Review by Bob Larkin

 

 

With my normal reviews I will talk about gameplay, design, etc... and score those based on my own personal experience of what I feel a map should be scored upon based on current mapping trends and the longevity of the game. In this case, I'm not going to be doing that because this map is 20 years old and design, gameplay, etc... have no comparison in this day and age. Over time, maps (good ones) have become increasingly complex with the usage of ports and the collective memory of almost a quarter century of mappers who came before and added their own new twists on the game that newer mappers are able to draw from. With that in mind, here is my review of this map which was released on December 31, 1998

 

 

Your journey in this map begins, as stated, in your bedroom. The author did some pretty decent detailing here in the beginning of the map with the library textures and the shawn textures (shiny and chrome looking) to make up bathrooms, etc.... Unfortunately, during the initial phase of the map, there really isn't much to do except to collect additional health points, weapons, etc...  so for the first few minutes you're going to be like - where the hell are all the bad guys? Don't worry - they are coming. :-)

 

 

As you can see, the author didn't put a ton of detail into this map - alot of the rooms are pretty much what you can expect to find in maps from the era - lots of square rooms with some detail thrown in here and there. If someone designed a map like this today, I would ding it hard on design points but since the map is from 1998 I can excuse the lack of detail here.

 

 

Above is more of the type of architecture you can expect to encounter in this map while indoors but eventually, this map does lead to the outdoors where it does seem to display more architectural finesse and also bigger and badder battles with bigger badasses included. I'll put it this way - up to this point, the map  is relatively easy and while it doesn't (at any point) challenge high level doomers (I would recommend Nightmare for them), it does offer a decent challenge for your average player and for those who have decent UV skills, you will probably find it challenging at points but there is more than enough ammo and health lying around to keep you from being truly challenged.

 

 

This was a spot where I got caught off guard (my own fault really) and I really didn't need to die here.

 

 

Finally, a look at the outdoors. There are plenty of badguys down below and hopefully (probably) you have discovered the location of the chainsaw because it will not only save you some ammo but it's a heluva lotta fun to use. :-)

 

 

As you can see in the pic above, the author added some nice detail here - not a ton, but it kind of gives it a fortress kind of feeling and there are lots of badasses here.

 

 

Oh - almost forgot about this. This is a nice littel underground area which will get you to the BFG, which, as it turns out, is completely unnecessary but fun to use anyway. :-)  There are TONS of rockets in this map and while I didn't even use them sparingly (believe me - I used them even when I really could have done the job with a lesser weapon) I still had plenty left at the end. The map could have been beaten with other weapons and no need for the BFG  or the rocket launcher but maybe he just added them because, you know, they're fun to use.

 

 

Got caught off guard again (above). sigh. lol

 

 

Overall, this was a fun map. I think you'll enjoy it. Thanks to the author for bringing us 3 of these.

 

Finally - I'd like to leave you with this screenshot from Norest (the first map)

Looks like fun, don't it? :-)