I've also released a Quake map! I've made some maps before for Quake, but this is my first attempt at something half decent (I use that term loosely). So here it is, phdm1 - Vaguely Interesting available from Fileplanet or local.(361Kb). Its for 1-on-1 and 3 to 4 in FFA. Style wise its a mix of Stecki's Peace and Love Incorporated and Timeless by Laerth. The map does look a bit dark in software Quake but its not too bad. Heres a couple of screen shots to keep you amused while you download it.
 

Removed Screenies...

Now heres something interesting:
Basically you're looking at Pingu's excellent map Rediscovered Fantasies. Now, don't be fooled by those 'other guys' over at PQ. Whatever they may say about goofy kangeroo jumping gameplay, lemme tell you it rocks. Two hours of 4 player FFA with the bots, and another hour and half with 3 other 'real' people earns this map the title of 'kick ass.' It looks great, and the play is quite fun. It has a variety of playing surfaces, strong verticle element, and fits into a nice small package. Kick ass work Pingu, your best yet.
Now these comments were said by Peek on his site. All I can say is that from the what you've said, it sounds like you're playing a different map! Can I have a copy? I see Damaul sides with Peek on this, also saying my comments are goofy. Well not to be outdone, Frib goes with me on this one. Here is what he said in an irc chat (hope he doesn't mind me quoting him):
<Frib> hmm I agree with you on the rf review
<Frib> just wasn't that much fun
<Frib> we played it 1on1 and with 3 player ffa
<Frib> wasn't exactly inspiring
<Frib> then we played p3a and that was awesome fun
Not to get into a bitching war with either Pingu or Peek, but I personally do not think this is Pingu's best work. Whilst some of the architecture is amazing, the q3a textures are horrible (you all know that I can't stand them in q3a, so in Quake its just as bad). The layout, as I pointed out in the review, is disjointed and alot of bouncing about is required. I also didn't mention that a couple of spots are cramped (YA area for instance) and thats something I don't like. A guys gotta have room! RF just doesn't get the juices going like p3a or a2. Agree or disagree, let me know, I'll put up some whackass poll chart thingy if I get enough emails.

Well its all change here at MPQ when it comes to Quake 2 reviews. My evil plan to banish them for good has not quite worked though. The situation for Quake 2 reviews stands as follows. I was originally going to bin them altogether, and I may still do so. Monsto however came up with a suggestion which may involve some new reviewers for Quake 2 maps. Now this is being discussed at the moment. If it works out the Quake 2 reviews will continue, otherwise I will stop doing them here.

Whilst on the subject of Quake 2, Rush has now gone over to Inspection to do Quake 2 reviews. So expect an in-depth review of Pain Elemental in the next week or so.

Now I'm somewhat busy in the next week and a bit. I have a job interview, an exam to resit and some software to write for a deadline so I'm going to occupied with all that. Once thats over though, I'm going to sort out this damn site. Its become a big mess and I'm going to try and sort things out. I might even go about doing a bit of face lift and improve how things look.

News.. well not much is going on. I must however mention that Odd has opened a page for his Quake maps. So make sure you pop over and take a look at those. SmallPileofGibs has released a Quake 2 SP map called Small Pile of Gibs.(2,076Kb). Its meant to be pretty amazing, and it should be, its taken ages to make. These prefectionists =).
 

Also Iikka has released a couple of Quake 2 maps. IKDM7 - An Angular Atrium.(178Kb) and IKDM8 - Return of the Elder God.(860Kb). The first is a compact duel map which is pretty good. Personally I think the coloured lighting is a bit OTT but other than that its cool. The gel lava effect is also worth mentioning. IKDM8 on the other hand, is a huge map which is meant for 16 to 24 peeps. I do like Ikka's comment next to map : "I don't know if there are enough Quake2 players left in the world to make use for this map, though" Hehe. I think I can disagree, with amount of new Quake 2 maps coming out there is easily enough people still out there. Anyway, I had ago with some Eraser bots and its not bad. There isn't much detail though. Its also very grey looking. There is a very interesting piece of architecture though, its very similar to the huge pulsating tree I've seen in the Q3A screen shots.

Its good to see the Shambler is keeping the old SP site going. I mean, I'd be devastated if I saw his email signature go under 10 lines =P.

Dammit. I had something really good to moan about and I've forgotten what it was. That annoys me...

I've also sorted out the Shambler contest, so without further ado here are the results:
1st Place. Damaul
2nd Place. Steve Scott
3rd Place. Junior Jr
4th Place. Vigilante
Now Damaul has been given his 20 groats as first prize and has bought a shed load of sweeties, which he won't share =(. Now I'd like to open it up as a gallery of Shambler art. You send in a picture and it gets added! I'll be adding some funky photos of the Shambler later on in the week.

Fat Controller has released this extremely cool looking piece, The Ministry of Love. Expect a review soon.

Looks like things have got off to a good start at Multiplayer Daikatana. It's now been officially announced on PDKT. I'm interested to see what response it gets.

Finally someone emailed me saying the counter was fixed. Correct it has been, I asked for them to reset it you see =). Thanks to GSN peeps for that. All two seconds of a job.

Since time has been a little tight I haven't had time to sort out the Shambler pictures. I will though. I'll announce the winner later on in the week. Also I uploaded the corrected crapdm01 review. Had to rewrite it since I managed to really ball things up.

Tyrann has recently released an SP Quake map called Moonlight Assault. Pretty good. Its maybe a little to bland in some spots but other than that it looks very good. It also took me a few goes at finishing the map because it does get a little choatic.

Quote of the Day.
I was in irc the otherday when Peej popped in. He asked where he could get the Daikatana demo from and I obilgied by dishing out some links. Unfortunately due to them being fileplanet ones they're about 3 lines long. So after I'd done this, Zan "the voice of reason" dropped in with this:
<Zan> http://stopspamming.urls.com/
<Paul> http://zan.shut.the.f**k.up.org.your.ass/
<SleepwalkR> hehehehehe
<SleepwalkR> I wanted to type that too!
<Zan> http://umm.ok.com/
I am, on occasion, funny =).

Hidden and Dangerous is really beginning to bug me, and bug is the word. I'm now in the second country on the fourth mission. The problem is the damn game keeps bombing out on me. I've checked for help and patches and what not but there is nothing. I already have the 1.1 patch and that seems to do very little.

I should have a couple of top maps reviewed by tomorrow night and a new featured author interview! And I'll sort out the crapdm01 review since I messed it up!

I would like to say a big congratulations to Pingu on getting a job at Rebellion. For those pondering as to who they are they made Alien vs Predator and Rainbow 6. Speaking of AvP, the official AvP site has opened. It looks like a joint venture between Rebellion, Fox and Stomped. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing the maps he creates there on whatever projects he works on. Well done and good luck, yah swine =).

Shambler pictures!!! Send them in. Please! Pretty please?

Also looks like the counter is b0rked. Its been set back to zero which is a bit of pisser. I'll go shout at someone and get it sorted out.

Over at Peej'n'Fribs,.Frib has pointed out an interesting article on camping. Frib makes his opinion on it very clear, basically stating the author is talking out of his arse. I totally agree with him on this. Camping is not on. I think someone should create a mod which if a player camps for too long it wheel clamps to the spot and removes all player control, then alerts all other players of their whereabouts via sirens and text. Yeah... Clamp-a-fugging-camper. What a good idea!

There is an excellent article on 3D Action Planet (shock, horror! 3DAP with original site content) about John Carmacks lecture at the QuakeCon 99. Very interesting reading.

I see madness has taken over the Qboard. The thread of interest is Maps I made. Absolutely brillaint. I've refrained from entering my comments on it just because its become a bollocks fest now. Another, more sensible, thread worth mentioning is 'Mapping' history set up by Peekaboom. Seems to have switched towards Doom editing at moment. Which was something I really loved doing. Maybe I should have another go at making a Quake map ;).

I have a love, hate relationship with Real Jukebox. On the one hand its good that I can just waste nearly 2 and a half Gigs worth of space by recording some of my CD collection onto the computer so I can easily listen to it without messing about and swapping CD's. The annoying thing is when Windows decides to do some swap file caching or when I load up a program I get Rapmaster Fugwit stuttering from it. Its also annoying when listening to a mix CD, when it gets to the end of track you have a pause whilst it loads up the next track. The idea of a mix CD is for music to seamlessly blend together. Oh well.

I thought it was about time I started to tidy things up on my computer. So I moved the 2 months of emails (1000+) in my inbox to the correct areas only to get 30 more in today. I dunno. I also decided to sort out my download dir. I got a bit of shock when I saw its was nearing the 900Mb. Thats in the 5 months since I got this new computer. Not bad though, works out as 180Mb a month! Its all these damn Quake maps that do it.

Looks like there wasn't a 250,000 visitor to the site. Oh well.

Also please keep those Shambler pictures coming in.

One week later  and back to the Fileplanet check:
Battlefield Downloads : 1498.
Up 91! Holy $%£^. I is completely baffled.

There is an interesting interview with Paul Steed on PlanetQuake.

Peekaboom has written an extremely good article on old Quake maps. I've got most of them, that probably explains why my Quake map folder is 400Mb+ =). 5 years of Quake maps!

Pingu is writing a diary on the making of his SP Half-Life map. Its interesting the process gone through when making a map.

I now have Hidden and Dangerous. What a fuggin hard game. I can't even finish the first mission. It might help though if I read the manual on how to play instead of running in Quake style guns ablazing. Then there is Midtown Madness. I've not had the chance to play it since Kable is hogging the CD for it but it looks really cool. Kind of a mix of Driver and Carmaggedon.

I saw Austin Powers 2 earlier in the week. Now that is one funny film, half of the gags are from the first film, but that didn't stop me from laughing. Storywise its completely supid and is full of holes but its not about that. Well worth watching if you liked the first one, or just find the word Shagadelic funny.

Also we're coming up to the 250K visitor mark. Make sure you check the counter to see what number you get. If you get 250,000 then save a picture of it as proof and I'll put your name in lights on the site, for what its worth =). (Yes I have cut and pasted this from yesterday, it hasn't been up long enough for people to read!!)

Finally, the "Draw the Shambler" contest is still going. I've had a few in and they are seriously funny. Here are the rules for those who missed it first time round.
1. Draw a picture of what you think the Shambler looks like in Real Life
2. 450x400 in size.
3. JPG format.
4. Email it to me.
Simple!

Gonzo has opened his own author site. Gonzo's Graveyard is its name and the screen shots of Warfare 3 look very tasty. I'm looking forward to playing it.

Peej has re-designed his site... again! Back in is the Quake 3 player. I love the logo. Very cool. Shambler getting shot gunned =). I also like the way he has connected it up to PeejnFrib so that he gets the headlines of the latest news there. Speaking of PnF, I see ProdigyXL now adds news there... looks like they'll have to rename the site.

Fileplanet Check...
Battlefield Downloads : 1407.
MPQ Score : 0.5/5.
You know thats just not funny. I mean how! Why? /me explodes.

Bad news on the review archive front. I had all the map names in a program which with the click of a button files out a new alphabetically sorted index, unfortunately I've lost the program and the database which had all stuff stored in. Dammit! Back to the drawing board.

Tom Hall's last .plan update is interesting, if completely unrelated.
7/30/99
So, I've played a few games against humans--time to play the world!

We've made a parody of the Kasparov vs. the World site, which is at:
(http://www.zone.com/kasparov/TodaysMove.asp)

with me playing the world!  This is the chess game for "the rest of us":
(http://www.ionstorm.com/games/chess/chess.htm)

Well, if you're gonna suck, why not suck in public? :)

The site has a brief description of the rules of chess, so even if you don't know chess, you can learn.  Or you can vote like sheep for one of the moves the analysts suggest.  Woo hoo!

The analysts are all characters from the Bricks in Anachronox.  It's all in good fun, and it should be interesting to see how the game goes.
My chess skills are pretty crappy, but I've sent in my vote for the next move.

Its good to see John Carmack is regularly updating his .plan file again. The most recent ones have been of updates to q3a, but its insteresting to see whats happening anyway.

Replaced my mouse with one that works now. I'd be using the one which came with my puter which was ok, but had a decidedly cheap feel to it. Now I'm back with the good Intellimouse. For a change I thought I'd try out the USB version it, its certainly moves alot faster than a normal mouse.

Also got Ronin on DVD. Cool film. I'd not watched it properly on video but had heard about the extremely cool car chase in the film. What is good about DVD edition is the directors commentary of the film. I watched the car chase scenes with it on and he would tell you loads of cool facts about why he'd done this, that and the other.