Gave this a spin after hearing good things about it.

It's not that great in reality, though. While the architecture may be curvy and nice, the map pack has many issues, such as random fullbright pixels on textures, z-fighting near doors, missing head gibs for new monsters (thus they appear as bright blue chunks), intermission text that gets cut off and even lava that you can safely walk on (lolwut). All in all, this gives an impression of an unpolished product.

Shalrath,

Other than the crap EA and most other shite software producers chuck on the market, this is an non-commercial release, a labor of love thing. Surely it can't be judged as a professional release. I think mods should be FUN ! And this is a very nice one to play through, in my opinion.

I have some fond memories about this pack. I was really impressed back then.

When this came out, I manually removed the fullbright pixels using mpak and texmex. It looked much better in software mode then. :)

in all fairness though, it was released when practically everyone was still using GLQuake out of the box, even though it sucked.

This is the most fun I've had in Quake.

Really impressed on how complex the level design is. It's pretty easy to get lost (must've said "ok, where's the door this key unlocks/that button opened?" to myself at least once on every level"), but the level's are still fun to run around in and there are usually spawned monsters to let you know when you're in the right area to advance. The only disappointment is how few secrets there were, but the one's that are there are tough, so there's plenty of replay value—which the 'ending' encourages, lol.

Gameplay was top-notch, especially the last level with the giant circular arena you start out in, filled with monsters and with ogres raining grenades from platforms above you. Definitely one of the more unique Quake battles I've fought.

while this collection might be a little rough around the edges in some ways, and could have used just a tad more polish, it remains one of my personal favorites. just the way everything leads up to that crazy chaotic scene at the end is just great, and i really had that satisfied feeling of almost having played an entire little game in of itself by the end, and this was accomplished with just a handful of maps. really cool!

Nice texturing and some really well-done castle areas to explore. Basically, the core maps are ending with boss fights against some elemental knights who are guarding the runes. The story is a bit different - you are a rather pathetic guy who likes to complain about why they sent him, whines after boss fight injuries etc. Only criticism: Even though it has nine maps, it merely features five "real" levels, the rest are quite short intro/outro parts without any combat. Anyway, the authors came up with a clever idea for a creative transition from the end back to the beginning. Final verdict: A lot of fun, a fair challenge and great level design. [Technical info: With FitzQuake Mk V, I had some freezes in "Castle Rapture" for some reason, but I managed to continue by ignoring the knights at the beginning.]

at the time this was released, it was definitely a marvel of creation. i enjoyed every minute! i found few secrets. some monsters or secrets during the cutscene maps would have been neat. i did not experience 'blue gibs.' i use the requiem engine, and quakespasm as backup when i encounter technical issues.

It is still great in 2016. I can't imagine any better ending.

I WALKED ON LAVA!! ^^

I don't think that "labor of love" excuses releasing something that's essentially a great mod in the early beta stage. Unlike commercial works (since we're drawing this comparison), hobbyist projects typically don't have a deadline, so you can playtest and polish them as long as you want.

This particular episode has more problems than an average project, commercial or not, so it doesn't seem like the authors cared long enough. I mean, how hard it was to notice that half the liquids are broken? Thank god you don't have to swim in them.

The point is - it's okay to express your disappointment in such cases.

Very fun, complex and entertaining maps! Castle Rapture must be among my favorite. The only thing keeping me from rating this a solid 5 is the already reported fact that some gibs lack texture and lava behaves weird.

I do think Shalrath's criticisms in the first comment are unfair. Yes, the specific things he says are all true, but they are really very minor detriments to the game.

Although the Daikatana and Hexen textures maked things look a little dark and artificial to my eyes, there is a lot of gameplay to be had in Rapture, some of it pleasingly unusual. In particular, for large parts of the last full level, ogres rain down grenades, and surviving them is a novel challenge.

Also, I think this may be the only Quake release I've ever seen (including ID's original) where the end-of-level texts are worth reading.

Which makes the fact that they're getting cut off by the screen edge all the more ironic. :)

I never wait for them to slowly appear, character-by-character. As soon as they start to print out, I hit the ~ key, and I can read the whole thing in the console. Recommended!

Despite the valid points brought up by others, I'd still say this is worth a solid five. I played the episode first on nightmare difficulty, which provided me with ample grenades lobbed at me relentlessly by the ogres, which was probably the main cause of my deaths. It felt like the ogres were placed ever so fiendishly to make dodging their grenades as hard as ever can be.

It provides for some quite challenging encounters, which made me think what would be the best course to tackle some situations. So, if you're playing this on nightmare and want just some head-on guns blazing action without much thought, you should rather play on an easier difficulty. But, if you're feeling patient and solving some combat "puzzles", this is the nightmare episode for you.

Really great, play now if you did not.

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I felt somewhat backstabbed from the ending. After that grandiose outro it's implied you get telefragged.

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