18th of May 2025
Weather Report | Single | Author: Pepsodent | Download
The Review: It's always both inspiring and depressing to have someone debut with a map like Weather Report
that's light years ahead of anything I've done for this game in almost 30 years. The map is in a way a typical city map with
the usual set of locations; a bar, an office building, a sewer, and so on, but it's also expansive and interconnected, kinda
like a turbo-charged LA Meltdown/Shrapnel City map. It'll have you traversing streets, navigating underwater paths, jumping
rooftops and occasionally getting stuck in spritework. It excels in many things, from detailing and texturing to spritework
and cool setpieces. Neon signs and colored lights here and there stand out but without being visually distracting. The map
also relies a lot on decorative sprites for detailing, an under-appreciated thing these days (because as noobs we used to fill
our maps with sprites as they were easy to just toss in). Weather Report also makes great use of both old room-over-room and
new true-room-over-room effects, with the parking garage being one of the coolest things I've seen in the game in a while.
Another new feature the map gets plenty of mileague out of are sloped sprites, and the author has found some clever ways to
combine sprites with rotating sectors. Then there are some truly epic sights; in particular I was blown away by the final
area. The antennas, the vortex, the city backdrop - this place just rocks.
Combat is pretty good with a large-but-not-excessive amount of aliens to kill. A few bits were tricky, such as being ambushed
by several Commanders while on a rather narrow rooftop, and occasionally spritework gets in the way, but overall the map
felt balanced and fair with a generous supply of ammo, health and cover. (Oh, and I think there was just one miniboss Battlelord
and even that you can safely ignore; THANK YOU!) Sometimes the map felt a bit too dark and/or cramped, but generally speaking it's
not too hard to navigate. Still, the map's expansive and interconnected nature can occasionally throw you off (for example, I missed
the "fake" red key trigger at first and spent 5 minutes looking for a way to go after reaching the rooftops). Ultimately the map
ended up taking me a generous 35 minutes (with zero deaths). There's also some good Duke3D humor thrown in, and the map comes with
a soothing atmospheric track borrowed from Command and Conquer.
Conclusion: I can't think of many, if any, debut maps as good as Weather Report. It feels both classic and modern, demonstrating the author has an understanding of what makes a good retro-style Duke3D city map while also utilizing the engine's more recent features. And of course Weather Report is not only a joy to look at but also a lot of fun to play.
Rating: 95
