Jam Quake Brutalist Jam III

Love this and Monolith mod. Even more than Arcane Dimensions and Slayers Testaments.

I don't know which level I already played, when returning to start map. So I select levels from Ironwail level selector.

For some reason, when playing original Quake maps, the zombies keep reviving even after they were blown out.

Disclaimer : Yes I played ALL the maps to give my proper opinion and see what I liked and disliked the most, its easy to be a braindead and throw hate to something without even playing.

I tried very hard to like this, but most of the time I couldn't, QBJ3 offers a nice potential with great gameplay modifications, but for me the flaws in level design ruined the experience, by having most of the maps looking and playing the same.

I know that this follows a theme around concrete, that doesn't mean everything has to look gray or brown (obviously there were exceptions), I've ended with the conclusion that a lot of maps prioritized pretty visuals over good gameplay, without achieving neither of those.

The gunplay was the best on this, with great weapons and powerups. Monsters were fine, the new desings are cool (except the Shambler, my favorite enemy got butchered with a meme design, if it was done on purpose then its fine) and I liked the idea of giving unique monster behavior while playing on skill 3.

If I have to suggest/change anything of the gameplay itself, then I would:
-Buff very very slightly the firerate of the pistol (or mag size) as it is the only reliable source on very far distances, and often there are tanky enemies there (more of a map issue though) I know the twin nailguns works too but sometimes its a waste of ammo.

-Maybe do the same I said above with the shotgun, as a close combat weapon sometimes feels a little too slow while dealing with groups of deathknights for example.

-The twin nailguns are the only weapon I found underwhelming, I would definitely trade a better DPS in exchange of ammo consumption, only find myself using this weapon when I don't have other option or when I have an ammo surplus. Rest of the weapons are fine and fun to use.

- Sploder swarmer should have the same health as the normal one, in some maps it appears when you only have the pistol and theres no way to avoid the damage

- Amalgam spikes should dissapear quick when killed instead of being in the ground for 3 hours, in most cases it just a waste of time.

Level design, it was repetitive and boring, mostly consisting of throwing a bunch of ogres, deathknights and swarmers ending up with a final arena fight with the Invoker and respawning ammo, Its standard Quake gameplay style maybe and its not that bad, but having the same in at least 50 maps gets boring really quick. Veteran mappers ignoring basic design rules, throwing Shamblers and Vores without any cover, (its the Copper Vore so in that case its fine) moments with unavoidable damage, giving the player a Quad Damage with only 3 soldiers to fight, abusing tanky enemies while the player only have shotgun and pistol, or throwing 100 swarmers in a place where you can just jump over something and cheese the fight.
Then we have the Length of the maps, maps that are longer than 25 minutes are a headache to play, but maps that last an hour or more are PAINFUL, thank god there were some good ones, but halving the length would improve those maps by a lot. Knowing the average time beforehand is a nice thing but knowing a map will take too long makes me not want to play it in the first place. The last map, (the 3hr one) Mazu, I like your maps despite being long, so I had high expectations with this one because I enjoyed the one from qbj resurfaced, but sadly this one I didn't, having to kill 400 enemies with just the pistol, I don't understand how anyone could think thats a good idea, got the secret nailguns but almost never used it cuz no ammo. Second half of the map was kinda decent I guess, the endings and the plot were cool.

a SUMMARY here if you dont want to read a dumbass opinion from a minority like me :

Progs: 4/5
Core gameplay: 4/5 (weapons and monsters and how they flow eachother without accounting the maps themselves)
Visuals: 3/5
Level Design: 2/5
Map Lengths: 1/5
Music: 2/5 (is Quake tho who cares)
Character Design: 5/5

Below a list of the maps I actually enjoyed, the rest were mediocre at best.

qbjr_rabbit (you understood the gameplay very well)
qbjr_hcm
qbj3_spootnik2
qbj3_chadquad
qbj3_fifth
qbj3_avix2
qbj3_monkeyshock
qbj3_radiatoryang (the best one!)
qbj3_jm
qbj3_rabbit
qbj3_chuma
qbj3_shademaster (thanks for bringing something unique with fluid combat and with cool music)

From the new faces:

qbj3_kuroji
qbj3_softi
qbj3_ido
qbj3_tango
qbj3_racenis
qbj3_chaosedo

THANKS to them for remembering me why I always love and play Quake no matter what, and sorry if I misspronounced somebody.

QBJ3 left me with a bittersweet taste, a good mod that only a few mappers knew how to implement it, something that could be MUCH better.

Remember, its my opinion, people who didn't like this are a minority, and I am nobody to tell and force you how to map and make things, I just play my favorite game and try to tell my experience.
Respect and thanks to Makkon for hosting such a big project, and all the Quake community for contributing to this in a way and another. Hopefully there is a QBJ4 and more projects in the future, maybe the feedback from the people will turn this into something way better, and sorry for the testament I wrote and wasting your time reading this.

Nothing I could ever say would do justice to this fucking behemoth

Favorite Maps: Color Charge, Color Shift, One Need Not Be a House, Overscoped Clusterfuck, Blood Train
Least Favorite Maps: Penis Day At The Gym, 21 Spooner Street (Seriously these should not have been accepted)

A monumental project which deserves every ounce of praise and then some. I'm still playing 5 months in. That alone shows the quality (and quantity) of the mighty QBJ 3. Taking my sweet time playing and replaying maps. I can't get enough of it. My personal GOTY of 2026.

The following maps are MUST PLAYS in my opinion. They need to be reference material for future mappers along with AD and Alkaline. They will be known as the Quake maps of all time. I can't glaze them enough. They deserve ALL THE GLAZE!

Concrete Maxima - Draqu
Stalking the Reactor - Pinchy
The Oppressing Facade - Sze
The Smell of Sunshine - h4724
Sector7 - id0
Wurstwasser - Spootnik
All of the QBJ: Resurfaced maps (Cured Core is perfection)

I haven't played maps by Colossus, Zbidou and Mazu's 3 hour epic. Keeping them for the cherry on top.

A few bugs and gameplay issues but I think overall a very good mod (recommend play with librequake for the total conversion feel)
...I have a more extensive review on moddb

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However I gotta say many "modern" quake mods don't understand that quake is a dungeon crawler not a battle arena shooter. Many maps in BJ3 the player is simply locked in a large room with a horde of guys... it's not good gameplay and it gets old/annoying....

this map jam is the first one i've ever played that changed the game to such a crazy extent [this isn't my first rodeo with tc's however; played malice too]
all the maps in here are practically flawless; i particularly applaud clenow's hatred toward the milk snatcher and aggressive placement of pride flags everywhere! pulsar's usage of seamless teleports is Fucking Beautiful and i genuinely wasn't able to find any cut or flaw in the teleportation at all. how the hell do they do it
mazu's map was really long and hard [that's what she said...] and honestly i'm not good enough at quake to be able to actually beat this with ease and without severe annoyance at the level because of what is objectively just a skill issue on my part. avix you fucking legend i love both of your maps they're so god damn stupid hahaha
rabbit's map was really cool and atmospheric and ough so awesome...
pollinator's redux for the resurfaced section was honestly really beautiful. i loved what i saw there.

the weapons were also cool! i really liked using each one [only gripe is the inability to rocket jump :/] the only real issue i have is the existence of the swarmers. honestly if swarmers are gonna be added, especially the ones that explode, you need to add a lot of movement to rover, which wasn't there. honestly, sprawl96 i find to be a go-to mod for movement in quake, so something like that or at least just something akin to the jump boots would be very welcome. as well as this, the invoker imo wasn't really the best choice of weapon for something overpowered. recently i was playing mjolnir, and they have an electric weapon which chains between different enemies. i personally consider this a welcome upgrade/counterpart to the thunderbolt ahead of the invoker, so if another tc for the next brutalist jam is made, something like that would be a welcome addition.

overall this jam was really fun! i can't wait to see more like this in future :3

This is absolutely fantastic!
Excellent and remarkable diverse maps.
For once, some new weapons that are actually new; i feel especially enchanted with the Rebar gun. Imagine ramming half a meter of 1/2" rebar through the skull of someone you distinctively dislike...
Thanks fo all your hard work, everyone. And thanks for sharing!

This is my very first exposure to Quake modding, but I have to say it seems like a very strong start! After watching Vinny Vinesauce play through "Penis Day at the Gym" I knew this was a mod I had to play. I've played maybe half the maps now on hard difficulty and they've been an absolute blast with (almost) all or them!

Firstly, the new weapons, enemies, and power ups look, sound and feel awesome. I especially love the pistol, nailgun dualies, and new rebar cannon as I find the elimination of some of OG Quake's arsenal redundancies very refreshing.

The new enemies are very cool and detailed. I especially love the new champions firing projectiles directly at the player instead of just in a wide spread as I find it much more reasonable to play around and utilize. I cant help but notice how bodacious some of these new enemies are (notably the indecent Shambler) and I find it quite humorous.

The maps, however, are by far the highlight of the whole experience.
My favorites:
One Need Not Be A House - Stellar visuals and scale, fantastic ambiance, and fun to explore. An amazing standout in otherwise bleak and overbearing visual design.
The Monochrome - Fantastic pacing, imposing design, fun secrets. Short and sweet.
Godflesh - Immaculate pacing, unique style + bonus points for lots of green ooze. Very stylistically charming. Also short and sweet.
Overscoped Clusterfuck - My favorite so far by far. This map was a journey both mentally and emotionally in elegant map design, beautiful aesthetics, and especially the profound connection I felt to the method of storytelling. What a work of art.

Overall, while there are both amazing standout masterpieces, many of which I have yet to play, there are equally as many maps I felt were underwhelming, frustrating, or occasionally boring. This, I believe, is a testament to the raw creative expression permitted by this collaboration. They won't all be zingers, but the ones that are feel fantastic.

I'd rate this a 4/5 in terms of my personal experience but a 5/5 conceptually. I average them out, round up, punch those numbers into my calculator and it makes a happy face

I've often heard that the better a work of art is, the more difficult it is to write a lengthy review. Let the length of this review speak for just how good this project turned out to be.

Amazing.
I've played through about 10 maps so far and each one is giving me a challenge, without sucking the fun out of the game. (I'm not particularly good at Quake so Normal is plenty for me, without being boring)
Great work!

I'm a bit of a tourist, this is the first experience with quake, but I can't recommend this level pack enough.

First of all, the vast range of different levels is amazing. I really felt each mapper's personality and style through the levels. Each has a unique identity, and it's great that not only experienced mappers, but also newcomers have a spot to shine.

Being new to Quake, I played all levels on easy for now, since I am mostly here for the visuals, which are my favorite part. I have not played all levels yet, but I think in terms of visuals, "Monument" the level selection map, is my favorite so far. It's gorgeous, well thought out, and

I am still trying out levels and trying to crack the password to the art vault. This has been a wonderful introduction to Quake and I can't wait to see more.

Changing my review that I made 4 stars before to 5 stars now, I wasn't being able to make work properly on Linux, but now I fixed.

Someone contacted me saying that was working perfectly. So a I tried again, this time with standalone version and worked.
Before I was using Ironwail that I use for other mods, didn't work for some reason.

Amazing Jam.

After playing through all the new maps and replaying some of the remakes, I have a few things to say.

It's a really good map pack, 11/10 in my opinion, completely filled with monsters, but the politics and pro-LGBT propaganda are off the charts.

I really like the new weapons and monsters, and of course, our charismatic Rover, but shouts like "be gay, commit crimes" are unacceptable, in my opinion.

And what about being tolerant of others?

In our company we don't promote anything in our products, other than buying our product to get full functionality.

But believe me, I (and others) have some political concerns.

I can't recommend this to others.

This is sad.

ADMIN EDIT:

User was banned for this review:

Discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated.
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and so on.
For this in particular, you will not receive the courtesy of a warning.

In common with many here, I find it really hard to write a single score for such a huge project - especially when that project is not merely large but also complex: comprising 77 maps and a new almost-total-conversion with new weapons and altered/new enemies.

The Mod
The mod, in v1.0 (I understand some tweaks are happening in the patch release being worked on) is very good, but not perfect.
It's definitely more tactically interesting to give a range of different weapons - the rebar cannon featuring as a culmination of a number of similar designs tried in other projects in the last few years, for example.
As such, we now have:
the reliable plinker (pistol), an effective closer-range broad-angle weapon with ricochets (the shotgun), a rapid fire weapon (nailguns), a 1-d "beam" penetrator (the rebar launcher), the classic grenade launcher, a missile launcher which clearly borrows from the rotary shotgun from Dwell in delivering a spray of projectiles (thus allowing controlled spread but also needing you to be in view of your target for longer), and a reworked super weapon in the Invoker - again doing the "massive damage, but you need to charge up first" tradeoff, meaning it's not a useful emergency weapon if you're going to die right now.
In general, the weapon roster is more powerful than in stock Quake, and I perfectly happily used just the pistol and the shotgun in combination for 90% of most maps' playtime. Others have commented on the issues with the pistol encouraging a more cautious playstyle - it's powerful enough that, with infinite range and infinite ammo, it's optimal to plink at distant (or lone close) enemies at it and save your more potent weapons. I know some of the mod makers have described this as a player problem - "just don't play in a boring way" - but I've noticed this as a tendency in videos from very good players, so it feels that this is just an obviously optimal strategy on any difficulty.
A more "skill level" balancing issue is the Invoker and the Missile launcher - their design is clearly intended to raise the skill ceiling for players, but this also has the consequence that they're less useful to low-skill players. A low-skill Quake player can still use the LG to fry a shambler and rely on pain chance to save them from dying. A low-skill QBJ3 player has to learn to dodge, time the weapon release, and potentially shambler-dance to use the Invoker (or the Missile launcher) without dying anyway.
(This is also reflected in how some maps work on Easy, which we'll get to).
The remainder of the weapon roster is great - although the rebar launcher is a lot more situational than you might think - and I especially like the ricochets on the shotgun pellets.

Monsters... are mostly great. Kebby has done a great job with the new designs - I do prefer the alternate skins to the more "traditional" ones, as they go with the concrete theme better.
I think the swarmers and explodey-swarmers are much more difficult to use properly than some mappers realised - you need to give them a run-up and not just put them behind a door, otherwise it feels cheap.
I'm quite torn on the Amalgam - I like the design and the idea, but in practice what happens to me (a low-skill player) is that I focus fire on them because I know I'm not going to avoid their caltrops... and then I stand still until the caltrops fade away. As such, their main effect is to slow down play for me, introducing interludes.

Power ups: I like the vampirism powerup, and I found I could use it generally effectively. The berserk I don't get on with - I didn't get on with it in Dwell, and this hasn't changed here: I tend to take a lot more damage if I try to melee, even with the intrinsic damage reduction it gives, and it's almost always better for me to just skip it on a map and use conventional weapons. Ironically, the fact that the wrench feels really good for melee just makes berserk feel even worse (fists have a much narrower hitbox than the wrench does).


The Maps
I feel like alexUnder has said most of the things I want to say about map design here. I'm also not a fan of "low-effort horde/slaughter", and it does feel like a number of maps in this pack just can't resist having an "ending setpiece" which is just "throw a lot of monsters at the player".
(There's a few maps in the pack which also do hordes well, but they're a minority - arguably some pieces of Mazu's map are hordey, for example, but are well designed.)
There's also a tendency to give the player the Invoker and assume it's going to allow them to deal with a large number of high-damage monsters, especially groups of shamblers, with little cover. This may be true for people who play on Hard/Nightmare, but in my case, the end result was almost always that I just died because the Invoker is not an "oh-shit-I-need-that-enemy-gone-right-now" weapon. One of the reason's Nickster's map is so good is that it does understand this tradeoff, and its equivalent setpiece has plentiful cover to use.

That said, there's also plenty of really good maps as well. To mention a selection of the very best: Ebon's map is, as others have noted, strikingly different to most and has some clever mapping tricks in it as well as a lot of atmosphere; CKDN/Circadian's map is one of the best of the New Faces maps with lots of good design (I'd love to see more from them); Nickster's new map and the re-design of Pollinator for QBR are both great (although I'm unconvinced by Pollinator's (new?) ending setpiece); Colossus' map, once I figured out that some things that look like forcefields are not, is really good as a longer map; and Naitelveni's map is at her usual high quality.

As expected this is excellent - soooo much content and it feels almost like a whole new game!
Some insane levels like Mazu's of course in there.
The weapons all felt well balanced, and the monsters were all tough but never unfair.
Some comments/issues I noticed:

• On normal I didn't notice a difference between the 'blue' enemy variants and the regular ones
• The pistol muzzle flash seemed too bright when it reflected off the walls near me
• The hub world level information trigger zones felt too close to the level transition trigger so while trying to read info I ended up running into the levels often
• The female knight/champion and Amalgam enemies are great
• The shamblers look a bit weird to me looking like shaved monkeys (I know they're not supposed to be furry etc)
• The berserk power up punch damage cone feels too narrow to me
• I had no idea how to progress in the 'Brutal Deluxe' level after I got the shotgun so I gave up on that one
• There is a big missing texture in the lower level of the 'The fiendish concrete city' map just after the silver key and the lava appears
• On Hypervitaminosis C you can just jump around the gold key door and finish the level in less than a minute...
• The Hawk Tuah reference in the 'Penis' level felt childish, even the mission title as well

There are around 70 hours of quite good gameplay here unless you rush through everything without being a little curious as most of these maps are beautifully dense.

I love the new monster behaviours (as well as their looks, animations, sounds, the whole lot). They are generally easy to spot in fights to help you prioritise high stakes targets. Sometimes though I swear they act like silent assassins as not all of them have audible footsteps, to pair with their super speed (at least on Nightmare). Depending on the player location the monsters' movement can also be manipulated, though sometimes it can backfire, it does make fights really dynamic, I both like and dislike this aspect, challenging yet sometimes fun(ny).

The arsenal likewise is awesome, though I never really felt comfortable with the Rebar, I wish more maps tried to experiment by giving it early on as a tool to rely on like in Mazu's Snack Pack 3 map.

Since this is a 70+ map jam I'll have to cram my thoughts on the maps in general and those that stood out to me but this was all around a great pack, every map deserves a try. There are MANY styles, catering to different sensibilities regarding difficulty, interpretations of the visual theme, inclusion of puzzles as part of progression and length (and mapper experience, a lot of the first time maps submissions are really good). It is very handy to keep a notepad to remind yourself which map was what, and if you backed out of it early to remind yourself why.

Main Gallery
The Monument - Most stylish Control style lobby. It is cosy, it is jaw dropping, it is everything.
RadiatorYang - One of the few freeform / sandbox-y style maps, high risk high reward exploration and combat. Visuals are also killer. One of the best.
Spootnik Wasser - Super compact, all killer no filler. Very classic Spootnik style map. We need more bitesized maps like this.
Annihilazor - Great aesthetically, very cosy combat up until the end where it's a bit much. Still fun to go through to appreciate the environment.
h4724 - Compact and super dense. Moody and tricky, very fun. The literal spaces for the arenas are awesome, a lot of room to play around with.
Avix day at the gym - Possibly too much concrete, if you don't stray too far off the beaten path there are some neat encounters here.
Lob - Neat encounters and bite sized. I like the ending area visually a lot.
rabbit - Great visuals, both liminal and action packed. Felt like a fun and eerie grand adventure.
ZetaByt - Very classic ZetaByt style, good use of the new monster types without it feeling like a chore. This map's quiet moments are nice.
Tei - Another pretty bitesized map, one of the few that I wish stuck around a little longer. Good use of simple spaces.
Jan - I actually like the liminality and emptiness that is present at times, it is very pretty and in a probably unintentional way can provide story telling.
DrMelon - Cruel and unusual, it is fun to figure out however.
chadquad - Simple and cosy, the pistol can workhorse a bit through the map but it picks up later.
Chuma - A lot of unique rooms, the neon lights live on.
Sewer - Very brutal, potentially too brutal, the wave based encounters are really cool though. It looks the part too. The accent strip lights are pretty.
Milestone - Super unique shapes for the architecture, good flow even with the possibility of sequence breaks. One of the few maps that dared with cool puzzles and turned out great for it. One of the best.
Shades - Really pretty locale, the qbj3 arsenal kinda ravaged through the map though. The ending is also great. Very Shades map.
PixelDud - Super cool bitesized atmospheric map. I wish one of the zones had a bit more going on but this was cool and weird.
sze - Great flow and looks. It is potentially easy to get lost a little bit despite the signposting if you are secret hunting. Very well done dilapidated environments. Great humour too. One of the best.
Spootnik Materials - Really well done reimagination of 2 vanilla maps. Unlimited Invoker is great and since this is a Spoot map, yes you do need very good footwork. Very cool and great lighting.
Zbidou - Classic Zbidou. huge scale, tricksy combat, adventure game style progression in a very believable space. One of the best despite my hatred of boats.
Pinchy - Was surprised at the lack of a slaughter or crazy start, very much appreciated this slow burner pace. Very atmospheric with very pretty environments. The Shambler zone with the wooden boards is awesome. Didn't even realise the STALKER reference until I heard the geiger counter go off lol. One of the best.
haikids - Even without the lighting pass this map is neat. I'm liking the simple style with Portal and Half Life sensibilities. Just need to care about potential softlocks with elevators.
SimonN - Starts out crazy and doesn't ever really slow down. The textures theme and lighting is great (expect for the zombie area on nightmare lol). I like the 3 main themes going on. The fight where you need to keep on pressing the button is not for me though. The cube hitting mechanic is a little weird as I don't think you can properly backtrack in the map but it is neat. Very unique.
wiedo - Great combat in a bitesized package.
PuLSaR - The scale of this is really cool, very atmospheric and creepy. Perilous combat. Secrets are very fun and some of the best use for the seamless teleports. One of the best.
riktoi - Cool visual style with neat combat. Escape sequence is great.
ThatSpacePirate - Great mood, progression can be a little weird. Lots of great sequences with tricky combat.
Naitelveni - I love the stinkyness of this map, kind of similar to Warpspasm's "Bile Plant". Nice and compact. Backtracking for secrets is a little weird and I assume it will be addressed in an update. Love the bedroom.
FifthElephant - Cosy void map. Most void maps in the pack had a little too much going on so this was a nice change of pace. Visually nice too.
JakubM - With a reduction to scale, not even by a lot this would actually be great. Very homely and silly. Central idea is fun.
EberN150 - Probably the most unique map in the pack. It dared to use the seamless teleports the most and it mostly succeeded in being easy to understand (still tricky), both for general progression and secrets. Combat can be annoying but it's generally fun. The 2-3 themes are pretty too. Can't tell if I prefered the caves or the elevators. One of the best.
vanisch - Visually this is awesome, combat is fun minus the necessary zombie kills. The buttons need to stand out more however. Nice and compact.
Scampie - Really good flow and very distinct arenas. Was a joy to go through.
F15H00K - Very tricksy arenas with a nice colour theme. It was satisfying to overcome.
ROJ - Many small moving parts and places to see, it is dense, and if secret hunting can slightly be easy to lose orientation. Still awesome and I liked the soundtrack to this.
nickster - One of the few maps that said no to the workhorse that is the pistol. The middle to end part of this map rock. Visually great as was expected. Really impressive. One of the best.
MonkeyShock - Cute and bitesized, a unique theme.
Bonn - Neat spin on Doom 2's start, the fact it was so similar and also not at the same time kept the surprises feel big.
Wons - Really well done atmosphere, gameplay is a little too oppressive early on but nothing too outrageous.
DraQu - Purple honey with meat! Love this visually, dense with a low secret count. The early combat is a little much at times, but I somehow liked the craziness when you get all the way down. Navigating for potential loot and optional zones can be a bit of a chore but still neat. One of the best.
PLaw - Some of the best combat and progression flow. Zones look great too. The ending is awesome and it keeps you on your toes. One of the best.
Colossus - Love the scale and look of each zone. Cosy combat with much to explore. The slaughter works great with qbj3's weapons. One of the best.
Mazu - It's a whole game in a map. Super dense, super tricky, every bit of the world feels intentionally placed. Story telling, puzzles, player agency. It's great. Imsim but with good combat. The void feels a little RNG but still fun to conquer. One of the best.

New Faces
efant - Cool freeform bitesized brutalist void that doubles up as a bmx park. On nightmare at times it's a bit much but it's good.
cYn - Bitesized with a great theme and story telling. Very good.
rudi - Weird eerie feel for the environments but the progression and combat were solid. We rise.
CKDN - Probably my favourite from this category. There are so many small details and sequences. Good flow and looks. One of the best.
Clenow - Amazing environments. Progression and combat were unique too. Great place to Do Crime in. Felt very dense, some of these secrets are incredibly hidden to me. One of the best.
ic - Cosy brutalism, scale is probably a tad too big but it was fun.
Softi - Can feel repetitive in nature but the combat waves were nice to go through. Nice aesthetic.
MrZuerg - A very belivable environment, nice to go through with neat combat.
Quiet - Yay for another stinky brutalist vibe. Short and to the point. I love the circular ladder. Nice aesthetics and secrets.
Kuroji - The big scale somehow meshed well with me but it definitely could be toned down. This is very clean and fun to go through.
racenis - And now this one could be scaled up lol. It is a little silly but still fun.
chaosed0 - Nice focused slaughter. Aesthetically cool too. One of the best.
tango - Bitesized fun.
maese47 - I assume there was supposed to be at least another room to this map as the ending / progression felt abrupt. Aesthetically this is nice, and up until the zombies combat is OK too.
Eldrydge - Nice lighting and accents, neat shapes too. Potentially could be scaled down but still fun.
ENEMY - Visually good most of the time, especially indoors. While open maps can be good this one kind of lacks an objective and some of the progression is sort of something you "stumble" into. Combat is nice.

Resurfaced
QBJ1 and 2 were a while ago, and while I remembered most of these maps, I actually had to go back and replay their old counter parts to appreciate some of the smaller details. Needless to say these Resurfaced versions play really well! I appreciate the encounter and balancing changes these received, and some even got some new lighting passes, especially noticeable in Spootnik's (great new final arena) and Strideh's (and sze's vegetation!). rabbit's map also is so fun with the wrench and pistol. My favourite though is also an old favourite with joymodulo's, which as far as I can tell received 2 quite big changes in the shape of secrets. Don't want to spoil too much but they are worth seeking out. I think combat wise the biggest difference (though I can't exactly tell as I didn't fully replay them as they are big, the other maps are shorter to compare) were in Mazu's and DraQu's. I never even completed Mazu's QBJ1 map, and the QBJ2 ending felt a lot more manageable with this arsenal. Likewise I don't know if I'm simply misremembering DraQu's being harder up until the end, as this version's ending still is tricky but nice to overcome. Progression is still a little weird but definitely doable with a bit of patience. Colossus' map with the MMML is awesome, and grue's mini "choose your own encounter" with the new powerups works great. Nickster's map with the MMML you have to really be careful with at the end but still rocks. Nail maze in bmFbr feels slightly touched but it could be the new model, pistolling here is so much nicer, the absence of the super nail gun for the end is felt though.

Well I finally got through all of it, and it was a fantastic. This pack contains more quality design and gameplay than most commercial AAA titles. Played through Mazu's behemoth twice for a grand total of 7 hours(loved the system shock like twist in the plot, which is revealed if one takes the right path), can't wait to see what happens next.

I'd like to preface this review by saying that I played the initial dev test of this Jam, that being the tutorial level. I got the impression that these would be very questionable changes to make to the game, both in terms of the new enemies and in terms of the weaponry replacements. Since I had this preview, I admittedly did go into this Jam expecting myself to not enjoy it, yet I do want to mention that I found most of the levels here to be enjoyable maps. Although, I do have a few maps that I had particularly stronger opinions about.


The Good Levels

Darkness There, and Nothing More (ThatSpacePirate) – Despite the first half having questionable enemy placements, I found the latter half of the level to be very enjoyable. The enemies had a lot of room to be fought in, the joke room was fun to see after having played through so many maps by then, and the final arena felt like a good combat puzzle.

Screeching under a concrete moon (Riktoi) – This was the first map that I felt stood out environmentally, as it still followed brutalist architecture while also having something like an Art Deco style. The combat was set up very well with the use of the new powerups.

The Funnel (Paul Lawitzki) – The limited weapons available on the main path made this map into a very enjoyable challenge, though I did rush out of the final area as I couldn't deal with the poor visibility.

Overscoped Clusterfuck (Rabbit) – The music and level design made me feel like I was going mad, but I think that served to make the map far more enjoyable. Excellently made.

Blood Train (Chaosedo) – This was the only map in the New Faces section of the jam that stood out to me, and I'm both glad and disappointed that it is the final level of the Jam (if you are to go through all the levels from left to right). It is an excellent level to send off the mod, but it is unfortunate that it was held to the very end. This map poses quite the challenge with its enemy placements and how much ammunition and health you can get, but it was enjoyable to find methods to get around the horde. I do want to point out that the barricades can be jumped around, letting you skip sections of the level, so I would suggest adding in a way to prevent this.


The Bad Levels

Both the unfinished levels. That being Guess where I ran out of time. Everywhere! (Janvanderweg) and Untitled [Or as called in the level, Pumpstation F103] (Haikids). These maps were fine, but I think adding in levels that are clearly unfinished makes for a poor experience, as with the former you are left with empty environments that take far too long to get through, and with the latter you get an unfinished experience.

31 Spooner Street (Avix) – This is not a level that should have been added. Not even in the sense of "oh, this isn't a funny joke map.," this is just adding in a map just to make the final number of maps a bit bigger.

Fullmoon Brutalism (Compbluewiz) – The stalest gameplay loop with the dullest visuals I've seen. It was so, so boring. It's like the map creator didn't try in either aspect of the level.

Escape From KOE-37 (Mazu) – This level review is going to be far more anecdotal than the previous ones, as I find levels with this sort of length to be quite pompous. I played the Immortal Lock somewhere in March of last year, drawn in by the map boasting about the 5000+ enemy count. I found it to be rather difficult to start the map, started enjoying it halfway through, before it started being just a slog to get through. The vast majority of the enemies being hidden away in two final arduous final arenas felt like I had been tricked into spending far too long on the map, that the map itself felt so proud of having that many enemies that it could freely waste the players time in the way it does. KOE-37 gave me very, very similar feelings. The start was enjoyable, and about halfway through, (during the fake escape sequence) I was ready to finish the map. Yet, the map continued on, and on, and on. The first ending possible feels like the map is just trying to be extremely annoying to get through, that it's wasting your time by tricking you into this frustrating ending, it knowing that you've already spent so much time crawling through the mud and that you will want to get that ending no matter what, that the large enemy count will allow it to pull whatever bullshit it wants. I godmoded the first ending after crawling through it all up to that point, because I was beyond tired of having my time wasted in this level.

Here's a general issue I noticed that applies to a lot of the levels, many of them are not Brutalist. They're industrial. I'm certain the number of Industrial maps outnumbers the amount of Brutalist maps. Of course, this doesn't change the gameplay, but I do feel it is worth mentioning.


Now that I have covered my appraisals and complaints with the levels, I would like to talk about the main part of this Jam. That being that all of base Quake has either been removed or replaced in some capacity, and how I feel this impacts the feel and balance of the game.


Enemy Design

I'll mention the issues I have with the combat of the new enemies first and then move onto what I think of the designs.

The Rocket Grunts are the worst of the Grunt replacements, not only because they are simply a poor idea to add, their rockets home in on you slightly, meaning it's far more difficult to avoid them than you'd initially think. The only redeeming quality is that they share the same health as the other grunts do.

The Kamikaze is far too quick for what it does, and that is being a replacement for spawns that hides among other enemies. They only realistically serve as a jump scare into a load save button combo since you just lost about half of your armour and health. Just a ridiculous enemy type, only being beaten by the next enemy.

The Swarmer. This is the most pointless enemy in the mod. Like the Kamikaze, they just serve as a cheap way to scare the player and make the enemy count of a level go dramatically high for what little content it adds. It's fodder. It being fodder isn't even the worst part, it's the fact that it simply does not work in the game it's in. The Swarmer takes clear inspiration, deliberately or not, from the Filth in Ultrakill. Issue is that Ultrakill has various methods for avoiding these enemies, such as movement beyond small jumps. This lack of movement makes this specific enemy a nightmare to deal with, and it doesn't help that half the maps in the Jam gladly overuse it.

While not a new enemy, the Vore has been changed. The projectiles lose tracking of you after the Vore that launched them is killed, which I find to be a pointless change. Half the challenge of fighting a Vore is figuring out how to deal with the projectiles afterwards.


Now I do appreciate and understand the amount of effort that must've gone into changing all of the enemies visuals, but I find solid argument for these changes beyond the possible "These were changed to fit in better with a Brutalist setting", which I don't even fully believe could be a reason since the Grunt, Enforcer and Ogre are replaced with knights wearing or using modern weaponry and the Scrags have been changed into something resembling a robed wizard. Changes that cause the enemies present to not fit in with each other at all, extremely unlike how base Quake's monsters all fit in together relatively well. Additionally, changing the looks of the enemies means you must change the sound effects as well, but the issue with this is that these sound effects do not help you distinguish what enemy is after you. It is much easier to tell what enemy is telling you to "FREEZE!" and "STOP!" compared to finding out what enemy is constantly telling you "There she is." and "Stop resisting!."


Weapons

Moving onto the combat, I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that all the weapons in this Jam are extremely powerful, which makes the gameplay quite entertaining! The issue is that All the weapons are extremely powerful. I will be comparing each weapon to its base Quake counterpart if possible.

The Wrench, doing 40 more damage than the Axe at the horrifying penalty of a marginally slower swing speed. This weapon can occasionally gib the Grunt replacements.

The Flak does 4 damage per pellet, of which there are 22 of, for a potential 88 damage. The Double Shotgun does a potential 56 damage. Enemy health values are untouched by the Jam, so this results in the Flak being far stronger than the weapon it's replacing, at half the ammo cost.

The Rebar Cannon, alongside the Pistol and the Flak, make the Nailgun basically useless unless you're being pursued by Swarmers. Plus, the maximum nail ammo being increased to 300 lets you carry up to 3000 damage in one weapon. That's enough to beat Armagon on easy mode with 50 nails to spare. There is no point in comparing this to the Super Nailgun.

The Missile Launcher spews out 8 55 damage rockets at the cost of 4 rockets. This gives is the damage potential of clearing out Most enemies in the game with a single, focused volley. It takes about 6 seconds to kill a Shambler with this weapon, while it'd take 10 seconds to do so with the Rocket Launcher. I'm not sure why this weapon specifically was changed so drastically, since the grenade launcher remains the same. The design also prevents you from rocket jumping, and I think that many maps took this for granted while forgetting about grenade jumps.

The Pistol. This is a ridiculously overpowered weapon. 20 damage per shot with a clip size of 10, and an infinite supply of ammo on a hit scan weapon. Most maps seem to have completely forgotten that this weapon exists, and it outright ruins the way you play levels. This is made worse by the fact that QBJ3's recommended source port, Ironwail, having a quick zoom option. This means that the player has constant access to an infinite ammo sniper. One could argue that the issue there lies with how the player approaches the level, but it is ridiculous to say that when the developer is at fault for willingly believing that a weapon like this is a good addition to a Quake mod. One clip to kill an ogre. 1 and a half to kill a Death Knight and Fiend. 2 to kill a Vore. If you land all your shots, you can kill a Shambler in just 3 clips. The only reasonable thing to do would be to completely remove it from the mod and think of something better, because a weapon like this has no place in a shooter game, let alone Quake.


I'm of the belief that Quake has a very delicate balance of weapon functionality and how they affect the enemies you fight, and these changes completely ruin that balance. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy using these weapons, but this is ridiculously unbalanced.

On a smaller weapon note, I do think the Invoker lacks the sound design to make it feel powerful. As it stands, it makes an incredibly generic laser noise when used, which really does not fit with the sheer amount of power it has. Perhaps a deep, bassy sound when the lasers fires? Or anything to signal a wind-up of power before it fires?


I forgot to write about the power ups in my initial review, so I deleted the review so I can include my opinions on those.

The Ring of Shadows has been changed to copy the Partial Invisibility from Doom. The ring is already a rarely useful item, and this change just makes it worse for no benefit. Vampirism is a power up that I do see the appeal of, but in levels it was rarely used beyond justifying hordes in arenas. I do wish it gave even a slight damage buff, because it just feels a bit poorly thought out in its current state.

Berserk is a real highlight of the mod, even if it's not a fully original idea, it's always fun to use when you see it in a level. I do think the overpowered nature of it should have leaned into a bit more, maybe by making the melee have a wider range, though that change could be biased as Berserk is usually accompanied by hordes in levels.

Armour ticking down like over heal isn't the worst thing in the world, but I do think it's a redundant change that mainly serves to be an annoyance.


Conclusion

Overall, I think most of the levels in QBJ3 are very enjoyable, but my issues with the mod lie at the very roots. It is just not Quake anymore. It's not like it's using Quake as a vehicle for its own ideas, since anything that was already there was changed to fit with what the developer wanted, even if it was not needed. Calling the Vore by its other name, using pre-existing lore and applying it to the new enemies (Trenchknight lore is just Shambler lore), erroneously replacing Ranger with Rover, a word that is synonymous with a Ranger. It is taking parts from Quake while also trying to distance itself away from it. The map makers did an excellent job building the levels available, but the very foundation of every level is Not Quake.

My final verdict would be a 2.5/5. However, Slipseer does not seem to support that sort of scoring system and as my issues lie with the very core of the mod and are thusly present in every single level, I will be rounding this rating down to a 2/5.

Y'know who I feel sorry for? Anyone who released a map in the last week that has been overlooked by this!

Anyway...
Played around 35 maps so far and WOW! What can I say? Too many maps to talk about them all, but some standouts are maps by Mazu, Zbidou72, Colossus and Milestone, but they're all great.



Some good things:

I LOVE the new skins and artwork. Fiends in particular look great, but so do Vores, Champions, Scrags, Dogs – and most of all Shambler's arse.

The new gib sound is utterly exquisite. Better even than AD's gib sound – and that's saying something.

The new weapons are great too. The pistol is my new favourite toy, although it requires precision aiming, which I'm not good at. The multi rocket launcher and Invoker are great too. The general artwork and 'look' (console, HUD, etc.) are fantastic too.



Some points for improvement:

I do think the mod is missing the super nailgun. Sometimes you need quick crowd control with no reload time and no danger from explosions, and the mod doesn't really offer that. Possible solution: have a super nailgun that replaces the standard nailgun, or a nailgun upgrade, whose speed is halfway between the standard nailgun and super nailgun. Like nailgun 1.5.

I'm not sure what the changes to armour add, effectively removing yellow and red armour. Pound for pound, the monsters are a little more dangerous overall than vanilla quake (there is no equivalent of the Amalgam, for example, and exploding swarmers are more used than spawns in vanilla quake) so the weaker armour is felt more keenly. Possible solution: countdown threshold is increased to 150, or damage reduction is increased to maybe 65%?



General observation:

The slightly more dangerous bestiary, combined with the slightly weaker armour, makes this a slightly harder jam than normal. Especially when you add in having to get used to the new skins, silhouettes, monster reaction times, new weapons and longer reload times. Was this intentional?



Overall, this is a grower. As someone who plays on hard, and normally does fairly well, the first dozen or so maps really kicked my arse. But once I'd got used to all the new things, this set really came into its own. So new players should stick with it. It's worth it.



Playing Mazu's map first was probably a bad idea though!

The Brutalest jam