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4e61db36d87d1a11d2afe713ce48c9c80a9057ddac1f821d2250485c8017d9ac
overall_rating
4.653684210526316
76
It is good to come back to playing Quake after 10 years and see such marvels freshly released into the community. The maps were deeply atmospheric, I especially liked the one with the snow temple and the floating city with a name referring to Celephais, but this is more a matter of a personal taste, all levels were extremely well done.
@Tom a döner is cheap german fast food.
After his superb moving scenery in the first Jam, I was deeply disappointed by Cocerello’s map (the first one I’ve played). Heeding his warning above I played on Normal, but even having found all six secrets I exited having killed only 42/49 monsters. It’s not necessary to go through the silver-key door at all (the first time I finished the level I did it by mistake, assuming I was going to be teleported to a new part of the level). It’s annoying to have nothing but the single shotgun and the regular-ass nailgun for almost the entire level; I got the grenade launcher only after having killed everything I was to find. The architecture is impressive in scale, but bland and flatly lit. Finally, the gameplay involves too much press-the-button-then-run-around-trying-to-figure-out-what-changed.
All in all, I can only rate this map (in isolation) as 2*; which I feel bad about because I know he can do much, much better. Sorry, Cocerello!
MikeTaylor: No problem, no need to feel bad either. I agree with most parts of what you say.
Only have to say is that all the buttons tell you what they are going to open and all doors tell you what opens them before and after you use them in a non obvious way, but the layout makes it so its probable that you find the buttons before you see what they open, reducing the usability of the information provided by the buttons and confusing the player. Overall, this map is geared towards those that love to explore, in an smallish way.
Thanks, Cocerello, that’s a very gracious response.
I’ve now also played jam2_fifth, which I enjoyed more. For me, it suffered because I made a wrong 50-50 choice: from the first big courtyard, I took the left-hand exit, which leads to monsters, rather than the right-hand exit, which leads to ammo. As a result, I did a big early chunk of the map on almost no ammo, surviving only by provoking a lot of infighting, but was then glutted on ammo for the rest of the map. I think I would have found it much more balanced and enjoyable had I taken the right exit. Anyway, 4/5, including a mark for rather impressively including a more-or-less separate end-game area.
jam2_lunaran is my favourite so far, despite being quite a bit smaller than the other two maps. It has a nice oppressive sense of place, and the combats are judged very well. Five secrets in map this size is impressive: I got three (grenade launcher, health/rocket/cell stash and quad), though I didn’t realise how to get the quad until after I’d finished the final battle. D’oh!
The other two secrets are tantalisingly visible: pentagram in a room surrounded by barred doors, and lightning gun in an area under a lava waterfall. I got the latter by what I assume is the “wrong” method: fall well, swim quickly, and lose most of your health. But I never found the right way (or any way at all to get the pentagram). Can anyone help?
Overall, a comfortable 4* for this map.
Loved jam2_mfx, which feels like a real explorable place and has plenty of atmosphere. I finished on Hard with 105/117 monsters – I assume the other 12 are hidden in secrets which I didn’t get, as I killed everything I saw.
I particularly enjoyed the transition from the palace into the unfinished building/wreckage area: the juxtaposition of these two very different but compatible areas is what lifts this above the realms of merely very good maps into the truly excellent.
But my favourite aspect of this map is the secrets (including the non-secret at the top of the arch in the start area). Rather then being of the common spot-the-button kind, they repay careful exploration, ambitious leaps and not taking anything for granted. I ended up with eight of them, but for one (the super nailgun) I rocket-jumped, which I don’t think can be the right solution. Does anyone know the proper way to get it (and the associated quad)?
I rate this map 5*.
Unregistered user “mfx” posted:
Mike
That knight is guarding a ledge. Be brave.
Unregistered user “mfx” posted:
What have i done??!! Oh my god!!
I´m so sorry, i suck at formatting everytime…
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/jam2_mfx_hint.jpg
Here is the hint mike…
Can the above derping be deleted?
Unregistered user “mfx” posted:
Muhahahhahhahhah!!
Heh, I was wondering when people would discover that. Keep images useful!
Nice to know you can do that, Mfx. It would be useful to have a list of what can be done with HTML in this comments, somewhere in the web. As far as i know there isn’t. Maybe in the tricks and tips thread … would be the best place.
There is a link right above the comment box. I am not sure images are good thing to allow though.
Ouch, yes, There it is. I relied on my memory but completely forgot of its existance. Thanks for pointing it out.
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Thanks, mkx, for the secret hint, which is in fact at http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen\_shots/jam2\_mfx\_hint.jpg
(The underscores were interpreted as italics when you posted it before.) I’ve not yet gone back and looked for it but I will.
Mean time I played and completed jam2_scampie.bsp which, to be honest, disappointed me. It just felt like a sequence of big combats with little sense of exploration. I think this kind of map is some people’s favourites, and good luck to them; it just didn’t do it for me.
I very much enjoyed jam2_skacky.bsp, with its sense of vertical progression and its well-judged combats. The highlight for sheer fun was probably being given the grenade launcher just before being absolutely inundated with bad guys. Beautiful castle-hanging-in-the-sky setting, too.
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