Yeah, these enhance gameplay alright.

AEon's Cyber Arena is pretty much what I expected from a map with the word "Cyber" in the title - pretty damn awful. Who the hell uses the word "cyber" that's not a total idiot? Anybody that says "cyberspace" around me gets a cup of steaming urine thrown in their face.

DESCRIPTION: The text file description for this deathmatch gem claims it was designed for "GL Cards, like with Diamond Monster 3D (Voodoo 3Dfx)" or else "level ill look plain indeed". I find this interesting, because I don't think even the most powerful graphics workstation could make this map look anything better than "retina scarring awful." Having made six other maps for Duke Nukem, the author claims he left off "thrills" like teleporters and doors because they "mess up the game flow". Somebody should inform the author that having to wait for your eyesight to adjust after entering every single room messes up game play as well. Unless, of course, the game is "let's give Quake players a huge fucking headache", in which case the author succeeds with flying colors (haha, "flying colors"! Get it?).

THE MAP: As mentioned before, this map is a good friend to colored lighting. Every room has a distinct personality, which can be summed up as either "red, green, or blue." These colors add a lot to the game, things that probably couldn't be achieved without physically beating the guy playing the map with a bag of doorknobs. The author has

Look! It's the green room!

chosen to stick with the popular shitty mapping theme, "a bunch of small rooms connected by hallways." These rooms are in no order and seem to be placed in random locations, perhaps after the author lost a bet. Textures are misaligned and ones that were not meant to be repeated on a single surface are. Of course there's the obligatory lava on the map, as the author must've felt pity for me playtesting this map and wanted an easy way to commit suicide. Most of this map appears to have been created while the author was sniffing glue, as nobody in their right mind could want to play deathmatch in this colored hell.

GAMEPLAY: What gameplay? After showing screenshots of this thing to other people, I couldn't pay anybody to jump on a server with this running.

FUN FACTOR: Surprisingly little, unless you hate your eyesight or are trying to fail a military physical.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It's a fantastic map if you're turned on by poor gameplay, bad room flow, awful texture placement, lighting that should be illegal, and weapon placement that seems to follow no logical thought.

- Cranky Steve

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).