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You close your eyes. Your fantasy takes you to a distant place, to your own heaven. You feel how warm winds engulf your body, you feel how sunlight calms your skin, you see dancing lights in the air. But... something is not right. Hatred awakens in you, your hunger for annihilation takes over your mind. Is this my dream, my heaven..? Yes, this is my Garden of Dreams...
Obviously this is author's description of the map. Floating rock islands above the grey sea decorated with Asian static meshes, some waterfalls and bizarre submarine down there - and you can jump across this all! Idea is interesting although obviously far from competitive map - but it really doesn't matter. If there were only competitive map it would be quite boring, wouldn't be? Every island has natural settings and that means that you can hardly walk over some other path - except for places with rockyarches . There is one big main island with most of things and this island on its own would create a nice map. But Dante went for more expanded settings and addedjumppads to other smaller islands around. Jumppads are mostly two ways, they are smooth and cause you no damage. Great.
Connectivity is good and you'll like how fast you can get back to action. One exception though - that's the submarine with link, some ammo and vials. You have to do some walk to get either tojumppad which leads you to action via other islands or you can take teleport to get right onto the main island. Area on the other end of the teleport is probably the one used most. You can find berserk here, helmet, bio, stinger, jumppad to the island with building on it and also some cover (rocks, walls, archways) which really makes it the most interesting part in terms of gameplay. At least for bots. ;-)
I mentioned island with building. I don't like it to be honest. The whole building is a big trap where you can loose a lot of time. If you spawn here, get flak, helmet (second helmet is quite close to thejumppad to this island, strange), sniper and jump to main island. Or take another teleport leading to rocket island. Jumppads would be better - they don't break the flow and both islands are right next to each other. Rocket island is generally less used unless you go for the redeemer via another island with thigh pads. After grabbing redeemer there is one wayjumppad to the main island.
Let's walk the main island counter-clockwise from the berserk yard. You'll pass crossing with the way to the top of the island (later), shock rifle, link and a terrace on the edge of the island near link with ammo (useless detour). Let's continue - there is a lovely bridge across the stream falling over the edge down into the sea. I really like these visuals. There is health on the bridge and - well let's see - vest on the bank and right next to itudamage in the river. You've probably already got the idea that I don't like the pickup placement. That's right - I think that map has good layout for casual map, there is great connectivity between the islands, locations are distinct... why-o-why is the pickup placement so random? You can luckily spawn here and get it within few seconds along with double damage. Not to mention that bot getting double damage, harder to kill because of the vest is very dangerous even with enforcer.
Continue and grab rocket well placed right into your way. Now you can decide to go for shock rifle island or take stinger and continue to link. From link you can close the circle to area with the berserk and theteleport to submarine (I don't believe you'll use it from here ;-)). Or you can go right from the link and take jumppad to little island with shield belt. Focus on this one, time shield belt and you'll halfway to win - at least in TDM (I rather not play FFA with bots and with non-team stupid skins, sorry). From belt island you can return back or jump to aforementioned shock rifle island which has some big rock on it so you can take cover here and also some health. This is second important island because it provides another attack route to belt island. And another 4 vials on the bridge leading to main island.
Ok, we have walked most of the map so just go up to the top of the main island. Flak, boots (bots get often stuck jumping to them), bio again and sniper in this order. That makes top of the island good for snipers - however not that much because if you want health pack and sniper ammo you have to jump a lot to the very top of the rock for it - you'll likely die before you reach it. That said, I think that peak of the island deserved better - maybe that vest. I never go to the center of the island because I'm not the sniper and I like to move - and there is also nothing reallyworth here. If you counted carefully with me all of the guns are twice here and link thrice. That's good load considering that map is spread over multiple islands. Sometimes I feel that map is dominated with link/stinger, but that's probably rather UT3/bots problem than reality. Berserk area is often full of bio, because both bio rifles are near - which is another example of unlucky weapon placement.
I think I tackled all problems I have with this map and I mentioned visuals. You can see from the pictures after all - the map is nice. Bloom is probably a bit overdone, but player visibility is good and that is most important. Ambient sound - mostly water flow - is presented. Dante also used LOD and many smaller meshes or tree details pop into the view as you're getting close to them. As it might seem distracting - it really isn't in the game. Author also made his best to break the open space with rocks, statues, anything - and it all fits the dreamy theme. AVA is really stronger part of this map while gameplay is rather mediocre with unreasonable pickup placement flaws.
Bottom Line: Take it and try it - it's nice, it's fun - despite some gameplay glitches.
Score: 6.5
Average User Score: 7.5 (1 scores)
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SkaarjMaster
Score: 7.5
Not a bad outdoor DM map with jump pads, jump boots and an a-hole bot camping with hitscan weapons way up high. It has good ambient sounds as well. I usually don't like maps where you can fall to your death into nothingness but this one grabbed me and I overlooked my preferences for some odd reason.
2008-06-01 21:46:14
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Dante
Thanks for review Virgo. Heck, since the very beginning pickups were the weakest part, but I thought that I improved them through beta. Well, I suppose I just lack general knowledge of item placement, probably because I was not paying attention to other map`s item placement and was just trying to adapt to it (even if I felt that it was flawed). Promise that it will be better in my next map (although its not DM but meh)!
2008-04-30 04:18:47
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2_Face
I don't like UT3 and i don't have it, so i can't rate it, but i've got to say that this map has very good visuals.... i don't really like names with more that one word ... i expected a name more like DM-Edenya or something like that
Good job!
2008-04-28 14:50:19
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