Review: Morene

The original review, based on the old review schema:

"Morene", while short, is great work for a first-time mapper. For his first map, community member ThickAsABrick decided to build a short map set on a cargo ship that has been partly destroyed by a Skaarj attack. With a basic premise, the player's goal is to escape, and what follows is a nicely built but short journey through a Skaarj-infested high-tech map.

What's most impressive about Morene as a first-time map is the architecture. Although a lot of the areas are based ultimately on subtracted cubes, ThickAsABrick has taken pains to introduce angles and details, and it's only in certain areas that the map shows a real lack of detail - in the curved corridors, for instance, which show good use of UnrealEd's 2D Shape Editor but not a lot else. Elsewhere, such as in the ruined areas at the start of the map, details are very nicely introduced into the environment (and the coolant leak is a good addition, even if I did fall into it twice and had a difficult time trying to find somewhere to climb out).

Texture-wise, ThickAsABrick took the unusual step of using the Xtortion texture set - which gives the map a freshness to it, even if it's a set that I really don't much like. Unfortunately, the textures are pretty plain, and don't take all that well to the pinkish light used by ThickAsABrick in the larger cargo holds. These areas could really have benefited, in fact, from a good use of contrasting but complimentary colours (such as the well tried-and-tested blue and gold used in many high-tech maps). For the most part, though, the lighting was good work for a first-time mapper - even if it did look somewhat unsourced in the larger areas.

I found that sound was used well throughout the map, and ThickAsABrick even composed a custom action segment for the soundtrack, which is very effective when suddenly erupting from the quiet of opal.umx - however, I felt that after the relevant fights were concluded, the action music should have faded out rather than cutting suddenly back to opal.umx or silence.

There's not a lot more to say other than to comment on gameplay and technical execution. ThickAsABrick balanced gameplay pretty well, making the combats moderately challenging even on Medium skill, and even added a few innovative touches such as a long-range Stinger attack and a Brute with grenades. Technically the map was fair, but a misaligned light texture was very noticeable at the start of the map, and an unnecessary slowdown just before a key combat suggested that further optimisation would have been beneficial. I also saw a number of classic newbie errors, such as lens flares floating some way away from their light sources above the cargo holds, but nothing disastrous - and ThickAsABrick even included an extro cut-scene for completeness.

A very sound map from ThickAsABrick. I look forward to seeing what the mapper produces in the future.