Zombie Squad - GrandmasterJ

 

    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 GrandmasterJ | July 17, 2023 | 3342 characters

    Fight a never-ending horde or human grunts in a really well made destroyed dense urban section. Did I say human grunts? I meant zombies, but all the zombies have guns and I think the included models have to overwrite the default human grunt models and I didn't do that so most of the enemies I fought were default HECU soldiers. So this map did not feel like a zombie map in the slightest.

    My teammate and I spawn in different areas, I start in a closet and walk out to find batteries. I exchange gunfire through a window and pick up a crossbow and satchel charges crawling into a hole where I get the jump on more soldiers. The map is a beautiful rendition of a dense cluster of bombed out buildings that are crawling with enemies. Weapons, ammo, and other supplies are scattered about with the better stuff being better hidden. Combat is constant and intense, my teammate and I switched between running down mazey corridors shotgunning enemies to holding a building (it had HEV!) with sniper rifles. There are even some snarks I let loose in the streets to great effect.

    The detail and the layout of this map is amazing. It looks good and it plays good, it rewards exploration of its many nooks and crannies with supplies. At one point I was in an attic sniping enemies off opposing buildings and my teammate exclaimed that he found an attic with a sniper rifle. I turned around expecting him behind me but he was somewhere else entirely, doing the same thing I was doing. It was pretty funny.

    The map is a horde map so I didn't expect an ending, but in the description there is mention of five capture points? I saw no evidence of this anywhere, nothing seemed breakable, no big glowing circles I have to stand in, no buttons, nothing that really stood out as a capture target. I don't know if this is a mistake in the description or if the map is broken somehow, but there is no end to this map that I could find. In fact there are no breakable objects anywhere in this map, but there are a couple that look breakable and might lead somewhere, but noclipping showed they do not. It was a bit misleading.

    I really enjoyed this map, the level design and aesthetic is an absolute joy to fight endlessly in. I really don't see how this map is zombie themed, I saw a handful of headless human grunts but even then they all had guns and when I shot the empty space where their head should be they died in one hit. It's all gunplay, no actual zombies here. I liked how the supplies were scattered, I liked the fast paced combat, and I even kind of like how we start all split up. It's a good map.

Pros:

• Beautiful looking map
• really fun layout with many arenas
• supplies scattered all over the map
• map had some constant real good action
• map had lots of nooks and crannies to explore and usually rewards exploration

Cons:

• Were there supposed to be capture points? If so, they do not work
• some misleading areas where it looked like players could go
• map didn't really seem like a zombie map, it was just reskinned human grunts
• the human grunt zombie reskin didn't totally work for me, I could have fixed it but eh

Score: 9 / 10