PadCastle is ENTE's first map for Quake III. Rendered in the Gothic style, PadCastle was conceived as a way to promote PadMan, ENTE's comic strip gamer who originally rose to fame in the German gaming magazine, PlayStation Games. The goal was to see PadMan turned into a playable Quake 3 model; an ambition that was later realised with the help of an Australian model-maker known as Tone. PadCastle is ENTE's first step toward realising this ambition and ENTE chose this direction as the easiest route to take after discovering how much more difficult the Unreal Tournament editor was to use and how expensive the model-making software was to purchase. ENTE also notes, on the World of Padman website, difficulties he had in finding tutorials in his native German.

There are a number of family portraits scattered around the castle, including a Boudoir painting of PadGirl in the bed chambers, PiratePad above a console in one of the many corridors traversing the interiors and a large portrait of PadKing, holding Yoshi's head (from Super Mario World) mounted on a Pike, in the Banquet Hall. There is a PadMan insignia mounted against a lava background on the landing of one of the many staircases, winding up to the upper storeys, and a Lightning Gun and Regeneration power-up spawn at the Castle's entrance. But as outsiders to ENTE's vision, in this initial stage, we don't really get a sense of who PadMan really is and exactly how it is that he fits into the demonic visions and Lovecraftian horror of the Quake landscape. While ENTE is now famous in the Quake III community for his Lilliputian Maps, uncertainty was expressed by some, at the time, as to exactly where ENTE, and PadMan, fitted in the custom Quake III mapping community. You can read some of the online discussion in the comments section of reviews for previous PadMap releases.

ENTE reports initially having problems, while learning the Q3 Editor, leading to the redesign and resizing of PadCastle. And this was probably just as well because the unused parts of PadCastle would go onto form the basis of his second map, PadHome, which I have also reviewed for ..::LvL. With PadCastle alone, we have little reason at this point to care personally about who PadMan is. But taken together we begin to learn something about who ENTE, and this PadMan, are. And, with subsequent releases, PadMan starts feeling less like a personal quest and more like a genuine offering for the Quake III community itself. This is where I believe some of the initial animosity, expressed in some quarters, stemmed from even if it wasn't always reasonably articulated.

Both are medium-sized Gothic levels, well-executed in their theme, and best-suited for small Free-For-Alls of up to 4-6 players. Although not amazing, games can be fun for a few rounds with attention focused upon the two main atrium's accessible via the surrounding perimeter of corridors. There is also an Invisibility power-up concealed within the Castle's walls. While, ultimately, PadMan was not to find his final resting place in the Gothic settings of Quake III, he did eventually go on to find a home in the Larger-than-Life World of PadMan and inspire the imagination of ENTE to create an entire stand-alone game.

Reviewed by HelterSkeleton