Happy Hangover | Single | Author: Aymeric "MRCK" Nocus | Download 230Kb, Mirror
Description: MRCK is back after a brief hiatus with a city map that sticks to MRCK's style of designing city maps with influences from both Red and Roch maps.
Design: Like all of MRCK's maps, this one is filled with tons of sprites and quite innovative texturing. Some dislike the style but it works for me in small doses. (3DRealms style simple texturing can be visually just as appealing as the kind of used in this map although much simpler.) Especially the buildings surrounding one end of the second street area are quite stunning with tons of sprites. Keep these in mind the next time you come across a map with just flat one-texture walls as buildings. There are some moody locations, mostly the kind of you can't reach, with pitch black backgrounds and lights hanging in the distance.
Gameplay: Hangover is a 20-30 minute run where you're bound to get slightly lost a time or two. However, finding your way is just a matter of taking a careful look at your surroundings. Halfway through Duke gets drunk and you'll spend the next few minutes in a bizarre version of reality, a part that works pretty well with a few cool scripted sequences. With the help of unreachable locations, changing weather and good lighting the map has been given a nice boost of ambience. Item/monster ratio is good although the first five minutes are clearly tougher than the remaining fifteen. You'll come across several secret locations and easter eggs so keep your eyes open. Also, as far as I know this is the first Duke map to feature a kebab restaurant.
Conclusion: Not a revolutionary map but still an excellent one that borrows some fine elements from other maps (including MRCK's own) and throws in a few new ones.
Rating: 94
