MAP26: Ballistyx (TNT: Evilution)

MAP26: Ballistyx (MAP23 in PSX) is the twenty-sixth map of TNT: Evilution. It was designed mostly by Mark Snell (credited as Kram Llens) with minor additions by Jim Lowell, and uses the music track "Blood Jungle", the same one from MAP16.

Overview
It's a cavern map, quite similar to MAP16: Deepest Reaches (which, by the way, uses the same soundtrack). It presents lots of attention to the details: the gate and the start and a room with Lost souls in the center-eastern side, for example. The exit itself is represented by a cool altar at the start.

There is a separate death-match area in the north-western side of the map which has its own exit switch.

Walkthrough
Open the only door in your starting area. A shot will alert some Imps that will teleport. When you step on the stairs a trap will open in front of you. Follow the stairs until you reach a berserk pack. Across from it is a corridor: follow it navigating through several lifts and Spectres. When you reach the bottom, go straightforward until you come to a fork. Take the left path and open the first door you find. Walk down a red-walled cavern killing the occasional enemies until you come to a wide-open area with more enemies to kill. On the island of the central lava pit is the blue skull key.

Backtrack to the fork and this time take the right path. Eventually you'll come to a room with some enemies and a door. Open it and kill the imps behind a cage. If you want the items behind the cage, beware the trap that will open when you open the door leading into the cage. Open the blue door and you'll come to a fork. Both the paths will take you to the same room (except that the right path has a trap): a slime trail. Another trap will open up. Find a switch and press it to open a wall in the central island. Just before you take the teleporter, a new trap will be released in the same room. The teleporter will take you to a room with the yellow skull key. Behind the cages of the room are lots of enemies that will try to kill you. By the way, this is the death-match area, and if you use the idclip cheat you can find an exit switch.

In the yellow key room is a wall that you can open to take a teleporter leading back to the slime trail. Backtrack to the blue key's area and find the yellow bars. Now you'll enter a quite dark room with several pillars. Find a corner with hidden chaingunners and kill them. Meanwhile, a pillar will lower behind you, revealing a Mancubus and the red skull key.

Grabbing the key will open some traps in the area with the lava pool. Backtrack through the red-walled cavern, then, when you reach the door through which you entered the cavern, turn left and find the red door. From here just kill the occasional enemies until you reach the entrance to a red-floored area with a clone of the exit altar at the bottom. When you try to reach this altar, you'll be teleported in front of the real exit altar, which has lowered, allowing you to exit the map.

Official

 * 1) Inside the red-rock cage with the blue skull key, open a part of the wall to the left from a burning barrel to find a soul sphere and a light amplification visor.
 * 2) Inside the cage with the yellow skull key, open the westernmost part of the wall (on HMP and lower, it is marked by a candle) to get a megasphere or a soul sphere (on HMP or higher).

Non-official

 * 1) When you walk towards the fork after the lifts, a wall behind you will open. Inside it is a backpack and a teleporter leading back to the first room of the map (more specifically, on a balcony where were the enemies of a trap).

Routes and tricks
If you are using a source port that allows jumping; it is possible to exit the level in a matter of seconds, by jumping onto the altar. This would likely be considered to be cheating, though.

Records
The Compet-N records for the map are: