Detritus
HL2
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Map of the Month winner for June 2008!
Detritus is a biological term that describes decaying organic matter. You will encounter plenty of detritus in this map.
This is a small map and a short single-player campaign. It will take approximately 15-20 minutes for a first-time play through.
There are several hidden weapons in this map, including an RPG and a Magnum.
Addendum: Updated on June 3rd with more engaging combat.
This is a small map and a short single-player campaign. It will take approximately 15-20 minutes for a first-time play through.
There are several hidden weapons in this map, including an RPG and a Magnum.
Addendum: Updated on June 3rd with more engaging combat.
8 Comments
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Texturing 10/10
Excellent looking map, there were no apparant texture errors and it was very fitting and well styled.
Entity Placement 10/10
Even combat but interesting in some areas and the weapons were really well placed.
Design 9/10
Other than being a touch on the small side, it played very well with the multi-level combat.
Ambience 8/10
The lighting was very good but some of the inside areas were not lit very well to me. There was no sound but you really can't hear anything but gunfire anyway.
Map Skill 10/10
Overall, the map looks great, I really like it and it looks just like HL2.
Total 10/10 (5 stars)
A sweet little zombie-blasting, slashing death arena!!
Texturing — 6
Ambience — 2
Lighting — 8
Gameplay — 6
Video Review
Bottom Line
Overall, I'm hugely disappointed. I am perhaps being a bit overly harsh, but it's only because I know that Satchmo can do and in fact has done much better.Texturing — 5.5
Ambience — 3.5
Lighting — 7.5
Gameplay — 9
Video Review
Bottom Line
If this map was a cake it would look like a plain sponge and would taste like gravel. Entertaining enough to place but not more than once.Texturing — 4.9
Ambience — 0.7
Lighting — 5
Gameplay — 4.5
Review
Avid gamer, skilled mapper, thirty-something-year-old and father aren't words you'd often use together to describe a single person, yet Satchmo of TWHL is just that. Being one of my most respected people in this community, ironically, he could also be dubbed as the king of dead-horse-beating. He has single-handedly adapted, remade and re-released almost every one of his creations for any game mode or mod possible. For example: Justice (http://www.twhl.co.za/vault.php?map=3586), Justice (http://www.twhl.co.za/vault.php?map=3507), Justice (http://www.twhl.co.za/vault.php?map=3358) and, oh, don't forget, Justice (http://www.twhl.co.za/vault.php?map=2557). Now even given that, you can't really hate the guy for doing so; Justice was actually good. And Detritus? Not quite.Loading finishes. You spawn in an unfamiliar bland and dim-lit room with no weapons to be found.. or roof. You look around and advance. Before making it 'round the first corner, you're ambushed with your pants down by a bunch of headcrabs. You rush outside to find even more monsters and even more average visuals. You get a crowbar from a dead citizen. You crowbar your way to the gravity gun. Gravity gun + loads of handy disassembled car motors and propane tanks = godmode on. You kill everything.. What now? Is that it?Whoopdee-fucking-doo.The only word that comes to mind when describing the gameplay is "meh." Being a single small arena filled with zombies and powerful weapons - wiping every single enemy in the level takes you from about ten (first try) to less than three minutes. So even if to some extent challenging at first when you still don't know where the heavy artillery's stored, it's all baby mode afterwards. Sure, stuffing some spectacular combat into such a small layout isn't quite easy, but then why try doing that in the first place? The first version of the map was obviously not designed for single-player.Another large problem was the complete absence of any kind of background story; not even a simple env_message-powered briefing or readme with some basic information. As I mentioned before, killing everything that moves in the level triggers absolutely nothing, so after your epic crusade, which could be metaphorically compared to a war where one side has nukes and the other is limited to butter knives & teacosies, you're left unaware of whether you should just quit right now or go through the tedious process of exploring your surroundings. I chose the latter, yet searching every corner of the map for an exit or a monster I may have missed and even piling stuff to get over the large fence proved completely fruitless. Even if that somewhat serves the player right, considering the low difficulty level (after all, you don't pat your kids on the back for roasting an anthill with a flamethrower), it's still one big disappointment in the end... but what's this? There was actually more to it? Hunter's video review reveals the secret of an almost impossible-to-find hidden button in the underground part (should've been somehow highlighted; even a cheesy glow sprite over it would've been great!) Filled with hope, I rush off to detritus once again, find the button.. and am rewarded with a whopping extra minute of gameplay involving a couple of zombies and a very dry fade-to-black ending. Again, it was unclear what to do next after pressing the secret button and took me quite a while till' I figured it out, thanks to, again, the absence of story.I suppose now that I've officially finished it, I can actually wrap up the gameplay part. So in conclusion, due to there being nothing new or original, due to combat being dry and mostly too easy and due to there being absolutely no given reason or explanation for your actions, my initial point stands: "meh." Period.Continuing with the negative stuff, ambience was more-or-less left out. Having only a couple of extremely silent background sounds, it was absolutely inaudible most of the time. Something like the occasional wind howl, a buzzing sound for those spotlights scattered all over the level or an engine sound for the generator in the gravity gun room would've improved things a bit.Architecture and texturing too weren't special or somehow interesting in any way, yet did their job for most of the time. Simple architecture with little to no detail, all wrapped up in a default array of Half-Life 2 textures. No serious alignment flaws, no bigger problems and pretty much nothing interesting about it. Most buildings, even if having a trim or two really lacked prop-detail, which is mandatory in Source mapping. Also, the facades of some smaller buildings were unusually varied in depth, while the larger ones were left perfectly flat. Another thing bugging me was the absence of a roof on the building you spawn in. A collapsed roof I'd understand, but with all the supports left perfectly intact, it looks like some magic hurricane's blown off every single tile and taken them all somewhere beyond the area you can access in detritus. And finally, probably the most noticeable logical fault was how the underground section was laid out. Looking like nothing more than a small sewer-like support corridor, it was connected to the surface with two vast staircases you'd normally expect to find leading to a subway station or something. Such weird architectural design, even if somewhat spicing up the looks really makes the setting far less believable.Lighting was adequate, yet still very bland and not suited for such a setting at all. With a few more yellow areas in the interior, outside areas were all lit with a a florescent white coming from numerous spotlights spread throughout the level. Such bright lighting did a great job ruining the atmosphere, killing whatever is left of its scariness. Natural bluish night tint broken up by the occasional small yellowish flickering street light would have worked so much better in my opinion.Bottom Line
Overall detritus is really far from properly showing Satchmo's real skills. Bland, rushed and in no way special, this is something you can pass. Instead, give good ol' Justice a try. You won't regret it.