Last map you played

Started by Puritan, 02 December 2011, 08:14:26

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Forge

Thanks for checking it out.
My schedule is crowding up this week, so it might be a bit before I can get back to it.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Forge

#691
Moonbase
Igor "Iggy" Willems
16 July 2005

An EDF base on a lunar surface.

It's pretty large and has several additional areas to it that don't need to be explored in order to complete the level, but may provide some extra action and supplies. If they can be survived. The author was even polite enough to put in view screens informing the player that they didn't need to pass certain points if they didn't want to. Ultimately the supplies are worth the extra time and fighting because ammunition and healing items are sparse for the first quarter to half of the level. That, and they're worth the look since the construction and detailing of the map is pretty solid throughout. The base has the typical control rooms, crews quarters, and recreation facilities that are found in these types maps. In addition, there is a prison block, a train station, an alien hive section, some under water portions, and several jaunts on the moon's surface. Included for the player's enjoyment is an annoying 7-button puzzle that has to be solved by shooting at it with a pistol. The saving grace is that it's a pattern and not just some random combination. As for the atmosphere, it can be a little heavy-handed with the shading, making for some extremely dark areas, which are a bit too frequent and extensive. At least NVGs help detect enemies, if not help with navigation. Otherwise it's a nice looking map that's easy to navigate and move around in.
Game play is a switch hunt and a key-card retrieval styled system with lots and lots of gun battles. Just about every weapon will be provided and the player will probably use them all due to the sparsity of ammunition for any one weapon through the majority of the facility. This encourages the player to fight the variety of aliens constantly thrown at them as efficiently as possible. More fun than tripping over furniture during a blackout.

Overall I'd give it a 92
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Puritan

#692
^Had a go on this one. Long time since the last time.
A very well made map and a splendid opinion you've posted.
Bitter words mean little to me. Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time, when they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine, and the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise

Forge

#693
Bad Moon
Patrick Hackett
March 13, 1997

A space station styled map.

It appears to be and EDF styled orbital station that's half in space and half buried inside a small asteroid. In some parts the player is looking into an empty void with maybe another portion of the station visible, other locations the player is climbing though rock, and in even another section there's rock and lava, but metal is visible behind cracks in some of the walls showing that its actually an artificial environment. Aside from the possible habitat inconsistancies, it is a pretty good atmosphere with lots of sector and lighting effects, sounds, and a fair amount of detailing.
Gameplay consists of switches, key cards, and a few other puzzles that involve a shrinker and a pipebomb. Basically though, the player is moving down multiple braches of corridors and clearing out aliens. To successfully get from section to section, either unlock a door, or activate a movable section of corridor in order to complete a pathway. The start can be a little difficult as ammo and healing items are pretty stingy, but it picks up later, especially as the player's arsenal grows.

Overall I'd give it an 85
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Forge

#694
another map with neither template nor watermark that I could find

Any idea who made this, or where it came from?

[moontrap.zip removed]
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Puritan

Quote from: Forge on  02 February 2018, 08:02:16
another map with neither template nor watermark that I could find

Any idea who made this, or where it came from?


:D


http://www.scent-88.com/reviews/M/moonbase3/moonbase3.php
Bitter words mean little to me. Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time, when they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine, and the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise

Forge

#696
Thanks.

I knew I had seen it before, but I couldn't place it. I actually thought it might have been one of Fernando M's.

It didn't help that the same file with the same name is hosted on the old dukeworld site at duke4 & rtcm.

http://dukeworld.duke4.net/2001-current/unsorted/other/Duke%20Nukem%203D/Maps/Single%20Player/1997/Maps/
&
http://www.r-t-c-m.com/knowledge-base/downloads-dw/?dir=2001-current/unsorted/other/Duke%20Nukem%203D/Maps/Single%20Player/1997/Maps
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Puritan

#697
^Yeah, I had no idea who the author was at first either.
But as I played along my mind was wrapped around to things; A very early project by Fernando or something by Nathan Orr. They  both were into space levels in the '90's.
Hell, Fernando even reviewed some of Nathan's stuff back in the DNR days.
After the playthrough I had a go on the search page....
Bitter words mean little to me. Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time, when they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine, and the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise

Forge

#698
Moon12
Keith Hazelet
17 June 1996

An EDF styled lunar base.

The usual flow of the map is a corridor feeding into a room which has a two or more passages branching out of it. A couple of the passages may lead off to side rooms such as latrines, control rooms, conference rooms, or storage areas. Occasionally one of these branches contains a small section, like a set of barracks or state rooms. These areas are optional. Most of the time they contain additional aliens, sometimes they might have extra supplies or weapons. The final passage out of the hub continues with the main path. The assortment of rooms, inclusion of some partially destroyed areas, and the decent detailing make for a nice atmosphere. Multiple viewports to outside scenery and the constant rising and falling shifts in elevation makes it feel like the player is actually making progress. The poor shading in several places is about the only knock to the ambiance. There is also a slight hiccup in the linear path as there's access to an underground cavern and sewer system that are quite extensive and contain nothing. The work on them is complete and it appears that the mapper was going to incorporate the section into the game, but changed his mind for some reason and then didn't block it off.
Gameplay is completely about combat. It's a fight from start to finish and there's very little reprieve. Unless you find yourself in the underground cavern. At which point Duke will take damage from fruitless exploring. More fun than a baseball bat to the back of the head.

Overall I'd give it an 82
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Forge

#699
Alien Lunar Laboratory
Robert A. Morin
31 July 2000

An EDF stronghold on a lunar surface that is in the process of being morphed to an alien hive.

It's a pretty straight forward linear keycard hunt as far as the primary style of gameplay is concerned. The cahllenge is surviving. While there is a plethora of weapons and ammunition, healing items are only found at certain intervals.
Getting from point A to point B is a bit of a jaunt. While it's pretty much one direction of travel, that travel involves corridors, trams, lifts, conveyors, and ventilation shafts. Aside from a bit of over-sizing, the map is decently detailed and textured. Several view ports allow for a look at the outdoor landscape. Pulsing lights, along with a variety to the palette, makes the journey a colorful one. More fun than an epileptic seizure.

Overall I'd give it an 85
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Puritan

Great!
Thank you very much, Forge.
Bitter words mean little to me. Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time, when they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine, and the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise

Forge

#701
BESTCITY
David J. Vallance
14 October 1996

A medium sized city map.

It has an open floorplan mainly designed for multiplayer, which allows the player to pretty much go anywhere they please, but it does manage to pull it off as a single player level as well. The construction, detailing, and architecture are pretty solid, but the shading and trimming could be a bit better. It makes a few areas to look either bright and washed out, or flat and dark. Otherwise it's a nice looking map. There are four main buildings; a couple only have some minor rooms, one has a mall plaza, another contains a library and an underground sewer system. The bulk of the level is out in the streets and alleyways, along with the subway system that runs the circumference of the map. For some scenery contrast there's also a nice little central park, and one of the street sections is a deep chasm full of rocky outcrops as the result of an earthquake.
The objective is to seek out three key cards and return to the start point. There's no real puzzles or anything, it's just a matter of exploring around enough to happen upon them. Weapons, ammo, and enemies are plentiful. It's the bulk of the healing items that are stashed and have to be ferreted out through the first half or so of the map that is the challenge. More fun than a missing sock.

Overall I'd give it a 78
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Forge

#702
Big City II
Dirty "Harry" Duke
14 February 1998

A large city map.

The floorplan is wide open, so this is a hide n' seek map. The objective is to wander around looking in every nook and crannie for keys and their partnering locks. With the level being pretty sizable and extensive with several multistory, multi-room buildings, this could take awhile. It's nicely constructed and decently trimmed out and detailed, but more shading and a higher frequency of ambient sounds would have really given this map an atmosphere with some depth. Aside from the shortcomings, it gets by well enough on the variety of locations and elevation shifts during travel.
The player starts out in a foyer of a building and under fire from several directions; it's best to pick a compass point and go. There are stashes of weapons and supplies spread out through the map, so eventually one will be found allowing the fight to be taken to the enemy. After that it's pretty much a matter of methodically searching until a key, then it's lock are found.
There are a few annoyances for the player because the mapper had a sadistic streak. Included for the player's pleasure are decoy keys, which are identified by their atypical color and resistance to being picked up. There are also fake cracks everywhere that are used for nothing more than decoration detailing. For some reason there's also a fake jetpak. Topping it off the end button is a pain to find as it's hidden behind a wall with the only discernible clue of its location being a barely noticeable red dot on the floor in front of it. More fun than self-flagellation.

Overall I'd give it a 72
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Forge

#703
Moonbase
Mikko Sandt
April 19 2001

An EDF styled lunar base.

A pretty short, basic, and straightforward map. So much so, that a key and its corresponding lock are in the same room. The flow is fairly linear, and there's not much in the way of puzzles.
There are a few lifts, a teleportation station, and a bit of an underwater section to give it some depth; otherwise the atmosphere is marred by out of place or misaligned textures, minimal shading, and flat detailing. More fun than tofu.

Overall I'd give it a 68
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Forge

#704
Moon
Bocian
5 September 1996

A lunar forced labor mining camp.

It appears that the aliens are capturing humans and forcing them to mine for minerals on the moon. The player starts locked up in prison and must make their way to the exit, presumably to escape. The significant portion of the map is made up of small, barely adorned rooms in a redundant fashion. In several cases, even the rooms that aren't prison cells or crews quarters are scantily detailed. Where it falls short in those locations it makes up for in others, as most of the constructive effort was put towards the underground tunnels and the lunar surface. The author also does a decent job at shading and texturing for most of it, so it's not totally dull. The player basically moves from the surface of the lunar body to somewhere deep underground, and then back again. It involves some jump puzzles, lifts, swimming, rock climbing, and blowing things up. A few key cards, some buttons, and lots of alien killing are tossed in to keep the action and environmental involvement at a constant pace. The author was even nice enough to provide a heavy dose of respawns to keep the player company as they backtrack to the final lock. More fun than a rock in your shoe.

Overall I'd give it a 71
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass