"The Lair" is a small Gothic-themed Tourney map that gooball mentioned was "slapped together in a couple of days." To be honest, this kind of map could be created in a few hours. It's construction is extremely basic and straight forward, with almost no depth whatsoever.

The layout is centered around the RA room, with three rooms branching off from it - in the back on the other side of the RA is the RL room, with two jump pads to take you to some 50+ healths. The other two rooms contain two-way teleporters, with the SG available on one side and some ammunition on the other. That's pretty much it.

Gameplay is boring, lacks variety and promotes far too much spawnkilling. I don't have a problem with spawnkilling per se, but with the limited number of spawn points, it's quite easy to shift control of the game in your favor just by spamming with that RL and guarding the RA, switching to the SG on occasion to finish off a weakened opponent. Speaking of weapons, there is nothing else besides the RL and SG. Even Arena Gate has the same arsenal plus a PG. Vertical action is almost completely absent, save for the jump pads in the back which will only be used to grab 50+ health bubbles and nothing else.

Aesthetics are just your average Gothic dungeon. There is also some exposed caulk on one of the jump pad trims which reveals a missing texture.

I'm sorry, but this map just doesn't cut it - gooball can and has created better fighting grounds. The only purpose I can see in it is that it could be used as a training map for beginners, but honestly, by the time someone is downloading Q3 maps, they usually will have already learned the basic aspects of Quake 3 gameplay.

Reviewed by EmeraldTiger