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09/04/2002 Mista T - Q3A DM: "BFG Arena"
The BFG Arena. Duh.

Author: Peter Thompson
Reviewed By: Mista T
Game Type Supported: DM
Overuse of Colored Lighting: Nope.
Spelling Errors in Text File: Saying "yes" would be nit-picking, so, YES.
Pain Level: Pulling out my eyebrows using duct tape and pliers.

Download Here (226 KB)

AT A GLANCE: Peter, here, decided to once again continue his "Arena" motif, so he decided to churn out this flaming heap called "BFG Arena". As you can guess, it is an arena with BFGs and BFG ammo in it. How predictable.

DESCRIPTION: The text file is a comedy goldmine, folks.

Description: Quake III arena map, for BFG frag-fest (nothing to do with Roald Dahl!).

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! Oh, Petey, you slay me with your razor-sharp wit! It's funny because Roald Dahl wrote the BFG, "Big Friendly Giant", and the "BFG" in this case is the "BIG FUCKING GUN" AND NOT THE BIG FRIENDLY GIANT!! AH HA HA HA - shut up.

Such other gems include:

After play testing it for me, Sarge made the following comments:

...Wha-?

"Me and my squaddie buddies find this BFG arena a great way to relax after a skinful at the pub. However, not all the lads can handle their drinks - I'm forever slipping and sliding in huge puddles of Orbb's aqueous humour! Some tips: as soon as you pick up a BFG, just keep that fire button held down. Don't stop firing when you bring your opponent down - you don't know whose behind him. There are little bits of health and armour not very generously scattered around, but Thompp has kindly left speed, invisibility and quad damage around which will greatly increase your fragging ability. Expect a real fragfest - with 8 players and a fraglimit of 20 expect the game to last only 2 minutes. And lastly a word of warning - keep your distance from the squishing machines!".

...

Folks, I don't quite know what to make of this. Apparently, Peter Thompson has the innate ability to talk to bots. Not just with retarded chatting through the game, but rather in a very social manner. Well, since Sarge gave such a nice review of this map, I guess I should stop the review right here.

Oh, wait... no I won't.
A close-up of the "squishing machines."

THE MAP: The map is what I'd like to call a refined horror. It's got some of the bugs ironed out, but it is still 100% crap.

Players spawn into the map immediately on top of a BFG, which makes getting the key weapon in this map even simpler than usual. There's ammo in all three corners of the map, ensuring that you have enough BFG shots to wipe out your opponents, and with enough ammo to spare to take over three medium-sized countries.

The center of the map is no better than the rest, ladies and gentlemen - underneath the middle area of this map lies health, Haste, and Invisibility - ALL IN THE SAME AREA, with only one way of escaping (minus the fact that you can BFG jump out of the powerup ditch). What would make this map even worse is if the Quad Damage was stuck there among them, but this is not the case. Instead, it is somewhere in the side areas of the map, so you can overkill any opponent with the greatest of ease when you pick it up, if in fact you find it impossible to kill them with one or two shots of your BFG. Way to go, Pete.

Pete's buddy, Sarge, proclaims, "keep your distance from the squishing machines." Yes, these things really do squish ya, but they don't really look like "machines." More like "Crazy bobbing rings jerking off cylinders." It's not too hard to avoid these things, although jumping into one is the only way to avoid getting hit by a green, globby, BFG round. You lose both ways, sucker!

GAMEPLAY: The gameplay of this map is exactly the same as any other Peter Thompson map - easy frags accompanied by awful item setup or awful aesthetics. Joy of joys.

FUN FACTOR: As much as I like fragging someone with a BFG, I prefer to be the only one with it. When I'm not, well - it ain't too much fun anymore.

THE BOTTOM LINE: A big improvement over Rocket Arena, but it still is in the shit category. I'm glad that Pete found out how to add objects to his map other than lights and weapons and ammo, but then again, maybe I'm not - he still disappoints me with the placement.

Category: Rating:
Aesthetics: -4
Gameplay: -8
Item placement: -8
Layout: -6
Detail: -5
TOTAL: -31

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).