30th of December 2025

Another Attack 3: Down the Upstairs | Single | Author: Maarten van Oostrum | Download

Description: Maarten's Another Attack series is five years in the making. We're at part three now, and if everything goes well there's more to come.

Into It: Duke has left Weissensee behind and finds himself in a vast network of caves showing signs of alien infestation. The first part is relatively open-ended, as you need to find several scattered buttons to open up a set of stairs. This gives the player freedom to navigate as he sees fit, but it also comes with the risk of getting lost. In my case I missed a semi-obvious entrance and spent 10 minutes wandering around, which kinda soured me on the first part. At midpoint you'll come across a sky tram; not the first of its kind in the game, but still a cool sight, especially with the bleak sky backdrop against which there stands a lonely apartment building in the distance.
In the third "act" the map hits a high gear, as you come across what seems to be a city built within a massive cavern. It's kinda like a modern Khazad-dûm (with an obvious reference to Minas Tirith at the top of the climb as well). Despite the massive size, it's always fairly obvious where to go, and that's almost always up; it's nice to have a somewhat clear objective from the getgo rather than having to wander around. The city itself is largely a decoration, as you'll never enter even a single building; it's merely an obstacle to get over. The bit also makes good use of rail tracks (if you ever wondered how the inhabitants of the city got around...).
Combat is pretty fun, as you'll come across almost every enemy type available in the game, often in packs. There are a few Battlelords too, but you should be well-equipped to deal with them quickly. The map's monster count is rather big, but so is the size of the map itself (took me 35 minutes), so it never feels like it gets excessive.
The map comes with a new soundtrack (weighing 30 megabytes, which is a tad excessive...); too bad I had turned my music off because of W.A.R.T.H.U.G.Z. and never remembered to turn it back on. I did put the track on while writing this review for some extra immersion, and would surely have enjoyed it while playing the map as well.

Conclusion: If Weissensee slightly lacked the wow-factor that was heavily present in Woudrichem War, then Down the Upstairs brings some of that epicness back.

Rating: 96