Review by DrCrypt

Of course, everyone's heard of this map, but since we here at the DOOM Underground stubbornly hold to reviewing ancient wads that don't align textures, think three imps attacking a player fully armed to the teeth is "ultra violence", and feature illusio-pits and glass walls as pre-BOOM "special effects", it took one of us along time to get around to playing this. As everyone else told you, it rocks. I confirm.

A very cold level that takes a lot of advantage of BOOM's underwater and ice effects. It seems fairly small, but enemy placement is exemplary and health and ammo are thin for the first half of the map. I really enjoy levels that make one run around like mad, saving those last few shells, desperately trying to find a bigger weapon that will allow you to take out the horde of demons following you. Artica accomplishes that. Cyberdemon planned out the level so that one always has as much ammunition left to -just barely- counter the baddies you need to get to the next part of the level. At one point, you are in an outdoor courtyard, battling off four hell knights with just your shotgun to defend you. Once you kill them, you open a door, leading to the rest of the map, and discover a room full of imps, a couple cacodemons, and a pain elemental. You then have to run through the room, grab the ammunition at the other side, pick up two scant stimpaks, go through another door that leads to the red key room,dodge around 8 cacodemons to pick up the rocket launcher and enough rockets to take them out, then go back to finish the baddies you just left behind, where in your absence lost souls have been breeding. Your heart is always in your throat as you play the level and you constantly find yourself looking around for the stray stimpak or 4 shotgun rounds.

All the big baddies are present in the level, but it always extremely fair, and very possible to finish, although difficult. Architecture is exemplary... nice mix of small indoor areas with frantic fights and large, outdoor, profoundly cold areas. I especially enjoyed how gun fights became even more nerve-wracking as you slipped and slid around, firing your rocket launcher wildly (ie: final fight with spider demon). Lighting is very nice and gives the level a nice mood. Several interesting, but simple, puzzles to keep you interested. No texture misalignments or HOMs. Gentlemen, this is -how- to make a nice looking, simple level.

At this point, I'd like to make a request. MBF needs a windows port. While Artica is for BOOM, I'd really like to play the rest in the series, but I'm limited because the rest are for MBF, MBF is only for DOS and sound only works in Windows on my computer. Granted, I know nothing about programming, but the way I figure it, MBF is based on BOOM... there is a windows port of BOOM. Surely, I would imagine one could simply rip out the Windows code from prBOOM and utilize it in an MBF Windows port. It can't be that hard. At any rate, I won't be able to review the rest in the Artica series until some kind soul out there codes a Windows port. So there. :)

Artica: Go on and rope that doggy.