From this mapper comes a new episode in the Mel Soaring series, well known to most of the people in the community as he has produced quite a number of maps over the years. This particular map was originally intended to be one huge mother, but since there was trouble getting it through the vis process, it was divided in two smaller ones.


The architecture tries to incorporate the curved surfaces seen in Quake 3 and does a pretty good job at that. There's consistency in theme, a theme that looks very much like the original Quake with a castle look. Architecture is interesting, the path kind of winds back upon itself making you enter rooms you've already visited. Lighting is somewhat dark, but it fits the rest of the settings well, with a spooky wind blowing and a night sky above you. All of the textures are new, and they have been blended together in a fine mix; a couple of new sounds have been added as well.

 

When playing on hard skill level, one really needs to be careful. The grouping of the enemies will force you into several tough combat situations, so quick thinking is necessary. Along the way you'll be handed the tools to survive, and weapons are given with increasing power, just as they should. Monster placement is very good and for once I felt like I had a true challenge when playing through the mission. Playing it a second time was however much easier, although I still managed to get myself killed a couple of times.

 

The fact that the maps are pretty large and have big rooms with sometimes lots of curved walls doesn't affect the smoothness of the map when running it. Areaportals between large connecting areas will make these two maps run on just about any platform. The r_speeds never get exceedingly high and are most of the time below the 500's. Also the mission itself advances in a natural way; of course you might get stuck on the occasional hard combat situation, but as soon as you get past it, you're back on track in no time.

 

This is one of the top maps released this year, so I really recommend you get it. The challenge you're up to is very tough and the architecture you encounter on your way through the mission is very well designed. It really deserves a very strong four, and that's what it gets. Download!

 

Score: 4/5