Why - Dunkelschwamm

  

  Fresh from the Best of Map Showcase list it's a map that was considered top notch 24 years ago. A Black Mesa flavored walkthrough map, does it stand up to modern scrutiny?

SCMapDB page

Author: The-Real-Game

Date of release: 2002

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Why

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | May 30, 2026 | 2843 characters

    Why?

    After beating the map, I still don't know.

    Why is a lab-in-ruins walkthrough map where the clear reason that the lab is in ruins is that it is lousy with military both terrestrial and extra. There are occasional traversal puzzles, but most of the map is comprised of combat.

    The combat isn't always firing on all cylinders, but when it is it's really good! My favorite part of the map was a bit toward the middle where we were traversing corridors full of robot grunts while supplied with way too many throwable explosives. There are some places where it gets annoying, like toward the end where alien grunts fire up a shaft at us while we descend upon a tank full of ichthyosaurs. Sometimes it's really annoying, like the many times the map lumps enemies into the spawn area. Spawning amid a bunch of assassins, or shock troopers, truly sucks. I think between good experiences, meh experiences, and bad experiences, the map is very evenly spread.

    The movement puzzles aren't much to write home about. I think the most notable one is an elevator shaft that players must descend, then reascend by climbing a pipe that is one of the most hostile pieces of climbable architecture I've ever encountered with haphazard ladder segments that launch the player to the ground. The aforementioned shaft that players descend upon a pit of ichthyosaurs is also a traversal bit, though that's mostly in the approach, and that approach while visually interesting is clunky in gameplay.

    The visuals are pretty standard lab stuff you'd expect from Black Mesa. I think a few custom wall textures help differentiate it at times, and I even sometimes thought the map looked like Goldeneye more than Half-Life. There's also a REALLY cute kitchen with rotisseries and mugs, though everything is at a ridiculous scale. However, the map is also sometimes oddly poor in its mapping, like almost all of the doors seem to zfight.

    Overall, I think this would be an easier map to recommend if there weren't bullshit parts where it fills spawn with enemies. Still, it's a map worth checking out for what it does well and the action gets really good at times.

Pros:

• Backtracking or walks of shame are never too long
• A lot of the combat is balls-to-the-wall and fun
• Decent arsenal that isn't too powerful or too weak
• Much of the map looks very cute

Cons:

• Z-fighting doors
• Filling spawn with enemies did not serve the map well and it does it multiple times
• Most gameplay that isn't combat is very clunky
• Some of the combat itself is very clunky
• As cute as some of the mapping is, it also often has ridiculous wacky proportions

Score: 6.2 / 10