Death Star II: Emperors Throne Room

Description
Pros - Excellent gameplay, visuals, music, phenomenal attention to detail.
Cons - Errmm......None?

Death Star II: Emperor's Throne Room is Maveritchell's suitably spectacular post-Dark Times II return to mapping. As you've probably guessed from the title, the setting is The Emperor's Throne Room atop the Death Star II where Luke and Vader's final duel occurs.

Within BF2's limitations, the movie-accuracy of this map is amazing. The modelling and texturing work is highly detailed throughout, and there are so many fine details - from the hologram of the galaxy in one room, to the intricate details of the catwalks and handrails, and of course the emperor's throne overlooking the Death Star II. I actually spent a hunt round just exploring the map, despite its small size (occasionally dodging Vader's hurled lightsabre and hurling the Emperor to his doom).

Gameplay is also excellent. As previously mentioned, the map is very small - too small in fact for Conquest mode. The modes are Hunt (the final duel between Luke and Vader, with Emperor Palpatine watching on) in GCW and Dark Times* eras, Team Death Match, which is pretty much like stock hunt without the time limit and normal units in CW, GCW and DT eras, and finally Hero Assault in GCW and DT (sabre heroes only) eras. All the modes work very well and are very fun to play due to the compact nature of the map and perfect AI pathing.

Emperor's Throne Room also contains nifty extra features that enhance the overall atmosphere. There's fitting music from Return of the Jedi added to various modes, there's a distant starship battle in the sky overhead, and...well lets just say "try to recreate part of the Return of the Jedi whenever the Emperor is around." Like some of the map details these don't enhance gameplay but make the map all the more immersive.

This map is fantastic. Download it. Right now.

~Sky

*It should be noted that to play the DT era modes you must have Dark Times II: Rising Son installed.
Note: to anyone with both this DT and the Convopack installed, you'll get DT Space Assault added to Maveritchell's Space Endor map.