I remember when this originally came out and wanted to see for myself what everyone was going on about and wow, WOW, W-O-W this map is just pure genius, I LOVE IT!

I started playing on Skill 0 and worked my way through all the different skill levels and found all the secrets. This is not something I normally do but this is the first SP map I have found where there has been an actually effort to create different skill levels. AI upgrades, extra pickups and each play through a challenge with tricky and fun moments.

The atmosphere and visuals are just amazing, I really loved the whole scale of the base, even thou is typical Q1 'fat' scale with chunky window borders it still felt right. The AI suited their surroundings and it just made the whole place even more believable.

I did find one thing confusing about layout, the first drop down into the water I could not work out where to go. It was by accident that I backed into a doorway that had a door open behind me and AI kill me without me knowing why. There should of been more clues or the door should of been more obvious. Also the jump secret felt wrong to me, trick jump for secrets is not a good thing to do.

After reading the story in the readme file (I never realised that Q1 related porn was so popular) the opening scene of a moody, cargo bay was amazing. When I finally did move after taking note of my surroundings, the solo AI patrolling and walking through the doorway was just perfectly timed.

The texture work is a thing of beauty, I never thought base Q1 maps could look this good, everything just felt so right together. I could not find anything that felt out of place to me. Most of the edges has proper texture seams, rivets were in the right places and the whole place felt like it could actually exist and stand up structurally.

The end battle was very difficult but how the room was actually setup long before you get there with glipses of it through crate filled areas below was amazing. The final boss was confusing because of the LG messages and I thought there was only one special way to kill it, which is not the case. The room layout felt frustrating because ultimately there is only one good route to go due to the boss being lethal at close range.

Overall the map is just pure gold, it has balanced skill levels, dripping in amazing atmosphere, challenging encounters and it just makes me wonder if Q1SP can get any better than this. 

"Urrrggghhhhaaaarrrggh!"

i actually really wasn't a fan of the boss fight in this map. being underwater, for some reason, really bugs me because it feels like there's a lot of pressure to get air (or find a biosuit).
i hate being pressured like that without any reprieve besides jumping right out and leaving the boss combat behind. 

I think this map is a prime example of perfect looks, but certain gameplay problems like what necros just said, and the getting lost, and the whole Quoth thing (more HP, more dangerous, without similarly upgrading the player).

Visually stunning, of course. 

That IS immersion in my opinion. Ever go to a strange city on your own and get totally lost? I get lost in Vancouver once. None of the taxi drivers seemed to know where my hotel was, I had sunstroke from a whale-watching trip (where they give you a floatation suit and blast you off at about 40 knots on a jet-speedboat) and it took me about 2 hours of semi-panic (atleast after a while it was semi panic!) before I found the hotel. Massive adrenaline rush throughout... 

Would have been more fun if Vores had been spawning randomly on rooftops tho. 

I did not find the map too confusing with the route it took. I always felt like I was going forward in some way. There were plenty of clues, flickering lights, glowing red arrows and encounters to lead towards the end. My ultimate frustration was the end boss, it turned out to be like dragons lair for me. There was a certain path around the room that worked everytime and anything else was certain death.

I did not find the Quoth monsters to be over powered at all, they were always in small numbers and placed in good locations. The map felt really balanced to me with high and low intensity encounters like the eddie bursting out of the crate and the creeping around the cargo bays looking for the next encounter.

What I found especially good with encounters in this map was the restraint on using eddies everywhere in the map. Of the few quoth maps I have played, most mappers reach the eddie encounter plateau and stay there. The trick is to wind down again and try out variable encounters in different spaces. 

But never got a massive adrenaline rush from it.

Maybe there's something wrong with me though. 

its good, got lost in Cairo once which was crazy but awesome at the same time. 

... Jerusalem, the old David's city is awesome. There are very old stones (some are 2000 years old !!) and cool place to visit in between riots (i.e Est Wall, Saint Sepulcre, etc...)... and there is a very strange and strong faith ambience in near sacred place that anybody can feel...
This place is definitely awesome 

I think the adrenaline rush came from the fact that I was scared that I obviously looked like a complete lost tourist, which kinda left me wide open to being taken advantage of by those that way inclined. IE I was scared I was gonna get mugged or something. 

I wanted to download Than's demo but the link sends an error 404. Anyone still has it by any chance? 

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/apsp2.html 

 

Thanks anyway. So, anyone?