[ad]cs_noir
Created by Alex Roycewicz
Spawn points: 40
Download size: 12.7MB (uncompressed)

From the mastermind behind de_crookcounty, comes the wonderfully original map cs_noir. No need to adjust your flat panels, this is indeed in glorious black and white, and while the name harkens back to classic film noir, as soon as you join the bloodshed you'll most likely be thinking Sin City.

Utilizing an overlay to do something more fanciful than enabling drunk mode, this map positively drips with atmosphere. Sure it's simplistic — two opposing buildings and road — but it feels like a real place, a dangerous, cold, and dark place to kill or be killed with no quarter given.

Teams spawn within the buildings on opposite sides of the street, so the initial skirmish is almost always defined by some raucous window to window crossfire. You'll duck for cover behind countertops in the cramped grayscale interiors while shells smash bottles over your head, and 'nades ricochet and explode into stark white flares. Enemies are harder to see in this twilight, but you'll pinpoint their positions once the bullets fly. The regular source gun flare is far more spectacular and dramatic in monochrome, lighting up the alleys and rooftops like strobe lanterns.

Control of the rooftops is key, then leading an aggressive charge into the opposing building to rout the rest of the enemy. Wall spammers will find delight in being able to track and kill their enemy, as almost every brush is thin enough to breach. Once inside enemy territory it's a heart pounding room by room search, without enough room to swing a cat, unless it was an incredibly patient cat that could take a couple of nasty cracks to the head.

Now close quarter combat is a founding stone of cs, so you may be thinking there's nothing new here, and in terms of the type of action — it's essentially small scale deathmatch — there isn't. But I've failed thus far if I haven't yet evoked the different plane of intensity, and immersion, you'll experience in playing this after your usual rainbow of official maps. It's a desolate, bleak landscape, with nothing but gunfire for color, you'll feel gritty playing it; willing each round to another dramatic close.

It's not perfect, of course. When players join the game your screen will disconcertingly flash into a drab color filled world, then back again. Depending on the level of your graphics card you'll experience more such glitches in the overlay (and it won't work at all with older Nvidia cards). Speaking of hardware, it's no friend to fps - expect geriatric machines to drop to their Ben Gay slathered knees during firefights. Newcomers to the map will almost certainly find themselves trapped in the cramped rooms, trying to find the road only to end up in yet another monochromatic lavatory. And.. of course, you'll deal with every other player complaining that Steam broke their color.

But these, at the end of the day, are minor, minor inconveniences. For what we have here is a fantastic concept map, deserved of praise for taking a pioneering step forward. For this represents what is best in the modding world - a new idea, executed about as well as anyone could hope, and on that level alone, it succeeds.

(http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=39906) image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/content/t_image_39906.jpg Very. Close. Quarters.	(http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=39907) image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/content/t_image_39907.jpg Terrorism in the alley	(http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=39908) image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/content/t_image_39908.jpg Admin down!
(http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=39909) image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/content/t_image_39909.jpg Street Patrol	(http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=39910) image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/content/t_image_39910.jpg Bad news below	(http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=39912) image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/content/t_image_39912.jpg Birds eye view