Arctic Alert! | Single | Author: Zykov Eddy | Download 940kt

Description: You may remember Eddy from such projects as Moonbase Accident and The Dream which both featured some new ideas and interesting gameplay. Arctic Alert! is a slow-paced hi-tech map with tons of new con effects.

Design: The arctic base Duke is sent to investigate with his team seems abandoned, taken over by aliens with blood and guts everywhere. This is the kind of theme that could put stuff from movies such as Aliens into good use. However, the map looks a bit dull. Architecture is pretty good with a good variety of indoor and outdoor locations, average attention to details and effects but what's missing is effective lighting. I'd have liked to see cycler effects put into good use as well as a bit more ambitious lighting in general. Texturing is ok but with uninspiring lighting it looks, well, dull. Some of the new effects (and the midi), such as snow, steam effects and radioactivity, make the map a bit more alive.

Gameplay: This is where the map really kicks in. All enemies are new (they use old art though) and there are several cool new effects. The new monsters die easily, one shotgun blast is enough to take most of them down, but hitting is a bit tougher than usual. For some reason if autoaim is turned on the game has serious problems registering hits and you end up running out of ammo. So, it's advisable to turn autoaim off. These new monsters are quite tough SOBs if they get close to you so you probably will be running out of health a lot. There are some cool scripted sequences as well which I won't be spoiling here.

Conclusion: Thanks to all the new tricks and enemies, Arctic Base! is a surprisingly fun map despite having a rather mediocre design.

Rating: 91