File:DMAS08 - Little Piece Of Heaven

Description
If this is a little piece of Heaven, I think I would rather go to Hell. Lots of Doom maps show that Hell could be an interesting place, while this seems to be the true form of torture of humankind. This map could turn someone into a Satanist!

This map continues the tradition set by the previous level of being a terrible level shouting out to the days of Dark Hour. Honestly, I thought some levels in Dark Hour looked pretty decent, so this probably would be at the lower part of the spectrum. It isn't Q2 terrible, getting that low is pretty hard if you put in some form of effort, but you can tell these missions were heavily rushed. Even Gregory Macmartin didn't like that some of his maps had to be released, so I can imagine that a lot of these problems stem from a project being rushed in order to be on the market before Quake 2 was released (Q2 is the only thing that deserves to be looked down on, as that pack didn't even show signs of effort or identity).

Still, as usual, I criticize what does exist as it is a product (an artwork if you will) and thus deserves to be judged by the audience. This level is therefore quite abysmal in my opinion. The maps are basically made up of large squarish brushes, some with ceilings smaller than the floor which warps the shape of the walls. This sounds impressive, but is one of the easier things to do in Thred.

Another feature not too difficult for beginners is the changing of textures, though it is a bit more difficult due to there being no preview mode where said textures are visible (how you can create levels without seeing what textures you are applying unless you go through a few step compiling process, no built in compilers at this time, is beyond me). Basically, most rooms are one solid texture which looks very unappealing and is possibly the reason I dislike this map so much. The lower level uses a brick texture, while upper rooms use a dirt texture. It is nice that we get to appreciate some details such as railings and wooden beams, but they fail to hide the fact that the wall brushes are extremely plain looking.

Bigger is not better should be the philosophy of level design. This level makes its rooms bigger than needed. This design choice, while allowing for a bit more room for combatants, results in the details appearing very small in rooms of very bare content. Quake excels with tight corridors or multi-leveled structures, not massive rooms with little interaction.

The hub design is interesting, but there is a serious problem. Basically, a player can stand at the Teleporters and wait for their kills to come to them. Nonlinearity is nice, having only one exit from the room isn't. I understand the developer's intent to make a bit of "Heaven" by making the shape of the cross, but the design doesn't naturally lend itself to a Deathmatch level. More Teleporters, possibly just one going to the room clockwise to the previous, could have been the answer to change this linear level into a nonlinear arena without altering the shape.

I wonder if the same developer made DMAS07, because both have terrible weapon placement. The middle section of the map, where the heat of the action would take place, has absolutely nothing of real desire beyond the only 25 Health in the map (unless you happen to spawn up here and need to grab something, though I would suggest just rushing for the Thunderbolt near the end room). The Rocket Launcher and Grenade Launcher are placed next to each other, meaning the Grenade Launcher practically has no purpose in this map (due to no tight corners). There is no Super Nailgun, instead we get a Nailgun with a Yellow Armor. The last side has two Double-Barreled Shotguns and a Yellow Armor. We get plenty of Armor and weaker weapons useful to survive for a few seconds, but it is pretty easy to see that the person with the Rocket Launcher could dominate even with the lack of Armor. The Thunderbolt has very little ammo to be appealing, the Double-Barrelled is good in close quarters (which this level has none of), the Nailgun is something you carry until you get a Super Nailgun (which does not exist, the Nailgun is only marginally better than a Shotgun), and the rest is being held by a player racking up a ton of kills.

Instead of using the custom Teleporter texture, this level uses the custom Skybox texture for Teleporters. While creative, it doesn't help the fact that the Skybox tends to warp and looks even worse on vertical surfaces, making it look a lot worse.

An ugly map in a rushed commercial addon with absolutely no weapon balance. There is little to no surprise that this map never caught on.