A Resident Evil-Inspired HL2 Deathmatch Map

Here's a bit of a short post, just to share something kinda fun I uploaded!

I decided to join in on tonight's LambdaGeneration Gamenight, and I was a bit hesitant at first since it was gonna be Half-Life 2 Deathmatch Co-Op on custom maps, and I'm generally not a fan of the custom maps they've chosen for other games before, but I decided to join in anyways!

In the end I was kind of correct, the maps weren't that good, but I actually still found it quite fun! I don't blame the creators themselves as I highly doubt they thought that more than 4 people would be playing these maps at once while making them, as they definitely don't seem to be designed to hold the over 20 of us that were in the server.

Still, it was quite fun to go through these, but I do want to share a specific map that really stuck out to me, so much so that I recorded it.

This map is called coop_resident_evil_sg_zb4, I think it was made by someone called Downloading, but it was uploaded to GameBanana by someone called mikeclark. As the name suggests, this map is inspired by Resident Evil, and specifically the 2002 film, even taking some sound effects and music directly from it. Despite the quality of the movie itself (which I still love btw, it's so campy), I do think it was generally a good map.

That being said, HL2 Deathmatch Co-Op is generally quite messy, and it only got worse with the fact there was 25 of us. Some sections of the map were a bit janky, like a long staircase area where you levitated above the stairs, and there were also a handful of inconveniently-placed holes, but again, the real issue is that there were 25 of us playing it at the same time.

That staircase area was 8 flights of very slim stairs that we were all crowded around, with zombies and headcrabs respawning of course. There was also a sewer section that you exited from via a ladder that also got quite congested, and worst of all, there's a sequence where a train leaves and if you miss it a TARDIS-looking teleporter appears in the map that you can use to reach it, but only one person can go at a time and it takes like 10 seconds to do so. This resulted in a big queue forming that usually took some minutes to clear, which is not really what you want in a chaotic action game.

Anyways, I know that sounds bad, but it ended up being quite fun in a bit of a twisted way! It was enjoyable to me to be in it together with others, and eventually when we did finish the map after like 45 minutes, we were rewarded with a very fun and chill puzzle minigame map to end the session!

I did want to preserve this match so I started recording it partway through, but unfortunately I messed something up in OBS and it cropped very weirdly, so it's sorta zoomed in. That was a shame, but I didn't want the video to go to waste, so I am sharing it anyways! Mostly for archival purposes, but also to keep the silly memory.

That's all I wanted to share! I'm very glad we pulled it through, and even gladder I was a part of it!

Also, for completeness, here are the other maps I played during the session, starting from when I joined. Most of these weren't that fun during the session, period, but they might still be interesting.

• rye_coop_simulation_00 by ryeplease & Mandrew
• sg_coop_runoff_zb2 by Downloading/mikeclark
• mm_coop_winterrural by Mandrew
• mm_coop_rgbcircle by Mandrew
• JBR_Cooppuzzle_One_Final by jrich3900 (Jim Rich)