Deep Element
by Foo & Brisk
Deep Element by Foo & Brisk
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This is a fairly old map (from 2010) by Foo and Brisk (the former made Dry Ice, one of my favourites, which is how I found this map). At first glance this looks and feels like an average map. Yet, after a few rounds the gameplay start to kick in and the features of the map shine.

The arena is composed of a big central area, surrounded with lava, and connecting the different areas of the map. There are many layers to it, which are very well connected (including holes in the ground dropping you to lower layers). The key feature to me is that you can see many of the areas connecting the rooms from the middle of the map, which means you can see a lot of the action from afar. This gives the RG an interesting edge, whilst not overpowering the map since many inside areas are very tight. The map has a lot of vertical action, with some corridors directly on top of the other, parallel or perpendicular, and rocket jumping can also be useful to move around (e.g. to quickly get the RA). I did some cool mid-air rocket hits when testing it which reinforced my sense of awesomeness of the map. :)

The flow of the map is great, although can be obfuscated by the often tight corridors (which is IMO the main drawback of the design).

Item choice and location is well-suited in my opinion, contributing to the flow. Bots seem to play fine. I did not test it in Tourney mode (probably too big for it) nor in CPM (it seems might be appropriate for it) but FFA (3 load suggested) and VQ3 certainly seems to get a lot out of the map.

In summary, I think this is a cool map, definitely worth a try. At least for me, this is a keeper!

Reviewed by Raspatan

Tig's note: There is so much layout similarity, albeit on a much larger scale to The Bad Place (Quake 1, dm4), the remake tag has been added. Feel welcome to discuss this in the comments.

Ranked: 3.9 out of 5 (5 votes)

Download: Deep Element by Foo & Brisk

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