Shadow Moses Island

Description
Metal Gear Solid is a game series that I've never had the privilege to play, save a few times on a friends PS2 or PS3. It's supposed to be an extremely well-done series of games, as I'm sure many of you would know... especially judging by Gamespot's 10/10 review of MGS4. =_=

This map is based off a map from Metal Gear Solid, and even though I don't know the original map it's still easy to enjoy this one. It's a sort of pseudo-military industrial complex with boxes scattered everywhere in a snowy mountain island. There are a few flaws but overall it's a really solid map, and I'm really impressed since it's only the author's second map.

I'll start with the texturing, which looks nice at a glance but upon closer examination reveals itself to be flat and cartoony. It works since the entire map uses these flat and cartoony textures, but I just can't help but thinking if the textures were realistic and had some depth to them then the map would look so much better. The only textures that aren't flat and cartoony are the snow and rock textures. The skybox also could have been a bit better. It looked good but it was just sky at every angle. If you're on an island, wouldn't there be water or land or [i]something[/i] around you other than sky?

The architecture, on the other hand, is not cartoony and actually looks nice for the most part. The guard rails, mine shafts, and the general structure of the map is very well done, but it's little things that could be improved. The snow on top of the roof of the complex, for example, is blocky and polygonal when it should be smooth and rounded as snow actually is. I will say that I love the massive mech the author's included and how you can actually enter the cockpit of the mech. It's a cool feature.

The lighting in the map works, but it could be better. For a complex at night with so few and such small lights, it's awfully bright. The lighting should be more localized I think and shadows should be more pronounced to give it atmosphere. If you made the whole map more like the hangar where the giant mech is that'd be a big leap forward.

The one thing that annoyed me more than any other was the fact that... there are no doors. None. You get around the place by crawling through vents. Really? Why wouldn't there be any working doors? Are vents easier to defend or something? I also don't get the random spots of light in the vents when there [i]are[/i] no lights.

The map could also be a bit bigger with more rooms but that's up to the author to decide if he wants to do since the current size already works. Bot routes aren't included but that's not too big of a problem. Know what the best news of all is? There's going to be a version 2. I'm looking forward to see what Borm comes up with for v2 and I'm impressed that he could pull this off for just his second map.

~Laam'inui