Khimera Battlegrounds

Description
"Khimera: Battlegrounds" is a fun mappack by Yankfan. It's a series of five maps with the running theme of being on "Khimera," a non-canonical planet created by the author. Each map sort've blends into the next, so if you pay attention to the skydomes of a map, you may see hints of other maps in the mappack.

Each map also has some custom CW sides, some custom GCW sides, and, if you have Dark Times installed, the Dark Times era. Both the custom CW and custom GCW sides are, as per the author's usual approach, creative but not too divergent from the stock sides in gameplay. Each set of sides has an expanded set of units, all of which have a nicely done set of retextures (I think some of the best work is done on the CIS vehicle textures), and each custom era has random heroes.

The first map, "Khimera: Beach," is a beachhead map. It's fairly large and has a command walker for one of the sides. It feels a little like Kashyyyk: Docks, probably mostly due to the use of Kashyyyk props (which are prevalent in the first two maps). It's a nicely set-up map, and I think that it probably works the best in terms of game "flow" and CP placement of the five in the pack.

The second map is "Islands," which, despite its name, is mostly a forest map. It feels a lot like the Endor map from the stock game, although as you might expect there are some spots of water near the outside edges. I think this one is probably a bit dull in comparison to the other maps, simply because it feels so much like Endor. However, I did like the one command post placed "inside" the volcano; I think that was a nice use of props.

The third map, "Jungle," is similar to the second map in that they're both basically forest maps. This one is a little better, I think - even though it reminds one of Dagobah, it's not quite as condensed and it's a little bit more fun to play since you can see where you're going most of the time. It also has a nice command post setup in the back in which the author lego-ed together several Rhen Var pieces to create a neat ruin.

The fourth map is "Plains," and it's probably my least favorite, from a design perspective. It looks nice as a plains map, but it's still a plains map, and that usually strikes me as a little boring. It's better than most plains, however, because the ambiance is well-set (I particularly like that flyers were used as well as they were on a medium-sized map like this, rather than a large-sized one) and some scattered props (including one of the CPs set up in ruins similar to "Jungle's" ruins).

The fifth and final map is "Streets." It looks nice, and is well set-up, and plays fairly well... but it doesn't feel super-original. It uses almost entirely Naboo props, and it feels a lot like a different section of Naboo, no matter how you slice it. It's not a bad map, by any means, but it would be nice to see a bit more unique city (maybe a "non-wrecked" version of the ruins from earlier?).

All these maps too use random environments, similar to what you've seen in Dark Times. Sometimes it'll be dark and rainy, sometimes it'll be sunny. It makes for a nice effect (the difference is most appreciated in Beach and Jungle, in my opinion), and helps keep each map fresher for longer.

All in all, a pretty solid mappack that's certainly worth a download. I like the idea of the unified theme of one planet. Make sure you have Dark Times to enjoy it in three different eras!

-Mav