Review by DrCrypt

This is pretty atrocious, made worse by the fact that it looks absolutely nothing like the level it is supposed to represent. This level is supposed to be a very primitive take on Quake 2's dm5. It looks more like a very primitive take on a hard-drive crash. Okay, okay, I'm being a little rough on it, so let me look at this objectively.

As far as q2dm5 influences go, as far as I can tell, these are solely accomplished in a corridor with four pillars on the right-hand side (where the machine gun is in q2dm5) and a pretty loose adaptation of the underwater corridors where you find the grenade launcher. The rest of the map was unrecognizable. This isn't too surprising. The text file:

This was constructed entirely from memory and I don't even have Quake2 (I use a Mac); I just know the map from playing on my roommate's PC, so there are countless things that are different. I had no map to work from. But it is by far my favorite of the id DM levels and have played it a lot.

I'm not marking off, mind you, for the fact that this is a poor representation of q2dm5. I well understand the limitations of the DOOM engine, and furthermore, deathmatch only maps do not make good sp maps. However, overall, the level is really poorly designed. Considering the majority of the level is just made-up and not related to q2dm5 at all, this level could have been a good sp map. Unfortunately, it isn't. Messy texturing abounds, bizarre architecture, rather lame monster placement, architectural impossibilities (well, perhaps not impossibilities, but I really hate it when someone makes a skylight and the height of the sky perfectly matches the "building" around it), etc. Level progression and flow are pretty bad... I'm pretty sure I could have skipped half this map if I'd just played it right. There is also a blue key you get for fighting a cyberdemon that you don't seem to need in the slightest. Weapon placement is "the pits" (this is the second time I've reviewed a level called "thepits" and both times I've made loquacious usage of that Carrollian pun. The depth of my well of wit runs shallow). Also, the level just seems too huge, but not really in a good way.

I really don't see any point in downloading this level. If you are in the mood for Quake nostalgia, you can certainly do better (castleof.wad). If you are looking for a good single player level, you can do better. Even slige can do better. Pass.