Just insanely hard. After opening the initial gate, there are two shamblers to be fought without ammo. Where's the fun in that?

After opening the initial gate, there are two shamblers to be fought without ammo. Where's the fun in that?

LOL ! The fun was for the shamblers, of course !

Hard(core), if you can take a little rage, and your keyboard withstands a few hits

Wow. That was relentlessly evil. Great atmosphere, and I do not think any other Quake map has made me feel quite so vulnerable. It almost gives one a sense of what it must really feel like to be faced with hellish monsters out to kill you. The map is great to look at, and the fairly realistic textures (uncharacteristic for Quake) work really well.

It is indeed superbly hard, and sadly (as is the case with many maps from this era) sometimes for the wrong reason, namely because enemies are at times cloaked in complete blackness (although it could be argued that it adds to the terrifying realism). Also, buttons and doors sometimes need to be shot/hit to work, with no visual indication that this is the case -- which is counterintuitive and can be frustrating.

Secrets are always welcome, but the first is easily stumbled into by accident, and the second -- which I also found purely by accident -- does not seem to be indicated at all, instead seemingly discoverable by sheer luck alone.

Still, it is a very skillfully constructed map, and a truly unique and worthwhile experience if you are patient and careful, and as long as you accept that it requires a very different approach from most Quake SP releases.

Nice review, Icantthinkofanickname.

I wrote some comments + tips/spoilers on this map for the Quaddicted advent calendar last year: https://www.quaddicted.com/quakeadventcalendar2013/19-24#nddecember-ericw

Argh, another try at the link: my Advent Calendar entry on this map with some tips.

Bah, messed it up again.. my Advent Calendar entry on this map with some tips.

Thanks for the compliment and the link, ericw. I added your Advent Calendar entry to the "Additional Links" above.

I must have read it back when you first published it and then forgot about it, as I had some awareness of the map before playing it (I thought I knew it from its TEAMShambler review, but I strongly suspect it was rather thanks to your article). I'm glad I did not read your tips before playing, though, as part of the fun is figuring out how to deal with the map. Not everyone's definition of "fun", I know. :)

i remember when ericw introduced this as his memorable entry in the advent calendar last year, but only after i saw the shamblers. fortunately i forgot about the tips he gave, other than not alerting the shamblers. i had low health and ammo throughout; many saves & loads were used. a tough map indeed, but it looks great.

The sky looks dreadful and the thunder sound effect is pretty damn arbitrary, with frequent cutoffs and an annoying hiss at the end that goes on for about two or three seconds. Visually this is pretty unquakish, I have nothing against non-Quake textures as long as they don't mess up the atmosphere, but sadly that seems to be the case here; this map just doesn't have the Quake feel at all, and it's largely due to its “realistic” style. It might've been different perhaps if the author had gone with something more akin to Quake, like using medieval textures from Hexen 2, although personally I don't believe village-themed maps that date back to the 90s work too well with Quake anyway; with some exceptional cases such as Shadow over Innsmouth. That's just my opinion of course.

One of hardest map ever, excluding final room of ARWOP end map and warps.bsp of Warpspasm. Wery nice!