The Chronic

by Sanek


(391) views since Nov 2018


Released: 2009-06-27
Mode: SP, DM
Difficulty Settings: No
Featuring: 1.4+, EDuke32
Sound/music: Music
New Art: Yes
New Cons: No
Score: 80

Dual-Review by Tim Lowndes ( first two maps ) and Merlijn v. Oostrum on 15 July 2009

Review by Tim Lowndes

A 5 level episode made by Sanek with help of Zykov Eddy in the first map.

Level 1; Bad Night:

Some excellent spritework and detailing here, I liked the cars and the jeep a lot. The new pistol was a nice touch and was well done. The texturing was mostly well done throughout.
There were some problems design wise though the interior locations were all cramped which made just moving around very difficult. Also nearly every swinging door glitched and passed through solid objects which were in the way - like some of your impressive spritework.
Overall not a bad level with plenty of detail to keep it interesting.

Level 2; Compton:

Not as good as the first. It still had some good detailing and spritework inside the houses but some of the texture choices were strange and there was the same problem with the doors as in the previous level.
The outside area looked a little bland as it was basically a big square with other squares inside it.
The respawning enemies and items kept the action up. Again there were a couple of well done cars and interesting details outside.
Overall a level with some good ideas but a little plain. I liked the hiding place for the red keycard.

Review by Merlijn ( last three maps ).

Level 3; Tunnel:

This map is really short, took me only 3 minutes. This makes it a bit of an unremarkable level.
The sewage plant looks good, but nothing outstanding. First area and tunnel look very empty. I liked the attack of the pig cops in the beginning.

Level 4; Long beach:

Very similar to compton but at least the theme is more consistent, no weird teleporters or theme-swaps.
The first street area looks pretty good, especially those street lights. I'll use this map as an occasion to point out, in my eyes, the biggest gameplay flaw in these maps: whenever there's a keycard hunt, you usually just have to open a door nearby and there's just one hallway and a room with the needed keycard being there. You never have to explore a new location for it.
In the warehouse it's taken to it's extreme: there's 3 keycard slots, you have 1 keycard, this unlocks 1 room containing second keycard, which unlocks another room containing.. etc.
The episode resorts to these kind of 'puzzles' too often. Otherwise, the gameplay is pretty enjoyable. Some enemy waves feel a bit random but the firefights are fun.

Level 5; Final:

The opening looks very well designed, but reminded me a *lot* of "Blown Fuses" from Gambini.
Regardless of influences, it looks very good and detailled. Even for a boss-map it's a very short map though, and the transition to the roof is kinda weird; it's like you just got transported to a different level (mostly because the bright blue sky has suddenly turned into a much darker, cloudy sky - would have been fine if there was at least 5 minutes of gameplay between those 2 skies, but that's not the case).
Anyway, the final arena has a pretty cool lay-out, I used the crates to my advantage and this made the boss pretty easy to beat.

Score: 80

Map Template

Screenshots

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Gameplay Video

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