"In
the cloudy shadows, a humanoid figre stands..."
First of all, before we go on, click on the
link at left to begin downloading this terrific
conversion. While you are doing that, I will
explain. What you are getting is Rapture, by
Tronyn, [Kona], and The Lieutenant, quite possibly
one of the best conversions we have ever seen
here at Retro Quake. Rapture is a set of connected
maps with a Start and an End level, but it does
not really count as an "episode".
It can almost be considered a Mission Pack in
miniature, because at the end of each regular
map is one of the game's Runes. The maps as
a result are all very large, and full of monsters,
puzzles, and challenges. The player will note
the presence of some of the monsters as well
as the Hammer weapon from Scourge Of Armagon
in this conversion. They are of course a welcome
sight and really spice things up. There is even
a story of sorts, in the form of a pretty long
text interlude between maps that fleshes out
the player's journey, from a hired soldier to...
his destiny.
The textures look a lot like they came from
the medieval levels of Scourge Of Armagon as
well, but the authors specify on their website
that textures from Daikatana and Hexen II were
used. It doesn't really matter, since every
level shows nothing short of masterful texture
usage. GLQuake is highly recommended for this
level, especially the "Unofficial"
1.13 release from our Files page with its GL
fog and bumpmapping turned on. While the levels
with water have been compiled for transparent
water, the ones with lava have not. This was
most likely a conscious choice and we respect
it, but to keep the lava from having a weird
effect, the user must turn the wateralpha flag
off at the console on those levels. However,
water does not come into play much in this level
anyway, at least in terms of secrets.
Playing through these levels, the player has
to really appreciate the architecture. These
environments are not only amazing to look at,
but functional. There are hallways, parapets,
gateways and doors, and battlements; and all
look like they could exist in real life. Don't
think for a minute though that functionality
equates to boring or linear levels. Quite the
opposite. There are plenty of twists and turns,
and high places that must be reached in order
to advance. The gameflow also seems perfectly
tuned, with objectives that are pretty clear
to see and logical tasks that must be performed
to reach them. In short, I don't think Hipnotic,
Rogue, or even id themselves could have designed
these levels any better.
Finally, we come to the difficulty. There are
a few places where the enemies won't seem to
notice you if you come at them from the side,
but overall I cannot lie to you; playing this
on Normal tested the limit of this reviewer's
competent skill. Playing on Hard would probably
require a lot of knowledge of the levels as
well as locations of weapon caches, and of course
extremely good aim and reflexes. Playing on
Nightmare... all I can say is "good luck".
In addition to the usual assortment of original
Quake enemies (dogs, Ogres, Barons, and Vores
seem to dominate), you also find several fugitives
from Scourge Of Armagon, as well as a modified
"Baron" monster guarding each of the
game's four Runes that is entirely new. These
Barons each have extremely high armor as well
as a nasty weapon based on which "element"
they represent, and move as fast as a Reaper
Bot. Nails seem to be the most effective against
them, so be sure to have a full supply before
going in. Overall this is some of the toughest
combat we have seen in a single-player Quake
conversion.
But even with the steep difficulty, this conversion
is simply a "must-have". With incredible
level design and texture usage, and logical
gameflow, you just can't miss. Indeed, this
pack could almost stand as a retail product
but you can get it for free online, which means
there's no excuse to pass it by. For anyone
that still appreciates single-player Quake,
they owe it to themselves to download and immerse
themselves in the rapture of Rapture. Highly,
highly recommended.
Level Created by Tronyn, [Kona], and The Lieutenant
