Anarchy Arcade gives the user, you, a huge amount of customizing power. Between games, music, decoration, television screens, etc, there is a lot to do. But, in my honest opinion, the game gives you a lackluster selection of maps to choose from. Don't get me wrong, I can see the appeal of Orchard House, but so far it's the only map I've seen used.

After mounting my Source games to Anarchy Arcade, I suddenly became aware of a huge selection of maps that I knew very well from other Source games. I was curious to see their applicability, so I began testing some. Instantly I noticed huge differences in capability between the maps, and began writing down what I liked and disliked about each map.

I had 2 main criteria for deciding how useful a map was for an arcade. Firstly, I determined how much interior space there was. By interior, I mean how much space in the map was inside of a building. I know it's a little meta considering that it is a game and no real harm can be done, but I simply don't care for the idea of my games and props being outside in the elements.

Secondly, I had to figure how much prop clutter there was built into the map. Some maps have props that exist inherent in the map, and cannot really be manipulated or moved. Generally I consider an excess of props to be an annoyance when attempting to design an arcade on a map, so the fewer props the better.

One last thing, not all of my Source games ended up being mounted to AArcade. The three big ones were Portal 2, the L4D series, and CS:GO. Other than that, I pretty much have all of them in AArcade. I'm not particularly sure why those games, and a handful of mods such as Dino D-Day, didn't mount, but I'm not really worried about it.

My recommendations will be tagged as follows. R means recommended, Meh means it's ok but not great, and NR means not recommended.

Remember, this is my personal opinion. I do not mean to offend anyone, and this has nothing to do with the maps' quality in general, simply its effectiveness as an arcade.

I decided to begin searching through the Counter Strike: Source maps. CSS has a good number of very high quality maps to choose from, and I'll review each map individually.

Assault is plagued with some major issues, making it unsuitable for an arcade.

Firstly, the huge majority of the map is outside, which breaks my first criteria. However, there is a warehouse on one side of the map. The inside of this warehouse is uneven. There is very little open space for customization. The upper areas of the warehouse are not much better, what few rooms there are are cluttered with props. Besides the roads, the flattest area of the map is the elevated rail line, but this area, while functional, wouldn't make for a very entertaining arcade.

Compound isn't stellar for an arcade due to its lack of interior space and fairly high prop clutter. Compound has 3 main buildings which can be utilized. The yellow warehouse is the largest interior space, and arguably the least cluttered, making it a good space. It's also the spawn point, so be careful where you put stuff. The Red Brick Warehouse is smaller and fairly cluttered, and it's quite a walk from spawn. Lastly, there is a completely empty small red shed at the far end of the map that could be used for something.

Havana is an odd map for sure, with its twisting corridors and debris. It has quite a bit of interior, but most of the rooms are cluttered with props. I would recommend utilizing two main locations: Firstly, the balcony room to the right has a decent amount of space and no clutter, and a great view. The room pictured below is also decent, having little clutter and great lighting.

Italy has always been a classic, but its use as an arcade map is limited. The majority of the map is outside, with two main interior areas. Your best bet for a suitable arcade is the plaza and house in the far corner of the map. The plaza is decently large and perfectly flat, and the house is almost completely empty. The middle interior, however, is very cluttered, and even has paintings taking up wall space.

Attempting to utilize militia is arguably what started me on this quest, and at first glance the map seems perfect. It has some major flaws, though. Firstly, the spawn is all the way down the road where Counter Terrorists normally spawn. Worse, it's actually on top of one of the APC's. Getting to the house itself will be a treck. The house is the centerpiece of the map, and the main interior area. Unfortunately, it has very high prop clutter, especially in the main downstairs rooms. However, if the stacks of newspapers and bottles everywhere don't deter you, the militia house is otherwise a decent arcade area. The upstairs rooms are decently large and empty, and the porch that goes around the back of the house can house a number of props and cabinets.

First recommended map of this guide! Office has always been one of the most popular maps in CSS, and it's arguably one of the best AArcade maps CSS has to offer. This map is almost entirely interior, and makes good use of the space. There are plenty of mostly empty rooms, lots of desks and appropriate furniture, and a huge empty garage space (CT spawn). Word of warning though, I would rate it at having medium prop clutter. There really isn't a whole lot, but it's scattered debris, and impossible to interact with and move out of the way.

Pictured is the only interior that isn't stuffed with crates. This map is almost entirely outside, except for the hallway pictured. Furthermore, even if you aren't worried about leaving your cabinents out in the open, it's raining. Enough meta, though. Point is, aztec has a really unique theme that has very little to match it. Suitable props are going to be scarce, almost to the point of nonexistance, since there aren't any that come with this map.

Cobble is a small map with very little to offer in the way of interior. What little interior it does have is cluttered with crates, leaving very little room for customization.

Going into Chateau, I was expecting better. Unfortunately, the map is seriously cluttered with debris, and what I had remembered as vast rooms ready for customization, under scrutiny, revealed themselves to be less than 3 decent enough rooms to place some props in. At least you spawn in the T spawn and not CT.

Unsurprisingly, this classic map does not really suit itself for an arcade. Pictured is the only interior in de_dust, and dust2 is very similar.

Inferno, simply put, has a lot of interior space. However, this space is filled to the brim with props. Seriously, I don't think I found a single empty room. Furthermore, so much of this interior is just hallways.

Nuke does a lot right for AArcade. There is a ton of indoors space, between the two warehouses and the massive underground area, and plenty of room to work with. Best of all, almost no prop clutter. On top of that, there's a bit of diversity between the rooms, lending them to themes.

Kind of like cobble but good. Piranesi has quite a bit of interior space to work with, and very little prop clutter. Furthermore, it has a very unique theme to work with, but not so unique as to be unsupported. Kind of easy to get turned around here, though.

Port has very little interior space. What little interior it does have is made up of a single warehouse and a bizarre network of tunnels/hallways, which are unsuitable for props. At least there is no prop clutter. Someone could probably make use of the ocean liner, though. Ever see a floating arcade?

Prodigy is just a wierd map, to be honest. It's mostly interior, made up of tunnels/hallways, with a few small rooms in between. Lots of prop clutter though. Overall, not enough room left to customize.

Tides, in a shellnut, has very little interior, what little interior it does have is almost entirely hallways, and it has very high prop clutter.

Train is mostly interior, but I have to count it as having high prop clutter simply because of the room the train cars take up. The isle-ways between them are decent enough for props, though, and there are some smaller rooms around the edge of the map.

I really like TF2. Just going to throw that out there. And there are a lot of TF2 maps. And 99% break the first criteria. I was surprised, honestly. So, I found 2 maps that I figure would make decent arcades.

I have a love-hate relationship with turbine. As ctf maps go, good luck finding a server that isn't on 2fort. But if they aren't on 2fort, they're on turbine for sure. Sorry, Doublecross. Anyway, turbine fits both of my criteria perfectly. It is entirely interior. And the interior is huge and empty. Prop clutter is nonexistant, barring the crates and generators in the center room. The actual flag rooms are also empty enough for lots of props, and since TF2 is built slightly larger than the other Source games, the hallways leading between the flag rooms and the center room are gigantic. Seriously, try building an arcade in this map.

Nucleus stood out to me because of its shape. There are very few perfectly round maps, and the idea of a circular arcade overlooking a giant death pit (which will kill you by the way, at least you'll respawn) seems neat to me. Keep in mind that the center point will never open up.

Wait, what? Why would linear single player maps be showing up among maps from multiplayer games. At first, I was surprised all of the Half Life 2, Episodes, and Portal maps weren't listed. When I saw that they weren't there, I discounted them because of their single player nature. For some reason, though one Half Life 2 level was listed. Opening it up (d3_c17_02_camera) placed me outside of Kleiner's lab, moments after escaping the slow teleport. The map plays through Dog's combat sequence, but it is impossible to move on to the next level. It is possible, I guess, to make an arcade in this level, but whether or not the scripted events reset everytime you load the arcade is unknown to me. Could be messy, honestly.

Going to be getting the single player maps out of the way, so stick with me. Lost Coast was a tech demo for the Source engine, and two versions are listed in AArcade. d2_lost coast is based on the playthrough version, while vst_lostcoast relinquishes player control to a floating camera overlooking the scene. In the d2_lostcoast version, the scripted events are broken, although one can use crates to jump over the gate, t-posing combine soldiers will block your way to the cathedral. Perhaps a modified version of the map exists for sandbox, but otherwise an ideal location is technically off limits.

How much arcade can you fit in 8x8 ft.? No portals are here to let you out, I'm afraid.

The plan was to do this in one go, but my table of contents is falling off the page. Part two will cover Day of Defeat, Half Life 2: Deathmatch, Fistful of Frags, and Pirates, Vikings and Knights II.