4th of May 2025

AMC Squad Mapping Collaboration | Single | Author: The Community | Download

The Review: A bunch of AMC Squad fans got together to make a community map. Your chosen character (I played as Wheaton, a new addition you'll soon get to see) has a series of bad dreams, taking him (or her) from one nightmare to another. Due to engine size limits, the collaboration project is divided into two map files. The first part begins with a jungle segment. After taking out a camp site, you venture inside a temple and find yourself in an Indiana Jones movie with a few neat setpieces. The segment has a nice contrast between its lush, green outdoors against a dusk sky and its dark, cobweb-filled indoors. The second segment is the shortest but also the best-looking of the bunch, being a short hallway with just two rooms inside a beautifully-decorated mansion. It can also be the most annoying of the bunch if you don't immediately realize to switch to Silver Bolts... In the third segment you'll get another mansion (or is it a castle?), this one being a Wolfenstein style bit filled with Nazis (always fun to kill or what?) and strong atmospheric lighting. One nasty dude with a chainsaw gave me some trouble here (is it game over once he gets to you or can you still somehow fight him off??). In the fourth segment you fight aliens at a roadside store/gas station in the middle of nowhere. For some reason the map reminded me of Duke Nukem Forever, and refreshingly you've finally got plenty of space for combat, but everything in the map is oversized and it took me ages to find the last key lock (I thought the car was implied to be the means of arrival as it's the teleporter exit as well). The fifth segment is an upside-down office where you have to get used to having your enemies above you, messing with your reflexes. All in all pretty well made, especially the segment's alluringly sunny but unreachable surroundings, but occasionally a bit annoying to move around (for obvious reasons).

In the second map file you first explore a place that's either an Egyptian museum or some transdimensional location with an Egyptian theme. The place is a bit tight, but there are plenty of interesting, often miniature-size details here and there; and it's never overstuffed with enemies. This is followed by another cramped segment, an underground base. Design can be a bit basic here, but I enjoyed the segment's Black Mesa-like consistent texturing and the visuals of some of its larger machinery. Perhaps the largest segment in the pack is a mediterranean locale with river boats/canoes and a canal. The place looks lovely and managed to remind me of those early 2000 Counter-Strike maps. It also plays pretty well for a good while, but then you're subjected to not one but two maze sections, the latter coupled with low visibility and transparent enemies (remember to use your goggles), followed by backtracking more than halfway across the map. The last segment is a hangar of sorts. Action is pretty constant and often a lot of fun here, and the hangar with its 3D aircraft looks neat, but visibility is annoyingly low (you'll have plenty of projectiles headed your way out of total darkness). Also, the segment suffers from the worst case of length-padding, as the player is forced to walk back and forth the same set of hallways multiple times, killing many respawned enemies (including minibosses in tight corridors) in between. (And if you're going use security viewscreens as clues, don't have them show nearly 30 separate camera views, as that defeats the purpose.)

Conclusion: This collaboration project is an excellent showcase of the AMC Squad's rich and versatile assets, being capable of having everything from tropical jungles to Nazi mansions. The segments are thematically far apart but they're all pretty heavily action-based, leaving little room for puzzles, epic sights or the kind of elaborate setpieces the base game is known for. The overarching dream theme ties the maps together pretty well with a satisfying ending. Quality varies a lot, but the pack is well worth playing.

Rating: No score