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Expendable Youth

1on1 players | Reviewed by GrindSpire - Sunday 15 October 2000 @ 01:58

Mickey J is mainly known in the Quake mapping scene for his great Quake texture and WAD manipulation tool, TexMex. But he finally tried his hand at mapping and earlier this year released mjdm1 – Expendable Youth. Shortly after this, having taken in feedback from various people he released mjdm1pro, or Expendable Youth Pro Edition, which is what we are looking at today.

Expendable Youth has a very unique feel to it and, obviously for an author who created a texture program, uses almost entirely custom textures. The map has a very original, clean look to it, with crisp edges and no unnecessary detail such as pillars that you could get caught on in the middle of a frantic firefight. The pro edition has also been changed so the ceilings are now much higher than in most levels, meaning jumping fiends like me can bounce around to their hearts content. The extra room also makes various trick jumps and bunny hopping a lot easier. The map is set out with 3 different floors, but it is made realistically, so that you don’t get floors on top of each other. They are big blocks rising out of the grounds, further adding to the originality and uniqueness of this map amongst the current DaPak/headshot style maps.

The gameplay on this map is superb, 1 on 1 duels play amazingly well and the map can even accommodate a very fast 3 player FFA although any more than that is just foolish. The items are well spread out with a good balance of items between the floors. Health and armour are plentiful, but ammo can sometimes run a little short, forcing you to use all of your weapons rather than sticking to your favourite weapon. As with all good duel maps, the power ups have been left out. Although there is a single mega health sitting on the top floor as a draw upwards.

4.5 out of 5.0