Jump
by Squonkamatic

Let's have some fun this week. Jump is in fact one of the silliest maps ever released for a shooter game that I have ever seen [and certainly would have gotten the nod during my Cranky Steve review days at SomethngAwful.com, if SiN had been one of the games in question], but in this case that is a good thing. A very good thing.

I actually got the idea to review this map [made by another one of those anonymous authors who didn't include a readme/info text, lest they be laughed off the Internet] when I was outlining a review of the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker for another website, one of the silliest and most endearing entries from the 007 series. I was thinking about the scene at the very beginning, where Roger Moore's Bond is tossed out of an airplane by Richard Kiel's Jaws, and has to fight with some anonymous Killer Goon for his parachute, then has to wrestle with Jaws in free-fall while trying to get the damn thing strapped on. 007 escapes OK [or else there wouldn't be much of a movie], but Jaws has a hilarious chute cord malfunction and has to flap his arms like a 450lb duck and steer himself in the direction of a handy Circus Big Top, which of course has a handy Trapeze Artist safety net. Amazing. Silly, but amazing.

I was thinking about this free fall fight and Jaws' survival, and remembered the SiN level where you pop around like a flying squirrel inside this huge "silo", trying to blow each other to bits while timing and placing your bounce to land on the upper "floors" of the level, which have bigger and better guns as you get higher. Now while this may not be quite on the same level of "fun" as a wrestling match over a parachute after being pushed out of an airplane, it is a pretty damn unique experience for a SiN map. And like Moonraker, if you take it seriously for one second you miss the point -- it is supposed to be ridiculous.

Jump's author shows a competent enough skill at making this silo structure, and knew enough about the way that SiN's enhanced Quake2 engine works to place a huge PUSH trigger just over the floor of the structure that pops you back up into the air when you land on it. The designer then either had a spot o' fun with the texture selections on the ascending "floors" [we get wood, metal, grass, dirt, and then a huge block of gravity defying water at the very top], OR demonstrates such a complete lack of taste in texture selections, let alone making something look "real", that all you can do is look at it and marvel. Then again an observation like "there is no way you could have a freestanding ring of grass up there" would be as pointless as saying "there is no way James Bond could have wrestled some Goon out of his parachute in free fall". One would be missing the point.

The point being, of course, is that the absurdity is part of the charm. Jump looks ridiculous, but has a kind of manic inspiration behind it that fills me with awe. How do people think up ideas like this? The map was made long before Quake3 and it's preposterous Jump Pads had come into being, and examples of "bouncy" Quake and Quake2 maps are few and far between. SiN has one level that features a function that shoots you through the air [Spy], but that is a scripted event, not a push trigger. Whatever it was that inspired the author to place this bounce trigger on the bottom of the map was an act of inspiration, and aside from a couple of unfortunate Quake3 levels along it's kind [check out this review of Trampoleen for Quake3 from Cranky Steve's; perhaps the same designer?]. Other than that I have never seen the like.

This map is sort of a working example of the line "that sounds so crazy it just could be true", and works because it's author had zero regard for "traditional" concerns about 3d mapping, such as making rooms and creating a sense of place. He/she plowed ahead with their dumb little idea and put many other designers who wasted far more time making things that amount to far less in the "fun factor" department, the bottom line consideration for a game level. "Does it look real?", "Is the lighting phat?" and "Do the textures look good?" are irrelevant considerations when compared to the question, "Is it fun to play?" Jump is hilarious, and yes it can play host to some pretty intense combat once you figure out how to work the jumps to reach the upper stories. Once you secure a weapon of choice you can hang out and try to pick people off as they bounce up and down, but since there are no ammo packs to go with the weapon you will need to hop back off to reload. Ingenious.

In an totally bizarre decision that you will miss unless you host the map yourself, the author not only placed all of the ammo, health and a few token weapons on the floor, but "placed" them at the very top of the map, so that when the level first loads up it all falls down to the floor in an instantaneous downpour of guns, ammo and health jars. The first time I noticed it I figured I had been seeing things again, but reloaded it and sure enough, another rain of goodies. Now I'm not sure if the stuff falls back down again when it respawns, but you have to admit it was an odd idea and provides for a great "What the Hell?" moment if you happen to catch it.

What does this have to do with the ultimate enjoyment of the map? Absolutely nothing. But then again the map itself doesn't have much to do with anything, except bouncing up and down like a fool while trying to shoot people. Other intriguing features to be found are a ladder [textured with light fixture graphics so it is easier to see, I guess] that stretches all the way up to the freestanding block of water at the top, some nicely subtle blue lighting effects included on each story that are just bright enough to be noticed, and the presence of a SpearGun and Invisibility -- the only powerup included in the level -- all the way up on the top floor. I also noticed during our screenshot session that there is no falling damage if you hit one of the floors on the way down, and you do not "drown" when in the gravity defying water block at the top. Very odd.

The reason all why this "works" in spit of the ensuing silliness is that the author did not bother with trying to do anything else, and by excluding all other considerations pulled off a coup in 3d mapping that is pretty unique. How he/she thought this all up is beyond my sense of understanding, but I am glad that they bothered. It's nice to see a game level that is intended to be nothing BUT amusing, and will actually induce motion sickness within smart-ass players who have extended their FOV beyond the default setting.

HAH!

Download Jump from my own personal stash of SiN levels by clicking here. [152 kb]

SQ081302

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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