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GMD Verdict  

Review of Crush Depth - Final Plunge
"a nice map beneath the waves..."
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Map Name   Crush Depth - Final Plunge (crushdepth.bsp)
Map Version   v2
Map Author   Jeff "Maestro" Kuecken
Download   crushdepth.zip (1.22mb)
 
Reviewer   carcinogen
Reviewed on   Wed Oct 10 13:19:17 2001
This map earns the GMD Seal of Approval!

My first review, ahh, something new! How I longed for something besides factories, refineries, research stations or spaceships... now we have a factory/refinery/researchstation (whatever the hell it is) underwater... and it's actually quite good! (GloomSE was technically underwater, but the execution at portraying this was much poorer than this new lovely incarnation)

When I first loaded this map, I spawned as human and walked from the human "base" (a simple empty sub, I presume). Initial reactions were "so-so"... although upon wandering a little, things started to fall into place, and my paradigm shifted. The layout is tight and well planned, albeit at first confusing, and everything goes nicely (with the exception of the spider base). There's 2 ways out of the spider base, one of which is a small hallway, the other which is leading into the worst part of the map: the soon-to-be-infamous underwater room (que the evil music).

Water would make sense, yes, because one can assume that the map takes place at the bottom of the ocean. Although, since access to the ocean is simply but a hole in the floor, wouldn't the force from the water pressurize the air to a fatal level? And wouldn't jumping in the water insta-gib you (hence the name crush-depth)? Bah, who cares, it's for gloom. Generally, water should be avoided at all costs, gloom wasn't meant to allow duels in water. Especially when the only main alternate route forces you to go through this. Avoiding drowning is tricky... if you stay and fight, you simply drown to death. The only good thing that can arise from deep water, is to void passing of exterms or mechs (and the very elusive, rare, and cunning engineer), making the layout more diverse or interesting. Although, with this in mind, forcing you to travel through LOTS and LOTS of water is generally a bad thing. Just a hair of oxygen at the top of this room would have been very much welcomed...

The rest of the layout is interesting to say the least, many side-rooms and alternate routes with fun alternate to alternate routes to other alternate routes, w/o being overtly confusing... Not bad at all. A solid layout with only a few minor negative implements (the major gripe being the water), and this map lacks any major chokepoints. The lighting was simply boring, nothing elaborate and nothing to heighten the sense of atmosphere, no eerie blue or green lights to give you those underwater creeps. Shame that it's all bland, dull yellow. But wait, totalkarn is uglier than HOB's mullet, looks don't make a map, and this map isn't lacking in looks. Just a few tweaks here and there, and the map could be made very pretty in little effort. That's really all that bothers me.

The textures were... not fitting to say the least, and rather un-interesting. And these same boring textures were over used extensively, and the end result is mediocre. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it sections of this map just seem uninteresting. Sorry. Don't get me wrong, there are sections that look very nice, but there are also parts of this map that sit on their ass and just scream "blah".

r_speeds are decent the whole way through, never noticed it being that high. But now now, we must now ask ourselves, does it even matter anymore? In case you didn't know, Saig recently got a 3d card, so now there is nobody to care about the implications of high r_speeds :) (lets all thank RX for mailing saig a voodoo3!)

Simply put, the good layout takes the cake as being merely above average. The visuals are average to above average, so it evens out to be an above average map. I have my gripes, but all in all, this is a great map which richly deserves it's fair share of the onecall rotation. I'll be a good Carc, and give it a GMD Seal of Approval.


User comments:
R_speeds are still murder on a P133. Get your facts straight. >:( - Saig
get a new computer you bum - HOB
thought a 3d card would improve framerates over software :P - Carcinogen
Yuck - Xenoid
I want a voodoo3! :( Nice review. - Cataclaw
hahaha.....saig i 0wn j00 >:P - Knuckles
I like men. - Who-[Soup]
I have Big Balls - MuNrOe
unce unce unce - Brolli
this review was sucka - cube
rape me - im horney

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Comment on this review:

Average rating for Crush Depth - Final Plunge: 3.8/10

Rate-O-Map™

Total: 52 ratings
 
Textures
Cube Cube

Comment: 2 cubes, merely "mediocre". Repetitive, boring, bland, doesn't seem to fit the theme very well.

Layout
Cube Cube Cube Cube

Comment: It could have been better in parts (the evil water), and some parts may get confusing. 4 cubes, it was close, I was just about to take one cube off for that ungodly water...

Creativity
Cube Cube Cube

Comment: Unique enviroment, interesting rooms. A good creative idea set apart from the space ships and industrial type settings, executed with the right style. Other than that, athough, it's just a facility in disguise, with water through the windows. 3 Cubes, one cube off for some of the "blah" that I encountered.

Overall
Cube Cube Cube

Comment: Synopsis: An above-average, simply good map. 3 cubes, one cube off for the combined efforts of the bland texturework and the evil water room. Now go vote for it on the GMD map-rotation poll!
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