Tronyn reviews: Red Slammer by negke

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## Tronyn reviews: Red Slammer by negke

- mappi.zip – Red Slammer by negke
- Download: mappi.zip

negke’s new map is a medieval-textured map whose theme might be described as a cross between e1m5 and e1m6: that is, it has red and white stone medieval structures, yet bound together with metallic beams and decorated with metallic details and lava. As we are all accustomed to with negke’s maps, the use of id textures on an unusually angled architectural style creates a unique look. There is also detailed, functional architecture, yet this does not prevent the map from retaining a sense of elder world strangeness, just as in Skinny Norris and Lower Forecourt. As you walk from room to room in this map, every section has new and interesting details in terms of lighting, architecture, and texturing. To give one example of the detail and creativity here, one room featuring lava-falls spewing down from metallic troughs has a green grass texture on the vertical surfaces of the brown grass, giving the appearance of lava-lighting but using only standard id textures. Design-wise, it’s all about making new designs with old resources; and the ending of the map (where the reason for the title becomes apparent) follows this rule as well. There are also some traps reminiscent of e4m2, and a few tricks like incorporating monsters into the architecture. It is undeniably cool to see things like this in vanilla Quake.

The map features an in-map skill selector, and while Normal difficulty is pretty reasonable, you can adjust the difficulty all the way up to “Carnage” mode. The challenge is scalable. Monsters include all of the medieval normals plus grunts and enforcers, which makes sense given the techish/metallic twist to the medieval theme. There are a lot of secrets, of which I found hardly any, but this should prove satisfying for attentive players. negke’s maps cast the player as more cerebral than usual, investigating a world whose sense or rules become apparent slowly. Without a lot of firepower (use of the lower-level weapons is common), the player has to rely on observation while exploring a strange and threatening world – and the end result is very Quakey.

Score: 17/20

04.09.2010 in Tronyn Reviews | 6 Comments »

### 6 Responses to “Tronyn reviews: Red Slammer by negke”

1. negke Says:
   05.09.2010 08:37

   Thanks for the review, Tronyn.

2. negke Says:
   05.09.2010 09:44

   Btw. the download link above doesn’t work, either.
   Here is the file: http://negke.quaddicted.com/files/mappi.zip

3. Spirit Says:
   06.09.2010 10:55

   That’s because I completely forgot to post news about this map. I need a time machine.

4. negke Says:
   06.09.2010 13:20

   It’s fine. Though maybe next time just the post news items soon after the releases to get it over with… before the short-time memory buffer overflows. ;)

5. Tronyn Says:
   08.09.2010 05:13

   I was proud to have a review ready within a couple days, amusingly pre-empting the Quaddicted news post (no offense Spirit, this is just me self-congratulating on review speed, though we all know I’ve taken months to review maps at times). I thought this latest batch of (two) reviews brought up a lot of issues: first, I gave Lower Forecourt 17, whereas now I think I should have given it 18 or 19, since I think it’s better than Red Slammer, which itself clearly deserves 17 at least. That, along with negke’s own comment about ‘layout master vs detail whore’ on func_, made me think all over again about different orientations and goals in mapping; maybe the Quaddicted system is better than a number out of 20; at least the number should be understood as a limited representation of my view of what I thought when I played the map once or twice.

6. Trinca Says:
   08.09.2010 11:15

   Tronyn STFU and keep writing… at least we can complain about something… better then nothing ;)

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