Jedi-Mart

Description
Before the review, I have two comments to open with.
1. Damn, someone beat me to it!
2. [i]More copies of Jedi Academy on the shelves than Halo?[/i] You [b]blaspheming[/b] infidel! ;)

Getting serious, though, this map is funfunfun, and very well made for a first map. You'll likely spawn in the parking lot, surrounded by vehicles, and with a wide cityscape around you. First thing I did was enter the mart. Second thing I did was laugh at the first poster, which I conveniently took a screenshot of. All of these here posters are classy parodies.

You should have known what to expect inside. Aisles full of products, a post office section, toilets, pharmacy, staff area, video game area (more JKA than Halo... grrrr!), and checkouts. It's all pretty routine. The extra areas are what got me. There's a garden area. And a restaurant, however it's built more like a duel-café. Plenty of space for fun-running around the outside buildings, and a decent amount of flying space too, if you have small-ish fighters - X-Wings are FAR too big to maneuver. Lucky snipers can even spot three mercenary NPCs having a sneaky chat somewhere off to the side. ;)

ICARUS scripting work has been done, which is a rarity. Various things such as rotating doors have been created. The music adds atmosphere, although maybe not the intended atmosphere for an FFA. Still, it's what you'd expect to here inside a mart, and it's a beautiful, peaceful composition, too. Kudos to the composer, Joe Bongiorno, for an [i]excellent song[/i], and kudos to Fir'en for having good taste in music and picking a track which fits the map well.

As for the FPS issues you'll no doubt expect to encounter, with this being Fir'en's first map, it's excusable. However, I would have fixed it by sticking areaportals everywhere I could get away with. Also, I think some of the brushes have wrongly been set to detail rather than structural, as I could see the game drawing faces behind some structures. The lighting is also quite bland. A little variation would have been very nice. I'm not sure if this guy was meant to do anything, but the Imperial officer stood next to the shuttle simply asked me if I'd like to go to the arena and did nothing else. This may be intentional, it may be a bug, or maybe I just didn't know how to trigger it. Either way, I just said "meh" and gave the guy a saber-raping (I'll be damned if his HP isn't high!).

Other things which would enhance the map are all aesthetic. The architecture was fine, but it could have been generally more interesting. But on the other hand, considering how basic most of Raven Software's architecture was, I'd say it fits in with the game just fine. The other thing, is textures. While the texture choice was good enough, a little more variation there would have been nice too. I'm also not sure on this, but I seemed to spawn in the same place every time, so I think there's only one spawn point. More flight space would have bee nice too.

Overall, this is a heck of a map for a first, and despite being understandably basic, it has it where it counts - gameplay, and effort. There are enough features here to keep you more than busy, and accessing the (beautifully designed) secret area will be a nice challenge. Some features are quite fun too, such as the staff area's main two items - the trampoline and the aptly named "Jawa Smasher". Mirrors have been used in appropriate places, although thankfully quite sparingly. Another nice touch is that the various vending machines will drop shields and health packs for you. The rotating door is masterfully done too - it's just like something from Sherlock Holmes! You'll see what I mean when you find it. ;)

This is a good map to add to an RP server, or just for use as an alternate FFA/TFFA environment. Either way, Fir'en has some real potential if he gives time and effort to making his maps as well as this one, and I'd like to see a v2 of this, as well as more maps from him in the future, showing improvement.

This map comes highly recommended.

~ Kouen

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

[b]Gametypes:[/b]
Free For All
Team Free For All
Duel
Powerduel