Seven Stages of Megalopia by crater-creator

... bloody, awesome, and bloody awesome. Campers, don't even think of playing these.

These maps are really fun to play on! I really have a blast playing King of the Hill on Mind the Gap. I also like Warp and Weft a lot, because it's so trippy! You definitely have made improvements since first testing these maps. Nice work!

Played only a few games on this map pack but has been very fun!

A couple of the maps though, particularly Lobes and Pfhishes, could use more ammo (unless that was done for a reason), but overall, definitely worth playing.

One might argue whether ""being impressed"" means much in the context of seven-polygon levels. After all, they're bound to be relatively primitive, aren't they?

Yes and no. There's a difference between overcoming obstacles and stopping well short of them, and while these levels are probably at least as good as very early fan works for the first Marathon, what does that really say about them?

The good: given two skilled players, and a pact between them not to kill a newly-spawned player on sight, you can have fun here. Many of the levels places hold up under these two rules. In particular, The Alley Gorey, Lobes and Pfhishes, and The Bilateral Commission are the best for these types of games. Lobes and Pfhishes is the most varied and offers the best cover, while the other two can house frenetic games. Shading is paid due. CC has applied textures with admirable workmanship. Hamilton's Unfinished Cycle also features a nice trap where the invisibility powerup spawns, preventing players from following one another around for the kill.

But that's not enough. Even under the kindest circumstances, there will be frustrating games. In all levels, ammunition and weapons are sparse, meaning that more often than not you'll be on the giving or receiving end of a shotgun-vs.-pistol slaughter. Spawns will occur within sight of roaming enemies. Architecture is often boring, small, or, even more often, both. Without exception, maps have one or two separate levels. Often these are accessible by an easy-to-cover range of entrances, meaning the player on top tends to stay on top. Players don't have much choice when attempting to dodge enemy fire and often the first person to score a hit is the winner. This is a regression to the most boring aspects of early Marathon mapping, not the transcendence of self-imposed boundaries.

Yes, this review is about four years too late. I thought it would be good in any case to counter the positivism from other reviewers with something a bit more realistic.