[CONTEST] Valley of the Jedi Tower

Description
[b]This map was submitted for the Jan-Feb 2007 Mapping Contest. To see the winners, check our [url="/info/ContestArchives"]Contest Archives[/url].[/b]

[i]Note: This review features a guest reviewer, one of our previous staff members: Nozyspy. I obviously can't review my own map, so I asked for his help. Give him the same respect (preferably more) than you would give the regular staffers.[/i] :)

JKFiles Headquarters, the cryogenics department:

*Inyri walks up to a large grey coffin shaped machine, there are pipes everywhere and it is giving off a cool mist*

*Inyri presses a large red ‘defrost button’ on the side of the machine*

*Hsssssssssss*

*The lid opens up, inside a frozen Nozyspy begins to stir*

Oh hello, I am Nozyspy human cyborg relations how ca…errmm where am I?

*Nozyspy’s brain comes properly back online*

Ohh, you want me to do a map review? Ahh excellent, this should be fun! :D

Well, now I am properly defrosted and out of suspended animation, lets get on with this review!
Now this map is a recreation for JKA of a multiplayer map that was originally in the Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight game. Now there’s a bit of nostalgia for you…man that game has been around for a loooong time, and people still mod for it too you know!

Anyways… whist I’ve never actually properly played through the earlier Jedi Knight games (I have the Demo For Mysteries of the Sith and Dark Forces 2) Inyri has supplied me with an excellent vid of the map to get a good idea of what the original map was like. And I trust that as an avid fan of those earlier games Inyri will have made us as faithful a recreation as possible. For those that don’t know, this is the location where, in Dark Forces 2 Kyle battles and destroys Maw, one of the six Dark Jedi that accompanied Jerec on his quest to find the Valley of the Jedi.

From what I can compare between the original and Inyri’s remake, this JKA version is very accurate to the original, one nice feature being the good remake of the texture for the landing pad which looks just like the original. All the architecture is there, along with the lift, and walkways and the crates in the small side rooms inside the main tower. And one part, which I particularly must compliment Inyri on, is the excellent skybox, which looks very much like the original and adds a nice touch to the map. ;)

As with all maps there are some things that could be improved upon here. Firstly is the detailing. Now…this is a bit of an difficult subject as far as recreations of maps from older Jedi Knight games go…because they DIDN’T have that detail in the first place. So the question is, do you make it exactly the same, or do you add detail in there to make it look better, even though it wasn’t in the original? So far that’s one thing that’s put me off making a map based on one of the Mysteries of the Sith levels.

Personally I think this map could have done with some more detailing to fill it out a bit more, but that would really be a personal choice for the author for the reasons I’ve explained above.

One other big thing this map really could have benefited from is some terrain. Although the lack of terrain doesn’t actually look THAT bad, I really think it would have added that extra polish to the map. Terrain can be done in a variety of ways, from deforming patch meshes (although that method is not recommended) to making trisoup terrain (made out of lots of little triangles) either by hand, or using a very easy and handy program like easygen. One other thing is that the big cargo ship that was in the original map is missing…but that didn’t really bother me much. Putting something that size into the map would be pretty difficult anyway!

Sooo, lets round up some of the pro’s and con’s

Pro’s:
- A pretty accurate recreation of the original map from Dark Forces 2.
- An excellent custom skybox.
- Fitting music for a duel map.
- Pretty good use of textures.

Con’s:
- The map could do with some more detail, if possible.
- The left was rather far off the ground, and a few parts were slightly out of proportion, such as the steps which were a little too high.
- Some terrain would have polished the map up much better.
- The lighting could be made more natural, it feels a bit flat at the moment.

Apart from that though a good Duel map here, one I would recommend for any fans of Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight! Keep up the good work Inyri and hopefully you will make us some more maps based on Dark Forces 2! :D

Right, time for me to go back into suspended animation now!

*Nozyspy disappears back into the mists*

Bot Support: Yes
New Textures: Yes
New Sounds: No
New Music: No
Game Types: FFA, TFFA, Duel, Powerduel

~Nozyspy~