The Tidal Tower

Description
Initially, when I saw the name of this map, I was like "Whoa =_= a tower....and a cool name." Suffice to say, I was fooled, quite quickly. Ain't nothing about this map that befits a tower.

The author informed me of his lack of intent to make the map visually appealing, and whilst it shows a bit in architecture and texturing, the map makes up for its interactivity, definitely.

So basically, I think what I'll do is hit what I believe will be the more popular rooms for now,.

- Entry area: The spawn point is actually pretty nice to look at, despite its lack of ambient noise. Moving through the silent door, one arrives within...guess what? A BAR. Yes, go figure. This area, along with some adjacent ones, is the primary "RP" area included within the map. This section, along with a lot of other areas, seems to make use of JK2 textures, so if you lack them, they'll be missing. There are bedrooms here, along with a stage of sorts that you can open/close, and reach a back area with.

- Upper levels: Once you find the stairs, you can make your way to the good chunks of the map. As you ascend, you'll run into a couple duel rooms, some rooms which I PRESUMED, were NPC spawn rooms(albeit the button in there did nothing,) a pool room(or two,) and a karaoke room with the Dark Lord Rick Astley himself on the machine. Alright, time to move onto the fun >_>

- Quiz Room: This was the first room I noticed and made me realize; this may be the first map EVER to feature one of these O_o. I don't know this for sure, but it's the first one in my experience, most definitely. Excellent use of toggle able spotlights, I must say. I would have thought you could have made the quizmaster's stand a little more lit, but that can be overlooked. So then, quite simple, the contestants are given three buttons. To answer, you must attack one of the buttons briefly, and your answer will display to the quizmaster and the audience. Quite a clever set up. Quick note though: Once that question's over, you must hit the button again to erase your answer.

- Taun Taun Races: Spawn your tauntaun and race through the maze of EVILE =_O. This room was the most plagued by lacking textures, as the entire maze used the same texture, save for a couple obstacles. Whilst I ran through it on foot, it'd definitely be more challenging on tauntauns, I'm sure.

- Hedge Maze: Holy crap, I almost missed it initially. It wasn't exactly well marked, but it's there. So yes, just your typical hedge maze, albeit very narrow, and difficult to discern the true path =_= good luck, as I didn't bother finding it =_,=

- Shooting range: yeah ._. ...there wasn't anything to shoot.

- Mario Party Room: Subjective statement imminent: this is definitely the best room of the map, both texturally, architecturally, and interactively. Basically, it's one huge board game, complete with a randomized dice system and bonus squares! The rules are simple, really: Shoot the blue square mounted high on the wall(hard to reach on the first square, but still shootable,) to roll the dice. After which, a panel will reveal a number 1-5, and you move that many squares. Roll on a yellow tile and hold use, and you can "hack" the tile so you will be shot forward a number of tiles(number varies from tile to tile.) Roll and hack a red, and you receive either a bonus or deficit of "throw again" or "move back 3 spaces." These bonuses are also randomized, so you'll never have the same gameplay again. First one to reach the finish square is teh winrar!



Overall, whilst I was skeptical at first, this map proved to be quite fun, particularly in that one room of awesome where I versed myself and won many times =_,=. Whilst I'm hoping the author could provide the public who doesn't own JK2 with textures to supplement their experience, I'd definitely advise taking this map for a test drive anyway, as you may like it regardless.


ARROWS AWAY!

[b]UPDATE: I think one of the files I was reviewing is conflicting with my npc file database, so the shooting range and NPC rooms might be working after all[/b]


New Textures: Aye
New Music: Aye
Secrets to plunder: Nay
Bot Support: Nay


- Averus Retruthan