Extermination

by Juha Laaksonen (Turpuli)


(397) views since April 2019


Released: 2003-04-19
Mode: SP
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Featuring: 1.4+
Sound/music: No
New Art: No
New Cons: No
Score: 93

Review by EmericaSkater on January 16-2012

AT A GLANCE:
An oldie, but a goodie. Extermination is a Pascal-styled map (in fact, the readme specifcally states that Pascal's work inspired it) that combines innovative level design, excellent texturing, and fast-paced, kickass gameplay. It has its occasional aggrivating points, but it all ties together nicely in the end.

THE GOOD:
Extermination is a solid experience, in every sense of the word. For the most part, it's a very well-designed urban map (with a few sewage/infested areas thrown in to spice it up) that has a good, logical flow.
There's plenty of enemies to kill, and their placement, though sometimes frustrating, tends to be quite clever, forcing even a veteran Duker to stay on his toes.
Ammo/health to enemy ratio is well-balanced, though I wound up running pretty thin towards the end of the map, and the majority of the progression involves keycard/button hunts, which everyone can appreciate.

THE BAD:
Cheap shots. Low-blows. Dirty tricks. Extermination has a not-staggeringly-high-but-still-extant number of random, illogical pitfalls, abrupt explosions in the face, and spring-up firefights that the player just can't reasonably prepare for.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the occasional "pigcop around the corner that'll blow your face off if you're moving too fast" trap, that kind of stuff helps keep the player's reflexes on the up-and-up, but Extermination takes it a bit too far, and if you play this map, you'll probably wind up dying to one of these tricks at least once.

THE UGLY:
Extermination's look should appeal to everyone. It doesn't have a Retaliation-level of design that makes you drool just by looking at it, but it settles quite nicely at that still way-above-average Roch standard, and in fact, it could easily pass as part of the Roch series if one didn't know better.
Texturing is easily this map's aesthetic strong suit, as it's done extremely well; textures are shifted, stretched and switched out at all the right places even in indoors areas, where trimwork tends to be lacking.
The only real bugaboo that Extermination has in terms of design is a serious lack of lighting fixtures. This is particularly bad in the sewers and the infected area towards the end of the map, but even in urban areas, Juha relied too much on that HANGLIGHT sprite for full-sized rooms, which just doesn't cut it from a rational standpoint.

Map Template

Screenshots

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Gameplay Video

Other maps by this author:

Escape from area 54
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Review: Escape from area 54


Haunted house
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Review: Haunted house
Mission 2: The Rescue
Released: 1999-11-06
Score: 84
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Review: Mission 2: The Rescue
Skyscraper Assault
Released: 2000-04-04
Score: 81
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Review: Skyscraper Assault
The Mission DEMO
Released: 1999-10-14
Score: 75
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Review: The Mission DEMO

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