Thrakia: ParVallia City

Description
The latest map in bobfinkl's Thrakia series, Thrakia: Par'Vallia City, is a map set in a mostly-gray city with a snowy environment. It reminds me of how Moscow is commonly described- gray, dull, and snowy.

So, let's start off with the map. The map is mostly city streets, with wide battlefields and very few tight chokepoints. There are lots of CPs placed throughout the map- some in the street, others on top of barricades, some in buildings, and a few up high. The city combat is mostly centered around a park filled with trees and lots of snow. At the far end of the map, there are a series of rooms with some CPs in them, which is about the closest the map comes to close-quarters combat.

Gameplay-wise, the map is nearly identical to Oceanic Pass- a focus on 'realism', high-powered weapons, and low accuracy rates. I tend to share Mav's sentiments on this type of gameplay, however, and I do not very much like the style of play that the map forces you to assume. Battlefront's engine is not geared very well towards realism; rather, it is set more towards the Rambo-style approach, with lots of jumping around, rolling, and general acrobatics. The realistic approach just does not work very well in this engine, and I can't say I really enjoyed playing it.

A few things that I noticed- buildings and models seem to have bloom effects applied to them. Graphical effects are always nice, but there seems to be something causing some tremendous amounts of lag in the vicinity of the park area- it caused my framerate to drop to about 4 and makes the map virtually unplayable due to how mobile you have to be to not get shot. This was about the only bug I noticed, besides the localization (but the author mentions it and it's not a big deal).

Anyway, to sum it all up- from a mapping standpoint the author certainly has talent, but I can't say that same thing for the sides. They just aren't that fun for me, and what good is playing a game if you can't enjoy it? This map is likely worth a playthrough, though, so give it a shot.

-Jedikiller