SFire aka Sin Fire
by Squonkamatic

This is a gorgeous little map. One of the few "Jungle" themed add-on levels to grace the SiN community, I fell in love with it at first sight even with its *cough* shortcomings, and it has continued to deliver the goods over the passage of time. It is my pleasure to recommend it to you.

One of the greatest joys in my shambling, disorganized life as a visual artist is to encounter the work of another art-maker who displays an absolute manic love for what they are doing. My favorite painters are people like the German Max Beckmann, French surrealist Yves Tanguy, and the incomparable Francis Bacon, painters who simply pack their images with so much life and energy, as well as superior use of materials and technique, that looking at even their most mundane creations is a learning experience in how to make art. Good art is distinguished by the fact that it suggests/inspires more art, as well as new ways of making it.

And on that note, I'd love to see some of Tiger's "practice" maps. Tiger is the chap who executed Sfire, which according to his info text is a remake of a Half-Life level called "X-Fire", and what he came up with is such a richly detailed little world that at times it almost overwhelms the gameplay. It's a little over designed, if that is possible. Yet there is a palpable sense of joy that Tiger must have felt while making this map that simply drips out the monitor screen right into my eyes -- as I like to say, the best mappers are people who enjoy building for a game maybe even more than they enjoy playing it. The reward comes from getting the map just right no matter how long it takes; Tiger must have been dancing with glee after the two days it probably took to compile this baby.

The level is almost perfect. Set in a small enclosed canyon (arroyo? gully?), lushly detailed with plants and appropriately 'Jungly' textures, Sfire presents a very vivid picture of some sort of outpost in the middle of nature that literally looks like a bombed-out battlezone in places. Tiger made not only very functional little "Base" sections, but also created the best representation of a building that has been obliterated by an air strike (or some other form of devastation) that I have ever seen. Bricks and blocks and fallen timbers lean up against smashed walls and shaky looking roof segments ... I remember thinking when watching last year's excellent Enemy at the Gates about a legendary Sniper's duel set amongst the rubble of a bombed-out Stalingrad, what a great idea for a game level; Blown up buildings with rubble everywhere to hide behind and no weapons except the Sniper Rifle and some Spider Mines, couple of grenades ... Maybe set in in a Jungle or something. I like Jungles.

This is about as close to delivering such a vision for SiN that I have been able to find. Essentially you get three Bases, each cleverly built into the sloping, irregular, naturalistic landscape in a way that looks "real". Sfire is one of those maps that wouldn't have been possible without the techniques of brush clipping and polygon collapsing enabled by the then-advanced Quake II engine, where one massages the right angled blocks that level editing tools are programmed to create into forms that can mimic the irregular shapes in nature. I went so far as to even de-compile Sfire and load it's resultant .map file into SinEd on my friend's PC just to examine it's construction, and was literally blown away by the level of detail that Tiger employed when making the polygons that he used to shape the sloping hillsides, faceted cliff faces and odd patch of greenery here and there.

Located in each of these Bases, all of which have some sort of convincing 'underground bunker' area, are the tools of combat. One scurries from building to building in search of weapons and ammo, with the battle spilling out onto the lawn below. And then there is that "bombed out" section with a Sniper Rifle cleverly tucked into a nice, darkened corner. Just camp there and pick off your opponents through the busted up window for a spell and you will realize that you are in a map created with a vision in mind as well as a love for SiN's unique gameplay.

Now ... with that said, the map does have a specific weakness, which is that the detail is almost too rich in places. Players have a tendency to get "stuck" on bits of the intricate geometry. A couple of the ladders in the Bases are kind of hard to use because they are too close to the sides of the rooms they scale -- you get wedged into the shafts and have to jump back down and start over, making one into a momentarily confused sitting duck. The map is also silent: Jungle levels need the macaw calls, humming crickets and monkey jabberings from SiN's incredible library of sound effects to make them really come to life: just listen to the spellbinding semi-secret Jungle2/Jungle Pass 2 from SiN's single player game to see what I mean. Obviously you probably won't notice this in the heat of combat, what with rockets zinging past your head and all, but I still look upon a Quake engine map with no sounds as like a hot dog without Gulden's Mustard on it ... lacks flavoring. Tiger gave us the Silent Treatment. The weapon selection is also somewhat uninspired; the Rocket Launcher feels overpowering in this little canyon, and combat has a tendency to devolve into melee matches in the outside areas, where players get stuck on the angled blocks or wedged between a tree and a building. And the map has a 'visible polygon count' that is a little high and stresses lower end systems ... it is essentially a big box with a million funny shaped blocks in it, always an anathema to optimal frame rates. I would often host this map on Gameranger and players would complain that it was "laggy"; I contend that their little RevB iMacs were slow or they were using crummy video cards that couldn't keep up with Tiger's Polygon Overkill.

Whine whine whine. What the map does have going for it is all exemplary, and more than compensates for the Polygon Overkill and Silent Treatment (two new entries into Skwank's Little Mapping Glossary here). The item placement is wonderful, Tiger going so far as to make little shelves and tables in the Bases for the guns to lie on and lean against: nothing is just randomly placed. Look in the nooks and crannies of the "bombed out" section for cunningly placed health jars and ammo packs. I love and am inspired by the little underground pillbox/bunker structure with its windows looking out onto the lawn, and the trees growing amidst the crumbled building recall pictures of Angkor Wat: the Jungle taking over the remnants of those who came before us. The lighting is also first rate, and a great demonstration about how mappers should use restraint when lighting a map with a "real world" setting -- no pulsing gobs of neon purple crap in this level, and the shadow patterns all look realistic. The buildings even kind of "glow" and radiate light into what looks like a late-evening kind of outdoor ambiance. He really took his time with lighting the map as well as building it, and the work shows.

But to me the most striking aspect of the map is the totally 100% convincing sense of place. I believe that this spot could exist in our Universe somewhere or somewhen, a quality that for me is important for a successful level no matter where it is supposed to be taking place or what game I am playing. Some of my mapping freak buddies are under the impression that I only like levels set in forests or with lots of water and grenades (though grenades are a must for Squonk-approved mappage, I concede). The truth of the matter is that I don't care if I'm in a Missile Silo or a Toxic Waste Dump or some gloomy Classic Quake Death Castle -- all I ask is to believe that I am somewhere, and not just running around inside a game engine (*cough* Quake III *cough*).

Anyhoo, SFire remains amongst the most impeccably made 3rd party SiN maps you can get your Grubby Mitts on. Small enough for 2 players and packed with plentiful goodies for more large scale engagements, I have yet to experience what could be termed as a boring game in the level during the many matches we have enjoyed in it since I first found the map last winter. The bottom line is that it is a great study in not only how to make a good game level, but also demonstrates the need to know when to stop.

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

SQ051602

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.

Related Links:
· Ritualistic's Sin Section
· Ritualistic's Sin Forums

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