Before I played this level, it had been a while
since I had sat down and enjoyed a good Quake2
map. That said, I must say it was a lot of fun
to play through the latest entry in the Mel
Soaring series from Shaun "Kona" Ross,
one of the more prolific single-player mappers
in the community today.
The Mel Soaring series has been around a while,
since the original one entitled Hear Me Roar.
Since then, we've seen one HL level, one classic
Quake level, and with this latest one, a trilogy
of Q2 levels make up the full complement of
MS maps.
In Ancient Rigby, Mel has been living peacefully
on his own for a while until he detects some
Strogg assembling a force at a nearby moon.
It's off to this site to end the Strogg threat
and clear out Rigby, the castle that the map
is set in.
Kona's mapping skill is evident from the moment
you touch down in the first map (Ancient Rigby
was originally one continuous level, but due
to compiling errors, it has to be split into
2 parts). Nearly all of the textures in the
map come from a source other than Q2, such as
Hexen2 or maybe a little classic Quake. The
visuals are top-notch, and the architecture
and starry night sky compliment the new textures
very well. I really like Shaun's ability to
make environments that are well-suited for some
good Strogg bashing, but still different enough
from standard Quake2 to make the level interesting
and aesthetically pleasing.
Gameplay is relatively simple and straightforward
in Ancient Rigby, but that doesn't mean it isn't
fun! On the contrary, this map was actually
quite fun (not frustrating at all) and provided
a good dose of that classic Q2 action. If you're
an SPQ2 veteran like me, this level won't take
you long to complete. The map is very linear
and there are minimal other objectives besides
fragging everything in sight.
The only problem that detracted from my enjoyment
were some really bad HOM (Hall of Mirrors) effects.
They seemed to plague the map in more than a
few spots, probably due to the way the levels
were constructed. The first trouble spot is
also only one room into the first map...
Nevertheless, if you can stand a few visual
quirks now and then, by all means pick up this
map and enjoy it. Shaun has told me this could
possibly be his last map for Q2, so if you've
enjoyed them as much as I have, please write
up a little something and mail it off to him
saying thanks for his hard work. Good job, Kona!
