[ Reviewed by: Calyst ] - [ Date: Saturday, 1st June, 2002 ]

Necrobrood is Kona's latest Q1 release, oddly not released as part of the long-standing alk??.zip family. Not that it's an indication of anything, because this unit flat-out rocks.

As might be expected from Kona, the texturing is diverse, primarily based on metal. Arrayed nicely, but at times areas look too busy because there's a tad too much variation in the layers. Often this has a detrimental effect on the visuals, making them fall short of eye-candy.

At least it doesn't interfere with the impressive level design. It should probably be noted that the layout here is quite different from ALK?? maps in recent memory - certainly a pleasant surprise, if you're at all accustomed to Kona's style. There's one visible clipping error, but the construction is very neat otherwise. The maps themselves are designed attractively and in complete support of map-crawling gameplay - they're absolutely filled with architectural variation in both the horizontal and vertical. To put it simply, the attention to detail is amazing.

Gameplay is a real Quakey treat with enemies modified in every sense of the word. Not only are most re-skinned, a lot of them know how to jump too! Of course sometimes they'll jump into lava, so they're not very smart, but the new jumping ability ends up making combat ever more difficult. The combat drives hard, starting light and progressing quickly for a real challenge. And that's not all that's progressive, weapons are provided on an as-needed basis. The best part is, this all leads to intelligent, straightforward gameplay rife with challenges & tricks. And the finale is impressive too...a set-piece involving Chthon that significantly improves on the formula in E1M8.

This unit is an overall improvement on Kona's own formula at that. An interesting story, classic gameplay, and pleasing level design all help to make Necrobrood very good indeed, and in fact, better than Brumal Quest (alk15).