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Map review of Dock Battle
by GrandmasterJ | April 16, 2022 | 4672 characters
Dock Battle is a map with a simple blocky dock jam packed full of enemies. Both humans and aliens constantly respawn all over the place fighting each other but also not forgetting to attack the players as well. When the map first started I was standing in full view of an mounted gun which started shredding me with the motd still up. The map description says something like the map could be played with your eyes closed, when the gameplay is neverending chaos and combat then yeah I guess you can totally play with your eyes closed.
The map doesn't start off well, getting immediately attacked before you can do anything is total bullshit. The only safe zone on the player's boat is behind glass I didn't know was breakable at first so I was running around in circles trying to find cover. There are enemies everywhere, alien controllers patrol the skies, human grunts are on the ship next to the player ship and on the docks on the other side and in front of the player ship. There is a wad of female assassins on the docks and a mounted gun that doesn't seem destructible near the rear of the player boat. The turret may be inaccurate but it has a good range of vision and can really lay down some withering fire. There are weapons scattered around the ship but they are all in very vulnerable positions and there is a tau cannon right inside the ship next to some HEV. Finding that the glass was breakable was a game changer.
The enemies respawn fairly fast. The map description says its meant for at least 3 people, I played with two and it was a fairly average experience. Maybe with more players we could have enjoyed persecuting the NPCs instead of sniping them with tau cannons when I peek out of cover. Enemies can get aboard the ship with gangways. Don't try to swim, the water is a flat surface and you will die on impact.
There is a crossbow in the crow's nest, a hivehand and grenades at the prow, and inside the cabin behind the breakable glass is a tau cannon. I couldn't find any other weapons. The tau cannon certainly became my go-to weapon in this map but the other weapons were all very lackluster. They were even in pretty bad areas, excepting the tau cannon each weapon was in the line of enemy fire. The crossbow was right in front of the mounted turret up a ladder in the crow's nest, getting the crossbow was a death sentence. The cabin of the player ship at least had an HEV and health charger so my teammate and I could hide in there.
If you see the screenshots for the map you can see how primitive the map looks. This map was made in 1999, one of the oldest maps for Sven out there so I won't judge the map's looks too harshly. The boats look like simple boat shapes that do at least look like boats. There is a neat turret on the prow of the enemy boat. The dock itself is rough looking too, the buildings are basic square shells, and there is a weird hangar like building in front of the ships that is empty. It just looks basic and rough, the texturing is pretty bland as well. As much as I criticize the map aesthetics it does have a very charming retro goldsrc feel, it may be rough but it was made by love before any good mappers existed, it may even be the author's first map.
It was an all right experience. There were no objectives that I could see so the point of the map must be to run around killing everybody for fun. But if that was the case the weapon selection should have been bigger than four weapons (plus crowbar and pistol with max ammo for a total of six). The mounted gun's dominant position in the map makes the crossbow not worth getting, damages players right as they spawn, and seemingly can not be destroyed. The total lack of cover until players can hide away in the cabin makes matters worse, the mounted turret is right outside that cabin and will hit any players leaving it. After topping up their HEV players have to get hit coming out. Maybe with more players it would have been more fun, but I think the supplies would run too thin.
Pros:
- lots of straightforward action right out of the gate
- the aliens vs. soldier dynamic was fun and helped distract NPCs from dealing with the players
Cons:
- players spawn in direct line of sight with a ton of enemies
- the player spawn boat has terrible cover
- not enough weapons or supplies for what the map is
- the mounted gun makes the first two problems worse
Review originally from https://scmapreviews.blogspot.com/2022/04/dock-battle-grandmasterj.html
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