Category: Tronyn Reviews

Tronyn reviews: The Tomb of Chak Toh Ich’ak by Trinca

 

This is a large map in a somewhat unusual theme: a Mayan city. Using Rogue textures, the map is centered around a courtyard which contains a sort of hollow ziggurat. The rest of the city is basically split up between rather plain hallways, and nicer looking subterranean temple rooms. There are also a couple of side-courtyards. Unfortunately, detail is generally lacking throughout, so that only a few side areas (the aforementioned temple rooms) look really good. Aside from the “lava-torches” (a cool an inventive idea to be sure), almost all the light comes from minlight, so that the many indoor areas are blandly and uniformly lit. There is not a lot of texture diversity either, the end result of all of this being that much of the map looks the same (with the exception of the central courtyard). The architecture is good in places, with curving walls and some use of angles, but on the whole I’d say more trim, variety of colour and style and lighting was needed.

 

The layout is better than the looks; it is complex and three dimensional, although with many indoor/underground passages you can’t always tell where you are in relation to the rest of the map. More texture diversity, details such as signs or titles for areas (“the tomb of X,” “the fountain of Y,” etc) might have helped this. There is some tough combat with hordes of hell knights and ogres, but the most dangerous parts are generally the fiend ambushes, which are well done. There are even larger mixed hordes in some of the showdown rooms, where vores make it important to keep moving. The finale is fairly dramatic, so that you are getting a constant challenge. Actually, the whole map is in some ways comparable to the Tower of Dal Gurak, another large-scale map with a constant challenge and a similar reliance on scale over detail.

Definitely worth playing, but in some ways quite limited.

Overall Score: 14/20

23.05.2009 in Tronyn Reviews | 21 Comments »

Tronyn reviews: 666 by Rutger Baks

 

This is a very small, very old-style map. It simply consists of a few small areas, with runic texturing mostly. Mostly it is hallways that are open to the sky, although there is a lower area that’s indoors with lava on the floor. The usual mix of Quake enemies is present, in a sort of basic run-and-gun gameplay. I unfortunately can’t say this is worth downloading; this late in the game, it offers nothing interesting. Perhaps if you are playing something else anyway, and want a quick break from a larger map.

Overall Score: 5/20

23.05.2009 in Tronyn Reviews | No Comments »

Tronyn reviews: Skinny Norris by negke

 

“The Tallest Quake Map Ever,” is not this map’s only claim to fame. It’s also highly original in other ways. Starting with visuals, this is a really rather unique map even though it uses almost entirely id textures: it combines many of the most functional id textures (lights, metal, base beams, etc) into an unprecedentedly abstract style, that could perhaps best be described as “techno-dungeon” (which is what the style of the original Quake was called by those who didn’t pick up on the influences behind Quake). This map accomplishes a powerful sense of weirdness and abstraction by its very functionality: everything is recognizable as a structure made of wood, metal, etc, but the purpose of it – and its many functional moving parts and features, including wind tunnels and traps, and a particularly great area that combines the two – is impossible to discern. It is just some inexplicable, weird, dangerous place – very Quakey. I should also take a moment to note that the design and build quality throughout is absolutely great. All kinds of curved and complex pieces of architecture are pulled off flawlessly, with impeccable texturing and lighting. There are also nice details like loose panels and stones, and repeated motifs like wire-panels that cling to the walls.

 

The gameplay involves three distinct sections, of which you must play through two. The first section mixes and matches many diverse Quake monsters, just as the map as a whole does with many Quake textures. With the small rooms and tight corridors, the fighting can be challenging and tricky. In the end of the level, you choose either traps or puzzles: I chose traps. There is a great diversity of traps, including almost all of the ones to be found in the original Quake (I mean types of traps), and then a few new/inventive ones. Expect to die a few times in this section, I did. Never the less, great fun. When you get to the finale, it’s back to normal fighting, in a well-designed final room.

This is a unique and extremely well executed map, with one of the most intricate layouts in a Quake map: it is a groundbreaking success.

Overall Score: 17.5/20

23.05.2009 in Tronyn Reviews | No Comments »

Tronyn reviews: The Doom Hangar by MadFox

 

This is a simple conversion of e1m1: The Hangar done by Madfox. The great thing is that all of the Doom monsters (3d models, that is) have been converted to Quake. This includes the Doom II monsters as well, such as the Archvile and the Revenant. The Archvile in particular came out well in Quake, looking the best out of the new monsters. There is also the Doomguy player model as an enemy, and the duck animation is used, meaning that this enemy can be tricky. And there are the soldiers from Wolfenstein as well. Overall, a lot of new monsters, and they all make an appearance in at least one place. Amusingly, the Pinky Demons have been given a fiend-like lunge. I didn’t think these ones turned out quite as well, but it was cool to see them – and it was also humorous how they were all patrolling the slime pond outside.

 

The lost souls have been given a tarbaby-like explosion when you kill them, making them more dangerous than usual. Also, quite a few of the sprites from Doom have been converted for things like map objects. The textures actually look pretty good, and Madfox has also modified the map a bit: there is one cool new secret area, and two small spacecraft in one of the rooms, so that the hangar is _actually_ a hangar now.

There’s no good reason not to check this out: it is really cool, and actually a fair challenge in places. Let’s hope we can see some of these enemies in other new levels also. Work well done.

Overall Score: 15/20

23.05.2009 in Tronyn Reviews | 3 Comments »

Tronyn reviews: Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties (But They Do Carry Shotguns) by than

 

In Than’s latest, you are the titular plumber and you have one hell of a job to do. This map is a large, vertical, absolutely swamped elevator chamber/warehouse complex, crammed full of crates and water. It’s high-concept and the amount of work to create it seems correspondingly high – especially the water brushes, as there are tons of little air pockets allowing the player to breathe during all of that underwater exploration. There are many different levels, all highly interconnected in strange ways – just when you think you are lost, you will come around a corner and find yourself in an area you were in ten minutes ago. The intricate layout is very impressive, but almost overly complex and confusing; I found it difficult to navigate and others may as well.

 

The build quality is great as we would expect from Than; lighting is great (lots of flickering lights, as the whole place is dysfunctional), and texturing is again a smooth and detailed use of modified idbase stuff, with a consistent colour scheme or red, brown, and silver. In addition to crates and walkways, there is machinery, including elevators and mechanical arms that grasp the crates.

You slowly descend through the complex layout, battling Quoth base enemies the whole time. There are also quite a few unmodified enforces, used well throughout as a sort of staple enemy. At the end of the map, you find out what the source of the plumbing problem was – and let me say, you had better hope you never have one like it! All in all, there are aspects of this map that could be frustrating; for some players its strengths might be weaknesses, but here yet again we have a high-concept, highly original, and well executed modern Q1SP.

Overall Score: 16.5/20

23.05.2009 in Tronyn Reviews | 2 Comments »
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