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***QUAKE3STUFF MAP COMPETITION ENTRY***
Blood Portal by Dubbilan
Reviewed by RawShark webmaster of RawShark's Quake2 maps
Filename: dubblood.pk3
Originally released as dubbilan.pk3, this map is not to everyone's taste, including the bots - who can't figure out some parts of the map and generally hang around the one area. It's got some very badly placed items, a few misaligned brushes and some awful texture choices. Top all that off with the fact that there's no use of lightmap information and you have the possibility of a very ugly map. So why did this map not come absolutely last in our map competition if it's so goddam bad? Because it only really loses out on appearance, that's why. This map has some very original thinking behind it (see the "upsidedown waterfall") and is highly playable in a 1on1 DM, particularly for newbies.
There are plenty of opportunities to play cat and mouse and plenty of little helpers to the novice player e.g. spawning right above the Quad Damage. R_speeds are all within acceptable parameters. Good choices have been made regarding weapons - the Railgun would definitely have been missed had it been left out. There should probably be a bit more health lying around. I would really like to have seen a giant river of blood running through this map as the title suggested to me. That would have ruled!
I could start spewing on about connectivity matters and such like my peer LVL (who coincidentally completely slated this map after receiving a very early beta version), but that's not my style. I'll tell you in plain English. This is not a terrible map. True, it looks like hell (quite literally if you're using a low end graphics card - way too much red lighting! You'll see what I mean) but it does have it's moments. The map has this whole upper/outside area that I have no fragging idea how you're suppose to get to, or even if it is possible to get there at all! I must mail Dubbilan about that one. Final word? If you're a newbie, grab it. Otherwise check how much space you actually have to spare on your HD and mark this one as temporary if you decide to D/L it.
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