Map Labs revisits the old Back on Track theme, this time with a twist: vertical backtracking is a must!
Enjoy the verticality in the 8 submitted maps!
As always, if you’re interested in learning more about Map Labs and maybe even participate in their upcoming challenges, visit the Map Labs Discord.
- Title: Back on 2Rack: Vertigo
- Filename: sdk-2013-sp-mlc-backon2rack.7z
- Size : 774 MB
- Author: ArctixSnowPup, NTN9, Commando Booce-iwnl-, Zapizard, Sensethenn, Lassi, BtheM, beefbacon
- Date Released: 4 April 2024
- Related: Back on Track
- Make sure you have the Upcoming branch of the Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer installed in Steam and run at least once. (Properties – Betas – select upcoming from the dropdown list).
- Copy the botv, mapbase_shared, mapbase_hl2, and mapbase_episodic folders into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Back On 2rack: Vertigo should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you decide to use the Per-Map Opinion Images, feel free to use the file below as a template:
Backon2rack-Review-Template.txt
Listed as they are displayed in the mod itself:
Concrete Xen by ArctixSnowPup
White Lies by NTN9
Mt. Spiun by Commando Booce-iwnl-
Trial Technology Testing Simulation by Zapizard
TWISTEDSENSE by Sensethenn
Interception by Lassi
Shootingdown by BtheM
Cold Hard Steele 4 by beefbacon
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
Each map has 5 screenshots. Thanks to ArctixSnowPup for providing the screenshots!
1600 x 900
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1,216Overall
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2Today
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23Last 7 days
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75Last 30 days
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1,216365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 3 Hours, 39 Mins
Shortest: 2 Hours by Hec
Longest: 6 Hours by Haxray
Total Time Played: 14 Hours, 35 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Better late than never. Here goes another review.
Off to a good start, level design is kinda blocky but decent. The combat is easy, thanks to the shotgun and rpg. The handguns have bad accuracy for some reason.
Eerie, simplistic and yet the level design looks good too. What makes it eerie to me is that I have felt like someone’s been watching me. I always feel like somebody’s watching me
Another one of those generic raid the rebel base but it looks fine. The combat is fairly challenging though. Onto the next one
Level design is meh but the gameplay is basically like Portal. It’s fine, not that bad.
Another eerie map, like I’m playing a survival horror game. The combat is fairly challenging but it’s really easy to kill zombies with only a crowbar and a few shotgun shells.
Fairly made map, decent level design, and decent difficulty. I killed almost every soldiers in one hit because of close quarters with a shotgun, best recommended weapon when fighting indoors.
Level design is very basic, like one of those amateur Garry’s Mod maps I see in most recent upload in its workshop. The puzzle, there’s no hint but easy to figure out. Combat, very easy as usual.
Cold Hard Steele deserves his own game tbh. Like in the previous entries, this one takes the cake of the best in the mod. In terms of why, I must’ve explained it over and over so there’s not much to say about this one now.
Let me know if Cold Hard Steele gets his own standalone game.
Is very bad!
I really enjoyed Interception, gave it a 9/10. Not far behind were Concrete Zen and White Lies.
As for the rest I’m SO MUCH in disagreement with those other detailed positive ratings that its best I say no more. Weighted average rating for the mod, 4/10.
Its been a while since I played maplabs, and was reminded of Maplabs existing upon stumbling onto the TTT map Labs. This quickly became a new favorite of mine.
Unfortunately, this Pack starts off with, IMO, the worst map in the entire set. I wish I could give more criticism of the map, but the combat and environment are both rather dull. It is also super easy to skip fighting most of the enemies on the return trip.
A interestingly short journey that is genuinely on the creepy side and has excellent atmosphere. While it doesn’t involve much backtracking, I would argue what is there fits the theme well enough. Managed to un-nerve me and be interesting with a nearly entirely grey color pallet which is an impressive trick. I love those creepy ass robots.
A not particularly unique assault on a Rebel base with an easy return trip afterwards. Not much to speak about here, the Environment is rather blocky and the combat isn’t particularly interesting, but its a lot more enjoyable than Concrete Xen. Really would have benefited from some fun set pieces during the base assault and some kind of twist on the return trip.
I will give this map props for the unique puzzle-focused idea. However, i found the actual puzzles not particularly fun, and got stuck in the first area for an annoyingly long period of time as progression was not super obvious. I feel there is a good idea there but the way it was executed just didn’t work for me. Would love to see this idea revisited however!
Fantastic short map with great atmosphere. Combat isn’t particularly difficult but it is fun. The visuals and zombies remind me of the Vine series of maps from Eye Candy and Wrap-Up. Great experience and a very memorable one. One nitpick is that i could absolutely not understand what the voice was saying at all during the ending bit. Audio feels too low to make out, and could do with an increase in volume.
A great short City-17 themed map. While not the most unique idea, is executed very well and is a fun experience. It is perhaps a bit too easy to miss some of the ladders leading up however, as I missed the final roof access for an embarrassingly long period of time. I don’t really get much of the backtracking theme in this one, however.
I am really not a fan of this one. It feels like random stuff slapped together, and I find its visuals completely unappealing. it’s combat is incredibly easy. I wish i had more to say but similar to Concrete Xen I lack much to speak about.
This right here, singehandedly made this one of my favorite map labs, ever. I unfortunately missed out on most of Beef Bacon’s other Cold Hard Steele Submissions, and going back to them after experiencing this one feels like a unfair disservice to the earlier entries.
The visuals and environment are downright Goregous. It works the backtracking theme into the gameplay in an incredibly clever and fun way with the Jetpack, that controls fantastically by the way. The enemies are a massive upgrade from Cold Hard Steel 3, both in visuals and in how they behave in combat. Im not sure if im just imagining it, but even the movement feels so much smoother and more boomer-shooter like than the previous ones. I sunk easily 4 hours into this map alone with the goal of completing it on hard after beating it the first time, and I do not regret the time spent even as it kicked my ass.
The difficulty scaling is fair, the weapons look and feel great to use, the enemies look fantastic and are fun to fight(I really love the visual design on the Wizard, how it looks like a ‘Bearded Wizard’ Sterotype til you notice what the “Beard” actually is made from).
Beef Bacon, if ya read this, you’ve unfortunately made me an Addict. I want more of this style of map and I want it badly. Fantastic work. Easily worth the download for this map alone.
Manually
Medium
6 Hours
Hi all,
I rarely post here anymore, but this time I was compelled because I wanted to warn players about something and maybe hopefully the pack gets re-compiled. The only entry that crashed (twice) was Cold Hard Steele 4. After it did, my Windows cursor changed only when I was in the Steam application, other apps were fine, but only a PC restart fixed this. For this reason, it felt like a hack, and the last entry is the only one that I can remember that has custom crosshairs so I believe that was it. The author needs to check their submission, fix this and resubmit so the pack gets re-compiled without any danger of modification to my operating system, please.
As for the actual entries, the ‘Shootingdown’ should not even count as it did not do what the challenge asked. ‘Interception’ was my favorite by far as I am a sucker for urban warfare and destroyed buildings especially when the buildings are partially absorbed by combine architecture, while the destructible environment was a bonus. ‘TWISTEDSENSE’ also had good combat and destructible environment especially with the new enemy and the new mechanic of blowing up walls. I think CHS4 is a cheat entry due to its size, the author just has a bunch of random levels ready for release and they pick whatever level or map matches the current theme; other than that, everything is super samey and repetitive from start to finish, no matter the theme, and I honestly do not understand the rave every time they enter these challenges; the mechanics are inconsistent, it’s not clear what the levers open, the doors and areas open randomly, platforms and button are inconsistent, they work 2 ways in one area but only 1 way in different areas, and the ‘switch weapon as soon as you randomly walk over ammo’ is super annoying and confusing, especially if I am already holding mouse1 down; and please don’t use roman numerals if you don’t know how to use roman numerals, 4 is supposed to be IV, not IIII.
Manually
Medium
2 Hours, 40 Minutes
Sadly Norton Antivirus quarantined 2 of the files in this mod on my computer. It’s too bad because I wanted to play it. I know how to override this but would rather not do so.
I’m in this!
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first map isn’t that much interesting um and down on platform with comats providing some different weapons
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on a design base it was intersting and atmospheric but appart of that it was a little confusing and not really fun to play
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quite boxy with a lot of bloking walls no real objective and a drop ending but the idea was interesting and could have been developped in a different way
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Give it a try sneak from place to place for arround 20min didin’ manage the jump on the platform and decided I had spend enough time…of frustration, won’t rrate it since I didn’t finish it
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The ambiance, the new monsters the general design make this map for me really enjoyable had fun playing it
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This one was really fun in term of gameplay and design even if this one in a classic way with nothing its really in the combine combat mood
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Boxy design puzzle added like some proof of concept not a lot of fun or intrest playing this one
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The last one is certainly the highlight of this pack everything is new, challenging and from High quality A must that eveybodu should try even if it isn”t that evident to find a way to progress and to use correctly all new items
BOLD: In Conclusion
3 maps for me really deserve the gaming time twisteddense interception and Cold Hard steel 4 just for those 3 maps I give it a play it now rating 🙂
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 55 Minutes
Ok, so I will speak my mind on this map lab edition. Overall it is a Play It Now recommendation. I think the first 2 entries were good enough, arena style-combat but pretty entertaining TBH. Then the 3rd entry was bland, nevertheless, its surreal main concept tends to confusion during the gameplay time. The 4th entry was also good, with innovative mechanics, although the logic to solve the whole map was weird and overall badly laid out. About the 5th entry, I guess I skipped down that one so I have nothing to say. And the 6th one, “Interception” was a nice vertical urban-combat concept centered around a fall of City 17 scenario, that was well achieved overall and fun to play.
Now, Cold Hard Steele 4 deserves a mention apart, because it was brilliant.
I also support the idea of a plea to his author, Beef Bacon, to do a full TC release of this brilliant bundle of maps. I hope one day he takes this choice seriously and launches CHS saga as a whole mod because it would be an instant classic, here we have a cool vertical medieval dimension scenario, and also a brilliant layout for the gameplay, where you must go down to get this superb cool high jump backpack, and then, go up again to meet the final fight, I guess by what I can understand by playing this masterpiece, possibly there will be more CHS episodes in some near future, anyway, I hope his author considers to make a full release out of it, as it would be fantastic to have a solid Cold Hard Steele universe on its own, and maybe someday make this evil villain doctor pay for all its crimes.
In conclusion, this map lab is a solid Play it Now no doubts about it!
Manually
Medium
2 Hours