The feel of the map is nice... The doors are wide enough that you can run through the doorway without getting stuck on the side... (BTW, again on textures and detail... there is even a threshold strip below the door)... The many hallways are still wide enough to provide ample room to gun-it-out with other people in the hall... Even with all the detail, the map still has a very smooth framerate on my p166 w/ voodoo1... The map is nicely lit with plenty of dark areas to hide in...

Weapon placement is nicely spaced out through the map and with a certain weapon (hint, hint M4) placed that fighting your way there is only half the problem... You gotta earn that shit... Ammo is a little low (I personally like that... makes people aim first)...

Ok...the map is very, very large, most of the areas are all separate, so this is a 8+ map only... anything lower than that, then you better find the slippers... Most of the areas have only one exit (from what I could find) allowing the building to be guarded alittle to easily... BTW, I've found a secret passage...so I can only assume that there might be more, thus cancelling the previous remark...

The Lowdown... The map is a beautiful with a smooth feel... It will work for any 'net server... The map is one of the larger downloads but it's easily worth the time...
Tally...
Harlequin...

Review:
Before you read any further, start downloading this one and then read on. This is a must-have. This map is great. And if you feel otherwise afterwards, write a review yourself :Z .Okay, where is it about and why is it great then? It is a fairly large map with a bit of a city. The bit is a hotel, streets, power generator, parking, gun shop, sewer and more. The problem with large maps are often that it takes a while to get familiar with it, so you you know where to hide, get your stuff and all. Not with this map! It is setup in a way that is very natural to you. Roads where you find the gun-shop and the hotel, more in the back of the town the building with the power generator and in the alleys you find and entrance to the sewer. All like in real life, so it takes no effort and little time to get around well.

Then the details: great! A cash register (with flashing lights) at the desk of the gun shop, with the living area of the owner above the shop. The glass is really see-through and you have some great laughs, struggles and fights with them. The parking garage is the best I've ever seen so far. And check out hotelroom 102: there has been some sort of fight there, the bed is not made, TV on the ground, mirror in the bathroom broken, bloodstains on the door of the shower cabin. And they're just details. Neat, really neat. I could fill a page with all the outstanding details.

What's more great then? Well, it is a theme! It continues throughout the map, it flows, you'll get caught in it. But besides the looks and lay-out of the map there are more great aspects in this map. The author has kept an eye on the gameplay too: all the objects that add detail are not in the way (I hate it when that happens) when it comes to a fight! And then just one example: The hotel has long hallways in which you can run around. Might you "only" have a pistol and see someone coming in the hall with the M4, you need not be dead yet!! Flee in one of the hotelrooms which are well designed: you can wait for an surprise attack (one pistol shot in the head and the M4 is yours you know =) )in the closet behind the door, behind the bed or even in the shower cabin, maybe your opponent shoots all of his M4 clip at the "invisible" glass door of the showercabin =) I've already had some great fights in here!! And this is just one example, the map is full of opportunities for varied gameplay. The sewer with the flowing dirty (though a bit visible) water, go silently in duck and let the stream take you to your opponent and shoot him from under water/shit-piss-puke-and-all. Great great great. I could go on for hours.

The different parts in this map offer so many kinds of play. Long range sniping, close combat, knive kills too =), ducking, covering, running, aiming, just blasting away, cool grenade opportunities, using the enviroment (desks,beds,showers, pillars, doors, closets, dirty sewer water, closets) it's all in here. So the gameplay is great. Even with just a few players in it, you get a real hunting game. The weaponplacement is outstanding, as well as the ammo placement. Just a word on that: most of you agree (as well as I) that the M4 is mostly dominating the game, but not here. There is just ONE clip for it so you won't get far spraying bullets everywhere =). The ammo is sparse and that is a good thing, it adds to the gameplay! Action Quake as it should be, if you ask me.

Are there any bad things? Hardly: maybe when you play with a few others and one good rifleman hangs out on the wall-that-marks-the-end-of-the-level, he could be dominating. But is not very likely. The textures on the walls outside remind a bit of quake2 but the amount of details on the street gives you a more real-life feeling than quake2 feeling, don't worry.

Oh, before I forget: if you want to check it out, you can already play a form of teamplay (with capture the "flag"), check out the details in the blockwar.txt file. So, your downloading should be done for now, get it up and running.
-Denniz

Review:
Now I'm a newbie when it comes to map reviews so I'll give it my best shot.

Blockwar is one of those maps where it just takes so DAMN long to get to the other side of the map! But its big enough to have hmmmm i dunno....34 players! Very good for LAN or your own TCP/IP connection tho!

The textures in Blockwar are pretty good (just look at the doors!) It has a gun shop, a Motel (a huge motel to be exact!) Lots and lots of streets, and a sewer system ( I probly shouldnt tell u M4 hogs out there, but the M4 is in a deep hole in the sewer( just don't rush it or you will be 2 feet shorter!)

The overall gun/ammo placement is good considering the sheer size of this map, It runs a bit slow on anything under a P-200 but if say u have a great connection, you'll have no problem.

There are lots of sniper points in Blockwar (my favorite is on the lamp tops on the streets) you can climb the drain pips on the walls to.

All-in-all I'd say get this map cause it's (in my mind) the best Action Quake 2 map out there.So get it already stop reading my review!!!
-NaChoS[EL PasO]([email protected])

Review:
Of all the maps the Depot has to offer, blockwar defeats them all by leaps and bounds. This level is superbly constructed, from the great details and blending of textures, it provides an experience of realism and adds much more depth to the gameplay. This has to be THE level for teamplay, hands down. Though it gets tough with under three people per team, as finding opposing players proves often times difficult. However, if you manage to find and eliminate them, the feeling of gratification you receive will be well worth it. The more ppl playing, the funner this map becomes. Fun is multiplied tenfold if the team members communicate with one another, such as assigning members to hold the roof of the hotel, guard entrances, and sending out scouting teams, etc. If all members cooperate and don't go off on their own running and gunning, (unless decided upon, of course)then victory will almost surely be in their grasp. Against a scrappy, unorganized team, teams who use communication as a means of strategy and deployment will completely obliterate their sorry opponents. If both teams make use of these strategies, then this is where the real fun begins... =o) Trying to out guess your opponents on where they will strike next is very exciting..though sometimes proves to be very painful =o( Will they come through the huge garage doors? Are they coming through the parking garage via the sewers? Or both?????? Why don't you download it and play it now to find out.....(and look out for my sneaky ass!!)
-Nemesis{AoD}

Review:
One of the things that I like most about Action Quake2 is the element of realism in its map design. I like all of the starbases and futuristic labs that make up the majority of regular Quake2 maps, but ever since the days of DOOM, I've been fascinated by attempts to simulate real-world areas in the game. With that in mind, Blockwar was a map that I enjoyed from the first time I played it.

This map is BIG - it includes several streets, an underground parking garage, sewers, a gun shop, a generator room, and a very detailed hotel. It can take a while to learn one's way around, but even with all of this size and detail, frame rates remain smooth throughout (my system, btw, is a P200 MMX, 64MB, Canopus Pure3D Voodoo1). This map really shines in medium-large (6+ players) deathmatch games. It's not the best map out there for 1-on-1 play, and can be a little slow for teamplay (it can take a looong time to hunt down those stragglers), but this is by no means a criticism - different maps work well in different environments, and Blockwar is one of the few maps which can support 8 or more players without it turning into a total mindless fracas (which also has its own appeal).

Texturing is simple but effective. I would have liked to have seen a little more "window dressing" in this department (perhaps some art on the hotel walls, or graffiti, or something), but too much of that can slow the map down, and would have spoiled the "concrete & steel" aesthetic of the map. As it is, there is a remarkable amount of detail from just using simply-textured geometric shapes, such as all the furniture in the hotel rooms (the TVs, showers, etc. look very nice).

My biggest criticisms of the map involve specific, fairly minor points, which are mostly shortcomings of the Quake2 engine, but are still things mapmakers should take into account. For instance, in the gun shop, there are two grenades in a display case and a box of shotgun shells on a shelf - these items can just be *hard* to reach, with an undue amount of finicky jumping and ducking involved. This sort of thing just detracts from the illusion of reality, espescially when you are in the middle of a firefight, and *should* be able to just reach down and pick up the grenade, but instead there is all sorts of elaborate wiggling necessary to find the "sweet spot". The other similar complaint I have is with the placement of the M4, which is at the bottom of a vertical drainage pipe in the sewers, surrounded by long ladders on all sides. As we all know, climbing down ladders in Quake2 is dangerous business - the game just doesn't handle it that well - so what should be an easy operation ends up causing you to plummet to your death 80% of the time. It's frustrating when your game character can effortlessly leap from rooftop to rooftop and perform countless death-defying stunts, but then dies from trying to board a ladder.

Overall, Blockwar is a first-rate map, espescially when there's a lot of people on the server. I look forward to future maps to future maps from Brian McClelland.

RATING: 9.5/10

-Dr. Happy

Review:
The fact that this is my favorite level could contribute to a bias on my part. But c'mon! This map practically has it all. The details are exellent, the weapon placement is just, the ammo is sparse, leading to a wholesome encouragement of accuracy. The overall theme is good, and makes sense throughout. There is a minimum of Tomb-Raider clone jumping junk, and generally allows smooth play.

Structure: The small rooms and hallways in the Motel are perfect for blowing a hole in someone's chest large enough to watch TV through with Mr. Twelve, the L-shaped street between the gun store and the garage doors is perfectly suited to the mad-MP5 toting maniac wearing kevlar, and the longer hallways in the hotel make a sniper think he has died and gone to heaven. Camping in the very end of the second story hallway and capping people as they run up the stairs is very sweet, although continuing behavior of this type for more than 12 or 13 kills merely ensures enmity for life from the other players. (The trick is to keep an eye on the pipe/ledge/window entrance.) Even with less than five people, this map is still fun, as most people get out of the sewer or gunstore, and head into the street, M4 (or whatever) in hand. The shotgun is a good weapon for most of this map, but going up against someone with the good ol' SSG 69 is suicidal on those long shots.

Items like flashing lights on the cash-register, a dumpster with camping capability, and an interestingly deadly fan on the roof really make this level. (Nothing like accidently chasing a weapon into the jaws of death to really liven up your day.) Due to the scarcity of ammo, the dual-45 setup is often quite useful. The MP5 is really the king of this map, as it has plenty of ammo and is suited to everything but dropping the odd sniper.

As I am not much of a teamplayer, I am a bit vague on the teamplay value of this map, but organized teams defending the Motel are deadly to a ridiculous degree. (A guy with the MP5 behind the desk, one on the roof with the sniper rifle, and some others in the foyer can go through opponents like a shotgun slug through a 4-year old's spleen.)

As some of the fire-corridor's outside are rather long, crouching comes more in handy than you might think at first. (Still getting your head blown inside-out is not cool.) The single pistol on semiautomatic is quite useful, for (and I cannot stress this enough) accuracy is a definite must anywhere other than the motel rooms. Sure, spray-n-pray can take down some people, but that is also a quick one-way ticket to No-Clip City.

This map has some very sweet kills on it, like the handcannon while hiding in the dumpster, (a hilarious, if rare, kill.) the sniper bullet in the forehead in the long hallway, the dual-pistol facelift in sewer, or the legless-wonder MP5 blast. Or another personal favorite, climbing the drainpipe, going in the window and gutting a hopeful sniper.

Anyway, this map is pure frag, and is the epitome of Action Quake II, a blend of action movie genre (Anyone who has seen Face/Off will want to use the dual-pistols a bit) and the good ol' plug-n-chug Quake tradition. An absolute must for the discriminating player.

Happy Capping,

-TheDeathDealer