White Blight (sm218_shades) is another really nice little map, this one set in a snowy village. It uses its setting well to provide rather more combat than you might expect in so small an area, and does a good job of changing up the different kinds of combats you wind up in. Plus it’s just nice to look at.
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overall_rating
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33
Carcosa Docks (sm218_alexunder) is another nice little level, working from a Honey-like sewer through a brief pipework-ridden industrial area into a small town. Each part of it looks great, though no part of it looks much like docks. Gameplay is enjoyable enolugh, but never especially inventive or exciting. All three areas feel underpopulated, especially the climactic, or rather anticlimactic, town. 50% more monsters and maybe a little more visual variation in the sewer section would elevate this map to the next level.
Carcosa Docks (sm218_alexunder) is another nice little level, working from a Honey-like sewer through a brief pipework-ridden industrial area into a small town. Each part of it looks great, though no part of it looks much like docks. Gameplay is enjoyable enolugh, but never especially inventive or exciting. All three areas feel underpopulated, especially the climactic, or rather anticlimactic, town. 50% more monsters and maybe a little more visual variation in the sewer section would elevate this map to the next level.
(@Spirit, if you’re easily able to delete my accidental duplicate comment – I inadvertently double-clicked) that would be welcome. If not, no worries.
The hits just keep coming with Ransacked Balaneion (sm218_aesopolis), a lovely level that uses two or three novel environments and can only really be criticised for not getting enough gameplay out of them. The garden where we start is beautiful, the largely wooden hall of the early combats works well, the wooden house on stilts where the climax takes place is also a pleasing envronment. Best of all are the glimpses of gorgeous far-off places that the poor old Ranger really wants to get to. I would have loved this to be a lot bigger.
More quality in Runic Rampage (sm217_greenwood): a fairly long level where you make you up a runic stairway with lots of side-areas which you need to visit to unlock barriers. Never especially inspirational, but also never dull and never less than competent. It’s perhaps let down by a slightly anticlimactic ending, but props for not going with the obvious shambler.
Neophanemia (sm217_ish) is the first clunker in this pack, for me (although I know tastes will vary). The reduced gravity feels unmotivated, the extreme ammo shortage is an unsatisfactory source of difficulty, and the connections between parts of map feel odd and arbitrary. I made my way uncomfortably to the exit with not many more than half the kills, and even when I went back to noclip around I couldn’t find plenty of monsters. I don’t get it.
Overcast Outpost (sm217_stickflip) is an elegant design that lets you see early on some of the places that you will visit later. It’s nicely put together, but feels a bit samey by the end – and at it’s a short level, there really ought to have been ways to avoid that. BUT the final boss is properly terrifying.
Sewer Authority (sm217_yoder) is a lovely example of what a small map can be – atmospheric, frenetic, goal-directed. But it leaves an aftertaste of disappointment because the ending feels incomplete. Having found both (easy) secrets and killed everything, I had only 61 or 67 kills; and there was an obvious but unmarked secret with a double-barrelled shotgun and some ammo, which seems impossible to reach. Am I missing something?
Only now, when I have finished reviewing all the maps in this pack, does it become apparent to me that I have been writing about sm217, not sm218!
Yes, I am a dumbass. Rather than copy-paste my reviews across, I will leave a note on sm217.
And I will return to this pack later!
… And now to play this map-pack!!
We’re off to a good start with Snake’s Wondering if its Tail Tastes Nice (sm218_alexunder). It begins on a small podium in the middle of a square pool whose edges are too high to climb out into the surrounding room. Instead you have to explore a network of underwater tunnels and deal with the set-pieces in the three or four areas where you emerge at the end of them. Lots of fun to be had.
My big quibble with this one is the abrupt ending: despite finding all three (easy) secrets, I arrived at what proved to be the exit with only 49 of 62 kills. Somewhere in that map lie another 27% of monsters on top of the ones I killed. Where?
Purgatory Passage (sm218_chrisholden) is nicely executed, but rather too easy and maybe a bit too derivative of Hell’s Atrium (e4m5). Not his most impressive work for my money.
(BTW., Now I notice that in the comment above I described Chris Holden’s sm217 contribution as “nicely executed”, too!)
Palace of the Elder God (sm218_dariusgi) is exactly what you would expect from a map of this name in an Episode 4-based speedmap competition. It’s nicely put together with a clear progression and plenty of combats. Another that I would have been happy to see continue for much longer.
More goodness in Respect Your Elders’ World (sm186_greenwood), which really nails the intense brutality of the best parts of Episode 4. It has one of those contrived progressions where you have to drop down into an extended sewer adventure in order to move up one level from where you start, and judges the difficulty well to keep you on your toes especially mid-game.
I can’t say I enjoyed Shady Better Sin (sm218_hcm), although I admired it. I would probably have had more fun on Normal skill than my usual Hard, but by the time I realised this I was deep enough in that the sunk-cost fallacy prevented me from starting over. I had to cheat early on: having not found any secrets (I ended with only one of the seven) I had nowhere near enough ammo, so I gave myself 100 shells. With that done, I was able – just, with many, many reloads – to finish with 105 of 136 kills. I know where there’s one ogre that I didn’t kill (up on a ledge and I wanted to conserve ammo) but I have no idea where the other 30 are.
If I play this again, it will be on Normal.
BTW., I only now figured out that HCM is Mazu.
Well, i gave up on Elder Mechanys (sm218_ish). It was another, like Mazu’s, that was so hard on Hard that it just wasn’t fun – not least because of the dearth of ammo. So I swallowed my pride, restarted on Normal, and was mostly enjoying myself until, after the zombie interlude, I found myself teleported into a small caged area with a box of rockets, a quad, and no apparent means of escape. If someone can tell me what I need to do from there, I’ll pick it up again, but for now I’m done.
Columns of Hopelessness (sm218_iyago) is much more tractable, and feels like actual fun instead of work. It’s maybe a little bit by-the-numbers, with its very E4M2ish opening, but that’s easy enough to forgive. Not necessarily one that will last long in the memory, but a blessed relief after Mazu’s and Ish’s maps.
Stir Fried Dissolution (sm218_riktoi) is unexceptionable, but small and blocky, and lacking in atmosphere. It’s a pleasant enough way to spend five minutes, but that’s all.