Catalyst - GrandmasterJ

 


    Welcome to not Black Mesa where we do science that is really similar to what goes on over there but we're totally different, I promise. According to the description we are a secret organization sending scientists over to another dimension via resonance cascades, that sounds safe.

SCMapDB page

Author: HeAdCrAb KILLA

Date of release: 2019

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Catalyst

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | July 9, 2023 | 2142 characters

    This map starts out with a very Black Mesa flavor with a big fancy science lab and a room with portals that triggers a bunch of aliens. The goal is to destroy a power source which is on the other side of the teleport past a bunch of soldiers in another science place. At the end we have to fight past respawning aliens so that one player can open a vent and another can toss grenades in, this map requires two people!

    We start off in a place that I guess is not Black Mesa and hang out with the staff and look around until we get to the teleport chamber, then we fight aliens. Or to be more precise we run away through the teleporter because we have no weapons and that is the only escape. We end up in a room full of zombies but there are weapons in side rooms, crowbar, shotgun, and mp5. From here combat is fairly easy and we rip through enemies, but since we don't have medkits we get dangerously low on health. Until eventually we reach the place where we have to accomplish our objective and the map gives us four HEV chargers and four health pickups on the ground. There is also a button that will mow down the alien horde while we work so the ending feels really easy.

    The map looked fine, it was very standard looking Black Mesa stuff, the map takes place in a 'secret laboratory' so it might as well be. But nothing looked overtly bad, there were some elevators that I didn't really like but I didn't die on any of them so I guess I can't complain. I did really like how the map ended in a sort of puzzle we had to solve while fighting an alien horde, but I feel the execution was minimal and could have been much improved.

Pros:

  • short and sweet straightforward map with a simple co-op puzzle at the end
  • the map looked pretty good

Cons:

  • despite the rough start players get without any weapons, the map is incredibly easy for two people
  • the ending was trivial, there is a lot of room for improvement

Score: 7 / 10

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