AT A GLANCE: Michael Johnston's first map is here, and what a first map it is! Half-Life players everywhere will be lining up to have their faith in humanity destroyed in this gigantic apocalypse of malformed brushes!

Looks like the water wants out of this map almost as badly as I do.

DESCRIPTION: No text file. I don't even know what the hell "MCW" stands for, but I'm gonna deduct some points just because it sounds the name of some idiotic new wrestling federation.

THE MAP: A long string of crappy metaphors interspersed with cursing is the only thing that comes to mind when trying to describe this repulsive, fucked-up carnival of attempted Half-Life mapping gone horribly wrong. "MCW2" is made up of a few hundred mutilated brushes crammed together in ways I didn't even know were physically possible. Not only does the author have some mutant strain of ADD that forces him to completely switch texture sets every few rooms, but he also took the time to make sure that every single fucking surface and texture in the map is in some way misaligned. Folks, we could be looking at the reincarnation of Erik here. Well, Erik may not actually be dead yet, but all that fast living is bound to catch up with him sooner or later.

The brushwork in this thing is so bad that it should be illegal. I mean, just what the fuck is this deformed, monolithic object supposed to be?!? The mangled frame of a power boat? A cross section of Marlon Brando's liver? The result of a failed government experiment to create some sort of genetically altered "super brush"? I have no fucking clue. It's probably one of those things we just weren't meant to know, kinda like how big the universe is, or in Michael Johnston's case, how to make a map that doesn't look like it was destroyed in a rotary tool accident and then welded back together by a blind hobo.

Sorry fellas, the HEV suit convention has been moved to the Ramada Inn in Utica, New York.

At least the lighting in "MCW2" borders on semi-tolerable. There's some fucked-up shit going on in the "outdoor" area involving huge dark shadows, but since they're probably just obscuring more unspeakable horrors, I guess I'll let it slide. There is a generous amount of colored lighting included but it's all located in the void outside of the map. Yes, it would appear as though "MCW2"'s vacuum of stupidity is so powerful that it actually pulls in awful lighting from other nearby Half-Life maps. It's a veritable black hole of unrelenting pain!!

GAMEPLAY: The layout is terrible, the item placement is beyond comprehension, and the framerates rival Michael's IQ. You'd have to be a superhero to deathmatch in this thing.

FUN FACTOR: If you experience any fun here you're probably playing the wrong map, but then again if you're playing "the wrong map" there's a good chance that you are playing "MCW2". I guess that's a paradox or some shit like that.

THE BOTTOM LINE: I dunno, maybe this map is just ahead of its time. Maybe five billion years from now when the sun begins its death cycle by incinerating the Earth and other nearby planets, mankind will finally appreciate "MCW2"'s finer qualities. Fortunately, I don't think I'll ever live to see that day. Hell, I probably won't even live to see next week if I have to play any more freakshows like this one.

- 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).