Hosted by the
good folks at
PlanetQuake
|
Reviews: 4th November 2002; Review 1 (please scroll down for more reviews today)
SUMMARY
Game - CUBE
Map - kartoffel: Kartoffelernte
by - Daniel "Gom Jabbar" Leinich
Download - [This map is allready Included in the latest offical CUBE release,available from the cube
homepage]
Overall Verdict - A medium sized base map, highlighted by some good arhitecture.
FULL REVIEW:
Well, this is a decent cube SP map, the first cube level from this author (but hopefully not the last!). The architecture is very well done in this map with good texture choices. The setting is a typical idbase type environment from Quake 1, but translated into the virtual world of Cube. Detailing is good, there are lots of nice metal beams and girders in the corridors and rooms, and also a nice theme of white fluorescent lighting on these beams and also set into the stairways.
There are also lots of crates, which are used to create 3d mazes in a couple of the big rooms in which the cube enemies lurk, hidden around corners and behind crates. This relatively simple tactic creates fun gameplay. The base environment eventually gives way to a small underground maze, which then leads to a small area of trees/river and a swim to the final rocky cave. It might have been nicer to have made the map slightly bigger.
Gameplay is good, but with only 53 monsters, the map is not a huge, long map. However, enemy placement is good, and the enemy mix is also well chosen to increase the challenge. There are lots of the fast, little purple rhinos hiding behind crates to surprise you, and ogros are well placed to corner you with their fast fireball attack. In addition health seemed to be quite sparse, which makes gameplay more exciting and tense, i died quite a few times! A couple of triggers need to be found to open up barred doorways, and then you enter into the little, metallic, underground maze section. One flaw here is that you can trigger all the big monsters (slith, Bauul) that are waiting in the trees/river area whilst still hiding in the tunnels and this makes it much easier to kill them, as they are too tall and can not see you properly in the tunnels!
After this you drop into the river to find a small rocky cave and the end.
Overall this is a cool Cube SP map, notable for its very good base style and detailing in the architecture, a refreshing change from the "Egyptian temple" textures.
Overall Score: 16/20
Reviews: 4th November 2002; Review 2
SUMMARY
Game - CUBE
Map - sp_af: Ammo Facility
by - PushPlay
Download - [This map is allready Included in the latest offical CUBE release,available from the cube
homepage]
Overall Verdict - Good Base Map, fun gameplay.
FULL REVIEW:
This is another SP map by Pushplay, the same Author that made "Stalingrad 2215" for us. This map is not as long as that map, but it has more detailed architecture and texture work. Its another base map, like "Kartoffelernte" (reviewed above), and again its a decent implementation of the base style. There is some interesting lighting, with the first area quite *dark* and then opening up into brighter bigger rooms after that, and a nice dark red sky as well. There is also some interesting detailing, with rusting pipes in the water section and little details and metal beams set into some of the walls. The only bit of the architecture which was weak in my opinion was the big "ammo room" near the end (literally the architecture consists of ammo boxes and health boxes) it felt too "cartoony" to me, and seemed out of place compared to the rest of the map's theme.
Gameplay was maybe slightly too easy, with a lot of Ammo being available which meant you could overpower most of the monsters quite easily. Ogros and hellpigs provided Cannon Fodder in the early stages, later on their were more sliths and ratamahattas (i wonder if i will ever learn how to spell that name :p). The "ammo room" mentioned above had lots of monsters, but as already mentioned lots of ammo too, as the Cube weapons are pretty powerful overall, with careful weapon selection this area shouldn't prove too difficult. After that, one of a sequence of triggers opens the players path to a small final area, packed with goblins; these are tricky monsters but i was armed with a chaingun and 100 ammo, so i dispatched with the goblins quite easily.
A decent map, and fun blasting through as well.
Overall Score: 16/20