Map Review of arena-retrowave

by dunkelschwamm | July 9, 2022 | 3190 characters

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Arena Retrowave is a slick, stylistic arena map with crazy jump pads, teleports, high health, high armor, high ammo, heavy duty weaponry, and high action. Enemies and weapons are skinned to appear like glowing wireframes. This is all to the benefit of a retrowave aesthetic, accompanied by some synth music by Rain Sword (thumbs up, good shit).

The aesthetic is, frankly, the most characteristic aspect of this map. So, let's talk about it. The brushwork, skybox, prop entities, enemies, and weapons all blend together to create a seamless, cohesive aesthetic where even outlandish player models do little to break the atmosphere. I especially like the wireframe-y palm tree models which flicker with the hologram effect, really taking advantage of what Goldsrc allows for.

The gameplay is really quite as groovy. Players are given heaps and heaps of health, armor, and ammo- and this ammo is shared between the gauss gun, the egon gun, and the displacer. I gotta say, this is a great combination of weapons to have a ton of ammo for if the intent is to swarm the players with aliens- and that's exactly what happens! From houndeyes to vortigaunts to alien grunts to alien controllers to shock troopers and finally a boss enemy- all reskinned to fit the aesthetic and color coordinated for our pleasure. None of them feel like sponges- they just pile up fast. Cutting through swarms with egon guns with a friend is a blast, or sheering edges off a crowd with a gauss canon while another player's displacer obliterates the crowd. All of this is aided, too, by the scale of the map, which reminds me of a Halo 2 or Unreal Tournament 2003 map- with lots of jump pads, lots of vertical ascent, teleporters which take players to key points, and a surface-level street where enemy infantry amasses. You'll find pretty quickly that your heaps of resources will deplete if you let yourself become surrounded for even a second.

I think this map is a pretty near-perfect execution of a concept. It doesn't totally overstay its welcome (though at times I did wonder if there was some reason we hadn't moved on to the next phase in the waves yet). The style is spot-on, just a totally complete audio-visual experience. The combat really lets players approach at their own risk/reward pace, creating a fun environment whether you want to rush enemies or kite from a safe distance.

Definitely consider this map for your server rotation or playing with a friend. It's a great time.

Pros:

  • Near perfect execution of a unique audio-visual experience within Goldsrc
  • Very fun arena with launchpads and stuff
  • Good selection of weapons, as well as fun amounts of health and armor
  • Fun swarms of enemies as weapon fodder

Cons:

  • Some waves felt like they went on forever. I wasn't sure what I might have been doing wrong.
  • The boss is incredibly easy to cheese in seconds with the weapons given
Score: 8.5 / 10
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