Quake Review: Oblivion (oblivion_2.zip)

O B L I V I O N by Rich Carlson (oblivion_2.zip, 2004)

An extremely short concept map. According to the author’s description, it was originally intended to be a secret level for Anachronox, but got cut early in development, around mid-1997, before they made the switch to idtech 2. It’s safe to assume that when the author rediscovered it at the tail end of 2003, he cleaned it up a bit and plopped some quake monsters and resources down before pushing it out.

Oblivion is really visually striking in a minimalist fashion, consisting of a series of tiny floating islands against the black void. The geometry is surprisingly complex and varied given how little space each island fills. Each island has a unique structure with the stalactites hanging from the bottom of each being particularly good looking feature. The circular islands on the lowest level are the least interesting; being flat and featureless on the surface and bare on the underside – understandable given their relatively small size and as there’s no perspective that lets you see the underside anyway. The island that stood out the most to me has a set of volcanic lava pools on the underside that spit down blobs of lava from time to time. The way these pools appear to act as the light source for the surrounding islands is a simple, but very effective technique.

The structure of play is relatively simple: The player starts on one of the topmost islands and has to navigate their way down to the bottom safely, fighting a handful of enemies along the way, collecting the gold key and using it to open a temple door on a large island at the bottom, which contains the mandatory shambler fight and exit portal. There’s only 12 enemies on hard and the map can be easily be completed in a minute or two.

Unfortunately, the theory comes apart when it comes to actually playing. The islands are tiny and the complex geometry makes moving around without sliding into the void or snagging on rocks awkward. In particular, there’s a pool of water containing armour that is almost impossible to climb out of, because the gradient of the sides is too steep. The haphazard monster placement compounds the problem. Upon entering the map the player is immediately fired upon by an ogre positioned on a tiny island above. This ogre is completely useless because quake enemies have no z-axis awareness and so his grenades just fly over the players head. On hard there are two vores positioned on distant islands, who are incredibly lethal by comparison. Their projectiles are impossible to dodge because there’s nowhere to safely move and – more importantly – no cover to trick the projectiles into. Between them, these vores have a line of sight to the player on pretty much every single island except the very top spawn and behind the temple at the bottom. The optimal solution for killing the first vore is to stand on the starting island plinking away with the shotgun, ducking behind a medium sized rock or jumping into the pool of water on the next island across, ducking back under the surface every time it fires.

Ammo is extremely tight, when taking the intended route through the map. There’s not enough shotgun ammo to comfortably deal with the second vore from a safe position on the starting island, so the player is forced down out of cover and deeper into the void where there’s a nailgun and other resources. At this point the knight and zombies become a serious obstacle and an ever increasing number of vore projectiles be chasing the player down with no cover in sight. By the time the player arrives at the shambler temple, the drought of nails and shells makes combat not an option.

The one saving grace of the map is a secret rocket launcher stashed behind the temple on the bottom island. It’s possible to jump straight down to it from start and then use all of the ammo on the zombies and distant vores, before backtracking up to the gold key. Irritatingly, the second vore is shrouded in darkness, making this manoeuvre a little awkward for those without good spatial memory. Following this plan leaves the player with a comfortable amount of nails and shells to eliminate the paper tiger of a shambler waiting in the temple.

Difficulty settings are implemented, to the credit of the mapper, but not in a particularly elegant way. Normal difficulty brings the number of enemies to a lean 7, eliminating the awkward second vore in the process, while easy strips the map down to 3 monsters, swapping the final shambler out for a fiend. Unfortunately, all three difficulty settings leave the first vore untouched. The logic behind retaining the most demanding and dangerous of all the enemies in the easier difficulties is unfathomable to me. Why the mapper didn’t replace it with an ogre or something a little more engaging to fight against is a mystery. Having only two active enemies in the map at once on easy is equally bizarre.

That being said, it feels silly to critique a map that’s so tiny and short. It’s a nice looking proof of concept and has value as a recovered piece of history, for those interested in Ion Storm and Anarchronox.

2/5