Apocalypse 2

Title: Apocalypse 2
Link: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1923390758
Author: 1SG.Heartless
Survivors: L4D1
Notes: From the same author as Escape From Toronto.

Apocalypse 2 is a five-map campaign that is probably a port of a L4D1 campaign. It is fairly extensive but very simplistic and ugly. The maps mostly all succumb to the same issues, that there are too many ideas and they're not implemented well. There are several environments and they mostly look like a first trial run through making them. The environments are relatively unrelated and there isn't an adequate feeling of sense between the transitions. They're not unrealistic enough to be considered abstract but not realistic enough to represent anything real. Instead it just seems like a bunch of poorly made sections.

There are lots of entities and a lot of shit flung at a wall to see what sticks and the answer to that overall is not much. This kind of results in a ton of open areas and empty rooms. There are some semblances of okay environments, such as an underground tunnel or a sewer that isn't too bad, but the open areas outdoors are all far too big to be challenging.

There are plenty of places where you can peer out over the edge of the world or where there aren't player brushes where there should be. What this means is that you can easily go out of bounds. This is easily reached just by not knowing the way. Very rarely are there actual indications of where to go, so often you'll be running around just trying to figure out where to go. The majority of the time it is not in a building unless it's very obvious.

The best part of the campaign is the sewer section since it's wide enough to give you space to move but also in tight enough quarters for it to actually be kind of a challenge, and even better, there isn't any water to slosh through. Unfortunately this leads to yet another blocky, ugly section that doesn't make much sense.

The fourth map is huge, very random, and full of monstrosities of buildings that make no sense, are incomplete, and aren't even necessary to go into, yet they're huge and have random details. It's hilarious how incredibly easy it is to reach areas you're not supposed to get to but when trying to figure out the actual direction of the map, it's quite headache-inducing because nothing indicates a correct path. I managed to get outside the boundaries of the map just by thinking I was going the right way.

The finale is pretty horrendous because it's a huge bridge map that doesn’t tell you anything about what it expects you to do. The idea is to go down one side of a bridge, climb up some ladders to turn a lever, cross the bridge, do the same thing on the other side, then climb into a barge that magically appears for some reason. It has tanks mysteriously disappear when running from them because the map is so big. The outro is really weak and once it’s done, there’s nothing exciting or fulfilling at the end.

This campaign is really weak and honestly looks like someone cleaned up some discarded scrap maps that wasn't ever intended to be released. Everything technically works, but there's just nothing challenging about it except trying to navigate the poorly directed, oftentimes poorly crafted designs of the maps. None of the saferooms had ammo piles, just a stock of new weapons, which was a weird and unnecessary design choice. There are very few director hints, though I noticed quite a few custom models. It also incorporates the “Funny Louis Voice Mod” as well as some other sounds that were not as funny (such as farting when you save or heal a player, swearing from the common infected).

Difficulty: The most difficult part is the first map, which withholds any weapon from players until the halfway point. Otherwise it's just a pain to figure out the direction you're expected to go. The maps are so big that special infected and commons shouldn't pose a problem.

Final Verdict: For people who love post-apocalyptic settings, you could do worse than this one, but I just don’t think there's that much to enjoy from it. It’s not a completely broken or horrible campaign, but There may be errors for models. It's incredibly mediocre, ugly, directionless, and not very fun in my opinion.

Rating: 2.35/5.