timothy

This should be a mandatory part of the Marathon scenario download. (not a joke)

I can't put my finger on it but there just seems to be something missing.

Try texturing that white column on the right side of the page with some screenshots and I'll review this again.

--

Noticed a pattern with @Dis, it seems almost all his reviews are one star. Don't feel bad, just ignore his comments. -at least my stuff is safe from his inane chatter.

...but not best. If you end up making a plugin, are you going to have to rename this to Radiance Plugins?

Screenshots would be nice to help illustrate the difference.

The Infinity shapes file contains the these wonderful characters in the filename -- [M?ê?]. I've had trouble using files like that in the past with Windows.

They're ok, I guess.

function rate() { x = document.getElementsByClassName('current-rating'); for (var i in x) { x[i].style.cssText = "width: 25px"; x[i].innerHTML = "Currently 1/5 Stars."; } }

if (document.URL != "http://www.simplici7y.com/reviews") window.onload = rate;

Does this work on Windows 7 64-bit? It doesn't seem to do anything.

function rate() { x = document.getElementsByClassName('current-rating'); for (var i in x) x[i].style.cssText = "width: 125px; "; }

if (document.URL != "http://www.simplici7y.com/reviews") window.onload = rate;

Thanks for releasing this, but I'm concerned about the license. Are we free to modify and redistribute the source code with attribution?

I'm also curious about the name of that awesome font used in the screenshot. The closest match according to WhatTheFont is Base Mono Narrow Thin, which looks similar but I'm not convinced they are the same.

Edit:

Oops. Forgot that including a random YouTube video with every review was going to be my new shtick.

An excellent collection of maps for the most part. Unfortunately some of the original Infinity netmaps were so awful no amount of work could correct them.

I only wish the engine could be updated to automatically substitute these maps whenever someone attempted to host the originals online, banishing Duality and Wrath No More? from living memory.

Except for Sands Serif, which is the only map worse than the original.

These always bring a smile to my face. Keep up the good work.

The maps are simple but there is a surprising amount of detail in some of the areas. Very nice.

These screenshots were surprisingly good. They are properly cropped, the HUD is hidden, and I can't even fault the lack of anti-aliasing because you are obviously using software rendering. There are even labels under each picture. The only small problem I can find is that you did not hide the weapon from view, but because it is not obvious how to disable this I can't deduct too many points from your score.

In fact, I guess I must concede that they're basically perfect, which makes it such a shame that your subject is such a bland, generic set of maps. The lack of recent maps, and high quality and level of detail in the awful Deeze Maps must have shifted my overton window of acceptable maps because I had forgotten just how bad maps could be. Thank you for the reminder, and keep up the good work. With several years of practice you'll be turning out quality maps in no time.

Love it!

Nice work. This looks great. I prefer Platinum, or at least the 7.5 controls, but these have a nice look to them.

The physics department was always making fun of the applied cartography students at my school. Keep up the good releases!

I'm going to ignore the slight cropping issue and split texture in the screenshot and get serious for a moment. This looks good. If I ever play M1A1 again, this is the HUD I'll use.

Looks like a great custom HUD, but most of your screenshots are taken up by some random map in the background. Consider turning on 2x HUD scaling and cropping out the rest to reduce download time.

@thermo ok that looks kind of cool. I guess I'll have to actually download this one.

Low resolution, with huge black borders and a giant HUD at the bottom. These screenshots make almost every mistake in the book.

Aside from the technical problems, the composition is poor and the lighting in inadequate. Is that a wall or a hallway? What weapon is that on the floor? Who was that masked man, anyway? Everything is so dark, I just can't tell. Try using the lighten filter in Photoshop to bring out those details and make the colors pop!

I've realized it's unfair of me to review maps based solely on the screenshots, so I'll follow this to its logical conclusion and just review the screenshots.

You've included a nice variety here. Ten screenshots provide a good overview of the map. All of the pictures have unique labels, the HUD has been hidden, and there are no black borders surrounding the play area.

Unfortunately the screenshots show significant aliasing, and in several you can see the VML interface.

I recommend enabling 16x anti-aliasing and increasing the resolution to at least 1080i. You may also want to include a side-by-side comparison between the regular and simplified versions of the map.

Overall, Cesspi looks like a great collection of maps. The snow effect is supper effective. Spiroche7e is clearly the standout map. Everything is done in a beautiful minimalist style reminiscent of the original Marathon architexture. You can clearly see the evolution from earlier works like Werefrog evident in these new maps.

Version 1.5 is a great improvement. I'd say they're just about perfect. With shaders and anti-aliasing enabled, even old maps look amazing now.

The Jjarro set is the weakest of the four. Something about the textures just looks wrong. The other sets are still a huge improvement, so it's worth downloading so that everything matches.

I'm sure some of you are going to write this off as a joke review, but I think this could add a new challenge to games. I'd be even more impressed if you could somehow make a big head mode, like in GoldenEye 64. I think someone wrote a headshot lua script that would work well with it.

Oh, and how did you get the physics to make the screen size smaller too?

I must have missed this one the first time around, but I saw it pop up on the review feed. Thanks M1 Map Guy.

So... where are the pictures?

These maps are DUGIT/ENVY quality. Only one or two are playable. We're not all cut out for mapping. At least you've got other strengths.

I wish more people used these textures. RED is a great Arena map. BLUE is a lot of fun to hit the water switch and watch everyone float away. GREEN is great shotgun map, but make sure you're hosting for HOST ATVANTAGE. The rest aren't that good. DO'NT PLAY RAINBOW unless you unmerge with atQ and modify the lua to remove the annoying bobs and sound. Overall, above average pack, but could use some work. Maybe some original maps too.

I remember writing a detailed review. No time for that now. Hill Elimination + One Way 2 aaarre a killer combination. A++++++ WOULD HOST AGAIN

My favorite texture. Looks promising. Keep up the good work.

For christ's sake, is it really so hard to include a couple of pictures?

Played the demo. Great maps. Screenshots wher?

It's just Duality, except more... Funner.

Very, uh, classic design. There are a lot of rechargers and powerups you don't often see in multiplayer maps. Lots of winding stairs and long corridors. The only map that really stands out is the one with the river running down the middle.

There are plenty of weapons and ammo scattered around, which makes these definitely playable compared to older maps, but the rest of the design can't keep up with modern packs.

Review of screenshots only. Will play and update rating later.

UPDATE: The readme was a little sparse, but I finally managed to get everything installed correctly. I ran out of ammo on the second level and died fighting a juggernaut with a tozt. However, if the other 23 levels are as good as the second, this scenario is easily worth 5 stars.

Don't need screenshots. Everyone knows what q3a looks like. Plz make Elite Force mod.

Halo multi-player was awful, and although this successfully emulates the experience I can't rate it higher than a 2.

needs more screenshots of werefrog. having a hard time visualizing what this will look like. nice use of doogit.

This map features a number of very interesting areas and details. I had to stop and look around a number of times while playing. I had overlooked this until now because the screenshots showed off some of the worst areas of the map. I hate those lines along the paths in the second shot, and the main room in the first shot looks boring. The side paths around the central area are where all of the interesting stuff is located.

As a netmap, it wasn't very fun and I'm not sure why. Many of the areas seemed too isolated, but that has worked well in other maps. I'm not a fan of those really thin platforms, but they were well marked and useful for the most part. There was enough ammo. The map just didn't seem to flow very well.

I think you could make some amazing single player environments if you wanted. Even something in the KTA style could be a lot of fun, without all the extra work of designing a scenario. Game flow is much less important in single player maps where you're not backtracking a lot, and it would be a better place to showcase some of the detailed work that doesn't really belong in a netmap.

As a standalone work this is a poor map, but with some more effort I think you could take some of the ideas you tried here and expand them into an interesting pack.

Nice breakdown. These smaller packs are much easier to manage, and I'm glad to see the return of some of the older maps which you previously removed. Top quality all around. Even the weaker maps are fun to play on.

I've probably only seen about half of these. Some were bad. Some were great. I'm glad they've all been collected together. It would have been a shame if they were lost.

Never thought I'd play rugby. Fun maps.

When I first played Paradise Lost in 2007, there were only 3 maps, but they shared a distinctive look and feel. The pack slowly grew in size and the new maps were equally impressive. However, it feels like there was a definite style change sometime in 2009. The newer maps all feel very similar, boxy, and use the same bland grey and red texturing. There are so many maps now it's hard to even remember what they look like by name, and picking one at random is no longer sure to be a good game. It seems like ever since Power Drive you've been doing something different, and although the newer maps certainly aren't bad, I wish you had spun them off into a separate pack.

It just doesn't feel the same having the order mixed up, and there are so many maps it's almost impossible to finish in a single sitting. I also miss the terminal levels bookending KTAII.

Otherwise, there are some great new maps in this pack, and the co-op bug fixes are appreciated. A+++ WILL HOST AGAIN.

Great job with this script. Every once in a while life calls for some extra rockets, but most of the time the people making the maps put down all this superfluous SMG ammo and Fusion pistols.

I haven't had a chance to play any of these yet, but the screenshots look good and they're stevemaps so I'm going to call this a solid 3. Keep up the good work.

THERE.

but they look like suck. fun map? idk.

Where do we submit tag maps for officialdom evaluation?

File wont decompress with 7zip. What did you use to create it?

Awful game type. CTF is just never fun. It's impossible to get balanced teams, players would always drop out leaving the sides unbalanced, and it almost always ends in a stalemate or one team completely dominating the other.

It's hard to compare these with the original graphics or the high quality replacements created by the community over the years. They're not really better or worse, but they're certainly a different way to experience the game.

Highly recommended you try them out if have the required hardware. I'm planning on doing a complete play through of M2.

The outdoor area is nice, but the textures kind of suck. And you could really use some pools of fog in those dark pit areas. Not enough Storm Troopers. A-

The first time I played, an enemy came into the spawning room and would kill me in one hit the moment I respawned. Another time, I found a teleporter which took me to a room with two switches and a door that wouldn't open.

Very fun concept. The included map has some issues with the round length. The round lasts a very long time, and the capture points are so close together that there's almost no point in playing until the last 15 seconds or so because anything you capture before that will just get taken by someone else. If the distribution of the points was less uniformly placed and some of them were harder to reach or easier to defend it might make the game more challenging. Another idea might be to disable the radar or point it to the nearest point you haven't captured. Some feedback would also be nice, such as how many points you manged to score when the round ends, and maybe showing a running total of the points you control or what everyone controls as an overlay.

It would also be great if when the game is played with a time limit and the time runs out before the end of the round, you could treat it as the end and award points based on the state of the captures at that time.

Interesting idea, but the current version is unplayable.

Useful, but to be true to name you should force teams to avoid red and green or blue and yellow at the same time.

Interesting concept. I wish you could use the POWERS to deflect projectiles. For some reason the POWERS doesn't work through a liquid. Co-op seemed interesting, but it could get a little slow. I liked how players could flip switches, trigger doors, etc. I think it would be better if only one or two players got the POWERS while everyone else had traditional weapons. It would also be neat to combine the POWERS with other game types. Maybe tag where the person who is "it" gets the POWERS. The biggest problem I found was the lack of POWERS. The first thing I did was increase the POWERS by several orders of magnitude, but it still wasn't enough. My next thought was to make the POWERS exponential, which seemed to be effective.

The central arena and the lower area with the lifts between them make a nice combination. Based on the few games I've played, the upper areas around the arena seem to get ignored somewhat. Something feels off about the weapon and ammo placement but I can't put my finger on it. The textures look very bland and it's difficult to orient yourself quickly.

Overall it's a good map but there are a couple similar ones in Cosmic Clouds that I'd probably play instead.

This was a lot worse than I heard, but new co-op maps are always good. Don't give up, keep trying

Great maps, although after playing them for months I wish there was just a little more to this release. You need to play co-op to really experience these maps.

I thought they were fun, but when I hosted the scripts people stopped joining my games.

Firefly and Deep Blue Day are the only good additions to this new release. However, at 17 maps Cosmic Clouds is finally large enough to provide a good hour of game play by itself. Of course, the texturing is ugly as usual but that is only a small distraction.

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A little unbalanced, but these were fun for a run through KTA2. Good co-op potential.