File:E3M3 - The River

Description
Unlike the previous two levels, this isn't a level with an extreme amount of vertical ascension, meaning I found it to be an overall better experience than what I have seen before. Of course, now we suddenly have a new problem. This level is extremely glitchy to the point that I have found several things that I have documented in the Wikia (and several more I have been unable to recreate but were frustrating to find, including one where a Rotfish managed to somehow get stuck in the Teleporter of the second Secret and thus would cause you to get stuck in the corpse of a Rotfish when you teleported).

The rainbow wires are back, but they seem to be a bit more conservative here. I actually enjoy the look of them, that section of the map perhaps being the best portion. The worst area of the level has to be the River, most glitches are connected to it and it just looks very jarring. I understand that the designer was trying to go for organic, but I think it would have been better to go simpler (like your conventional Quake lake) so it wasn't so awkward in mechanics. I do love watching Rotfish corpses slide down a ramp though!

This level continues my theme of getting worn down (though a lot less than previous examples) before building myself up at the end due to mass conservatism. Unless you find one of the secrets when going down the river, it is impossible to backtrack (not that there is much point, but I like it when the option exists).

The end of this level is pretty interesting. It looks like we are getting past the Military Base and entering some subterranean world. I have no idea how the story is going to be completed in two levels, especially as we haven't had much progression since the first one...

Overall, a decent level that fixes up my gripes while opening a whole new can of worms. It sounds like the level designer wasn't too happy with the results of this level either, which is a shame. Between the intense time constraints on these Add-Ons (they had to be rushed to be in the market before Quake II, so quality wasn't exactly high on their list of priorities) and the level design software itself (Thred is a nightmare to work with, it was software that was outdated in 1997 and really only was popular in 1996 due to being the first one around; this type of editor is light years from 1998 editors which I find an enjoyment to work with).

As I have said elsewhere, you have to give credit to the level designers for making anything, especially with an editor such as Thred. Still, they were all designed for user enjoyment and so I feel it deserves some sort of evaluation based on personal opinion and user input. So while I commend the efforts, I also believe in stating my opinions on play value.