Friday, October 26, 2007

Distraction for Quake 1

***NEW!!!***

Level name: Distraction


Author: Mikko Sandt

Date of release: 23 September 2007

Size: 1001 ko

Number of maps: 1



website: here

download:





Story : None


Author's Note :

My first Quake map. I’ve been playing Quake since 1996 and I always wanted to make a level. Well, better late than never, eh? I’ve been building mostly Duke3D maps for the past ten years (sad, isn’t it?) so Worldcraft was somewhat new to me. This may be one reason why the level is somewhat x-axis and blocky (not that that was my intention - it’s just something that happened subconsciously). Naturally, I had to learn the editor as I worked on the map. It’s not so bad - there’s a fair amount of details, the texture set is lovely and the gameplay was tested (by The Silent & Sielwolf) before release.

Review:

I know 'virtually' the author for arround 10 years now, since my favorite game Duke Nukem. He has a marvellous site for this game and provide always good feedback for all the request i made, especially with beta-testing my map.

Back to the subject, Distraction is the first quake release by Mikko and it took quite a long time to be release. The main team is industrial/complex and feature all what a good map really need to be enjoyable.

Design is good, it even impressed me knowing that Mikko mostly used the duke nukem engine to create map and that worldcraft as a totally other appoach. The strucure of the map is really familiar to DN based map: it's quite limited in open space as a 'key to progress' gameplay and as a less gothic to medieval approach (not only regarding the theme but also in relation with the architecture). All in all the texturing, atmosphere and theme was pretty well handle to create a no linear map with a mix between outdoor and indoor, not limited to the main floor, using some on text messages to increase the ambiance and showing enough variety to make it not monotonous.

Gameplay was another suprise through mikko's approach but sadly I was disapoint with that. The gameplay was for me too much challenging (but this is always intended with Q1 releases), health and ammo was sparely provided with the progression but traps and ambush make it more a quest to survive that the kill to progress experience. All objective are easy to achive (except the quest for secret places) and is more a key or button switching progress ... the last place to fight like all good release is always linked to the apogee of a fighting quest and in this place you should be warned, it's gonna be a nightmare.

In Conclusion: I really like most of Mikko's releases and this one is not an exception through it's design and atmosphere, he ones time more succeed in create a excellent map.



Playtime: 30 minutes




Rating: A B C D E (79%)

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