Dark Place 3 | Single | Author: Taivo Maripuu | Download 102Kt

Description: Third part in Taivo's Dark Place serie. Dark, spooky, original & good looking winter level.

Design: Taivo has developed his skills quite much since his first released level 'Taivo Deathcity'. Taivo has his own style even Dark Place serie has some elements from Red 3. Design is very high-quality in the third part of Dark Place serie. I have always been a big fan of snow & blue and this level has a lot both of them. Many textures have a blue palette as well as enemies. Dark Place 3 has good both indoor & outdoor locations and its terrain design - even in wide areas - is extremely good looking. Shadows are present and realistic. Level is dark but not too dark - you can always see where you're going.

Textures: Everything is either blue or white - oh and there's some gray stuff as well. This combination generates very good looking & realistic landscapes. Stretched canyon (moon textures in fact) textures look very good in the Ski Jump area. There's also an art gallery where textures have been used & aligned very well.

Gameplay: In the beginning you'll have to fight with a pistol for a while and perhaps even kick a few Liztroops but you'll soon discover better guns. The number of ammunitions is quite low so I suggest you to shoot carefully. Enemies attack in packs sometimes but quite frequently you'll just encounter single opponents and smaller packs. So the number of both weapons and enemies is quite low at times but the balance between them is good. Puzzles are quite typical key hunting with some new innovations.

Innovations: First Duke3D level which has a ski jump hill. It's huge and in a way - realistic. The whole ski jump area is very well made with all sorts of nice innovations - things you'd find from a ski jump area. The hill itself offers you a nice puzzle which might be a bit tricky at first. There are also sharks flying in the air - an 'effect' invented by Maarten Oostrum (used in 'Alien Planet X64-2'). Either you like it or you don't. I think it made nature of this planet a bit more living.

Conclusion: So far the best level from Taivo. Good looking, original and plays well.

Rating: 92