Once again Copper Mod proves that when it comes to modding Quake, a light touch can yeild the most satisfying results, and that the core game still has plenty of surprises to offer. But of course, a great mod is nothing without some great maps, and that’s exactly what you’ll get in this episode. The rest of this review contains potential spoilers.
Start - North From Here by Smilecythe & VuRkka
If I’m honest the start map didn’t fill me with a lot of hope, as it seems somewhat gimmicky and unpolished, but it serves it’s purpose in selecting a skill level. I went with 2.
W1M1 - Light Reactor by Smilecythe
Nicely detailed, but visually a little too “busy” on occasions. Combat is fine, albeit occasionally tedious and repetitive. This map really shines when you get to the various puzzle sections, which demand strong spacial awareness, timing and platforming skills. In the latter regard, Quake’s jumping mechanics can feel a little cumbersome at times, but Smilecythe skilfully rewards player progress in such a way as to overcome any sense of frustration.
W1M2 - Frostlord’s Domain by Newhouse
Visually striking as blue maps tend to be, and the theme is pulled off very well. The layout doubles down on invoking memories of Azure Agony with it’s grand chambers connected by tight tunnels, although it also falls slightly foul of being over-connected at times, as thanks to the uniform texture theme and often dynamic layout it’s easy to become a little lost. There are some nicely timed surprises and combats, all artfully supported by well placed secrets.
W1M3 - Riddle of Steel by VuRkka
Starts off as a nicely polished tribute to E3M2 Vaults of Zin and this is a recurring theme later on, even when the layout and tone starts to stray to something more original. There’s some really interesting use of simple platform puzzles to control the pace. For me the standout moment was getting to the end and realising I had to go back and play it again from the beginning in order to access the secret level. This “trap” was very well set up, using the players’ excitement about secret hunting as well as prior expectations based on E3M2 against them. If it were less well done, it would have been more frustrating than satisfying, so kudos to VuRkka for understanding his player.
W1S1 - Medieval Nightmare by zigi
Visually this is the most “old-school” of the maps on offer, with fairly simple boxy brushwork, but a nice use of medieval textures with strong colour accents. It’s low gravity which is a nice nod to E1M8, but the level design makes the low gravity much less frustrating than in Ziggurat Vertigo, making frequent use of narrow but tall areas to make the most of your new freedom whilst still chanelling the player. I found the finale went a bit off-piste in this regard, as it’s a lot easier to survive these combats with your feet planted firmly on the ground, but otherwise this is a solid map and secret maps are always very much welcome and very rewarding to the player.
W1M4 - Northern Tornio by uKKo
This is by far the aesthetic highlight of the episode, as you can see in the screenshot on Quaddicted. Light and shadow, subtle fog and subdued colour tones invoke a very sombre world, possibly an ancient neglected backwater of Quake’s multi-dimensional real-estate portfolio. Combat takes a back seat to exploration and atmosphere in this map which is a welcome change of pace in the episode, and really encourages the player to try and climb the walls in search of secrets or just pleasing vistas. As is always the case in maps with such detailed environments navigation is occasionally slightly awkward but never outright unfair, and after completing the map normally I went back with god mode and a rocket launcher to just have some more fun exploring. The end of the map is nicely understated, and adds to the earie loneliness of this forgotten place.
W1M5 - Wretched of the Earth by Naitelveni, VuRkka & NewHouse
A well executed medieval theme. In terms of gameplay this map is the most vanilla Quake experience in the pack which is obviously no bad thing and nicely transitions the player back in to the action after the quiet halls of Northern Tornio. There was one tricky horde combat that caught me by surprise, which meant I had to go back to the beginning and look after my ammo a little better, but challenges like that are to be expected on the sixth level! Even with restarting, I found myself having to lob grenades at a shambler at one point. The final battle to open the end-gate is a bit let down by one of the three shamblers failing to make his presence felt – perhaps he got scared. Overall this was a fun map, and very well made, but doesn’t have any particular stand-out moments.
W1M6 - Halls of Darkness by Ing-ing, uKKo, VuRkka & NewHouse
Impressive brushwork terrain that finds the right balance between detail and navigation but overall I think this was the weakest map in the episode. The layout and monster placement all seemed a little hastilly thrown together, and there’s quite a jarring change of theme and pace mid-way through, which leaves you wondering why they bothered with the early, outdoor section of the map. Also, in this early section a poorly placed Ring of Shadows secret preceeds a triggered monster ambush where the monsters spawn angry, rendering the secret pointless and unrewarding. I found the end didn’t fare much better – it may be down to my own lack of skill, but the only way I was able to defeat the final encounter was to drop out of the “trap” area, at which point I was able to fairly safely pick off the vores from the other side of the bars, which felt like an exploit rather than a design choice. It’s still a good map, but not up to the incredible standards of the whole episode.
W1M7 - Oblivion by Mazu
This is as close as you’ll find to a “sandbox” interpretation of traditional Quake. A sprawling, very open map with 500 enemies (skill2) and very little manifest signage or leading. You may experience mild FOMO, but every encounter is still well balanced and interesting, nomatter how you approach it. Mazu seems to have an uncanny understanding of how players will react to any given situation, always managing to set up interesting and often unexpected ambushes that will catch out even the most cautious of wall-huggers and backpedallers. Given the sheer scale of the map I was very impressed that the amount of ammo and health was spot on for the first half of the map seemingly without the use of any respawning boxes. There was only one moment where I was gasping for some nails or shells, but this was largely my own ammo management at fault. All of this builds up to a hugely impressive crescendo with multiple waves of very challenging combat in a well designed arena. I’d also like to heap particular praise on some very clever use of trigger_monsterjump in all of the open spaces, nodoubt taking full advantage of Copper Mod’s improvements. All in all, this was definitely a fitting end to a fantastic episode.
Conclusion
This is the most fun I’ve had in a new Quake episode for years. Thanks to the different styles of all of the authors involved it offers a lot of variety and I’m sure to return to some or all of the levels again at some point, because there are still various secrets and alternate paths to explore. The music by Immorpher was topnotch throughout and always nailed the pace and atmosphere of each level. I also enjoyed the readme, which includes some nice additional information about the maps, although in some cases I’m not sure I understand the connection. Good job and many thanks to everybody involved.
And, props for doing a low-grav secret map. The giant castle is a good theme for that; having a familiar structure makes it more fun to break the rules of normal traversal. Although I wish I had gotten more of a look at / feel for the overall structure during normal play; often it felt like being channeled down unrelated halls and it wasn’t clear where I was in the castle. Some beautiful setpieces though, really getting good use out of the contrast between the lava and the blue bricks/tiles.