little turrets that can slide in and out of the base to be repaired when they are destroyed. Then you just hit a button to move them back out. All turrets suffer greatly from long range rpg strikes and it can be hard for players to survive their repair. There are more on a second level balcony going across the front but I never had a chance to brave the outside and actually try to repair any of them, so they stayed broken almost the entire time.

    I had a lot of fun with this map, but it feels broken or unfinished in ways other than just not having a working ending. I would love to see it updated to work because I think there is some good stuff here. The fully decked out base is really cool and can wreak havoc on those early waves. The waves have a nice progression to where the turrets become near useless and we start having real trouble keeping enemies out. But some of that goes to the real poor decision of leaving the nuke right out in plain view and putting an enemy spawn in clear sight of it, I feel like that is difficulty from poor design. The armory was very cool and I liked how we slowly unlocked all the castles goodies even if we did it a bit too late.

Pros:

  • really fun castle with lots of goodies inside
  • I like how the functionality of the castle came back in chunks as we discovered them
  • great turrets, the ones that slid in and out with buttons were very cool
  • nice ramp up in difficulty
  • great armory and lots of supplies overall
  • There was a lot of fun stuff in the map but the tank was my favorite

Cons:

  • map end seems to be broken
  • the waves sort of peter out without any sort of crescendo or sense of finality
  • the nuke sits in clear view of enemy spawners and the door only helps temporarily
  • some turrets are hard to repair

Score: 7.5 / 10

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