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I apologize for my slight leave of absence for the past three weeks. School has been pretty taxing as of late, which I wasn't exactly expecting so early into the semester. I got one week of a pretty much relaxing schedule (never mind the getting up at 7:30 in the morning), but then three of my classes laid right into me and I suddenly had three concurrent projects going on for a few weeks. That's over now and I'm in the period between the next set of projects, so here I am, back reviewing a map I should have reviewed three weeks ago. Hopefully you won't mind it's a little late.
Commander Keen is back from his adventures in ONS-ChainsIsile, spelled correctly or not, to bring us straight-up DM in the form of ZhuanXu. As you might have guessed, the map is themed with the very nice Asian set that shipped with the game. I haven't seen too many maps utilizing this theme, so it should still be fresh to all you seasoned map downloaders out there. Rather than go the route of the played-out industrial arena, which I'm sure all of you are tired of playing in by now, Mr. Keen decided to go for something a little more aesthetically pleasing. Only by "a little" I mean "a whole friggin' lot." There aren't too many maps to compare this one to as far as similar themes go, but if you take a gander at CTF-MoonDragon, mix that with a little DM-1on1-Samurai (which, I'll admit, I overscored a tad due to my being a newb at the game back then), and then make it a lot prettier you'll get this map. As you can tell from the screenshots, this isn't an indoor type of duel map, but a terrain one, and that has a couple implications with regards to the gameplay that we'll discuss later. For now, we're talking about visuals, and terrain maps are almost always more pleasing to the eye. It's always nice to see community mappers utilize a retail theme package better than Epic's or DE's mappers, and that's what has happened here, I think. As per the usual terrain map we're enclosed in some kind of valley or what have you, this time surrounded by large rocky cliffs as opposed to terrain hills. The retail MoonDragon skybox looms overhead, and a gentle rain falls, bringing forth life in the form of colorful plants all around the map. Apparently this area has seen some testy times in the past because a gigantic statue lay in pieces in the area. If you're wondering why there's a giant head in one of the screenshots, that's why. A nice waterfall cascades down from the cliff tops above and a pleasant pool has formed around the lowest portions of the area. Of course, if you want to be nitpicky, technically the area should be flooded since the water appears to have nowhere to drain to, but I'll let that slide. My words can't really do the visuals any justice (seems to be a trend), so just take my word for it that the map is very beautiful.
Like I said earlier, the fact that this map is terrain-based means the gameplay is a lot different than non-terrain duel maps. You won't find a huge amount of Z-axis play here, or a myriad of paths you can potentially use to elude your opponent. Instead, what we have is a simple circular, somewhat flat, somewhat hilly arena with two divisions to create a little variety. I guess the best way to picture the overall layout would be to picture a circle with a line through it. The areas flow into either other easily enough and there are a couple slopes for potential dodging to get some fluid movements going. On the whole, as usual with terrain maps, the whole layout is rather limited in its scope. Long view distances are a dime a dozen in this map, and your hitscan pals shock and lightning will be your best, if not only, friends. There was some effort applied to try and relieve the issue regarding hitscan being overly-dominant by adding a wall here and raising the terrain there to naturally block off what you can see, but it really isn't enough. Against bots and none-too-experienced human players this shouldn't be an issue, but playing against a hitscan whore like yours truly, you'll really start to feel how less useful your flak and rockets have become. That's not to say they are entirely useless, though, as any good dueler knows when spam is a good thing, and generally that's the case when you're both headed for a power-up at the same time. Speaking of power-ups, sadly this map contains only one - the 100 armor. The importance of both armors being in a level isn't so obvious in a free-for-all battle, but in a duel map this is generally a very poor choice. This map also lacks link and minigun pickups for some reason, and they are invaluable to a proper duel with weapon-stay off. The weapons that are present are decently placed, though on one side the rockets, lightning, and bio are all a hop, skip, and jump away from one another. Flak guards the 100 armor and shock sits atop one of the higher points in the map that serves as a junction point between the two areas. Grabbing the lightning requires you to walk a dangerous trek up to a somewhat secluded ledge, but once you're up there, there's little reason to move except to deny you opponent access to the shock and armor on the other side of the map. Taking all these factors into consideration - the singular power-up coupled with weapons that are too close together and the lack of link and mini - it is my official stance that this map is more suited to free-for-all deathmatch gameplay with a smaller number of players, especially if you're going to be playing with bots.
Bottom Line: A great utilization of the Asian theme in a decent, but small, terrain layout that's not wholly suited for a proper duel.
Score: 7.0
Average User Score: 7.5 (1 scores)
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SkaarjMaster
Score: 7.5
Nice AVA, but way too big for a good 1on1 match.....you know the kind that doesn't take 2 hours.
2005-10-30 01:22:01
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