Naboo: Riverside Village

Description
Pros: decent gameplay, simple but effective design, good for a first map
Cons : bland visuals, lack of cover, a few gameplay bugs

Naboo: Riverside Village is FighterRex\'s modding debut. It\'s a fairly even battle centering on a river between some rolling hills (CIS/Alliance controlled) and a village (Republic/Empire controlled).

As first maps go its pretty good, and avoids several of the pitfalls of first maps. The gameplay is not spectacular but decent enough, without many (if any) running into walls bugs, and the lack of cover in the hills area somewhat made up for by the ruggedness of the hills. Gameplay isn\'t completely bug-free however - players can\'t spawn at the river CP, although the inclusion of tanks and speeders for transports prevents battle being focused solely on the river, and there don\'t appear to be any control zones, resulting in vehicles (especially the single gunship/fighter, which the AI never use) decaying quickly if left alone.

Visually, the map is quite bland. The terrain sculpting and texturing is pretty good, although a different grass texture would have been nice. Where it falls down is the lack of props and foliage. Grass on the hills, rocks and/or reeds in the river, crates around the CPs.... all these things would improve the look of the map dramatically. Adding some more props to the village would have helped too. Another problem is the default view distance - its very low, with the reslt that buildings fade out at short range (this can be fixed by playing with settings in the NRV.sky file). While the map works, the lack of extra visuals makes it seem a bit too much like a map rather than an actual place.

All in all, its a decent first map and I\'ll be interested in any future developments to it. Download if it the review or the screens appeal.

~Sky