20th of September 2025

M.S.'s Battlelord Trauma Care Center | Single/Multi | Author: Aymeric "MRCK" Nocus | Download

The Review: Duke Nukem finds himself in a Battlelord trauma center run by yours truly - I'm sure there's a joke about my dislike of Battlelords somewhere here...
Anyway, this is a short-ish puzzle map with plenty of neat visual ideas and clever Build tricks. Tasks include a visit to a shooting range, painting on a canvas and participating in a group therapy session (my favorite bit in addition to the "Lola" ending sequence). Almost everything involves some Build trick that'll have you wondering how the author managed to pull it off in the editor without the use of new con code. There's almost nothing too obscure here; aside from a bug in an earlier version, I was stuck only once due to misleading feedback (in the lobby), but even that may be clearer now in the published version. Often there's some psychological meaning behind what you see, but due to the engine's age these may be lost on the player. Still, MRCK has gotten plenty of mileage out of the map's psychological theme, and there's some well-presented meta stuff in it as well. There are several endings of which at least two are worth checking out and relatively easy to find once you reach the roof of the building: One involves chasing a woman, the other fighting an Icon-of-Sin type of wall monster with some wild visuals.
The map is hard to rate as your experience may vary, and it's not exactly simple to pit such an experimental, puzzle-heavy map against the usual bunch, so this one is left scoreless. But don't let the puzzle-tag scare you; if you're even a bit familiar with the engine, the map shouldn't be too frustrating or anything, leaving you with more time to just enjoy its tricks and visuals rather than hitting your Use key in frustration.

Rating: No rating