Map Reviews

[Crowbar]

I've just downloaded four new maps for UT2004. Here I have a short review of three of them, along with screenshots for your viewing pleasure. All three of the maps reviewed can be had here, at Unreal Playground.

 

The first map, and in my opinion the best one of the group, is a new map called ONS-Ascendancy. Here is the description the author gives,

Battle over Tarydium crystal mines on the Second Moon of Kaldor Prime in Aldebaran star system Take a tripp through the foggy canyons with all available vehicles including the enormous Leviathan.

Once in game, the first thing I noticed was how good the map looks. Now, pretty much all of the UT2k4 maps look good, just some better than others. But still, this one stood out to me as a great looking map. The textures flow well together I guess.

The home base is fairly open, with lots of room for all the vehicles in the map. Winding through the canyons you'll find the other power nodes, with nicely built bases surrounding them.

 

 

The center power node is in an underground cave/bunker. The underground area is very open and really a nice addition to an otherwise outdoor battlefield.

 

 

I tested the map out with 11 bots plus myself and was pleased with the gameplay. The bot skill was set very high, and they had me battling for power nodes as hard as I do playing online. That said, I recommend downloading this map and giving it a try.

 

 

 

The second map I tested is one called ONS-ChainsIsle. Think of Farcry and you'll have a good idea of what this map is. Before you get your hopes up, the playing field is nowhere near that of Farcry, this is a small map. The setup is like the title suggests, a chain of islands surrounded by a nice looking and very shallow ocean. The power cores are separated by multiple small islands, some containing power nodes, others containing stationary minigun turrets. There is one large island in the middle with two power nodes on each side of it. And when I say large island, I simply mean it's bigger than the rest of the islands on the map. In actuality, it is only about 5 double jumps arcross from one node to the next.

The gameplay is fast, with both teams rushing to the middle island and spending their alotted time listening to a voice announcing that the red power node has been destroyed, the blue team is constructing a power node, the blue power node has been destroyed, the red team is constructing a power node, etc and etc for the rest of the match. The vehicle count on this one is about right, though with the close quarter battling, they can be hard to get to.

 

The set up

 

Minigun turret

 

Just how close these nodes really are

 

 

And finally, ONS-Darkwood_Forest. This one has no vehicles at all, anywhere. And for good reason. The map is tiny, and as the name implies, it's a dense forest. The opposing cores are connected in a diamond shape by two nodes. Players exit their bases, go right, left or jump the creek to go straight toward the nodes, and begin shooting as the frame rate drops to a stutter. The fighting for nodes is brutal. Expect a long, hard, finger cramping fight to even get a node constructed.

 

Layout

 

Plus dense forest

 

Equal brutal battles

[Fatty]

I still have to put Icarus back into the mapcycle.

 

These look fun! How many servers have you seen playing these?

 

Can a gamer d/l these by just joining a server playing it?

[Crowbar]

It sounds like they can be downloaded from the server, at least the first one. There was an official version of that map on GameSpot that had to be downloaded from the web, this version is made to be "pushed" to the client through the server. I'm not sure what all that means, but it sounds like some maps can be downloaded from servers and some can't.

 

As for servers playing these, I didn't look. I tried them out in "Instant Action".

[Fatty]

I think I'm gonna make a map....

[Crowbar]

I tried to figure out the UT2003 editor (basically the same thing as the UT2004 editor) but didn't get far. I'm going to try again, but start by loading an exsisting map and playing with it. If I'm successful, I'll have a map that you all will love.

[Crowbar]

Alright, today's map is a Double Domination map built on a map you all know and love, de_aztec. The official title of the map is DOM-Aztec[FuT]rev1. FuT stands for the author's website, funrealtournament. The author is extremely talented, as evidenced by the fact that Epic Games bought his maps Face2003 and Deck 17 for inclusion in UT2k4.

Anyway, on to the map at hand. Aztec for UT. What more can I say really, there's no downside. We all know aztec, and this map is almost an exact copy of it. It just looks a whole lot prettier. There's actually grass. And the water doesn't look like sewage. Since it is a domination map, there are two additions to the classic layout. This way the domination points could be placed into the map.

Gameplay flows well, mainly because I am intimatly familiar with the map. The only complaint I have is the placement seems a bit unfair to the red team. One of the domination points is in the water at the base of what was the terrorist spawn. This is now the blue team spawn. This allows the blue team to reach this domination point very rapidly, while the red team must leave the former ct spawn, enter the bridge room and jump off the bridge to get to that point. The other spawn point is at the former bombsite (a, I believe it was, anyway, the non-ct spawn bombsite). This is also a bit of a trip for the red team to reach, though probably the best place to put it considering the layout of the map. If it was old style domination, where there could be three domination points, I think the map would be complete.

That was a lot more complaining than the map deserves, however. It's a great tribute to an old friend, and I recommend downloading it and playing. Set the score count higher in the "Rules" tab, otherwise the game will be over too quickly. For those of you who have been without CS for a long time, this will be a great trip down memory lane.

 

Fighting over one of the domination points

 

How many times have you done this?

 

The river domination point

 

Expecting the old double door rush

 

 

 

Download it here. Scroll down a bit, there's a DOM and DM version.

[TheBugs]

ok.. going to buy UT TONIGHT