great map, one of my top faves

Played on nightmare, 163/167 monsters (couldn't find all of them) and 2/3 secrets.

It's a very good map indeed. The architecture isn't 5/5, but it makes up with the layout, the pace and positioning of monsters, the secrets, and the time they give you the weapons.

It's drawback its that game-play and ammo/health/armor is unbalanced, at least in nightmare: until you get to the fortress, you get on the border of getting empty on all the ammo/health lots of times, even if you use monster infighting, and becomes, thx to the centroids and the new ogres, the hardest map i have ever played, way more than ID maps. On the opposite side, as further you go into the fortress, the map is easier and you are overloaded with ammo/health (i think i left untouched around 160 shells, 200 nails and 20 rockets :D).

Another thing to mention is that you get attacked right at the beginning, before moving a single muscle.

Overall, i give it a 4/5, but it would deserve a 5/5 if the game-play were to be adjusted.

Very good sequel to ADD. Still not my kind of map in terms of gameplay (too much of a punishingly difficult grind, at least on skill 1 and at least initially), but the setting and atmosphere are top-notch and much better than in ADD (where it was already pretty good). There is fortunately more detail here than in ADD, but still a restrained aesthetic prevails, which I prefer to that of Tronyn's more visually busy maps (such as the Arcanum maps or nyar2).

Although I found it a little exhausting, I did not mind the tough and somewhat unbalanced combat too much, since it feels realistic for the most part -- with the exception of the shamblers, which were plonked in pretty artificially and broke immersion somewhat. They were also the only monsters that, with their yeti-like appearance, did not really fit the warm, dry and dusty surroundings.

As in ADD, the large numbers of centroids are tough (slightly less so once you learn to and if you manage to exploit their weaknesses), but certainly fit the surroundings perfectly.

I'm missing a few enemies as well, and what the heck is that ceiling switch for?

Coming from ADD, I found this map to be an excellent sequel. The visuals were, in my opinion, vastly improved, and the increased enemy roster really helped to diversify the level and make it stand out as a well-rounded experience. I did have a few issues playing the map, namely that the Axe viewmodel was glitched and appeared at the top of the screen, and that there was one secret elevator that had a gap next to it so wide that I fell down the first time I took it. Really, simple issues that hardly detract from the overall experience of the map.

I pretty much agree with Pritchard - and I also had the same issues. I loved the custom rocket ogre but felt like there were too many scrags. Never found how to open the laser cannon secret.

Note that for people who find combat too unbalanced in the beginning, you can extract the .bsp from add2.pak and dump it inside add.pak if you've also installed the previous map, A Desert Dusk. This is not in the readme but the game will then chain the two maps like it's supposed to, with guns and ammo carried over from the first one.

Running out of ammo at the very start is extremely frustrating. Evidently this was designed to be played as a chain with add but this was never so.

The design and layout are all improved but I felt the gameplay was still not there and I found myself not enjoying the unique visuals. I struggled to bump to a 4 due to the obvious advancements over add...but the gameplay still throttled for me.

Even better than the original!

BTW... for those of you who'd like to try the original ADD followed by this one, you can download a combo zip file from here: http://newcenturycomputers.net/temp/add12.zip

As usual, I'm not claiming this as mine, etc. Just sharing a working combo so others can see how cool the two are together. Not everyone knows how to break down a PAK file, after all.

With the existence of some having paired your 2 current levels, I frankly believe you should take the idea further to see here it could go.

The esthetic really sets it apart from Quake 1: Operation Counter-Strike and Scourge Of Armagon. Even next to Dissolution Of Eternity, it is a bit more different in that it really is specialized around deserts. With that being said, bundling in DoE entities for the next levels would be very appealing. Imagine how it would be to have both SoA and DoE bundled into one campaign.

I just renamed this to pak1.pak and dropped it in the mod folder with the previous add map, then played the two maps chained. Really fun to stomp through this one having the power weapons from the outset.