Taamalus
by Phoenix
(400) views since Nov 2018
Released: 2003-11-17
Mode: SP
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Featuring: 1.3
Sound/music: No
New Art: No
New Cons: Yes
Score: 92
Review by Forge on January 09-2012
An industrial facility. Made up of the usual locations such as storage rooms, control rooms, power generation machinery, cranes and conveyors, ventilation shafts, a small underwater section, and a short subway track to name a few, this map gives the impression of being large and very maze like.
Architecture is fairly standard with several areas and structures being a bit blocky, but this is offset with good detailing and trimwork. Texturing choices are well selected with proper combinations and shading is strong to give a nice feel for depth. Overall it successfully has the ambiance of a dirty old factory.
The layout is made up of a series of interconnecting loops that wrap around back onto itself at several points. The player may think they're pretty deep into the map just to discover that several doors that were just opened lead all the way back to the beginning. While it's not necessary to return to those locations it can easily cause some confusion and get the player turned around and off the proper path for a bit. The map can be finished in a linear method, but it's not too hard to get side tracked and spend some time exploring tangents that deviate from the way out.
Game play is a mix of button puzzles, key cards, and obscure touchplates.
The difficult part is not only discovering where the touchplates are, but the fact that the player actually activated one, and then figuring out what just opened. The only clue that a touchplate has been set off is usually, but not always, the accompanying spawns. After that, good luck to you. Better get to exploring and figuring it out. The keys aren't very easy to find either and in several instances are spawned after a certain event or action. Only a couple are necessary to finish the level, the rest open rooms to get much needed supplies.
Combat is a challenge as well. Unless the player finds the keys and some of the secret areas the supplied weapons, ammunition, and health are not going to be adequate enough to survive long enough to get to the finish. Even then several encounters should be avoided when possible and the swarms of mechanical sentry drones located in small rooms or narrow corridors will make sure you're either out of bullets or out of hit points.
Texturing/Lighting-Shading: 10/10
Sprite Work/Detailing: 10/10
Ambiance: 10/10
Architecture: 18/20
Layout: 18/20
Gameplay/Design: 26/30
Overall: 92/100
Screenshots
Other maps by this author:
Der Wald
Released: 2006-01-24
Score: 85
Mode: SP
Review: Der Wald
Munasta Part 1
Released: 2004-02-16
Score: 91
Mode: SP
Review: Munasta Part 1
Predators
Released: 2003-12-11
Score: 93
Mode: SP
Review: Predators
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