AT A GLANCE: "Fascinating, Captain."

Remember that cheesy episode of the original Star Trek where Captain Kirk and a few other minors were kidnapped and forced to perform as gladiators on some planet with amazingly ugly women while these mutant disembodied brain creatures bet on the matches with "Quatloos"? This Quake 3 "rail arena" level has a comparable level of reality to it, and inspires within me the same fits of hilarity as hearing William Shatner say the word "Quatloo" on loop. Why people release levels like this is beyond me, except that perhaps they don't have any gay Asian goat porn to upload and are simply fascinated by the process of transferring obscene material over the Internet. I'm not sure whther to thank LVL's Tigger-On for submitting this level or try to sue him and Ironuts for punative damages.

DESCRIPTION: I found this comment to be troubling:

"Very similar to my favorite quake 2 level."

There's a Quake2 level like this out there? Good God ... someone please find it and email me the link. Another interesting tidbit of info from Ironuts' author text reads:

"Textures used : Various."

Umm, yeah but he left a few behind somewhere in the whole one day it too him to cook this turkey. Either that or the black/white grid graphic so predominant in this level is a texture selection that I have not paid enough attention to in the past.

THE MAP: Ironuts has sadly taken the term "Quake III Arena" far too literally and has made a huge open-sky "box" that resembles a skating rink and hideously textured it in a manner that reinforces that impression. Stuck to the walls are platforms and ledges that are ALL missing their textures except the edge of a gazebo-like structure plunked into the middle of the "map", which is festooned with a repeating band of gag license plates. The function of this attribute is to confuse and annoy the sentient player, and in that sense it works quite well. But the texture wackiness doesn't stop there: pasted to one of the walls is an image of what appears to be a group of player models stolen from an old ShugaShack "Meet the Bots" story, and underneath them are the words "North American Destroyers" which undoubtedly refers to his clan {NAD} affiliation. One hopes that he was promptly expelled from the organization in retaliation for attaching the group's epithet to this travesty. There is also an image of what looks like Christ ascending to Heaven pasted over one of the larger ledge structures (which is accessed by bunny hopping off of a jump pad cleverly missing its graphic), but the picture is too bright and highly contrasted to really tell what it is. Obviously, one of Ironuts' intentions behind releasing this map is in creating confusion.

Missing texture grids and a string of license plate faces along the side of a gazebo ... such joy.

Anyway, to give the map variety, placed at the compass points of the arena are collections of prefab Q3 crates and each of the l33t powerups from the game, and of course (true to the form of a Cranky Q3 map) the ridiculous "Flight" entity is included to allow players the endless joy of buzzing around the map like a fat, bloated bumble bee while they struggle with the Railgun.

And - ahh yes - the Railgun. Since this is a (sic) "f4g0t Rail Arena" map the author has elected to ignore the possibilities of the other weapons for the sole purpose of being able to contend that if you dislike this map it is not because it is a pathetic waste of binary space clogging up the Internet, but because you SUCK at the Rail. I'll be the first to admit that I cannot hit the broad side of a parked Winnabego without stopping dead still, crouching, and aiming the railgun carefully with the mouse. But I am also convinced that by not including any other weapons he has chosen to condemn anyone determined enough to play this map to the "Flames of Woe" Mozart refers to in his requiem mass.

GAMEPLAY: None. You run around like a fucking moron (or sail through the air like a drunk insect) and try to rail things shimmering against the appalling powder blue/grey textures.

FUN FACTOR: No comment.

THE BOTTOM LINE: There are certainly former lobotomy patients reading this that will find Ironuts' little level to be an engaging, imaginative exercise in map design. However, the rest of us have yet another sorry example of everything going wrong and another Quake level to avoid. Play at your own risk.

- Squonkamatic for the People!!