Unregistered user “fdsa” posted:
Jump.
4b8511d377ec3633a90d2d2c19ca98a7e0b4f4f735e7d0560ffd24de654aa7a4
overall_rating
4.439201451905626
58
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Well, I don’t think I’ve ever played a map before that enraged me like smej2end, with its sequence is impossible jumping-reflex puzzles and its instakill system. It takes a lot to make me give up a map half way through, but this one has achieved it. Hate hate hate that map, despite the nice architecture. A game is all about gameplay (radical, I know!) — and this fails 0/10 on that score.
I liked the earlier maps much more, without ever quite loving any of them like I love my favourites — I think perhaps because of an over-reliance on teleporting monsters and on set pieces. Were it not for the last level I would be a wavering between four stars and the full five. But there is no forgiving a map that actively wants to make the player’s life miserable.
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Best map pack to date, the Finnish super squad does not disappoint!
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Unregistered user “NailIn” posted:
The first 4 levels were very good and humongous, 5 and 6 it starts to get a bit tedious and silly, the last one was way too much especially that unrealistically tough final boss. I guess it’s true when overdoing a thing it looses its lustre.
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Clearly much work has gone into this pack, level design and deliberate and sometimes ingenious placement of monsters being readily apparent. Levels are big, very big, varied and certainly requiring a lot of attention and determination to progress. It is a constant, gruelling combat, constantly having you on edge.
Sadly, I didn’t like the space level at all. I had to skip the puzzles. I simply hate puzzles, they destroy the pace and in my humble opinion, belong in shooter games only for secrets, not to progress in the main story. The boss combat I finished on god mode, since my previous use of cheating to bypass the puzzles rendered victory only meaningless in the long run.
4 long maps of gruelling combat and I had to resort to cheating in the end, this left me with a distaste. Still, tremendous work and a milestone of level editing, if unbalanced and annoying at the end.
I’ve just rage-quit the (2nd?) secret level, Alakerta SMEJ251. It’s clearly someone’s very early experiment with mapping that they thought it would be fun to include – it’s not fun. It’s a series of killboxes full of difficult to navigate geometry and hitscan enemies hidden by fog. Its inclusion as an amusing easter egg would be more forgivable if I hadn’t spent so long trying to find the secret exit in the previous level.
Speaking of which, the previous level had some great moments in it, definitely the highlight of the pack so far, but as of yet none of it lives up to Smej1 yet. Once my rage subsides, I’ll godmode through the rest of Alakerta and hopefully find something redeeming afterwards.
Unregistered user “aoanla” posted:
Currently up to the middle of map3, playing on skill 0… and this does not feel like a skill 0 or even skill 1 experience (in particular, there’s a sequence on map2 which I literally couldn’t get more than halfway through without god mode).
On a design level, map 1 and map 2 are great - and there’s even actual storytelling moments! - and I love the giant cavern structure of 2 in particular.
But some of the combat setpieces are just gruelling to the point of being unfun.
Unregistered user “aoanla” posted:
I was going to update when I got to the end map, but I’ve spent probably at least 2 hours wandering around map 4, falling off things and having to backtrack, so I thought I probably had enough thoughts to make another comment.
Map 3 was weirdly claustrophobic - if you like being ambushed all the time, it’s your map.
Map 4 started out being really interesting - large expanses, a progression through the wilderness, a town, heading towards the castle/cathedral at the peak, and so on… but it’s also frankly in danger of overstaying its welcome, especially from requiring so many keys. (I’ve just spent 30 minutes wandering around trying to work out where I have missed one, in mostly de-monstered castle with the odd unreachable zombie just causing enough annoyance to make the whole thing less pleasant), and I still don’t know where the thing is.
There’s some beautiful vistas, but even those aren’t sustaining me now, near the end.
Unregistered user “aoanla” posted:
So, after cheating to give myself another gold key to get off of map 4 after even failing to find the necessary third? gold key after noclipping through the entire map looking for it… I decided I might as well try out the secret map…
which I don’t recommend. smej2s1 is… as Text_Fish notes above, a weirdly unsatisfying map - fog obscured annoying hitscan enemies, there’s some unfun backtracking through the uninteresting map geometry, and the gameplay just isn’t fun.
The best part is the final room or two, which are deliberate echoes of part of map 4.
(In retrospect, by the way, Map 4 is still a really good map - it’s probably my favourite of the set, just for the multiple vistas and the evolution as you progress - and I’m assuming that my need to backtrack is a bug or something and not that there’s a horribly hidden key somewhere, since the “final approach” to the exit is a wonderfully constructed high in the map itself).
Map 5… I can tell is by Mazu (it is) - as it combines some incredible mapping, geometry and lighting, with combat encounters at least 2 “skill levels” above what is usual. This felt like most maps at “skill 2” playing at actual skill 0… and I had to godmode to complete the thing. (There’s some lovely design, and the final “room” has a nice resource expenditure mechanic… but Mazu needs to learn that no everyone is as good at Quake as he is. 
)
The End map, on the other hand, is by Smilecythe, which is also very obvious, as it’s full of incredibly hard movement puzzles which I am nowhere near good enough to even attempt. I can see what some of them expect… and I just can’t do it. This isn’t an unpopular opinion, apparently, from the other comments…
Overall, if I were rating things, I’d probably put Maps 1, 3, and 5 at 4/5 (not penalising Mazu too much for excessive difficulty), Map 4 at 5/5, and the End map at 1/5 as at least it looks nice.
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Unregistered user “Ira” posted:
I’ve been playing a lot of Quake mods, and appreciate different takes on play style, but this is designed with malice against anyone adopting a certain approach.
There are considered cheap tricks and traps everywhere that stymie flow. Player reaction predictions are also factored in and further traps are set for typical Quake “twitch” tactical responses to cheap spawn-in situations.
Despite my being open to different takes on Quake gaming, to include multiple-trigger jumping puzzles that only an autism sufferer could feel a sense of achievement from eventually completing earns a big “No” from me; not in Quake. Sorry. I couldn’t believe it remained tedious even after I resorted to permanent NOCLIP and GOD just to get it done and uninstalled. By the cheated-end I still never found out how to switch off the anti-ranger rocket system.
I did enjoy the descent underground but it came at a price. I, too, ran out of ammo, but NOT from being a BAD SHOT. From being corralled over ammo pickups only to waste them due to being only a couple of shots short of a full complement at the time. This is the issue that I assume others have come across.
Like many others, I do like to encourage in-fighting, yet I’ve never seen it implemented at such a level to force a “BENNY HILL” play style, lest the player wishes to take on the remaining quota of level monsters with their axe.
In short, this mod is meticulously considered to the point of being un-fun. Any deviation from the path and style of play the devs intended is punished. Unfortunately, I don’t know how one would telegraph a desired play-style aside from gradually introducing aspects over a longer game broken into smaller chapters.
I’m not a Quake expert although I’ve returned recently for its mod community and, for the past couple of years, I’ve always had 5-10 mod/derivation shortcuts on my desktop that I switch between.
I’ve played hard mods and accepted defeat without need to post anything negative. This one irked me like a form of controlled conditioning.
ps. Evidently the modders’ skills are there for a “5” product but there’s something else present that’s at odds with my psyche beyond mere Quake gaming. Sorry guys. If I had an account I’d be giving this a “2” rating - yet NOT from a technical perspective.
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