dark star - michael krause

Filename: darkstar.zip

File size: 290K

Author: Michael Krause

Homepage: none to my knowledge

Other work: a lot, see textfile

Nomonsters LMP here (03:32, 1498 bytes)
note: this LMP requires MBF



This is the first map I have played by Michael Krause, and it certainly looks
fantastic. Right from the start, where you are in a small 'river' of lava
and you can see the radio masts, I knew instinctively it would be sensational
all the way through. Throughout this page are examples of the great ways in
which Michael has made it really futuristic and increased the scale by a great
deal more than I would ever dare to in my own maps. :-)

Gameplay is a little bit patchy, but that doesn't detract from the experience
one little bit. The main problem is ammo shortage, but as this map is amazing
even without the monsters, I hardly noticed. :-) But the actual problem I noticed
with this map was that the outdoor areas were so huge and complex that they
slowed down my P166 with 32MBs of RAM down to a virtual crawl (for Doom, anyway)
But as Michael hasn't put many monsters in large, outdoor areas, that is not
really a gameplay-detraction factor.



No actual bugs anywhere, I noticed the odd mis-alignment here and there, but
as this map is so huge (over a meg when unzipped, plus graphics), that is
quite forgivable, it's so hard trying to find things like that in a map this big.

Aesthetically, this map is fantastic. Lots of structural things placed spot-on,
very well done. In the lower shot you can vaguely see a line of pillars, and
that where the other line should be, the pillars are toppled over. This is
quite realistic for sci-fi movie-style maps (or any map for that matter).
The only strange things I have noticed are that a 'grid window' texture doesn't
tile properly, so it's only in the upper half of the window (an even stranger-
looking effect can be seen in TNT-Evilution's map21, where the window is bigger.)
Also, Michael appears to have misplaced his crate flats - grey tops on brown
crates and vice versa. I don't know if he's noticed this....



I haven't got any real 'thing placement' comments, commenting about such things
is so banal after you have been touched by a stroke of true genius such as this.
:-) So I'll give it a 9, because the things have been tactfully placed in
this map.

verdict