Autumn Haunting
Content - Quake - Quake Levels - Quake Single Player |
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Author: [Kona] | Rating: 8.00 | Download: haunting.zip
Autumn Haunting is the last mapset [Kona] produced and it proves to be a quality ending to his mapping career. It’s the sequel to his previous and, in my opinion, best mapset, Carved in Flesh. While not quite as epic as the former, Autumn Haunting is an excellent addition to any Quake fan’s singleplayer library.
The design theme of the mapset is that of a medieval castle. Traditional [Kona] architecture returns with a series of open air courtyards, overlooked by a second level, and connected by twisting hallways. There are wonderful details about, most notably the darker, moodier lighting that helps contrast the theme of Autumn Haunting from its predecessor, which was a bright and ornate temple.
The first map is a moderately long slog through a challenging and nearly continuous series of foes as you proceed room to room deeper into the castle. There is some backtracking, as you follow a standard “find the key, open the locked door, get to the slipgate progression”. Thankfully, there isn’t enough backtracking that it gets annoying, just enough to break up the linearity of the level. The second, and final, level is short, but powerfully challenging. There are only 32 enemies on normal, but you face almost all of them in a single end fight of massive proportions! The fight takes place in a large, oval courtyard with sufficient cover and circlestrafing room, but there are about 5 waves of foes. Due to the length and difficulty I saved several times mid-fight. It’s a tough challenge, but not frustratingly so.
In keeping with the theme of the series there are many custom monsters including [Kona] favorites like the Nehara Baron, floating wizard specters, Super Nehara Barons, Fiendlings, Giant Fiends, nailgun Ogres, the arch-vile style Shambler, and several powerful Death Knight variants. Custom monsters make up a majority of the opposition and up the difficulty of normal to a challenging, but still reasonable, level.
The previously introduced extra weapons, the positron beam, flame launcher, and freeze gun also make a reappearance. So does the firebolt, which replaces the lightning gun, but is more of a graphical change than anything else. The positron beam is the only real welcome one, with it’s powerful and large blast radius. The flame launcher and Freeze gun are still as mediocre and unnecessary as they were before. Don’t worry, you still don’t need to use them to get by and all the standard weapons appear as well, except the lightning gun.
Ammo is sufficient throughout both levels, but you don’t have much to waste. Ammo placement is such that you’ll find yourself having to repeatedly switch between the nailgun and the double barreled shotgun as you use up one and then the other on alternating groups of enemies. Health powerups are a bit on the generous side and, depending on your play style, you will probably have too many rockets by the end of map 2, but this really doesn’t hurt the map’s challenge very much.
As his final work, any fan of Kona should play this. Make sure to play “Carved in Flesh” first though. While it’s not his best release, it’s very close and proves to excellently bookmark his body of work in Quake mapping.
*added note
Each of the new weapons are reviewed and available separately. For the latest versions of the Blaze gun and the Freeze gun you will need Carved in Flesh or Autumn Haunting.
