chenchencity

Title: chenchencity
Link:  http://www.gamemaps.com/details/19282
Author: Chen Chen
Survivors: L4D2
Notes: N/A

This campaign is by the prolific Chinese map maker Chen Chen, known most notably as the author of the hehe series and also as the designer of many ridiculously challenging maps that push the limits of what should normally be expected of most players. Over the years, his skills as a map maker have improved from a technical standpoint, but what qualifies as "good" or "quality" in regard to his maps are still questionable and inconsistent. This campaign is no exception.

Unlike the hehe and somefun series, this campaign at least attempts some coherent form of progression. That is, it's not simply a string of disconnected maps that take place in wildly different areas that solely exist to test different things of the player. You start out at the top of a building and make your way down to the bottom and outside. That much is already more normal than what you can expect of a typical Chen Chen map, but it wouldn't be a map of his if it didn't have something ridiculous on the way down, which it does. The elevator shaft you have to descend has an elevator that's falling, and you have to make it out without missing a jump (which will mean plunging to your death), but you also have to get through fast enough to avoid being crushed by the elevator. After that, you'll find yourself in a large open area outside. The saferoom is being guarded by a man who won't let you inside until you find his five friends first. This begins an annoying scavenger hunt, which becomes a pain once a constant stream of infected is triggered.

The second map is painfully boring. It takes place in the same exterior as the first map but requires you to hold out for several long minutes in order to progress. I guess the idea behind this is you have to cover some dude who's going to blow up the barricade. The problem is there's absolutely zero challenge in this, especially since you have an aimbotter NPC assisting you the whole time, as well as having turrets placed conveniently at your defense. It's almost embarrassing if an infected hits you once. This map concludes with a rescue vehicle taking you to the city.

The third map is Chen Chen City I suppose, and it's probably the best map. There's enough detail to warrant decent progression and exploration. However, in order to proceed at a certain point, you need to find six items to resuscitate a downed Zoey. This wouldn't be so bad if the objects were highlighted, but they aren't. As such, you have to search a rather large area for unmarked pills, medkits, and other random items. You won't be sure if they're the right thing so you'll just press "use" on everything. It's not particularly fun to do that kind of guesswork. Once the path becomes clear though, the rest of the map's layout isn't terrible and is probably the most normal in terms of gameplay. 

The fourth map, which brings about the second half of the campaign, is where things start to get really stupid. It takes place in the sewers but they open up to a convoluted mess of pipes above an instant-kill river. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't a couple of traps. The first is a fake pipe that looks like it leads to a medkit but breaks, leading to death. The second is when you hit a switch that you need to open in order to progress, a bunch of tanks fall from the ceiling, which will surely punt someone off the narrow ledges. A forced witch spawn in front of a ladder also ensures that the team will have to deal with her. The latter part of the map takes place outside but it has low gravity, and you'll have to figure out how to get into a blasted out section of a tall building in order to make it inside the saferoom of a florist's shop.

The fifth map is the biggest pain in the ass, though. If you're anything like me, you'll probably be confused as to what to do when the map begins. After you realize that there's no way to progress, you'll probably start to press "use" on everything until you discover that you need to use the television, which of course isn't highlighted. Only after that will the elevator work. However, once you go down the elevator, you'll find it's an absolute nightmare. You'll get torn apart by turrets and aimbotting NPCs who do a ridiculous amount of damage to you and will explode barrels that do an insane amount of damage. Even if you're lucky enough to make it past the first hurdle, the turrets will shoot you no matter where you are through the rest of the section, even through walls. There's just really no feasible way to do this, and this is why I fucking hate most of these Chinese maps. I always feel like they're made for servers that grant god mode, infinite ammo, and low gravity, and that they aren't intended for people who play normal servers.

I mean just take a look at what's going on in the above picture. Does it really look like the design of this campaign is particularly inspiring or motivating me to finish, to see what comes next? Of course not, it's just a mess. The last map is yet another example of this campaign just not working, albeit for the opposite reason. It's a huge stadium where you have to hold out against a three-wave finale. Just like the second map, there's so little challenge here that it's really uninteresting. The only plus I found was that the interior stadium is so massive that it actually makes the grenade launcher a decent weapon for once, I'm not kidding. But honestly having to entertain myself by experimenting with a weapon that nobody uses shouldn't be a good thing. The finale isn't bad, just really boring, like the second map. Again, I can't help but feel that this inconsistency is part of the problem with the way these campaigns are designed around custom servers. Oh yeah, and the music that forcibly plays is pretty terrible, but it's another trademarked move by Chen Chen so it's hard to expect something different. 

Difficulty: The unavoidable turrets in the fifth map don't just make this campaign hard, they make it impossible. Even if not, having to restart countless times because of something that isn't even related to infected just makes this feel like the challenge is one of manipulating shitty elements of L4D2 rather than posing an actual challenge. I don't like platforming in L4D2 but at least those challenges from the first and fourth map are doable. The holdout sections are beyond easy, and it becomes apparent that the sections that deal with the most normal elements of L4D2 are boring. The only way these Chinese maps are made ridiculously difficult if not impossible is by forcing the player deal with absurd obstacles that aren't even really part of the base game. Personally I find it idiotic to release a map that will just kill the player by non-zombie elements beyond platforming. Even if this is on Easy, you're most likely not going to have fun because these elements can't be tweaked.

Final Verdict: Well, considering you take constant damage in map 5 even by getting shot through walls, I'm convinced that the campaign is quite literally impossible so of course I can't recommend this. Even if it is technically beatable through some obscure manner, maps 2 and 6 are beyond boring, while the scavenging for non-highlighted objects in maps 1 and 3 drag the gameplay through the mud. The traps of map 4 are just dickish and there really isn't anything particularly inspiring or motivating the player to progress. The maps aren't very complex and level geometry is mostly just generically blocky. There are some interesting concepts but they're either not employed fairly or in any meaningful way, and requiring the player to press "use" on everything to progress is lazy design. I guess the only real positive I have to say is that it's not the ugliest campaign I've ever seen, and at least it works. But campaigns for Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 should enhance the basic gameplay elements of those games, not be ridiculously easy when it comes to killing zombies but utterly insane when it comes to adding elements that were never intended to be used in the manner that they are.

Rating: 0.6/5.