Review by Colin Phipps

"The Recession" is a compilation of the author's first few levels (the REC00x series) into a single improved level. The style is mixed, with mainly brick and marble textures. The starting area reminded me of E3M6, an island with some strange buildings surrounded by in this case water.

The transitions between the 3 parts of the level are rather obvious, but if I hadn't known this started as 3 levels it probably wouldn't have bothered me much. The level progression is certainly very linear in the early parts of the map, but later on it gets more interesting. There are some secrets to find.

The gameplay is fairly basic, not that many traps, mostly straight fights. I liked the starting fight; the fights only get tricky in the last part of the level, with some more powerful enemies. There is good scope for getting monsters fighting each other.

The architecture varies; everything was a bit plain, but many areas made up for this by being pretty stylish, in particular the final area.

There is a second level, which is taken I believe from RECLSD.ZIP by the same author. It's a surreal level, with some weird designs It's short, but with a few good fights packed in. I particularly liked the look of the starting courtyard.

For what might seem to be a my-first-levels-collection by the author, these are pretty stylish levels, not bad at all. We can look forward to some great levels to come, I hope :-).