Episode II Geonosis

Description
The Battle of Geonosis. [i]Again[/i]. To paraphrase something I read earlier today, there have been about twenty Geonosis maps, each one has claimed to be movie-accurate... and none of them delivered (which is why people actually keep making these). Well, chalk one more up to that category (FYI, I don't actually [i]expect[/i] any of them to be movie accurate, I'm just making note of their claims).

Not to say that battlefrontconquer's version of Geonosis doesn't have its strengths. It is a very well put-together [i]map;[/i] it looks nice when zooming around the battlefield with Freecam. I especially liked some of the areas on the periphery - the terrain and object placement was especially nice there.

However, the weaknesses of this map, while perhaps fewer than the strengths, are definitely greater in magnitude. The single biggest problem is the size of the map. I don't know how many times I'll say it, but smaller maps are usually the better choice. Playing through this map felt more like a chore and less like a pleasant diversion, and eventually I had to relent and use FakeConsole to enable infinite running energy just so that I could actually see all of the map in a reasonable amount of time. Right up front I'll say that I want nothing to do with maps where all I get to do is run around. It's just plain no fun.

I'm also going to take issue with the setup of the LAAT - maybe this is minor to some, but this was set up very poorly. The controls were reversed, which is a real pain since pointing up to go up isn't intuitive. Likewise, the AI was absolutely hopeless at flying this. Later on in the battle I saw a number of LAATs spinning in midair, not going anywhere. Talk about detracting from the ambience.

To the author, I'll say that it's obvious you have a firm grasp on mapping skills, and there's certainly nothing wrong with your ideas. However, like I say so often, "gameplay, gameplay, gameplay." Make sure your map is fun to play and works well in terms of gameplay.

-Mav