[ Rating ]
Design = 8
Flow = 7
Balance = 5
Textures = 8
Overall = 7.0
[ Retro Quake ]
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"Water,
water, everywhere... and not a drop to
drink"
The
Ancient Aquaduct level is well named,
because it's all about the water! Once
you get into this level, you notice right
away that there is literally water
everywhere you look, so it helps to see
where you're going. The original designer
did not implement transparent water
support in this level, but your friends
at Retro Quake have thoughtfully taken
care of this oversight. With all the
water, if this level were run on older
systems or with poor video cards the
r_speed's would be terribly slow; but on
modern systems with a good 3Dfx or OpenGL
card, even the biggest areas run smoothly.
So feel free to set wateralpha to 0.4,
and go!
Aqua is
broken down to a Red Sector, a Green
Sector, and a Blue Sector, each one
filled with big adventures and
challenges, but overall it still seems a
little too short. Some of the areas boast
some really nice architecture though,
with one area having a movable elevated
tunnel, and a nice underground lake with
some sunken buildings that remind the
player of E1M4 (The Grisly Grotto). There
is also a very cool elevated aquaduct in
the Blue Sector that's worth checking out
(it leads to the exit anyway).
[ top ]
There are
some nice secrets to be had (6 in all,
they are detailed in the README), and a
decent balance of enemies, although an
experienced player may find the level a
little too sparsely populated for any
great challenge. One of the secrets is a
large ammo/weapon cache which is
unguarded; a rarity for a Quake level.
The pace picks up a bit in Blue Sector
however, with a Shambler or two, a
couple of Fiends, and some Enforcers to
keep things lively. Again though, the
level is over surprisingly quick,
considering it's broken down into 3 good-sized
zones.
There is
one glaring problem with this level
though. In Red Sector, the main objective
is to open the gate that is blocking the
entrance to a wind pipe. However, once
the player enters that pipe, the force of
the wind inside the pipe is so strong
that the player gets stuck at the top of
it, and needs to use the NOCLIP cheat to
get out. This is the only major flaw in
an otherwise very entertaining map.
Overall,
The Ancient Aquaduct is a cool map with
some fun enemy encounters and pretty neat
design. It suffers from a somewhat sparse
enemy count and a problem with getting
stuck in one of the windpipes, but
overall it's a very enjoyable level.
Recommended.
Level
Created by Roger Staines
Other file
by the author :
Elsinore
Review by Zoopster
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