Thread: Death Aboard - A Critique

So, tonight I played through the custom campaign Death Aboard with Frag, Saxi, Kanati, Option, Texan and His Gun, Krom, and others I currently forgot the names of. Here, I'll give my critique of it. I have mixed feelings.

Length

I think the levels were of good length, save for the Prison and the Lighthouse Finale. The Prison is a first level, and therefore is supposed to be short. In this case, it was very long and extremely confusing to navigate. The Lighthouse Finale is so long that it is impossible to complete. There is no possible way to beat it. I will outline it for you: You move through a boathouse, then walk up many flights of stairs before reaching the lighthouse itself. You complete regular finale routine, and then the resscue vehicle appears (it is completely awesome, and I won't spoil what it is). Here is where it gets impossible. You must then backtrack along the entire level and get to a dock, where you on the rescue vehicle. All the while, you face a tank and an endless horde.

Length: 7/10 (Points taken off for DA 1 and 5)

Difficulty

This campaign is extremely hard. The only reason Frag's team made it to the safe house twice was because he knew the maps and we didn't (Option did, but couldn't help due to no mic and massive lag). The levels' length just make it too hard for survivors unfamiliar with the maps.

On the other hand, the map difficulties are absolutes. If both teams know the maps by heart (as we all do with the original four campaigns), the survivors can easily blast through each with style and speed. There are just too few good spots for an infected ambush, and event placement is rather poor (I will go into that later).

Difficulty: 11/10

Balance

As stated, the balance is absolute. The team that is most familiar with the maps will win. In our case, Frag's team.

Balance: 3/10

Events

Event placement, as stated earlier, is very poor, in my opinion. Panics: The only panic events are two alarm cars in DA 3 and DA4. Both alarm car areas give the survivors a nice room to sit in with two chokepoint entrances, completely nerfing the cars' effectiveness. They are called "Panic" Events for a reason - alarm cars should be placed in open areas away from the ends of levels in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. I have a problem with the car in DA4 - a team that has no idea about the maps will get killed instantly there. The car is placed in a storage crate at the top of a ladder. If it is shot or the survivors begin climbing the ladder, it falls, incapping anyone on the ladder. Because we were not told this, we died.

Crescendoes are placed too monotonously. All of them are near end of the levels, save for DA2, which I do not know where it is (both teams died before reaching it). All of them also have nifty little corners for the survivors to camp in (Only the one in DA1 is easily reachable by the infected. As a result, once the survivors reach the Crescendo, the level is practically lost.

Events: 4/10 (It would be lower except that DA1's event is actually hard)

Gameplay and Issues

There were many aspects of the gameplay that I did not like at all. The biggest change to normal gameplay was addition of "crawling" for incapped survivors (actually just mysteriously sliding across the floor). I did not like this at all, as it completely negates the point of incapping survivors. It very nearly cost my team a game.

The smoker was more fragile than usual. To paraphrase Zero Punctuation, normal smokers are like "gerbils in a punching pag," but in this campaign, they were like "gerbils in a punching bag full of broken glass." I would die from one or two shotgun shells at ranges of 50 meters, and fire would kill me within 5-10 seconds. In addition to a lack of good smoker points (I realize there were a few game-ender areas, but not enough average smoker spots), this made the smoker in this campaign slightly better than useless.

However, I admit that playing as the survivors was rather intense, as the non-linear nature of the levels allowed infected and specials to come in from all sides. Getting boomed was practically a sentence to 50% health loss or worse, proving your teammates were boomed as well.

Gameplay: 6/10 (I take away for crawling and smoker uselessness)

Spectacle

I will now redeem all my grievances with the campaign with this category. I have to say that the spectacle of the levels, especially DA4, the ship itself, was amazing. There was at least one highlight to each level:

DA1: The big main prison area. The scale and scenery of the room was simply amazing.

DA2: The massive prison grounds area. It was rather intense to constantly be darting from overhead cover to overhead cover to avoid being constantly 25 damage pounced.

DA3: This was my least favorite level, but I thought the sewers were pretty awesome. We killed a smoker down there while we had been boomed, and when the horde came (HUD was back to normal by then), they were just coming out of the smoke. It was creepy.

DA4: The entire level. The ship was listing, which creating an abnormal but natural (that sounds very very wierd) feel to it. It made navigating confusing but intense. What stuck in my mind the most was one engine room area where zeds were literally raining down around me from upper catwalks. It was pretty awesome.

DA5: The Lighthouse was very impressive, with a gaping hole taking out half the wall. Plus, it was set on a towering plateau, giving a great view and dangerous area to stand. However, the level itself was extremely wierd (it reminded me of an ancient temple-esque area), so it came off more as silly than cool.

Spectacle: 15/10

I'm not going to give an overall score, because the level has its pros and cons. I would totally play this again on expert co-op, but it's not really suited to versus, in my opinion.

i just downloaded it today maybe get on with you guys some time this week