Siege - Battle over Coruscant

Description
Darth Norman strikes again! One of the best mappers out there, you know when Norman releases a new map, that it’s gonna be good. And oh boy is this good!

The Battle over Coruscant, or more specifically, the battle aboard General Grievous’ ship, the Invisible Hand from the beginning of Revenge of the Sith has been given a pretty good going over by excellent mappers in the past. Orbitus and Hatrus gave us a full space map, with the ability to fly between ships, and Sith J Cull made one of his excellent movie map recreations of the interior of the invisible Hand. But, whilst I love both of those maps, I really must admit that this map surpasses both of those in terms of graphical beauty and technical excellence. Afterall, we all know Darth Norman is a perfectionist, and this map has been in production a long time indeed, so expect a bug free, wonderfully polished map here.

Whilst you might not be able to fly between ships in space as in Orb’s and Hatrus’ map, or see as many different areas as you could in Sith J’s map, this map has one great strength that the other two didn’t have, and indeed a strength that in fact most maps don’t have. Included in this pack is both an FFA and a [b]Siege version![/b] New Siege maps are pretty rare, so its really great to have such a fantastic quality movie map available as both an FFA and a Siege map!

But wait, it gets better…also included are two duel maps, one featuring the observation deck and the other featuring the hangar area, both of which are well sized and make good areas to duel.

For ease of reading, I am going to split this review up into different sections, covering the graphics gameplay, quality etc. First up:

[b]Gameplay[/b]

This is a pretty big map, which contains plenty of areas to do battle in. The general layout fits perfectly with both the FFA and Siege gametype’s, which is not an easy thing to do. Generally I would have expected the Siege and FFA versions to be structurally different, but in this case both of the maps are the same. Apart from the entities and scripting needed for the different gametype’s of course.

There are plenty of corridors to wind your way around, and they take on somewhat of a labyrinthine nature due to the fact that they are very similar in appearance. So whilst you cannot actually get lost (that map isn’t [i]that[/i] big!), seeing so many corridors looking the same can lead to confusion. This is a good thing though, as it adds an interesting extra level of gameplay, especially to the Siege side of things.

As far as siege objectives go, there are only two for each team. You either have to defend / capture the hanger and then once that objective has been passed, you will need to defend / capture the bridge and free Palpatine, which makes this nicely authentic to the movie.

[b]Grapics and Sound[/b]

Well, what can I say?! Darth Norman has made some spectacular looking maps in the past, but this one edges the bar up even higher! Look outside of the hangar shields and you can see a great looking skybox filled with ships. There are plenty of laser blasts flying around too adding to the chaos of battle. Get close enough to the shields and you will also here the cool sound effects of firing turbo laser cannons and ships engines. The thing that most impressed me about the hanger though, after the incredible level of detail, was the glowing shine on the hangar floor. Those who are familiar with mapping will know about glow shaders and ‘env’ or shiny shaders. However I have seen very, very few maps in which a shiny ‘env’ shader also glows! The skybox, combined with the shader makes it look as though the rays of the sun bursting over Coruscant’s horizon is reflecting off of the hangar floor, a very nice effect indeed.

The rest of the map is of similar quality, with high levels of 3D detailing, rather than just relying on textures to make surfaces look three-dimensional. The observation deck and the Bridge were also fantastic. As soon as you step through the door if feels like you have just walked straight into the film! The sound effects for the doors, elevators and such all sound authentic as well, and when combined with the maps lighting, detail and excellent textures, it creates an immersive experience.

[b]Quality[/b]

As I am sure anyone reading this can tell, I have already spent most of the review praising Norman’s excellent mapping skills, and its never a good thing to give nothing but praise with no constructive criticism at all… But I am genuinely having trouble finding things wrong with this map. The quality is just as good as all of Norman’s other maps, which means this map is about as perfect and polished as you can get. There were a couple of minor things that caught my attention, though when I say minor, I really do mean [i]minor[/i]. I will come to those next…

[b]Improvements[/b]

Whilst I hold that it is impossible for there ever to be a perfect map, I must admit that Darth Norman doesn’t give me much to work with when it comes to suggesting improvements! :P There were a few very minor things I noticed, which I think could have been a little better. One was a floor texture in the bridge area, which seemed rather low resolution when compared to the rest of the high-res quality textures. Nothing too big, but mappers notice these things you see! Another thing was the skybox, which was also quite grainy when it came to the ships, although that is a side effect of the process of making these kind of skybox’s and would be very difficult to correct. Lastly, the ‘glowing shine’ shader on the floor of the hangar gets clipped off at an angle when viewed from high up from certain angles. Again though this is minor and most people will never notice.

[b]Conclusion[/b]

Well, this has been quite a long review, but it’s been good to stretch my fingers again, both typing and playing! ;) This is an incredible map, and the fact that you can play it in both the Siege and FFA gametype’s makes it even better. I most definitely recommend a download for this map. In fact…you would be crazy not to download it! :P

Go on guys…you know you want to! ;)

[b]***NOTE***

Norman asked me to mention this in the review, although it is actually in the readme too:

[quote]Feel free to make a replacement pack that includes new models for an authentic siege experience. You are allowed to change the classes as well. Send that pack to me ([email protected]) or load it up and just send me the link. The best pack will be hosted it on my site together with this map.[/quote]

So guys, you also have a challenge here; Darth Norman would like to see a pack made that replaces the player models and siege classes with ones that are more similar to those we saw in the movie, adding to the authentic movie like feeling. If your up to the challenge, why not give it a go? You could have your pack featured on Darth Norman’s site![/b]

[b]New Textures:[/b] Yes
[b]New Sounds:[/b] Yes
[b]New Music:[/b] Yes
[b]Bot Routes:[/b] Yes
[b]Game Types:[/b] FFA, Siege, Duel, Power Duel

~Nozyspy~