Nice map, but quite tricky on co-op due to dying with the key and not being able to retrieve the new one, heh. But a short enough level that restarting isn't much bother.

Well constructed and good ambienced, but too easy even in nightmare skill.

Also some monsters can't reach you because they can't get "stuck" in a room while you kill them from outside, without any problem.

Average for me. Map is cramped and boring gameplay wise. Nice design in some places but nothing special.

Cramped but beautiful architecture. Decent gameplay, but it's the visuals that keep bringing me back.

Short, semi-linear map. It pulls off linear better than some others by making you go on a few other pathways but you always have to backtrack. It looks extremely good visually. A lot of the combat is cramped, but that's something I don't mind too much as long as no Vores are involved (there are two at the end, but the map gives you a sufficient layout for offing them. What I do like a lot is that it makes you be careful with your ammo, and makes you be extra careful lobbing grenades (due to the cramped nature). If you don't mind linear, this is a very very good map.

Cramped and easy, but the arcthitecture is gorgeous.

The Cobalt Palace on The Quake Grave

I have to echo everyones sentiments above. It's a little cramped but the map is very pretty! However, I think the map is fun and definitely worth a look, especially for the year.

The highlight for me was the branched out paths for each key. It doesn't seem like this was being done a whole lot at this time, so it's something interesting to keep in mind while playing it.

Very competently put together, but extremely linear, even for the time: there is only one point of choice, and even that is just a matter of which linear side-quest to tackle first. Also, it's way too easy. Nevertheless, it's still a fun play.

Cobalt Palace has the same layout as Gloom Keep: the player needs to get both the gold and silver keys to exit, and it's possible to get them in either order.

In many parts of the map, the architecture is very nice and shows attention to detail, especially in the main room (shown in the screenshot above). But the player has to spend too much time going through cramped passages, and that makes the gameplay--especially combat--kind of dull.

Played this a few days ago; just getting around to posting my comments now.

Having read the reviews here before playing it, I came into this map knowing what to expect in terms of gameplay. Because of this, I was not so bothered by the easiness and linearity of the level, and was able to enjoy the very nice geometry and color scheme, as well as the very cool abstract designs that were "carved" into the floors (such as what you can see in the screenshot on this page). It's a shame the author didn't pay so much attention to texture alignment in the brickwork, but this may have been due to limitations of the tools used.

Simply put, this level is some pretty nice eye-candy, and a good example of how far early mappers could go to make their levels look interesting with the limited resources they had at their disposal.