Something Awful

   Cranky News

   About Cranky Steve

   SUBMIT A MAP



   All Maps

   Half-Life

   Quake II

   Quake III

   Unreal Tournament


09/14/1999 Cranky Steve - Q2 DM: "Erik 7"
Even the walls don't want to stick around.

Author: Erik
Reviewed By: Cranky Steve
Game Type Supported: DM
Overuse of Colored Lighting: Yes!
Spelling Errors in Text File: Yes!
Pain Level: It's an Erik map. 'Nuff said.

Download Here (211 k)

AT A GLANCE:
In Erik's maps, floor textures are completely optional. Just like brain cells.
Come and visit Erik's seventh creation, a map where floors, ceilings, walls, and other textures are not necessary. After all, they just slow down the gameplay, don't they?

DESCRIPTION: "Finally I made a level that dosen't look like doom! Very cool lighting." Folks, I've made plenty of things that don't look like Doom, many after drinking a few six-packs, but you don't see me publicly distributing them. This is a damn good thing too, because I've seen afterbirth prettier than most of Erik's maps.

THE MAP: When most people think of maps, they think of some series of interconnected rooms with walls, floors, and ceilings. Throw in some weapons, nice texture placement, and decent lighting and you've got yourself a kickass deathmatch map. If you've read any of my previous reviews of Erik's maps, you'll realize Erik has problems in all of these categories. Many of his rooms don't connect to each other, textures conform to the "brown diaherria" motif, the colored lighting can burn holes through your contact lens, and Erik seems to place weapons on the map according to phases of the moon. However, in this map Erik has worked hard on making sure the textures aren't as boring and repetitive as in his normal maps. How does he do that? Well, the walls, ceiling, and floors all disappear for random intervals. That way, you're treated to the wonderful and incredible Quake 2 skybox / hall-of-mirrors effect and not the "Repeated Brown Square Hell". It's an improvement, folks.

What's wrong with this picture? Hmmm... oh yeah, EVERYTHING.
Erik's new favorite toy, colored lasers, litter this map everywhere. They serve no purpose or function other than to annoy and kill you. Kind of like Erik, I guess. "Erik the Laser", that is what I'm gonna call him from now on. That or "Shitbag", it depends on my mood. The smart money is on "Shitbag" though.

GAMEPLAY: Yeah, there's really dark rooms. There's obnoxious lasers everywhere. There are rooms that disappear. There are items that are impossible to get to. All these elements add up to make this a very interesting map, the word "interesting" of course meaning "terribly shitty". It's another Erik map, what would you expect?

FUN FACTOR: This map ranks up there with waiting in line three hours for a Teletubbies video while an army of small children are using my groin as a punching bag.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It's no Doom map, baby. Take that to mean whatever you want. It's the end of the road.

Category: Rating:
Aesthetics: -5
Gameplay: -7
Item placement: -4
Layout: -6
Detail: -5
TOTAL: -27

Individual ratings go from 0 (bearable) to -10 (painfully terrible).
Total score goes from 0 (ok) to -50 (the worst piece of shit you'll ever play).