The AMC Pleaser | Single/Multi | Author: MRCK & Maarten van Oostrum | Download 92Kb
Description: In their quest to please Nancsi, a community regular, Aymeric "MRCK" Nocus & Maarten v. Oostrum came up with a city map that borrows bits and pieces of influence from 3DRealms maps and covers it all with more recent influences.
Design: 3DRealms infuences are all there, but in my opinion the map falls pretty strictly under the MRCK-Oostrum category which means ambitious texturing and filling rooms with sprites. The usual multi-color texturing is absent though, otherwise the map wouldn't have been any different from, say, Happy Hangover in terms of design. What struck me as the most amazing part of the map is the main street area with tall, good looking buildings and realistic lighting. The map is amazingly open for an MRCK map, especially the latter part of the map where you spend time flying high above the main street. The openness is more evident when you notice all the buildings behind the walls which define the gameplay area.
Gameplay: Here the map falls under the 3DR category much more consistently. You stroll from one location to another picking up keys and fighting monsters that respawn in good amounts. As suggested above, the usual crampedness of MRCK maps is mostly gone. You fight on the street level, below it and high above it. Especially the ending with several high-altitude Battlelord combats was pretty neat. As with 3DR maps, getting lost is out of the question unless you're a moron with subpar navigation skills. The Nancsi Pleaser complex looked a bit modest though in terms of dirtiness. Maybe the upstairs should have had a couple more rooms with chicks? For those of you who yearn for secret places, this map has eight of them.
Conclusion: A good and pretty standard city map with a bit more ambitious design than in most 3DR influenced maps.
Rating: 91
