trincasp2: Forgotten Tomb [Reviewed by Tronyn]

This is Trinca's second Q1SP entry, and presents improvement from his first in nearly every way. The setting is a series of gloomy dungeons, a graveyard, some caves and an outdoor area with a building front (my favourite area). The overall impression is of some sort of masoleum complex, built in brown brick.

Despite the good variety of settings, and the occasional nice detail (the glowing runes in the final room are a good example of this), architecture remains quite plain overall. The layout is more complex than Trinca's last, with better interconnectivity and revisting old areas, but it still constists primarily of square-ish rooms and hallways. Lighting is much moodier this time around - that is to say, it is darker, and much better sourced (flames, the sky, ceiling lights, and so forth). This creates a gloomy, dreary atmosphere that works well for the map.

Gameplay's fairly tough, I didn't die on normal but I had a few really close calls, including 6 health and no armour, in a small hallway with deathknights. There are actually quite a few monsters in the map, well over a hundred, and you'll get to use the perforator and rocket launcher to full capacity later in the map. While corridor combat can get tense with enemies that have a good amount of health (death knights, fiends), the map's gameplay is at its best with large, mixed ambushes of baddies - knights, death knights, fiends, all in one chaotic swarm. These fights were quite enjoyable. Another good moment was fighting knights on the ground while trying to pick off the ogres who lob grenades out of the aforementioned building front. Scrags are also used well throughout.

Overall, this map has a lot more atmosphere than Trinca's last, something that I find quite important. It is also a step forward in moving away from the blocky and simple design of its predecessor.