01869daddb52357b86aba0e145d5c905eb06f6168e5f33af0ee65b959c824449
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.quaddicted.com/db/canonical/01869daddb52357b86aba0e145d5c905eb06f6168e5f33af0ee65b959c824449
01869daddb52357b86aba0e145d5c905eb06f6168e5f33af0ee65b959c824449
overall_rating
3.0
1
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.quaddicted.com/db/canonical/01869daddb52357b86aba0e145d5c905eb06f6168e5f33af0ee65b959c824449
The starting hub in any episode is always highly appreciated. Just completed the map by Thundergoose. Enjoyed it a lot! Very short but looks beautiful. The addition of the custom enemies is charming and fun. A frivolous, compact Christmas romp. Textures look beautiful so far.
Update: Many thanks for indicating completed slipgates with a different (darker) color! It adds to the sense of completion and makes any episode feel “homey” and noice. Much appreciated.
Damn Caffeine Freak, what a fun level! The encounters, the humor, the aesthetic. Good storytelling and genuinely funny. Text_Fish also had a really dope one. His layout in particular was very well executed given the compact nature of the levels. Elevators and stairs used very well to make the level more interesting and dynamic.
Thunder Goose's was crazy fun, best monster setups/encounters I have had in a while.
Really liked Text Fish's too, so tight and interconnected.
Once again, a great Quake X-Mas package. The authors were very creative and used a wide variety of styles and architectures. The gameplay was really fun—thanks for this gift!
Salsa Fruitqake (mc_xmasjam_2025_caffeinefreak) is a nice start, a strange and atmospheric level with some underwater passages and several waves of horde at the end. It was satisfying to complete (with all 127 kills but only two of four secrets, and no way to use my cells).
Crate Collection Co. (mc_xmasjam_2025_coffee009) is technically quite nicely put together, but altogether too episodic for my taste: it’s one constrained combat after another. I’m not saying it isn’t done well: only that it’s not particularly to my taste.
In the end, I gave up on Vilfargitrax' Manor (mc_xmasjam_2025_ish). It's stupidly hard — out of all proportion to the difficulty of the other maps in the pack — but what's worse, it's the wrong kind of hard. The no-single-shotgun, nowhere-near-enough-ammo, constant-ambushes, locked-into-small-cramped-spaces-with-tough-monsters, can't-figure-out-where-to-go hard.
I did try. I saved and retried, saved and retried. I cheated myself a hundred shotgun shells, I god-moded past the super-tough custom knight. Finally, I pulled the lever behind to gold-key door, was told "grate opens below", then ran around the map twice trying to find what had changed before realising this is supposed to a game, it's meant to be fun, and I don't owe anyone my time in grinding through it.
Next!
A welcome return to form with Arx Mortis (mc_xmasjam_2025_jameson), a quick arena fight followed by some exploration in a reversal of the usual progression. (It ends with another staged fight, but this one can be taken much more strategically.) Nice. (All 87 kills, both secrets.)
I enjoyed Chicken Jalfrezi (mc_xmasjam_2025_spike), an artificial but fun trawl through mostly cramped underground passages. Like Vilfargitrax' Manor, ammo is low, especially early on — but here it feels like a legitimate conservation challenge rather than a Screw You from the mapper to the player. Not bad. (78/79 kills, 2/5 secrets.)
Oh Holy Night (mc_xmasjam_2025_textfish) is probably my favourite map in this pack so far: an enjoyably varied climb through a nicely designed tower that offers a lot of different kinds of combat culminating in a scragmother attack. (I hate those things. But the fun kind of hatred.) Bonus points for the incongruously gently music.
I got all 80 kills, but only two of the four secrets — and I got one of those by rocket-jumping, which I don't think is the proper solution.
Gibidy Toilet (mc_xmasjam_2025_thundergoose) started well, with some tough-but-fair exploration, before degenerating into a tedious arena fight with too many super-tough enemies and not enough room to manoevre. I god-moded through it so I could get onto the next one. Along the way I found two of the four secrets. but my kill-count is irrelevant since it was god-boosted. So disappointing.
And with that, I find with both disappointment and relief that the pack is over. It's really not been one of my favourite Quake experiences, perhaps because mappers reach too far for something novel when it's a themed pack like this? In the end, there was only two maps that I liked unreservedly (Chicken Jalfrezi and Oh Holy Night), so I think three stars is fair. In terms of technical work, the pack is better than that, but in the end it has to be about fun.