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Map review of Etherlab
by Chimz | May 3, 2024 | 2498 characters
The beautiful screenshots drew me in, expecting a map with good visuals and gameplay. What I got was a map with horrible, HORRIBLE gameplay and maybe 3 visually good (and not great) rooms.
The map does not include a briefing, so if you didn't read the briefing here, or forgot, or joined a server hosting this, then you will have no idea what is going on and why you are here. Something that could have easily been fixed.
The game starts you off with a pistol and has you pickup shotgun in next room. Ammo and weapons have not been given via map cfg so everyone will need to fight over the 2 buckshot pickups which don't give enough ammo for what is to come. This trend continues throughout the map. Something that could have easily been fixed in less than a minute.
Enemies are made so spongey that headcrabs have 120 HP, Vorts have 200, and Gnomes 400. Every enemy takes an eternity to kill because you are not given any good weapons either.
Throughout the whole game you are only given a pistol (no ammo), shotgun, mp5 and hand grenades, which creates no special gameplay and makes you always underequipped for all the fights.
Enemy visibility is horrible half the time as most of the environments are so dark that you can't see all the enemies hiding in them.
Speaking of environments, while the screenshots make it seem like the whole map looks beautiful, the truth is that only 3 of them are visually interesting while the rest of it is bland. Also, those 3 areas have such bad combat that you'll forget about the visuals as you try to shoot enemies in its pitch black corners.
With some easy improvements, the map could have received a lot more score, but as it is, I could only give it a 2, which means it's functional but not recommended at all.
Pros:
- A few (3 or 4) visually good looking rooms.
Cons:
- No use of map cfg means you will be fighting over ammo pickups from the first second of the map.
- Enemy visibility is very low for almost half the map (all hidden in darkness).
- Spongey enemies. Headcrabs: 120hp, Vorts & Houndeys: 200hp, Gonomes: 400, Grunts: 200, etc.
- Underequipped, being given no special weapons and not enough ammo to face the hordes of enemies
- Enemies placed in corners and spawned in to take cheap shots at player.
- No briefing.
Review originally from *
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