East 22g

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### By Rick Troppman 5/25/99

DOWNLOAD NOW 9.35mb zip

Back At The Front (BATF) is a "9 level unit made in the image of Quake II to play like Quake II" says Rick Troppman in his included readme file. I guess Rick wanted to make it clear upfront that this level was not made to look like or play like anything other than Quake II. So if you are looking for something totally original and different, forget it. But is this a bad thing? ...... Oh yeah, it's bad all right, it's a bad mofo set of levels that will kick your sorry pansy be-hind.

My lasting impression of BATF is gameplay. What do I mean by that? Gameplay as defined where you begin to get jumpy..."lets see if I walk through the door here there will be two Strogg, one on either side waiting to ambush me. As soon as I kill them two more will probably spawn in behind me and while I am busy with those two a berserker will probably come in from the other end and take my temperature the hard way." And this is not really much of an exaggeration of the type of gameplay found here (at least on "Normal" difficulty anyway).

That's not to say that BATF does not also excel in other areas though. The screenshots speak volumes for the style and architectural finesse that Rick also pulls off. Weaponry is in good supply as well as armor and ammo, but you will need it all to make it through alive with Rick's blend of sadistic and brutal combat. The underground areas are suitably dark and atmospheric. Several areas also include long ramps which make for some very clever fights, and the ramp structures themselves are believably built with massive support structures.

If the fighting is this tough behind the lines you may not want to live to get Back At The Front.

| A tough, aggressive fight from beginning to end. Rick stacks the odds in the Stroggs favor to finally give a human opponent a fair, fun, albeit brutal gameplay experience.
| Some larger areas will have your machine gasping and stuttering for air. My pentium 233 w/32 megs of ram lagged noticeably on occasion.
| GAMEPLAY. A "slap your face and call you a sissy" fight to the finish. Highly aggressive combat but fun and addicting at the same time. You will want to play this one to the very end for personal honor and to extract revenge.

The traditional Quake II build. Beautiful.
Gladiator waiting for you to wander outside the compound.
A ramp area with hefty support columns.
Clean and impressive buildings. Hey Rick, I don't recall this look in Quake II!

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