Description Oooh, first timer. I'll have to be gentle....
[u]Yavin: Temple of the Sun[/u]
Oh my, it's an exaggershader! Erm, yeah. First thing I noticed - only thing I could notice at first, was the overdone chrome. I don't mean overdone as in "Oops I overcooked lunch!" overdone, I mean overdone as in "I was trying to build a doll's house, but got carried away and built a parallel universe!" overdone. Mr Sheen just called, he wants to know the recipe for whatever furniture polish you used. :p
Ahem, shader wisecracks aside. Thematically, aside from being relatively dark the map is classic Yavin themed. Architecture is actually at more of an intermediate than beginner level, and the fact shader work has been done at all - let alone done competently - suggests than while DarthStevenus is new to the scene, we're not dealing with someone who threw out their first product and released. Someone finally took upon themselves the old adage of practice makes perfect!
There is indeed a secret area, and in my view it's really more an extension of the map. The change in theme is a bit sudden, but it works out well. Again, though, the chrome could do with a little reduction in tone.
Overall the map is competently done, with the only real slip being the overpowering chrome shaders and the usage of a seemingly untweaked water shader for quicksand - quicksand tends to be more sludgy and harder to spot than the more fluid water.
[u]Imperial Gravity Chamber[/u]
Curses, just the name strikes me full of dread, given the "gravity chamber" maps we've had previously.
Oh. This one isn't bad at all. Imperial only in texture style, the map takes on a bit of a mind of it's own with structure. It's very smooth and designed to exploit the gravity settings available in Radiant. Basic, but slick. The chrome issue only occurs on the central column, so it's not much of a big deal - the nifty electrical discharge is a nice touch nevertheless. The button in the small trench turns the forcefield around the center column on and off - minor bug though, when turning the field off, the button works fine; when turning it back on, the button moves into the pedestal.
There's not much to say about this in th tech department, and in the gameplay department, it's an equal arena aside from the gravity. So, the advantage is probably going to go to the player who has worked most on their air control.
[u]Bespin Street Duel[/u]
This, I'd expect to see more on clan or RP servers than a duel server. You've got the hangar with a sky speeder, a lounge, control room, and a few courtyards. You'll find yourself thinking that the map could be further expanded, there's certainly enough room for it. You'll also notice that it's just as Bespin as the levels from the SP game; impressively designed and executed, going so far as to use the map's own construction to accentuate the theme as opposed to just visual aspects such as textures.
There's a few things I'd like to highlight, though. The shader lights are plain white, as opposed to having a texture and applying a light-emitting shader. Also, the glass just vanishes when broken. The effect isn't really necessary, but it's a nice touch and doesn't leave you as weirded out. There's one acknowledged error with bots in that they're reluctant to transition between rooms. That's nothing new, they usually don't traverse doorways and such unless they have to.
What you see is what you get with this map, so take it at face value.
A very competent first entry into the modding scene, and a perfect example of that "extra mile" that all first-time modders should strive to traverse. Hopefully this is the first of many successes for DarthStevenus; it's always nice to see modders who care about their work and so make the extra effort.
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