Grievous Command Ship

Description
Some of you may remember v1 of this map from last year. If not, [file="47361"]check it out[/file].

At first, this looked like a great improvement, but then I realised it was exactly the same layout. Then I read the readme and saw that it had been completely rebuilt. So, it's a new replica of the old map, with additions and improvements. Sounds like someone's been doing monkey mechanics to me....

The first thing I think of when I remember the first map, is the lighting. Frankly, it was [i]bad[/i]. Command ships don't look like they've had a layer of flourescent white emulsion splashed everywhere. Thankfully, the author has now added better lighting, portraying a darker, moodier environment. I wouldn't say "sleeker", because it ain't a Mazda MX5, but it's getting there.

Anyway, you're probably going to complain about how it doesn't look like the Invisible Hand, blah blah blah. Well, that's an advantage, actually. The map is a very playable guns FFA environment which still manages to capture the essence of the ship (albeit loosely). The layout works smoothly, plenty of movement space, and plenty of exploration routes. One bad side for no-force servers - you need Jump level 3 for some of the exploration. Power-ups, weapons and ammo are placed pretty specifically, as one would expect from deathmatch. So, in a nutshell, if you like Q3, Battlefront or UT's gun gameplay style, this map should interest you.

Moving away from gameplay elements onto design, the first thing you'll notice is that it's blocky. Very blocky. I'm not going to say that's bad, because less fancy stuff means smoother gameplay, but I will advise the author to experiment with shapes and the clip tool a little for future maps. The texturing works well enough, although it's base textures, and many will be aware of the opinion many veteran mappers hold regarding base resources. My only beef with these was the scrolling star shader - it doesn't work as a skybox at all, especially when each image of it is moving in a different direction. The lighting, as I've mentioned, is well enough.

Technically, there aren't many flaws at all. In fact, the only technical aspect I can list as a drawback is the ease of technique, but like I said, it's a welcome change to have something simple and effective every now and then. I will comment how the map seems small, though. Roughly EF-sized, if I'm not estimating wrong. There's enough room to move around, of course, but the map does need some scaling to fit JK2's proportions.

If you're a gunner, or hang out on an RP server, this map ought to interest you. Just don't expect to be able to do botmatch - there's no routing, unfortunately.

~ Kouen

[b]Bot Routing:[/b] No
[b]Custom Models:[/b] No
[b]Custom Textures:[/b] No
[b]Custom Music:[/b] Yes