Intended by the author to be "a kind of experiment with lighting," Meme's DM-Hydride provides much more, giving a great tournament-style experience.

The layout is essentially a number of octagonal rooms interconnected by stairs, with the top floor divided into three separate platforms. The difference in levels gives a great opportunity for z-axis fragging; I just love leaping over a set of stairs leading down and out of sight, lobbing a grenade-rocket straight down, and hearing it bounce down the stairs into an unseen and unsuspecting opponent.

As expected in a tourney-style map, it is a tad bit on the small side, supporting two to four players. Gameflow is absolutely superb; the map is very easy to learn, rooms interconnect well, to the point where you can run through the map backwards with little effort. Item placement is very good as well; with a map like this, overloading an area with weapons is tempting, and the author overcame this quite well. The lack of a sniper rifle, powerups and redeemer, in fact, helps drive the tourney feel. With all this going for it, there is little surprise that the gameplay is great as well. Time-to-live is just about perfect, giving a nice adrenaline rush without the feeling that you're dying too quick to do anything. Bots seem to fare a little less well, however, as they tend to move in straight lines for the nearest weapon, ignoring the plasma gun stream you're shoving through their backs.

The map doesn't fare too bad in the graphics category either, though you have to look a bit harder to see the beauty. With an admittedly somewhat vague factory setting, pipes of various lengths line the walls and ceilings. No animated textures are used, giving the map a somewhat deadened feeling, although it's not a major issue. The textures themselves work well, although without a whole lot of ornamentation. There were no texture misalignments that I could find either, which of course is always nice. Lighting, which the author claims to be the point of the map in the first place, makes the entire map kindof, well, purple. It's not bad, and the map itself is lit satisfactorily, but I'm not altogether sure what sort of aesthetic Meme wished to achieve.