Underworldfan's Single Player Map Reviews

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## Reviews: 27th July 2006

SUMMARY
Game - QUAKE
Map - grunt: Grunt Grenadin
by - Madfox
Download - grunt.zip
Overall Verdict - An imaginative base map with a good layout.

FULL REVIEW:
Madfox has released this large, imaginative and unusual custom base map. It features around 140 monsters on hard skill with 3 secrets. The layout is a twisting, unusual base map theme, set into and combined with a series of large underground rockface caves, caverns, corridors, ledges and waterfalls. It has quite an unusual feel and atmosphere, enhanced by the slightly garish multi-colored lighting.
There are a number of nice touches in the architecture, which i found acceptable in build quality overall, but the build quality could certainly could be improved a lot more. Architectural highlights including the large twisting spiral staircase which rises up from the ground in a lava filled shaft, and the 2 large central waters areas, one featuring big waterfalls and the other featuring a cool stone dragon sculpture. Theres also some decent rising lifts and bridges which are all done in a rather unique style which shows good imagination.

Gameplay is quite good, theres a nice mix of monsters used, usually in small clusters which means monster infighting is very helpful. Health, Armor and Ammo is quite generous (maybe a bit too much) throughout the map, although balancing this to some extent is only a few weapons given to the player and quite a lot of vores, shamblers and fiends. Monster placement is average but could be better given the potential the layout of the map offers. There are decent fights at quite a few points but the ending is a bit of a let down, because its too easy and quick.
The large interconnected layout requires exploration, and for the most part this is done quite well, but there are a couple of small design flaws. One is that merely picking up the blue/gold key triggers the door opening rather than the normal way of using the key to run up to and open the door. The second, more serious, problem is a badly marked underwater tunnel, hidden in dark shadows, which is very hard and unclear how to find, so that in the end i had to noclip through this section to discover it. The tunnel entrance needs to be better highlighted here. To end on the positives, in summary this is an imaginative and unusual theme and a nice large, interesting layout, with just enough variety in the gameplay to make it fun all the way through.

Overall Score: 15.5/20