InkofDeath
01-29-2009, 04:58 AM
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-17-31-10.jpg
Source & Download Link: 119 Crossfire - Left 4 Dead Map Download - L4Dmaps.com (http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=27)
Video Demonstration: YouTube - Left 4 Dead - Custom Map Review - 119 Crossfire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9hFy7YyKsw)
* Subscribe To This Channel For More Left 4 Dead & Other Game Videos
Table of Contents
By: InkofDeath/Skatedog111
1.0 - Introduction To Review
2.0 - Map Review
2.1 - Map Difficulty
2.2 - Map Visuals
2.3 - Map Features
2.4 - Versus or Future Campaign
2.5 - Map Weaknesses & Bugs
3.0 - Conclusion & Rating
1.0 - Introduction To Review
Welcome to my first review about Left 4 Dead third party maps. My goal with any review is to bring to the light the strong and weak points in custom maps, as well as why you should or should not test out the map. I do however encourage readers to playtest the map themselves and discuss the accuracy of this review in this thread, through PM's or through E-mail. So let's find out how well this map stood up to the challenge!
2.0 - Map Review
The map we're reviewing today is the 119 Crossfire map created by Clan 119. This orange and grey map, with the central tower and symmetrical landscape leads you into a hole that is definitely not going to let you out. We'll be looking at the difficulty, visuals, features and some other issues with the map, so hop aboard and let's go!
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-19-14-93.jpg
2.1 - Map Difficulty
When you first try out any map, and you are unable to complete the maps main objective, due to dying or similar but fairly, without bugs, is always a good sign that the map has something special to it. The map difficulty in this map is one that demands you know how to position yourself and how to take care of those pesky infected at long, or short distance. The map can be played at long range with the Hunting Rifle and Assault Rifle, or short range with the Auto-Shotgun. Either way you're bound to wish for both types of weapons, which makes it so grueling to die because you didn't have a longer or shorter range weapon!
One thing that will stick out however is the apparent closets and corners that don't exist in this map. Thinking you'll camp somewhere? Think again. Any corner you can find in this map either has a tank spawn relatively close and the corner is enclosed, or the infected can still hit you from 180 degrees, instead of a narrow 70 degrees. Good luck with map positioning!
For 15 whole minutes you're fighting off infected, special infected and three, yes that's three tanks. Oh and let's not forget that if you don't kill the tank within a certain amount of time, you'll have zombies coming after you, as well as a tank! How's that for forgiving?
Having the settings on easy or normal makes the map still somewhat difficult if you screw up, thus the map can forgive you. Move up to Advanced or Expert and any mistake you make will most likely cost you a casket! Overall map difficulty is precisely what skilled Left 4 Dead players need to keep their skills fine tuned for that upcoming versus match!
Recommended Human Players: 2; Will provide sufficient difficulty as well as balance. Having 4 human characters in such a small map and in such easily campable spots like the central tower would just be overkill.
2.2 - Map Visuals
There's not much to review here, besides the basics. The maps visuals are plain, non-textured, single backdrop colours. With orange walls, and grey squared floors it is quite easy to get around and not be distracted by anything but the clawing zombie in front of you. You may not be impressed with the visuals, but they don't hinder or make the game play tiring, or annoying. This my friends is an example of why graphics of any kind do not represent the game play presented in the map itself.
There's no graphical glitches and the zombies have a nice time trying to scale the short walls. For the most part the visuals are 'ok' and are fine to play with and should not be a concern.
2.3 - Map Features
The heart and core of any map is what it presents to the player through features and the game play is almost always revolved around how the map presents its features to the user. For this reason, this map is definitely going to become a favourite, or common edited map on Left 4 Dead servers in the future. Let's take a look at these features.
The main goal of the map is to climb the central tower, hit the button to start a cruel 15 minute panic event. Once over the bars blocking the saferoom will remove themselves, and you'll be able to warm up to that coffee maker! During this 15 minutes you'll face at least 800 infected on easy, 1000 for normal and 1500 or more for Advanced or Expert. Not to mention the three tanks you'll have to fight before a period of time expires or the next wave of infected flesh out!
The most interesting part of the tank business is how unlike in the normal campaigns, the tank must die, in order for the next wave to come. After you've played this map, you'll understand why this is such a nice gift from VALVe. Trying to take on a tank, that may or may not be nearly dead while you have hundreds of infected swarming at your sides is ridiculous, entertaining and overall fun.
The map features only tier 2 weapons, 8 med packs, 4 pain pills, 4 pipe bombs and the occasional molotov you might spawn here or there. Utilizing these med packs and pain pills is a must to survive this map all the way through. If you're by yourself, then your bots are going to die quickly. Knowing when to use those pain pills and med packs will definitely be a deciding factor in this map. A common way is to wait out the waves and the 20 seconds you have for the tank to find you is all you're really going to get. Of course if you're desperate, throw a pipe bomb and heal while at 20hp so you can take some damage as you deal up.
Putting all these features together you get a very nice, evenly distributed map on items, and weapons, and infected. Definitely shows you how to spread the use of pain pills and med packs to varying degrees.
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-29-09-11.jpg
2.4 - Versus or Future Campaign
Many maps from now on and into the future will be released for Left 4 Dead. One thing server owners or renters and map creators will need to figure out is if these maps are good for versus, or future campaign series. Crossfire however is a special map in this sense.
While this map looks like it may provide a very nice versus match, the size of the map degrades this. All of the special infected will be able to deal significant damage over the course of 15 minutes. There's more infected than the map could handle with human controlled special infected. However decreasing the panic event to 10 minutes, lowering the amount of zombies by 15%, would in my mind prove to be a very versatile versus map for all types of play, whether casual or competitive. This map is able to compliment all survivors and special infected play styles!
Campaign however would be fine for this map, as long as this map was used as an end point in the campaign. It's a great finale map for sure. However it should be said that the ledges in the tower should be removed on all sides, and cross bars inserted on the sides of the tower. This enables smokers to pull down survivors, and infected to climb the tower at 8-10 points, instead of just two.
When you play the map, you get the feeling this is a 2 player map. Whether it's the size, or the difficulty of the number of infected, that feeling is there. This is more of a practice map with a friend than it is for anything else without adjusting any of the map itself. Having one other person play with you in this map is definitely the best and right choice to complete this map.
2.5 - Map Weaknesses & Bugs
If not the most entertaining part of custom maps is the crazy bugs and shortcomings of a custom map, which lead to some interesting, or annoying outcomes of game play. 119 Crossfire, however, doesn't seem to have that many glaring bugs as you'd think or hope for, or just has some shortcomings.
For one the bots will not pick up the tier 2 weapons, and will not heal themselves. When you're stranded for 15 minutes and your bot friends are firing their single pistols as they get overwhelmed by bullet-proof infected, you are left wondering if you should just kill them now or keep them as decoys.
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-28-16-44.jpg
Another shortcoming would be that the infected tend to always go to the bots over the human players. Even more specific, but inaccurate is the fact that they swarm Zoey first, and she is usually the one to die first. Could be a coincidence or a bug, but it's certainly something to take advantage of.
Besides the usual complaint of more ammo spots spread across the map, that really is most of the shortcomings of this map, or the ones that need to be typed about. Besides the lack of picking up of weapons, shortcomings in this map will not hinder your game play.
3.0 - Conclusion & Rating
119 Crossfire is definitely a map I had fun playing and reviewing. It's a map, as we've saw, where you don't need four players, just two, to have a good time. With some minor changes the map is fit for any style of play, and some improvements to the core
Source & Download Link: 119 Crossfire - Left 4 Dead Map Download - L4Dmaps.com (http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=27)
Video Demonstration: YouTube - Left 4 Dead - Custom Map Review - 119 Crossfire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9hFy7YyKsw)
* Subscribe To This Channel For More Left 4 Dead & Other Game Videos
Table of Contents
By: InkofDeath/Skatedog111
1.0 - Introduction To Review
2.0 - Map Review
2.1 - Map Difficulty
2.2 - Map Visuals
2.3 - Map Features
2.4 - Versus or Future Campaign
2.5 - Map Weaknesses & Bugs
3.0 - Conclusion & Rating
1.0 - Introduction To Review
Welcome to my first review about Left 4 Dead third party maps. My goal with any review is to bring to the light the strong and weak points in custom maps, as well as why you should or should not test out the map. I do however encourage readers to playtest the map themselves and discuss the accuracy of this review in this thread, through PM's or through E-mail. So let's find out how well this map stood up to the challenge!
2.0 - Map Review
The map we're reviewing today is the 119 Crossfire map created by Clan 119. This orange and grey map, with the central tower and symmetrical landscape leads you into a hole that is definitely not going to let you out. We'll be looking at the difficulty, visuals, features and some other issues with the map, so hop aboard and let's go!
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-19-14-93.jpg
2.1 - Map Difficulty
When you first try out any map, and you are unable to complete the maps main objective, due to dying or similar but fairly, without bugs, is always a good sign that the map has something special to it. The map difficulty in this map is one that demands you know how to position yourself and how to take care of those pesky infected at long, or short distance. The map can be played at long range with the Hunting Rifle and Assault Rifle, or short range with the Auto-Shotgun. Either way you're bound to wish for both types of weapons, which makes it so grueling to die because you didn't have a longer or shorter range weapon!
One thing that will stick out however is the apparent closets and corners that don't exist in this map. Thinking you'll camp somewhere? Think again. Any corner you can find in this map either has a tank spawn relatively close and the corner is enclosed, or the infected can still hit you from 180 degrees, instead of a narrow 70 degrees. Good luck with map positioning!
For 15 whole minutes you're fighting off infected, special infected and three, yes that's three tanks. Oh and let's not forget that if you don't kill the tank within a certain amount of time, you'll have zombies coming after you, as well as a tank! How's that for forgiving?
Having the settings on easy or normal makes the map still somewhat difficult if you screw up, thus the map can forgive you. Move up to Advanced or Expert and any mistake you make will most likely cost you a casket! Overall map difficulty is precisely what skilled Left 4 Dead players need to keep their skills fine tuned for that upcoming versus match!
Recommended Human Players: 2; Will provide sufficient difficulty as well as balance. Having 4 human characters in such a small map and in such easily campable spots like the central tower would just be overkill.
2.2 - Map Visuals
There's not much to review here, besides the basics. The maps visuals are plain, non-textured, single backdrop colours. With orange walls, and grey squared floors it is quite easy to get around and not be distracted by anything but the clawing zombie in front of you. You may not be impressed with the visuals, but they don't hinder or make the game play tiring, or annoying. This my friends is an example of why graphics of any kind do not represent the game play presented in the map itself.
There's no graphical glitches and the zombies have a nice time trying to scale the short walls. For the most part the visuals are 'ok' and are fine to play with and should not be a concern.
2.3 - Map Features
The heart and core of any map is what it presents to the player through features and the game play is almost always revolved around how the map presents its features to the user. For this reason, this map is definitely going to become a favourite, or common edited map on Left 4 Dead servers in the future. Let's take a look at these features.
The main goal of the map is to climb the central tower, hit the button to start a cruel 15 minute panic event. Once over the bars blocking the saferoom will remove themselves, and you'll be able to warm up to that coffee maker! During this 15 minutes you'll face at least 800 infected on easy, 1000 for normal and 1500 or more for Advanced or Expert. Not to mention the three tanks you'll have to fight before a period of time expires or the next wave of infected flesh out!
The most interesting part of the tank business is how unlike in the normal campaigns, the tank must die, in order for the next wave to come. After you've played this map, you'll understand why this is such a nice gift from VALVe. Trying to take on a tank, that may or may not be nearly dead while you have hundreds of infected swarming at your sides is ridiculous, entertaining and overall fun.
The map features only tier 2 weapons, 8 med packs, 4 pain pills, 4 pipe bombs and the occasional molotov you might spawn here or there. Utilizing these med packs and pain pills is a must to survive this map all the way through. If you're by yourself, then your bots are going to die quickly. Knowing when to use those pain pills and med packs will definitely be a deciding factor in this map. A common way is to wait out the waves and the 20 seconds you have for the tank to find you is all you're really going to get. Of course if you're desperate, throw a pipe bomb and heal while at 20hp so you can take some damage as you deal up.
Putting all these features together you get a very nice, evenly distributed map on items, and weapons, and infected. Definitely shows you how to spread the use of pain pills and med packs to varying degrees.
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-29-09-11.jpg
2.4 - Versus or Future Campaign
Many maps from now on and into the future will be released for Left 4 Dead. One thing server owners or renters and map creators will need to figure out is if these maps are good for versus, or future campaign series. Crossfire however is a special map in this sense.
While this map looks like it may provide a very nice versus match, the size of the map degrades this. All of the special infected will be able to deal significant damage over the course of 15 minutes. There's more infected than the map could handle with human controlled special infected. However decreasing the panic event to 10 minutes, lowering the amount of zombies by 15%, would in my mind prove to be a very versatile versus map for all types of play, whether casual or competitive. This map is able to compliment all survivors and special infected play styles!
Campaign however would be fine for this map, as long as this map was used as an end point in the campaign. It's a great finale map for sure. However it should be said that the ledges in the tower should be removed on all sides, and cross bars inserted on the sides of the tower. This enables smokers to pull down survivors, and infected to climb the tower at 8-10 points, instead of just two.
When you play the map, you get the feeling this is a 2 player map. Whether it's the size, or the difficulty of the number of infected, that feeling is there. This is more of a practice map with a friend than it is for anything else without adjusting any of the map itself. Having one other person play with you in this map is definitely the best and right choice to complete this map.
2.5 - Map Weaknesses & Bugs
If not the most entertaining part of custom maps is the crazy bugs and shortcomings of a custom map, which lead to some interesting, or annoying outcomes of game play. 119 Crossfire, however, doesn't seem to have that many glaring bugs as you'd think or hope for, or just has some shortcomings.
For one the bots will not pick up the tier 2 weapons, and will not heal themselves. When you're stranded for 15 minutes and your bot friends are firing their single pistols as they get overwhelmed by bullet-proof infected, you are left wondering if you should just kill them now or keep them as decoys.
http://i320.photobucket.com/albums/nn336/inkofdeath/left4dead2009-01-2906-28-16-44.jpg
Another shortcoming would be that the infected tend to always go to the bots over the human players. Even more specific, but inaccurate is the fact that they swarm Zoey first, and she is usually the one to die first. Could be a coincidence or a bug, but it's certainly something to take advantage of.
Besides the usual complaint of more ammo spots spread across the map, that really is most of the shortcomings of this map, or the ones that need to be typed about. Besides the lack of picking up of weapons, shortcomings in this map will not hinder your game play.
3.0 - Conclusion & Rating
119 Crossfire is definitely a map I had fun playing and reviewing. It's a map, as we've saw, where you don't need four players, just two, to have a good time. With some minor changes the map is fit for any style of play, and some improvements to the core