This level requires the Scourge Of Armagon
Mission Pack.
Another review of a Tronyn
map, right after For My Babies 8 by Tronyn and
Mike Woodham. After Phantasmal Garrison, Coven
of Ebony, Soul Of Evil and OUM, this is Tronyn's
first solo single-map release for Q1SP, and
it certainly took me by surprise.
A Desert Dusk is a very professionally built
map. You find yourself entering a fortress (fantastic
looking entrance) that is textured in temple
and brick of greens and browns. It ends up being
a unique and very successful looking Arabian
styled level.
Gameplay is excellent, with
Scrag and the SOA's Centroids (Scorpions) being
the main enemies. These tough little critters
provide quite a challenge and are quite similar
to a Shambler the way you fight them. Scrags
are used in large flocks, while the other enemies
are Fiend's and Vore's. Limiting the type of
monsters makes it all the more believable -
why would ALL of Quake's species lurk around
the same small fortress?
Ammo was in good supply and
the end battle was very good. Having almost
a full red armor, cells and 2 MH's, I ran blindly
into the boss's arena to take it on man-to-man,
and it was still tougher than most end battles
in custom maps (it didn't help that I'd also
left a Centroid, Fiend and a couple of Scrags
to fight at the same time as the boss).
Overall, A Desert Dusk was a great level and
probably Tronyn's best to date.
Review
by [Kona]
[Kona]'s Score:
84
I've done several Arabian maps
for Heretic II, but before this map, none for
Quake. I knew I wanted to attempt an Arabian
theme in Quake at least once, but I wasn't really
sure how to go about it. At first I wanted to
use Soldier Of Fortune's Arabian texture set,
but after several hours of work it proved near-impossible
to get to work. After messing around with several
other ideas, I just dived in and started building.
I didn't really plan out how the map was going
to flow as I built it (in fact I didn't have
a plan at all), so I'm happy with how it does
flow considering. I acknowledge that some areas
look better than others but I think overall
this map is a visual success, as well as having
very entertaining (if sometimes rather hard!)
gameplay.
