Map Review of between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-remake

by dunkelschwamm | April 1, 2023 | 3048 characters

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Between a Rock and A Hard Place is a pretty good two defense maps for Sven Co-op. This remake is, in our playthrough, almost the same map. However, it did differ in some ways.

There was a turret with a secret button to activate. We never did find that secret button. This feature went entirely overlooked.

There was apparently better flow to the upper hallways and better traffic management in the stairways. I didn't notice this in-game, but believe it. I remember getting caught up on that stuff more in the original, and had chocked my improved navigation up to experience having played the first two maps.

There is now an indefinite invasion players may endure until they decide to escape to the chopper, which I think is a fantastic addition to an already fun map. I think this adds a lot of viability for survival players as well, who may rather fight to the last man standing.

There is a few new invasion aspects: blackops guys on a tram which comes careening through. It's not a huge additional challenge, and I think sometimes appeared in place of some rappelling invasions, which may have been a difficulty-lowering aspect. There's also kingpins, a gonarch, and bodyguards added to the mix.

That said, I think we actually had a harder time on this map than the previous two. We speculated that it may be that enemy waves were spawning closer together. There may have been some glitched spawning in general, as mission scientists long-deceased after unlocking their corresponding boxes would respawn and run around in the midst of battle, and at least one scientist spawned inside of houndeyes behind spawn doors and had to be rescued. Regardless, while we did not lose a single scientist in our plays of the original maps, we did fail to protect the final scientist in this map and did not get to see the final box get unlocked.

Overall, it's a very similar experience to the original but with a bit more spice and some extra features. I feel like this one felt a bit less stable, and there was a lot more chaos that made escorting the scientists much more difficult. Regardless, give it a try if you've tried the originals! If you haven't, I think I might suggest those over this first.

Pros:

  • Really solid foundation with a good map like Between a Rock and a Hard Place
  • Extra content, like secret button turret and new enemies added to rotation
  • The tram thing is a real fun ambush sequence
  • Really like that it made success more of a deliberate thing

Cons:

  • Overall, the combat feels more wonky than the original
  • The new enemy additions, overall, add little, and the kingpin may have been a bit of overkill during escort moments since nothing can be done to interject between a kingpin and a scientist it targets
Score: 7.9 / 10
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