Hi David,
Here's my review.
I just finished playing both of your maps. My total time spent on the combined maps was 3 hrs and 2 hours spent on this review. LOL!
I killed all enemies in each map on the "Come Get some difficulty" Not sure if difficulty was even implemented which I doubt based on the amount of automatic respawns in the map. How about them secrets???? I only could ever find 50 percent of the secrets on each map frustrating because I thought I was being really thorough! The ones I did miss were really difficult to find but I found them by Mapster afterwards so I could see how I missed them. Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed because with the release of your two new maps you've essentially made my new map look pretty shitty and I haven't even released it yet. Whaaa!!!! It amazes me how much you can accomplish in 9 months because we started roughly at the same time and you've done two uber high quality maps compared to my... "okay" map which isn't even close to being released yet.
You really leave very little room for discussion on these two maps because they are flawless from what I could see. So you and your beta testers did a fantastic job! I was a bit surprised to see so much sprite detailing though. The thing about sprite usage is it looks really nice but Duke sure has an awkward time navigating when excessive sprites are used. The Duke character tends to get stuck and random sprite glitches occur which bug me. But... it’s the nature of the beast.
I played the map like you recommended. Polymost and HRP. Frame rate was insanely fast. Never lagged once, I think I averaged between 200/450 fps which is super fast compared to the crap map I am working on. Key cards! I was really amazed at myself for not having any difficulty finding any of the key cards except for the last yellow key card in the second map. They were very well placed and followed a very smooth and natural progression through out each level. Didn't feel like a key card hunt at all. It's easy to understand roughly where each card should technically be without actually knowing their exact location. You are a genius! The gun selection, ammo and health I found very selective and well placed. I was always counting each bullet making sure I had just enough to make it to the next stash. The stashes were always right where you needed them to be. On the first map I especially found it humorous how you rewarded the player with more enemies after finding these little stashes! =) Made me question if I should really be going for the stashes of goodies or just running like hell.
I really enjoyed your choice of textures. You managed to make use of some of the most unused textures in the game and still make them fit perfectly in their environment. Very impressive!
I enjoyed the sprite work in the second map with the cranes, railway cars and semi truck trailers. Once again, it makes my semi trailer look pretty bland. I really should stop trying to compare my map to yours because quite frankly there is no comparison. While I was playing your maps they gave me the impression like anything is possible in the environment. I was half expecting to see one of those cranes drop a crate on my head and crush me! Even though I knew it technically wasn't possible with the engine.
What is really interesting, our maps have some very similar elements, some of the things I was trying to pull off you managed to do effortlessly. I find myself spending more time starring at my map rather than building my map because I just can't seem to get that "look" I want and you manage to pull this off in all your maps. What I love about your maps is you have a unique style that I haven't seen before in any other user map and it's present and consistent through out all your Duke maps.
There is one shortfall and it’s my fault. After I finished playing your maps I realized you had used custom music files for your maps. Unfortunately, by default I have my music turned off in Duke but I went back and played your music tracks and I could tell immediately which song was for which map. On the bright side, without the music it really made me appreciate all the little sound effects you used through out your map for ambience to the custom sounds for the doors, bar music, seagulls & generators. Actually I prefer playing maps without music and it was really refreshing to hear the different sound effects other than your typical run of the mill default sounds which get old fast. Needless to say, the map was still really creepy even without the accompanied music files. Nicely done!
I will include one screenshot from the game on the second map which has a missing texture on the back side of the crate. Everything else from what I could see was perfectly aligned and textured with the exception of this one crate. I swear the beta testers skip this on purpose just so the map isn't 100 percent flawless. =P Anyway, consider me your biggest fan! I love your work and your style of mapping. I wish I could play 1000 more maps just like those last two.
Playing these two maps actually made me feel like I was playing a game that was built on a completely different game engine. It just didn't feel like the typical Duke scene. Even the style of game play was different and well planned out and just different very REFRESHING! I really enjoyed the execution of your enemies and the attack environments how each battle was already very much pre-planned and very well organized.
Thanks for sharing your maps with me. The valve switch you used that turns on the second level right before the wall explodes, wow man very neat trick! I had to actually take a look at it in Mapster to see how you pulled that one off. Everything was very memorable and in all honesty these two maps are a perfect showcase of what makes a great single player Duke map experience. These maps felt very professionally made, something you'd pay money to play in professionally released title. The scaling of sprites/objects/buildings was perfect. You are the first mapper that I have seen that has been able to create Duke 3D maps and have the scale come across as being perfect in all situations. I know I sure strive for this and it's not easy to do.
If I can make one suggestion, if it’s not done already, go back through your maps and make them Co-op ready so people can enjoy these maps once Multi-player is done. These maps would be a lot of fun played cooperatively. You'll have to increase the ammo/health but give it a multi-palette tag for co-op play.
So my scoring system that I’ve stolen from Forge... Would go something like this:
Texturing/Lighting-Shading: 15/10
Sprite Work/Detailing: 5/10 (too much) LOL!
Ambiance: 10/10
Architecture: 20/20
Layout: 20/20
Game play/Design: 30/30
Overall: 100/100.
If I was a millionaire I’d pay you to make Duke maps that I could play all day long. =)
P.S - I noticed something strange while fighting the bosses it didn't really seem like my RPG rockets were actually hitting them. I found I had to resort to using a chain gun or shotgun to kill them. However, I'm not sure this sort of thing is something that you would be able to control might be more of a coding thing within the game itself and the rockets/hit boxes. That or i'm just not seeing those rockets register upon impact as there doesn't seem to be an impact. =S