The Tomb of Death - GrandmasterJ

 

    Welcome to the Tomb of Death, where you will die a lot. The map has a heavy emphasis on traps and each trap is a unique delight, which is not usually how trap themed Sven maps usually feel.

SCMapDB page

Authors: generic

Date of release: 2008

Maps in package: 6

Map review of The Tomb of Death

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | December 16, 2023 | 5082 characters

    The Tomb of Death is a very fun and cheeky map where players go through lots and lots of hallways. We get a token story attached and told through the messages of the day, there are six maps by the way. We encounter some really faint beams of light that trigger traps and at first we were doing our best to avoid them, but then we hit a point where we see a trap that has already been sprung and we try springing a trap ourselves. The vast majority of traps are one time only, we get to see a brick in the wall dissolve and then projectiles fly out and get stuck in the wall. It is really fun until we trigger a trap that fires continuously. This map has a lot of things like that, where it plays with expectations and predicts how players approach situations.

    For the first map there is no combat, I kept waiting in spawn to get a second uzi but let me tell you right now that is useless. The first map really sets the tone, we get lots of hallways and tons of interesting traps, the majority of which are high enough to be crawled under, so avoiding them is a breeze. We triggered most of the early traps just to see what would happen but after tripping two traps that kept firing we started to actually avoid them. I can remember two areas where the trap actually cut us off from an area completely and I wonder what goodies we missed out on. Not like it matters, there are no enemies.

    The other maps do have some hallways but the gameplay varies a lot from here on out. There is lots of combat, plenty of traps, and puzzles around every corner, not to mention the occasional platforming. There are some parts that feel cheap, like a bridge that crumbled under my teammates feet. The map does allow for players to take advantage of this knowledge and I was able to pepper the bridge with bullets and destroy all the other dangerous spots. Later there is a similar puzzle where we fall through the floor if we stray off a hidden path, we shoot the solid parts of the floor to reveal the path. It is only cheap the first time it gets us. There's also a spinning platforming segment that looks way worse than it is.

    The map has some really fun brushwork and good looking set pieces sandwiched between long hallway segments and some repetitive and bland textures. I think the map comes out looking good overall but the texture work was boring and in a lot of places muddled the tomb/alien aesthetic with some kind of desert research lab. The real star visuals of the map goes to the scripted sections, the traps breaking down walls and shooting giant spears into down the hallway to get embedded in the far wall, segments of hallways crumbling off into space and then exploding, staircases and ladders jutting out from walls. There were fun sequences in every map and they are always a treat.

    The map has lots of shortcuts and updating spawn points. I can think of a two areas where I wish there was a spawn point update but even those were overcome after a couple of attempts and shortcuts opened up immediately after both. The enemies are mostly gonomes with very high health cut with tons of pit drones that die in one hit and several gonarchs. We experience respawning frequently.

    I should also mention the final boss sequence, if only to complain about the lasers that kill us in seconds. My teammate remarked that it would be much better if we had another entrance to the boss arena so we didn't get melted on sight. But I suppose this is the part of the map where teamwork really matters, we had to run in at the same time to start hitting it's juicy vulnerable parts.

    This is a rather lengthy map series but it is incredibly worth it. The gameplay varies enough to keep us on our toes and break things up so we never spend too much time doing one thing. There was plenty of combat and a good arsenal to handle the overhealthed gonomes. The traps were always fun and actually made exploration a reward onto itself. The puzzles were pretty good although the majority of them was simply placing a pushable. The brushwork was great and the map had a lot of spectacular moving setpieces but got dragged down a bit by boring textures. The map says 4-6 players recommended but I played with just one other person and it was great, maybe the boss will go smoother with more. I highly recommend this map.

Pros:

• Great set pieces, fun brushwork
• there were a lot of really fun scripted sections, the hallways floating off an exploding is my favorite
• lots of shortcuts and updating spawns
• good variety of gameplay
• the traps will subvert expectations every now and then
• the map can be a bit of a troll, but it is never frustrating

Cons:

• overall bland textures
• it takes a long time to kill the overhealthed enemies and it does slow things down a bit
• the boss arena could use another entrance so the boss can't keep melting players nigh instantly

Score: 9 / 10