Underworldfan's Single Player Map Reviews

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## Reviews: 6th April 2006: Reviews 3,4,5.

SUMMARY
Game - QUAKE
Map review 3- hdn: Hangover Devastation
by - Ankh
Download - hdn.zip
Overall Verdict: good medium sized castle/fortress.
Map review 4- event: Event Horizon
by - JPL [Jean-Philippe LAMBERT]
Download - event.zip
Overall Verdict: fairly unique custom base map.
Map review 5- trincasp2: Forgotten Tomb
by - Trinca
Download - trincasp2.rar
Overall Verdict: reasonable improvement in this second released map by the author.

hdn: Hangover Devastation [Reviewed by Tronyn]
This map from Ankh is a nicely built outdoor fortress with a fair amount of water. The textures come from various sources, and work well together to create a traditionally evil Quake fort, with various gargoyles and skulls ornamenting things. The architecture is great, a complex outdoor courtyard surrounded by various twisting towers, rooms and hallways. There's also some underwater space here, that connects the whole map together (though some areas are barred one-way so as to keep linear progression). There are a lot of nice touches in red metal, mostly torchholders, trim, and beams. These add a lot to the theme.
Lighting is well sourced, with the sky casting most of it and fire and windows supplying the rest. There is also an appropriate and cool skybox, which strives to create the impression that the map is in a mountainous region, with some success. Gameplay is nice too, with lots of outdoor combat against death knights, fiends, and ogres. There is also a good amount of use of the Tarbaby, always suitably done. And vores will cause you pain from far away, and around unexpected corners - you'll always have to be looking out for them. You are often fighting several monsters at once, which is cool, and the mixture of types means you have to switch weapons and tactics. Overall not extremely difficult, as supplies are always sufficient, but interesting and well-done combat. The end could have been harder though.
Overall, this is a nicely built map with interesting structures, an intricate and functional layout, and cool gameplay. It's not the hugest map but it will provide good times as it is very atmospheric and there's ample opportunity for exploration, and 6 secrets.

event: Event Horizon
The strong points of this map in architectural terms are the excellent custom textures used and the good spot-lighting. Its a custom base map, set on-board a large spaceship. The layout is fairly basic really, 3 levels centered around a couple of large corridors and rooms, and the final massive and well built hangar/docking bay with its curving roof structures and custom-modelled spaceships. But it becomes more than the sum of its parts thanks to the aforementioned excellent texturing scheme, which provide some excellent detailing such as computer consoles, spot lighting and good trim and wall panels/doors. There are some also some very cool red laser bars/shooters which need to be deactivated, in these areas it feels more like a Doom 3 map. This means the overall look of the map is quite refreshing and unusual for a quake 1 map.
Gameplay is fairly standard in the sense of hordes of grunts and enforcers attacking you, mixed with ogres/vores/shamblers. monster infighting is definitely useful in some of the tighter areas in particular. There some good shocks as the players is surprised by various fiends, vores and shamblers, the tougher monsters are well-used/placed and make up for the slightly routine use of the numerous grunts/enforcers. Ammo and health/armor, maybe slightly generous in the early parts of the map.
The final hangar showdown features an old enemy that those who played Doom1/2 all that time ago will be familiar with. Theres five of them (on hard skill anyway, and total monster count=207) and its a tough final battle, but ammo and health is again well judged and a skillful player will eventually be able to complete the slaughter (after a few deaths in my case) and head to the exit. Excellent fun and great textures make this a welcomely different quake 1 custom map.

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.

Overall Scores:
Hangover Devestation 16/20
Event Horizon 16/20
Forgotten Tomb 13/20