Watch out for the semisolid monsters...

...this map gives a new meaning to "ice fishing".

Isn't this impressive? Well, it'd be more impressive if we could tell what exactly it's a picture of.

An entire castle made out of ice (blue and white blocks)... and square steps... and monsters that clip through the ground... and double brushes... and doors that kill you...

DESCRIPTION: Well, it's a vague kind of (something). I don't really know how to describe the ice castle, as it left a dull, throbbing sensation in my head after playing it, much like the time I stole the painkillers from the dentist's office. I feel total apathy after running through this thing. In the text file, the author gives great instructions on how to install his map: "1.Put the icecastle.bsp in your c:/quake2/baseq2/maps folder. If you have maps folder make one." You got that? If you have a "maps" folder, be sure to make one. Hey, I never claimed these mapmakers were writers. Or grade school graduates either.

Under the file description, the author writes "Note.. I didn't put any objectives in it becasue I don't know how" which is excellent, because I frankly feel that having an objective in a single player map just ruins the game. I like to just run around a square base for hours, trying to find poorly textured switches that open doors in areas six miles away. That's my idea of pleasure. Well, that and Mynx in the back of my pickup truck after a few cases of JD. Although I heard she has some weird ankle fetish.

The compiling machine is listed as "?????-what is this?", which leads me to believe that the author compiled the entire map by hand. Some of those vertices must've been hard to do, but I guess he has excellent eyesight. Although not excellent enough to put any shading into this map. Oh well.

THE MAP: Well, there's some ice, and there's a castle. I can't really say much about the map other than that. Monsters routinely clip through walls and floors, doors have a tendency to crush you, and there's no objective to this map. Since all the textures are the same, you can't distinguish anything from its surroundings. Everybody who saw me playing this map had conversations with me that went something like this:

INNOCENT BYSTANDER: "What are you playing?"

ME: "The 'Ice Castle' map for Quake 2."

INNOCENT BYSTANDER: (frowning) "Why?"

I could never come up with a sufficient explanation. I usually ended up throwing curry powder into their eyes, and while they were blinded, I would push them out an open window. No jury in the world will convict me once my lawyer explains I played "The Ice Castle" before murdering them.

GAMEPLAY: I think the author's quote sums this map up quite nicely: "I didn't put any objectives in it."

FUN FACTOR: If you like blue and white squares, you'll love this map. Well, you'll more than likely just hate it less than the rest of us.

THE BOTTOM LINE: I'd like to use another quote to answer this part: "?????-what is this?"

- 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).