From this mapper comes a new episode in the
Mel Soaring series, well known to most of the
people in the community as he has produced quite
a number of maps over the years. This particular
map was originally intended to be one huge mother,
but since there was trouble getting it through
the vis process, it was divided in two smaller
ones.
The architecture tries to incorporate the curved
surfaces seen in Quake 3 and does a pretty good
job at that. There's consistency in theme, a
theme that looks very much like the original
Quake with a castle look. Architecture is interesting,
the path kind of winds back upon itself making
you enter rooms you've already visited. Lighting
is somewhat dark, but it fits the rest of the
settings well, with a spooky wind blowing and
a night sky above you. All of the textures are
new, and they have been blended together in
a fine mix; a couple of new sounds have been
added as well.
When playing on hard skill level, one really
needs to be careful. The grouping of the enemies
will force you into several tough combat situations,
so quick thinking is necessary. Along the way
you'll be handed the tools to survive, and weapons
are given with increasing power, just as they
should. Monster placement is very good and for
once I felt like I had a true challenge when
playing through the mission. Playing it a second
time was however much easier, although I still
managed to get myself killed a couple of times.
The fact that the maps are pretty large and
have big rooms with sometimes lots of curved
walls doesn't affect the smoothness of the map
when running it. Areaportals between large connecting
areas will make these two maps run on just about
any platform. The r_speeds never get exceedingly
high and are most of the time below the 500's.
Also the mission itself advances in a natural
way; of course you might get stuck on the occasional
hard combat situation, but as soon as you get
past it, you're back on track in no time.
This is one of the top maps released this year,
so I really recommend you get it. The challenge
you're up to is very tough and the architecture
you encounter on your way through the mission
is very well designed. It really deserves a
very strong four, and that's what it gets. Download!
