Rapture

Content - Quake - Quake Conversions - Quake Partial Conversions

Author: Tronyn, [Kona], & The Lieutenant | Rating: 9.75 | Download: rapture.zip

First of all, before we go on, click on the link at right to begin downloading this terrific conversion. While you are doing that, I will explain. What you are getting is Rapture, by Tronyn, [Kona], and The Lieutenant , quite possibly one of the best conversions we have ever seen here at RetroQuake. Rapture is a set of connected maps with a Start and an End level, but it does not really count as an “episode”. It can almost be considered a Mission Pack in miniature, because at the end of each regular map is one of the game’s Runes. The maps as a result are all very large, and full of monsters, puzzles, and challenges. The player will note the presence of some of the monsters as well as the Hammer weapon from Scourge Of Armagon in this conversion. They are of course a welcome sight and really spice things up. There is even a story of sorts, in the form of a pretty long text interlude between maps that fleshes out the player’s journey, from a hired soldier to… his destiny.

The textures look a lot like they came from the medieval levels of Scourge Of Armagon as well, but the authors specify on their website that textures from Daikatana and Hexen II were used. It doesn’t really matter, since every level shows nothing short of masterful texture usage. GLQuake is highly recommended for this level, especially the “Unofficial” 1.13 release from our Files area with its GL fog and bumpmapping turned on. While the levels with water have been compiled for transparent water, the ones with lava have not. This was most likely a conscious choice and we respect it, but to keep the lava from having a weird effect, the user must turn the wateralpha flag off at the console on those levels. However, water does not come into play much in this level anyway, at least in terms of secrets.

Playing through these levels, the player has to really appreciate the architecture. These environments are not only amazing to look at, but functional. There are hallways, parapets, gateways and doors, and battlements; and all look like they could exist in real life. Don’t think for a minute though that functionality equates to boring or linear levels. Quite the opposite. There are plenty of twists and turns, and high places that must be reached in order to advance. The gameflow also seems perfectly tuned, with objectives that are pretty clear to see and logical tasks that must be performed to reach them. In short, I don’t think Hipnotic, Rogue, or even id themselves could have designed these levels any better.

Finally, we come to the difficulty. There are a few places where the enemies won’t seem to notice you if you come at them from the side, but overall I cannot lie to you; playing this on Normal tested the limit of this reviewer’s competent skill. Playing on Hard would probably require a lot of knowledge of the levels as well as locations of weapon caches, and of course extremely good aim and reflexes. Playing on Nightmare… all I can say is “good luck”. In addition to the usual assortment of original Quake enemies (dogs, Ogres, Barons, and Vores seem to dominate), you also find several fugitives from Scourge Of Armagon, as well as a modified “Baron” monster guarding each of the game’s four Runes that is entirely new. These Barons each have extremely high armor as well as a nasty weapon based on which “element” they represent, and move as fast as a Reaper Bot. Nails seem to be the most effective against them, so be sure to have a full supply before going in. Overall this is some of the toughest combat we have seen in a single-player Quake conversion.

But even with the steep difficulty, this conversion is simply a “must-have”. With incredible level design and texture usage, and logical gameflow, you just can’t miss. Indeed, this pack could almost stand as a retail product but you can get it for free online, which means there’s no excuse to pass it by. For anyone that still appreciates single-player Quake, they owe it to themselves to download and immerse themselves in the rapture of Rapture. Highly, highly recommended.

- Zoop