For the first Quake3 review
on Ethereal Hell, I wanted to review one of
the best recent levels. And I couldn't ignore
both of Yogi's outstanding maps. His first level
for Quake3 was Lucid Dream (which soon I will
probably review too), and I found it to be a
very inspiration and well made level. After
a couple of great Q2DM's, Reloaded is Yogi's
latest - and another stunning level.
The appearance of Reloaded is quite unique,
using Than's very good industrial texture set.
This is the first map released to use it, which
will definitely help in its popularity. The
thing I like about Yogi's levels, is that he
does a lot of detail. Most mappers lack a skill
for doing detail, but here you'll see many angles,
trims and buttresses. It's all kept simple enough
not to look messy.
Unlike Lucid Dream, lighting is probably the
only weakness of this map. Though it is still
playable, it is almost too dark and some good
details are hidden by shadows. Nevertheless,
the dark lighting helps to create a very good
atmosphere.
Gameplay was good. There is
a huge area on one side of the map with many
steps, but most of the time this area was quiet.
Instead most of the gameplay took place at the
bottom of this room - around the mega-health,
RL and jumpad. But it wasn't ALL around there,
often I would be at the top layer of the level
where the railgun was and get attacked. Unfortunately
these seemed to be the only two places the bots
would occupy.
Overall another fantastic and
unique level from Yogi, definitely worth getting.
