Medusa's Quake for SiN - Page 2
by Squonkamatic

Then again maybe I'm not so skooled as I thought, since Medusa's sparse info text for Sin1q3a, her next contribution, states it as being "... a conversion of Tim Willits' "Q3a_Tim" map from the Q3A Test." Huh? The Q3test1 I knew had two maps -- Q3test1.bsp [which later became Q3dm7] and Q3test2.bsp [Q3DM17/The Longest Yard]. Q3test2 added the Q3tourney map, but I never saw a "Q3a_Tim" level.

Then again I wasn't the type to go unstuffing game paks back then and was content just logging on when I could for a match or two with whomever was hosting what. Yet from this cryptic evidence we can suppose that "Q3a_Tim" became Q3tourney5 with its shroud of yellow mist and Uriel bouncing all over the place like an annoying bionic chicken. And once again, the architecture is rendered surprisingly similar to the map that I at least know, right down to the "curved" arches ... It was also finished and compiled within 48 hours of Sin1q1dm6, clues that lead me to hypothesize that it also was based on a decompiled "Q3a_Tim.bsp", which was then touched up with SiN stuff an recompiled. I wonder if "Q3a_Tim" had the fog in it; I honestly have never seen it.

SinEd also supports the use of fogging effects, but Medusa chose to completely darken the center of the map instead, which also creates a kind of impenetrable gloom that is equally hard to see in. Her lighting through the rest of the map is more consistent than in her take on DM6, and the textures she made seem more fitting when applied to these particular structures. The only disappointment I find with the level [other than a lack of sound effects, a symptom common to all of her maps] is that she didn't really seem aware of the way that SiN allows items to be placed in a specific way in the virtual 3 dimensional reality of the game [leaning up against a wall, for example]. Guns and health just kind of sit plopped where a Quake III gun would go, another hint to me that the .map was imported and redone on the quick: She was more concerned with finishing the levels and playing them, than using their ideas as a departure point on which to build something "new" for SiN.

And that is what I admire about the efforts -- these were made by someone who was excited enough by the new possible worlds that Quake3Test were showing her to want to bring them over to her preferred game platform, even if it didn't entirely work out. The detailing for SiN didn't matter so much as just slapping something together where she could revisit the thrill of Quake flavored combat against the Redemption Bot ... Quake3Test did not come with Bot support, remember, so these may have started as a way of getting a Quake fix when she couldn't get online or whatever.

Her take on Q3dm17/The Longest Yard, Sin1q3_17, was made in late December of 1999, and is the first of her Quake conversions to feature a Wages of SiN goodie for players who happened to have purchased the 2015 Expansion Pack. Medusa made some clever circular textures to go on the blocks where she placed the "push" triggers used to recreate the Quake3 jump pads. Interestingly, she apparently added a damage setting to the bounce, so that you get injured as you are flung up into the air. I managed to stupidly kill myself a number of times during my screenshot session and finally had to resort to spectating my way up to the top pad, where the Wages IP36 Personal Tactical Nuclear Device replaces the Quake III Quad Damage. The two or three times I ran the map back in the glory days of Gameranger SiNfests nobody ever made it up there, so it's use is somewhat limited.

Of far more interest to me is the care that Medusa used in targeting her "push" triggers to fling players from one spot on the map to the next. Even if she could have decompiled q3dm17 to retexture it she would have had to remake the bounce triggers and target them herself; it's a different game code. The flight from the main battle deck out to the Sniper Rifle on the old Railgun platform is quite the doozy, but worth the queasy feeling you get halfway there when you are sure you are going to overshoot it. I remember vividly just sitting out there with the Sniper Rifle and picking off opponents who were completely clueless as to where the fire was coming from -- the Sniper round doesn't leave the tell tale corkscrew of a Rail blast. The other thing I remember was how much slower the map played out in comparison to the Quake III version. Not slow as far as technology goes, but just the flavor of the gameplay itself is more hesitant and requires players to consider what they are doing before hopping onto a bounce pad. Her use of textures is a little odd, but it is an interesting conversion.

Medusa's conversion Q3tourney2 came next, and even though it is probably the map she spent the most time working on the lighting and textures for, it comes up short. While I admire the effort it must have taken recreate the appearance of Q3Tourney2 this is actually quite a gnarly looking map: SiN doesn't seem happy rendering it. Medusa also discovered the often deadly use of colored lighting over the Christmas 1999 break while working on this, and as such Sin1q3t2 is saturated with gobs of glowing cartoonish colors that combine with the textures to inflict a massive headache. Someone call the Esthetics Police. Now I love colored lights as much as the next guy and Quake III is replete with examples of utterly pointless glowing neon crap, but one of the things that made Tourney2 work was that the level had a sort of non-descript, "functional" feel to it. This just looks over decorated. But, it also suggests that Medusa's focus on creating the levels had changed: She was now concerned with having them look like something in particular.

This is where she sort of lost control of this particular map -- the best game crossover conversion levels are those that are happy to let a given game be what it is. Where Sin1q3_17 was content to allow SiN to exist in a space normally associated with Quake III, Sin1q3t2 wants to be Q3tourney2, and as such is the least interesting effort from the group, even though it might look the most like the real McCoy. The weapon placement is plodding, sparse and uninspired. I am particularly confused by the locations of the Chaingun and Pulse Rifle; Sure, getting the Pulse is a life risker, but considering it's function relative to Quake III's Lightning gun, shouldn't it be where the Chaingun is? And why use the Chaingun at all? It adds the variable of it's grenade thrower, and the Quake3 Machine Gun is already accounted for with SiN's equivalent. At least she left the QuantumMD out :-].

But all of this is forgiven when assessing her 100% professional conversion of Levelord's revolutionary Hip1_DM, Sin1hipdm. When I first loaded up this map I was stunned, mostly because if how much it looks like a DM version of CTF_Hip, one of my personal favorites of the SiN CTF levels. There is plenty of firepower and ammo to go around, and Wages of SiN players will be amused to find not only her trademark Nuke, but a Crossbow and Fart Gun to round out the gameplay.

If you are not familiar with Hip1_DM it was in fact the first ""Space Map", made at a time when games did not have levels set in space. Yet this map has a logic to it that owes more to DOOM than Quake III; catwalks zig and zag connecting a series of platforms, some of which have structures upon them in which goodies await. I love the "inflatable lounge chair" teleporters Medusa made, and you can tell that she had genuinely started to grasp the esthetics of texturing to make her construction "look" like a SiN level; Sin1hip is definitely the gleaming example from the bunch, and one can tell that she applied the things she had learned during the ensuing 8 months that make the level pay off. Even without sound enhancements, it's one of the best "conversion" levels I have ever seen for any game.

So what we have here is an interesting tale concerning the growth of this talented young mapper in her awareness of how to make her maps more convincing. The skittish hesitation one senses from the lighting in Sin1q1dm6 and Sin1q3a is replaced by a calm assuredness of how to evenly illuminate the structures became. The rampant overuse of colored lighting and garish, out of character textures that made Sin1q3t2 so hard to swallow is replaced by a more placid, mechanical and deliberate use of surface patterns. This is the first of this series of maps since Sin1q3t2 that doesn't look "odd". And Medusa was obvioulsy having fun being creative with SinEd, going so far as to make an amusing NORTONED! kill message when you splat on the ... well whatever one lands on when you pitch over the edge in a Space Map. Never could quite figure that out m'self.

Anyway, I highly recommend this series of maps even if you are not interested at looking how someone re-invisioned Quake III for the SiNners out there. They are a great study of the learning curve mappers have to go through -- you can't make a great map without making some mistakes, no matter how "perfect" your source material may be. Three cheers to Medusa!

Now, where is that Levelord Quake III map ... ah yes.

You can download Medusa's many SiN by visiting Ritualistic's SiN Retail DM Levels Page at 3ddownloads.com by clicking here.

SQ110302

email: squonkamatic@excite.com

Visit Squonk's multi platform friendly SiN website for custom map and skin downloads, plus other goodies, at http://www.squonkamatic.net/sin.

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