Zay 1, 2 and 3 - Half-Life 2

First Off:

Secondly, (this contains spoilers)
I think I have to say that this is to Half-life like how ‘Madness’ is to Newgrounds flash. The true goal is simple, the environment is simple, and neither are anything to look at and admire.

That said, why would I say that this is a must play? Well, like in Madness, the hero is faced with many different enemies which each have specific strategies by which to beat. If there is one thing that makes this map pack much higher above any author’s first maps is that this author actually utilized the strong points of each enemy and created new ones using simple tricks provided by Valve’s Half-life 2 map editor (Hammer).

The environment is simple, but more than sufficient to each enemy as well. For example, filling a room with not only hordes of zombies, but with unbreakable barrels and boxes by which the zombies can hurl at you.

The strategies to beat them are also very unique and is based upon the player’s strengths. For instance, providing the player with a shotgun against the zombies, yet at the same time giving grenades to the player as well.

Along with these strategies, the author has his own little conversation to the player toward the end of each map. Though this has been done before, the author at least shows a little sense of humor in each small dialogue (I actually laughed to myself after the shock presented in the second one). This is unfortunately a sense of humor that can be easily missed if it wasn’t a complete mappack of three like this (Which is still a one-up over most maps of this nature.)

This map editing strategy and general creativity with enemies should be something to aspire to when mapping, as relying on the natural single player enemies is getting a little stale. I, myself, am looking forward to experimenting with what I can only call ‘Kamikaze Zombies’ from this map pack.

Satisfying

I really did enjoy this. I was suprised.

I dont want to say play it now and i dont want to say just consider it.

But if i had to choose I would say:

The goal is simple. The environments are even simpler. So why is this so good? Excellent utilization of the enemies and even the creation of new enemies using simple Hammer techniques. Very well balanced strategy for beating each room. I highly recommend it

I had a longer review of this before, but my thought still stands:

Lol at the Zay2 ending.

I thought it was fun. Worth the download.

Trust me, I don’t have the best machine in the world either but never encounted any of those problems. Odd.

From the mind of an intelligent light-hearted author with a decent sense of humour, I especially liked the messages at the end on Zay 3. For a major classic Doom fan like me, this was just the sort of map collection I have been looking for. I experienced slight lag on Zay 2 with the amount of flames involved, but otherwise it ran very well.

looks bombin