Continuing my trawl through the FMB series, I was surprised to see how slowly they're developing: there is not that much difference, really, between the quality of this and the original fmb. I would have to classify this map as "passes the time painlessly enough", but there's nothing about it that really invites repeated plays. 3/5* is about right because it's prettier than the earlier maps.

You are aware that those are built from scraps of other mappers? I have no idea how much additional work Mike put into them, but from what I know the main stuff is from others.

No, I didn't reaiise that. Makes it all the more astonishing how utterly brilliant fmb_bdg2 is.

Hm, now I am actually not sure. I thought they all were, but check the readme files or his site.

Nice, well-balanced and fun, with ample visual variety and satisfying secrets, one of which is wonderfully elaborate.

There are two gameplay flaws, though (neither of which detract too much from the overall experience): the lift that takes you back from the generator area cannot be activated if you jumped down without using said lift, as the mechanism itself blocks the switch – which means that you are forever stuck unless you cheat to get back up. And the final monster is very easily avoided – so easily, in fact, that I avoided it by accident when I exited the map.

Overall, worth your time. 3 plus.

Had to noclip out of the water at start...

I completely agree with MikeTaylor! The level design improved, but some important things remained the same. For instance, instead of stepping on a slab over lava trough a silver key door you can just jump on that slab from the same slab almost two steps away. That means you don't have to play the area with the silver key.

This level overall is still more of a time killer

I agree with "Icantthinkofanickname" with lift error on this map, but if you have good health and grenade launcher, you can go back via grenade jump trick. Despite this error, it's worth playing.

I ran into the lift error myself; however, I'm still giving this one high marks. I quite enjoyed it.

Bloody hell! People still playing this map 20 years after I put it together.

This and several other FMB's were me joining other mappers 'scraps' together - I didn't have the time then to always create a new map from scratch. However FMB-BDG2 was all original brushwork. I gave up mapping (only ever a hobby) after BDG2.

Still, it makes me smile that people still play my old maps even though they may not be technically 100%.

Regards Mike Woodham

I'm so sad BDG2 was the last of your efforts, this is one of my favourite releases ever and it's becoming increasingly hard to ignore the urge to fire up Quake to replay it yet again as I'm typing this.

Too bad we will never see another of your creations again, but you know where to find us if you change your mind :) In any case, thank you so much again for BDG2. I have yet to go through the rest of your maps (including this one).