After Hours

Description
When I first saw the title of this map, I imagined it might be some kind of bar or night-club, in fact there is a bar in here, but the theme of the map couldn't be further from my original thought.

This is Cobrax's first released map and I must say it is pretty good for a first release! The map is actually a clan map, although it has some interesting aesthetic features that I will come to shortly.

Like I said, there is the obligatory clan bar, with a few posters on the walls and privacy forcefield's. As I have said before, I have always liked clan maps, they have the feeling of a close community of friends having fun together, occasionally with the odd bit of clan intrigue or gossip. ;) The clan bar is kind of a distillation of that I think, a place to meet up and talk after having a sparring match or whatnot.

There are also some large duelling areas and of particular note is the huge courtyard with the ziggurat at the center. This building, along with the overall architecture, textures, music and that bluish lighting evoke memories of the Dromund Kaas level of Mysteries of the Sith. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned the interesting aesthetic features earlier. I don't know whether anyone else agrees with me here, but it certainly brought back memories of exploring that creepy level! ;) One other interesting thing is that the author has used a stone texture and applied a glowing shader to it to use it as a light texture instead, which I thought was quite inventive and actually looked pretty good!

A note on a slight technical issue though; firstly, the steps of the ziggurat are far to big, they need to be shrink to a more realistic size. This isn't a problem gameplay wise since there is a noclip wedge brush on the stairs allowing you to walk smoothly up them. It is however more of an aesthetics/detail issue, but not a big one. My main concern here though is that the noclip wedge brush doesn't go all the way down to the floor at the bottom of the steps, meaning that you have to jump over the first step before you can climb the stairs. Not a major issue, but still something that should be fixed.

All in all a nice clan map here, certainly one I would enjoy playing in if I was part of this clan. Of course, the clan names and posters may put other people off from using it, but I certainly give the author two thumbs up for the excellent atmosphere he has created in the map! :thumbsup:

Keep up the good work Cobrax, I look forward to seeing more from you!

[b]New Textures:[/b] Yes
[b]New Sounds:[/b] No
[b]New Music:[/b] No
[b]Bot Routes:[/b] No
[b]Game Types:[/b] FFA, TFFA, Duel

~Nozyspy~