atomic tomb - brad spencer

Filename: at.zip

File size: 132K

Author: Brad Spencer

Homepage: www.gis.net/~bspencer

Other work: 4 levels in --------------, see textfile

Brad Spencer's Atomic Tomb comes across as a 'classic episode 1'-style map,
but I must say now: it is far better than that. Much more detail in it and
attention to gameplay. Starting from the beginning: the map is constructed
in such a way that you have a number of options of where to go, right from
the start. The attention to detail in this is fantastic; wall-lights give out
small pools of light in front of them, equipment sometimes blinks, the whole
map looks very solid architecturally. As has been hinted at before, the map
is not very linear at all, so there are a number of different routes available
through it, enhancing the experience. The screenshot below is shortly after
you have picked up the blue key. Note that you can visit the two keys in
either order, but you need both to exit.



As Brad is a LMP-maker (like myself), I expected the map to be well-balanced
in its gameplay. I was right about that; you get a shotgun right at the start
and there is a fair bit of action most of the way through. The absence of
the Doom2 monsters (this is a Doom1 map) was a bit of a mixed blessing; on the
one hand, I rejoiced because there are no chaingunners, but on the other, I was
a bit pissed off because there were no hellknights either. There are barons
instead. :-) But this is not a real complaint on my part. The only possible
gripe would be the cyberdemon fight at the end. As I cheated and turned on
god-mode while playing this through in UV (well, I wanted to review this today,
didn't I? :-) I noticed a number of times that I ran out of cells while fighting
him. I think the answer to that would be to leave loads of monsters alive so
they might be able to kill him.

As I have said before, there are no bugs anywhere, the texture-alignment is
fantastic, no HOMs anywhere, nothing to be really worthy of complaint. Well done.

The aesthetic qualities of this map are fantastic - the old E1 (classic?)
looks very ugly after playing this. (As Simon Varszhegy said when reviewing
this: Romero looks over-rated these days...) Below is the area with the final
cyberdemon-fight, as you can see the proportion is just about right, the texture
usage is spot-on, and the lights, as always in this map, are perfectly placed
and the lighting well judged.



The thing placement is also very good; ammo placement is well done (I never ran
out, except at the end), there's plenty of health, so you won't be in dire straits
for too long, and the 'other' things are used well. In the above picture, in
the famous end hall, you can see a lot of corpses and body-splats. This can really
give the impression that an area is Not Nice To Be Caught Hanging Around In. (TM :-)
It certainly does here. But then again, so does the sound of the cyberdemon waking
up when you fire the first shot in the map. :-)

verdict