Deadman's Garage
by Squonkamatic

Well time to get back into the swing of things, and I'll take a cue from Skwank's Mailbag for our starting point. Last spring a writer asked if I could review some of the Hoverbike Deathmatch levels from 2015's outstanding Wages of SiN Mission Pack ... Well, as I pointed out to the reader, all of the HDBM levels were covered in the SiN: Gold Map of the Week reviews at Macgamer.com. But I immediately sent him to Claudec's SiN Lair for his amazing creations for this very special gameplay variant.

Deadman's Garage is my favorite of claudec's "big four" HBDM levels [r8cinater, DGB and it's HBDM CTF beta variant, and the majestic CTF_Sniperbuck], and continues a tradition of game level design base up upon parking garages. Yes, believe it or not, parking garage maps are actually rather common, dating back to even some DOOM WADs I have stashed away somewhere. It's an easy formula for making a multi-storied building whose floors are interconnected by sloping inclines, and some of the best examples I have seen for Quake1 even have little cars and trucks that their author's built to add to the setting.

SiN as a game itself is ready-made for the parking garage theme, and I'm actually rather surprised that this is the only 3rd party example of it's form, as far as addon maps go. There is one segment of Wages of SiN that is set in the parking garage of head goon Gianni Manero's skyscraper, and certainly HBDM/General's War Trench has areas that sort of hint at a parking garage layout. But with it's pre-fab car and truck models, not to mention the driveable vehicles, I would think that someone would have stumbled upon the idea long before Wages surfaced. With the Hoverbike feature the idea became almost a given, and I applaud claudec for having the insight to realize what a killer idea it would make for a map.

We essentially get 4 stories of a parking garage -- nicely populated by plenty of car, van and truck models -- with a lap marker on each floor, plenty of Hoverbikes to go around, and a nice complex of stairways linking the stories in addition to the ramps leading to and fro. Hand weapons are also provided in abundance, encouraging the player to take the game on their heels and explore the map's many little features. Claudec successfully added a surveillance camera linked to a monitor in the office on the ground floor, and a programmable teleporter that can then whisk you instantly to whichever floor your opponent is on. An eerie, bluish glowing cityscape stretches beyond the chain link fences that enclose the map's top floor. It is a thoroughly convincing setting.

One of the things that adds to the virtual reality claudec assembled is his use of lighting. Not only did he employ subtly colored lights to help the player figure out what floor they are on, but lensflare light effects are stuck onto the front of the vehicular models to give them little headlights. Even I never thought of that one. There is even a really interesting effect that he got by placing two glaringly bright flares into one of the ramps connecting the floors that is otherwise completely dark -- the player on his bike sees the headlights shining out of the gloom and the sound of a truck engine gets louder the closer you get. The first time you zip by it on your bike is actually quite harrowing, because the sprite based lensflares look at you from the same relative angle as you shift in perspective: it looks like you are going to crash into something. Nice touch.

It was only during my screenshot game that I really explored the catwalk ringed stairways connecting the floors and was stunned by how well they are constructed. Most of my time playing this map on the few occasions I have convinced other players to download it and join up has been spend zipping around on the bike like a maniac looking for someone to blow up. Right there you have a testament to how good and idea and well made the garage segments are, but the stairways simply blow me away. Most people who play the map won't even know they are there, and they speak for the complete vision claudec had for the world that he was constructing. He could care less if players completely ignored them -- they were a part of the vision and needed to be executed.

And the whole map is rife with that same attention to detail that goes beyond the needs of the map. It is a better map than it had to be, with stuff like parking stripes, trashcans, a blocking gate at the bottom, and all of those great vehicle models. I wish that there were a couple of the other driveable SiN vehicles included [Forklift Deathmatch, anyone?], but then again the don't respawn under the HBDM game code so whatever. It's easy to look at something and say "it would have been better if ..." but the fact is that I wouldn't care enough to even make the suggestion if the map didn't simply kick ass in the first place.

With that said, it does have a couple of weak spots. It's kind of hard to get used to which ramps lead up and which lead down on individual floors; you end up back where you started a few times until you get the hang of how claudec plotted out the routes in his head. The lighting is also a *little" spotty in a couple of places, most notably right at the top of the ramps as you emerge onto the roof ... one isn't exactly sure which way they are going until you get there. But my main gripe with the map is that other than the little gimmick with the lensflares and headlamps in that darkened tunnel, the map is dead silent. Granted when a bike is "active" it fills the map with that humming thruster sound, but I can't stop thinking about how much more immerse the map's environment would be with some city/urban sounds, and even more of those chugging engine sounds associated with the vehicle models in the map.

But then again, so what. Hoverbike deathmatch isn't about strolling around contemplating the nuances of a given level, it's about scoring frags and blowing your opponents up. Look on one of the medians in the middle of the floors of the garage levels for a Concussion Rifle/Fart Gun, and look in the stairways for one of the deadly Stinger rocket swarm packs that even a lamer like me can take out a bike with. And don't forget about that office area on the ground floor; if nothing else, you can stock up on the Cheeze-Umm health items that lay strewn about on a table.

The map does require a few players -- a one on one in this last week was kind of slow. But if you can find a few people to join up and have the bandwidth, DGB is as good of a Hoverbike map as any included with the original game.

Enjoy.

Download the DGB from Ritualistic's stash of SiN files at 3ddownloads.com by clicking here.

SQ090902

Email: squonkamatic@excite.com

You can access Squonk's archive of SiN: Gold Map of the Week reviews over at Macgamer.com by clicking here, and don't forget to visit his multi platform friendly SiN site for custom map and skin pack downloads and other goodies at http://www.squonkamatic.net/sin.

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