Choose - Dunkelschwamm

  


    This is a variety map, walk through a teleporter to be dropped off in a fun room. There is an arena, control room, maze, armory, crusher, and a very saucy place.

SCMapDB page

Author: halo4life

Date of release: 2006

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Choose

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | July 9, 2023 | 2752 characters

    Choose is a real swiss army knife of a map. It reminds me of the reeeaaally old Garry's Mod construct map, where you just press buttons to spawn everything. This map really harkens back to that.

    So, you've got a bunch of doors. There's an armory for restocking your ammo, an arena for pressing buttons which spawn horrible monsters to fight, an invisible maze for banging your head against your keyboard until blood pours of your ears, a "crusher room", a "pron" room, and a control room.

    The armory gives you a bunch of the good shit. Tau, RPG, Gluon- the works. It's good, because it's nice to have fun in the arena against the likes of gargantuas, hwgrunts, and voltigores. The arena is just a charming little medieval arena with buttons on the side for creating the enemies you fight. The control room choice also allows players to spawn in a voltigore here.

    The maze is an invisible maze which leads to a control room where you can press buttons to fuck with the people in the maze, or show them the path. This can also be done from the control room choice. Players can also spawn a friendly baby garg into the arena from here.

    The crusher room has some potential. There's a conveyor that endlessly gibs respawning scietists. Scientists appear beneath 3 traps: a crusher, an explosion spawner, and a laser. Long before the player can press any, the gibbing scientists have caused those under the traps to take off running, rendering the traps unable to kill anybody. What a wasted opportunity, squandered by shortsighted implementation.

    The pron room is a deep descent to sexy.

    The control room gives players some fun control to lord over other rooms, like spawning an enemy into the arena, or showing the path in the maze, or watching people with funny cameras. It has to be fought to through some minor enemies.

    The map, overall, is pretty spartan in its implementation. It looks mostly blocky and bad, with buttons being flat black with white text describing their function. It's functional, but there's very little fun to be had in the presentation of what really feels like it's begging to be a more fun map.

    Anyway, if you enjoy these types of gimmicks give this map a go!

Pros:

  • Pretty decent arena, with a good arsenal for dealing with it
  • Funny pron room
  • I like the distribution of control consoles through the map

Cons:

  • Very basic implementation of invisible map idea we've seen a billion times
  • The crusher room is a massive letdown
  • Very little fun to be had in the stiff presentation

Score: 5.7 / 10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deluge - Dunkelschwamm

Image
       Deluge is a very atmospheric map made by one of the community's most acclaimed mappers, RNG. This map is very indicative of his style, well detailed moody and oppressive environment, strange monsters, and high levels of interactivity including lots of secrets. SCMapDB page Author: RNG Date of final release: 2014 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Deluge (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | April 9, 2022 | 4625 characters      Deluge is a map by RNG, which you can assume means it is a quality map. RNG brings style, high-production, and a confusing sense of eldritch nonsense that glues the experience together in a way that makes it feel like something that was summoned from another plane of existence rather than mapped out.      The map is a classic arcade-style keyhunt level. After choosing a difficulty (I suggest going as hard as possible, as with two players it felt easy) you hop into a gritty world that feels like brutalist, industrial architecture made its way
Read more

Zombie Squad - Dunkelschwamm

Image
       Suit up squad, it's time to go fight human grunts that this map calls zombies. This map is a horde map taking place in a burned out urban block, supposedly there are points to capture but I didn't see any. SCMapDB page Author: cyberdaemon Date of release: 2005 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Zombie Squad (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | July 17, 2023 | 2601 characters      Zombie Squad is a well detailed horde map wherein grunts and hwgrunts (and, like, an assassin) swarm the players from every angle. Thankfully, within the details of the ruins are plenty of weapons, and a reasonable smattering of HEV and health pickups.      The description makes it sound like maybe my experience with the map is broken. There were, like, 3 soldiers which looked like zombies in the map. I think far more were meant to be zombies? Also, the MOTD makes it sound like there's some funny control point business, like there's an objective to the map. Far as I can tell a
Read more

Dark Seekers - Dunkelschwamm

Image
       Inspired by 'I am Legend' players fight the eponymous Dark Seekers in an abandoned city. Solve puzzles, find a way to escape, and beware the large amounts of high health enemies! SCMapDB page Authors: Goanna Date of release: 2008 Maps in package: 2 Map review of Dark Seekers (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 7, 2024 | 4838 characters      Dark Seekers is a duo of horror maps based loosely on the I Am Legend scenario. In the first map you search buildings to find necessary items to solve puzzles while being harassed by the titular dark seekers- zombies which run and take quite a bit of damage to kill. The second map takes the players through a dark seeker infested subway tunnel, until they surface into a warzone where hostile soldiers battle dark seekers in the streets. Both maps are very different in gameplay tone, but manage to feel appropriate together in atmosphere and theme.      The first map is slow in pace, with players being forced to slow
Read more