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Friday, 01 September 2000 -
Evolutionary Hate ? 1 comment
"Centaura" | despiiise.zip | 1.2 MB | 1.09.00 | Duel | site |

Description:

With a distinctive "main room" (RA, RL, GL), plus a complex series of approaches from the three other rooms, Despiiise is a map where you must use your brains in the fight for control over RA. If you're on the "down" side, the obvious stage for regrouping is in the basement, where you can get a RL, YA, shards and a MH. The trick is, if you take the MH you are forced to teleport into the RA room in a rather vulnerable spot. Alternatively, you might take one of three routes to the RA room - through to the upper level with LG and more shards, the sneaky SG passage under the floor of the RA plaza, or the direct teleport route into the plaza (guns blazing - "here I am muthafuckah").

Getting between the RA room and the MH room is quick enough (especially in CPM), but also provides enough time to prevent spawn raping. Movement around the map is fast and smooth, with ample oppoprtunity to show off your l33t skills by making jumps which give you a small advantage.

The variety of options for attack and the cool jumps, platforms and tricky stuff are what make Despiiise one of the most interesting duel maps to have appeared recently. If you are in control of RA, patrolling your territory is no simple matter. Your opponent can appear from nearly anywhere and if you try to sit right on the RA you will be on a tiny platform with a nice wall behind you ready for splash damage. If you want to chase down your opponent, it is not a simple matter as they might not be where you think they are. You might also get down to the lower RL only to see them teleport back up to RA - better time it right so that they have nothing to find when they get there.

Visually, Despiiise is a treat - based on the DM7 design it has those otherworldy spires and plenty of attention to detail. The result is an exciting map that is reminiscent of DM6.

Author's Comments - A major part of our mapping project is to understand what forces are at work that influence or restrict how players interface with the pieces authors build. I asked Centaura to tell us a little about what went into Despiiise:

In continuance with my current infatuation with inserting 3 iii's in words, comes this level which I have derived from my Quake 1 level named DiMeBoX8, but this time it's designed for Pro-Mode (well, you can play it with Vq3, but why bother?). For the sake of 1on1 playability I removed the 6 quads that inhabited the original design : ), and made a few architectural adjustments, mainly in opening up a few of the areas

I've aimed for a controllable map with it's fair share of vertical fighting, multiple access routes into rooms and l33t platform jumps. The level is smallish in size but it can be difficult to get at the other player unless you play with speed and vision.

I've also spent a great deal of time on map detail, as I believe aesthetics and gameplay are as important as each other. Texture scheme is based on Q3DM7.

I've gone for a fairly common weapon layout amongst custom mappers - namely 2 rl, lg, gl, shottie. The absence of the Railgun is a known bug. I must have forgotten to put it in or something. Oh dear : )