 |
 |
|
|
| |
|
Well, I'm back. I'll be honest - I just wasn't feeling it for a while. That is, feeling the reviewing sting. Between things happening in real life and utter laziness kicking in, I was not feeling it. I'm here now though and I'll do my best to keep it going. After all, if I'm an admin, then I'd damn well better do my job like one.
Now that I'm done there, today we have DM-Koden by Sander "SaKa" Kamps, who contributed some fine work to the UCMP (Ultimate Community Map Pack, and please don't tell me you've never heard of it) map packs in the past. This small, temple-meets-warehouse of a map is said to suit 8-12 players. 12 might be a bit much, but it's not so bad either, especially for those of you who want to hone your target practice skills some.
Let's review the texturing first. A fair mix of stone and wood make up the meat of this place; the former covering practically all surfaces above, middle and below, and the latter being used on some floor coverings as well as several scattered crates. Crates of what, I dunno. Generic, perhaps, but they do look good. The items aren't that predictable in terms of their placement, with weapons found at almost any area of a room, and the essential pickups and ammo, ditto. But all was arranged neatly and without much fuss. And you know what they say - no fuss, no muss. :) Moving on, we have lighting next. Decent enough on the interior - well then again, this whole map is interior - with every electrical light fixture working like a charm. The color choices are slightly generic but they're a great mix of white, yellow and some red, fitting for a map of this theme. They light their areas in good, spotty fashion, and their flares don't hurt, either. I definitely enjoyed the crackling, blinking effect of a broken light I found. But, as there was no skybox for the map, SaKa relied on using bright windows with mere lightboxes for the effect of sunlight (or moonlight? You be the judge) fading into the house. Unfortunately, this doesn't work too well, and I think some shadow effects could've been used instead for the casting instead. Lighting is decent overall despite the sad lack of shadows. The performance of the map is quite good here. The map seemed to rely on gameplay rather than fancy eye-candy here, and it sure showed in the way it performs on my machine. On any machine that runs this game, this map should really present no issues in this department.
As for architecture, this map definitely delivers its 1-2 punch. Some nice twists and turns are found on the ceilings, and some of the platforms have unique shapes to them too. Ramps are always a welcome addition, and as you can see in the picture of the area under the bridge (if I can call it that), an excellent sinking, sloping effect has been dug into the ground. If this map has a strong point, the architecture is sure it. Despite a large number present, the bots seemed to do okay. They didn't seem to do a lot of jumping around to higher areas, but they knew where to go to find their artillery. And how to use them? That's a given. They were tough in this map. For those that enjoy online play, I'd recommend playing this one with a load lighter than 12. Tourney fanatics might try a 2-on-2 here since the map is not that small. There wasn't too much to hear in terms of the sounds, but you could hear some essentials like the zapping of electricity on the broken light fixture (hmm, that sounded like a double negative to me), as well as the all-important lift sound. I did hear some sort of buzzing in one of the rooms, and at first I thought it was the broken light, but then found out....pretty much nothing. I couldn't figure out where it came from, so I question its presence in this map. Otherwise, all was silent. So much so, in fact, that there was no music track used for this map, which is kinda too bad because I see a lot of tracks (default, even!) fitting into this map's atmosphere. But that is, obviously, just me. As for the strategy, just get a good weapon and fire away. I can't make it simpler if I tried. Really, there isn't a set strategy for success in this one.
All in all, it's decent but not mind-blowing IMO. SaKa has some true talent - hey, I've seen it in his other maps - but this one didn't rank up there with his best in my eyes. Some flaws (like in lighting and AI) were present and stinging, but other strong points (like the performance and architecture) help this map's score rise above the average. Now just look down at the bottom line below if you want the score already....
Bottom Line: While suffering in some departments, this map does have the muscle to deliver at least a few good rounds.
Score: 6.5
Average User Score: 6.5 (1 scores)
(marking schema)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
SkaarjMaster
Score: 6.5
Good castle atmosphere and crazy match with default bot load, but too much congregation in the center room. I'm not sure, but it seems the music doesn't play at all kinda like DM-HillyMcBillyFarm. Am I missing something here? Ah, there it is in the review.....no music track.
2008-06-01 15:47:39
| |
To add a comment, you need to login.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
