It's straight and pink, two things that don't normally go together.

Nothing adds atmosphere to a map like a Smurf with no skin.

When the 70’s ended, I mistakenly believed that all the disco lighting had been burned right along with the tons of polyester and gold plated chains. Once again, crappy mappers are proving me wrong. The latest Technicolor nightmare comes in the form of "Temple Of Boom", a first time map that is also a first time recycle bin contender.

DESCRIPTION: The readme brings some light (not colored thank heavens) to what this map was supposed to be.

Description: a large, deserted temple with gloomy lighting and some (hopefully) interesting pathways. bot support is there.

"Gloomy lighting" to the author is bright red, green, blue, and pink. I’m guessing that there was some sort of trauma caused by the Disney Main Street Electric Parade, which has destroyed the minds of many children and childlike adults. The various light sources include lamps and torches that emit a strange blue, red, or green glow from the default orange flame. None of the areas have any sort of lighting theme to them, and the different primary colors are usually placed right next to each other.

The "interesting pathways" the author writes of consist of a few ramps and some floating spiral staircases. Perhaps he was referring to the teleporters, which resemble concrete phone booths and make use of "mysterious fog technology" to alter your location.

THE MAP: Temple of Boom’s overall layout reminds me of my hallway in the mental institute… it’s just a friggin' straight line. Sure, there are a few things my hall doesn’t have. I can say with assurance that my hall does not include any of the following:

• Jesus Statues
• Swinging Crosses (you know, for the kids to play on)
• Tombs
• Pictures of Fred Savage with no skin
• Huge Quake 3 Logos

Temple Of Boom however does include all of those, although it might be someone other than Fred Savage with no skin, possibly Scott Baio.

My psychic friends told me that the author ran around the map for a few minutes and thought it looked rather plain. So with the help of a tutorial and 13 shots of Jack Daniels, several models from Q3’s standard set were added in (Jesus, skulls, corpses, decapitated heads, and skeletons to name a few). But that still wasn’t enough! Cubes upon cubes were added with animating shaders, giving us the awe inspiring “black cube inside blue cube” and “floating panel with techno iris”. No rhyme or reason to their placement, they are just strewn about the level so you don’t gouge out your eyes from thinking about the return of bell-bottoms and wide collars.

As is typical with many of these maps, item placement is an afterthought… an "after I injected Heroin" thought. All of the armor shards and small health balls are lined up near one of the… err… the only door. Weapons are strewn about, some of which are on top of random concrete asterix blocks. The Quad and Mega Health are of course in the map, at polar opposites of the map. The powerups are “hidden” behind some secret walls that open up when you shoot them. I use the word “hidden” almost in the same sense I’d call “The Avengers” a “movie”. It’s readily apparent that they are very, very bad versions of something remotely similar.

GAMEPLAY: The main tactic to this map is when you spawn in, quickly hit the tilde key and type “/quit”. All of the powerful weapons are at the same end of the map (in what I like to call "The Pink Room). Balance must have been a low priority, just below clipping toenails and polishing bowling trophies.

FUN FACTOR: In addition to being something you would cringe at if you saw in the toilet, this map also manages to include some technical problems as well. The one that you’ll be constantly reminded of is a missing .wav file, which continuously buzzes. The others are in the form of brushes overlapping, which causes some nice texture clipping. While these aren’t game stoppers, the whole map itself is.

THE BOTTOM LINE: If drooling is one of your primary “activities” you may enjoy this map, otherwise it is better left as a ward for when the dead rise from their graves. If I were a zombie, it’d sure as hell scare me away.

Category:	Rating:
Aesthetics:	- 8
Gameplay:	- 6
Item placement:	- 7
Layout:	- 7
Detail:	- 5
TOTAL:	- 33

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).