AT A GLANCE: Terrible "urban"-themed map from some slow-witted dumbass in Canada, a country whose main export seems to be lumbering, idiotic mapmakers.

MAVTOWN: City of the future!

DESCRIPTION: I downloaded this sucker from WonSwap, which is quite a remarkable site in that any given map you find there will invariably be some horrible abomination that transcends awfulness. BIO*Maverick, the cretin responsible for "MAVTOWN" makes the following claims about his work:

You know you've got a real winner when you see that in the description. "Strange Lighting" aka "Awful Colored Lighting" AKA "The Scourge of Humanity" is probably the worst thing that's ever happened to the FPS genre. Well okay, maybe not the worst, but as it stands it's right up there with jumping puzzles, computer-controlled "sidekicks", and any game that isn't Quake II.

Well, that's always a plus. I don't know about you, but when I'm trapped in a large, crappy room, feeling my retinas implode from the "strange lighting," I want there to be enough shitty Half-Life weapons in there to arm an entire East Palestinian terrorist faction.

Good Fun. Yup, that pretty much says it all.

THE MAP: As the map fades in, you'll slowly come to realize that "MAVTOWN" isn't even a town at all but actually a... uh... well it sure as hell isn't a town, folks, you can trust me on that one. BIO*Maverick has apparently never seen an actual building or town in his entire life because "MAVTOWN" consists solely of large misshapen objects grouped together to form... larger misshapen groups of objects. This map is simply a gigantic disgrace to all geometry as we know it. I really don't know how else to describe it, you'll just need to see it for yourself -- andeven then you'll need a few dozen syringes of morphine to inject directly into your eyes.

HAHAHA!!! St. Louis, eat your fucking heart out!!

GAMEPLAY: There are supposedly "lots of weapons" in this monster but I only spotted four and the kicker is that getting to any of them involves going through a brutal colored lighting hazing ritual of unmitigated pain, ensuring that by the time you actually reach the weapon in question you'll be completely incapable of rational thought. Then you'll be all ready to start making shitty HL maps under the name "BIO*Maverick". Oh boy!

FUN FACTOR: I spent the longest three minutes of my life playing this thing and I can't see how anyone would find it even remotely fun. Oh wait, I just can't see, period. Silly me.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Take a look at the ratings and figure this one out for yourself, jerkass. I've got really late Christmas cards to send out.

- Jed

Individual ratings go from 0 (bearable) to -10 (painfully terrible). Total score goes from 0 (ok) to -50 (the worst piece of shit you'll ever play).