Crash
When I look
for new single player missions to play I ususally
look for ones made by people I haven't heard of.
By doing this you sometimes discover great up and
coming mappers. Despite a few problems, Crash
proves that Sigurd Svidal Randal is one of these
people.
Straight away we can see that the author knows
what he is doing. You begin the mission
surrounded by rocky terrain. This has been well
made and despite its complexity the author
manages to keep the r_speeds under control. One
problem I do have with some of the outside areas
is the strange use of blue and purple lighting,
reducing your brightness (like the author
suggests) seems to eliminate this, however doing
this makes it incredibly hard to see some areas
of the map. As I mentioned before the author
creates some well made architecture but manages
to keep the r_speeds down, I had a look around
and they rarely go over 600, and most of the time
they are much lower than this. The atmosphere in
many parts of the map could have been improved by
adding more ambient sounds, the lack of these
makes the map seem slightly fake. As soon as you
enter the house the author throws several suprise
attacks at you from various directions, we can
see that he has not just randomly placed his
enemies, but has thought about it and produces
some excting fights in the process. One of my
major problems with Crash is the weak story. This
map entertains but I would have preferred to have
seen a more involving and developed plot. The
author also demonstrates that he knows how to use
World Craft through his use of sequences. He uses
the camaras at the beginning to let the player
know whats happening to them and to warn them of
oncoming dangers (like the marines storming the
house). The combat throughout Crash is quite well
balanced, I would never say it is too easy and
never too hard. However, if you feel like a
challenge then try your luck on the hard
difficulty setting.
Throughout the mission the other provides some
fun set pieces to keep the player entertained.
The first of these is the marines attack on the
house, this is probably the best fight in the
entire map and some of you will not come out of
it alive on you first try! Another fun part is
having to take down a squad of grunts using a
huge M-60 machine gun behind a piece of
bulletbroof glass that gets so many bulletholes
in it that you have no idea where to shoot! Crash
also holds the award for having the world
strangest toilet. The seat turns sideways instead
of up. This is the only outstanding error in the
entire map and doesn't take anything away from
what the author has already achieved. Later in
the level the author uses some ambient sounds
which help the atmosphere slightly, if this was
so at the beginning of the level it would seem
more "real". I have one other problem
with the map, this is that the texturing gets a
little lazy in places which is a shame as
throughout most of the level it is quite well
done. This is most noticible in the overlong lift
ride at the end of the level (as it takes so long
you end up just staring at the walls, which is
about as fun as watching paint dry). After this
lift ride the author rounds the map of using a
slightly weak ending, which is well executed but
makes you think that he just didn't know how best
to finish it.
Overall, Crash is a very well made level. However
it seriously lacks a decent story and ends far
too soon. If he takes my advice on board, I can't
wait to see what the author does next. This map
is easily worth 20 minutes of you time.
SCORE:
C
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