Yavin Battle

Description
We don’t get enough CTF maps I think, which is a shame really because CTF was my favourite gametype back in my JK2 days. Man I used to spend so long on those CTF servers, Garrison 27-D was probably one of my favourite maps. I never really enjoyed CTF matches the same in JKA, I don’t know why, I just wasn’t fond of a lot of JKA’s CTF maps.

Well for any CTF lovers out there, we have a treat for you today, a proper good old CTF map! :D

This map follows the traditional CTF rules of having two opposing bases, each a mirror of the other, with plenty of obstacles in the middle. At first glance it looks like it would be a bit too easy to capture the enemies flag on this map…but look again. There is a river flowing through the middle of the map, which is easy enough to get over, but then there is also a bridge in the middle with force fields which can only be de-activated from a bunker on one side of the map. This bunker is protected by pre-laid trip mines, so be careful where you walk!

Once you get across the river, the have to get into the enemy’s fort, which isn’t as easy as you might think. The front gate of the fort (which can only be opened from the inside) is guarded by a blaster cannon, as is the main building in the fort, which are activated via a control panel in the bunker which contains the flag base. The walls of the fort have loopholes so the defending team can fire at any attackers, and the tops of the towers along the walls have useable blaster cannon emplacements.

That’s not all though! One feature I was especially impressed by, and which I think is a very clever way of utilising different types of gameplay was the AT-ST’s. The thing is, you cannot actually access your own AT-ST! First of all you have to destroy the enemies shield generator, which then de-activates the shield infront of the building housing your AT-ST. This is a very clever gameplay twist I think and this was a great idea!

There is one other twist to the gameplay, there are traps in the ground that can be ‘built’. These take the form of pits with spikes in the bottom, presumably as another defence against the AT-ST’s, however, as yet I have not been able to figure out how to activate them. :/

The environment is very well planned and it looks great, especially the waterfall which looks both well made and natural. At least in my experience with them, it is pretty tough to make waterfalls look good, but this author has done an excellent job I think.

As far as improvements go, I guess one of the most obvious things to me was that inside the main building in each base the lighting was rather too strong and it kinda bleached out all the shadows, which doesn’t look quite right. Also, this map could really do with some bot routes. But, that said, considering the complexity of this map, bot routes would be very difficult to make. Other than that I really cant think of that much on this map that could be improved, it’s a really solid, well made map that also looks and plays well.

I definitely recommend this as a download to anyone who is a fan of the CTF gametype. You won’t be disappointed! :D

[b]New Textures:[/b] Yes
[b]New Sounds:[/b] No
[b]New Music:[/b] No
[b]Bot Routes:[/b] No
[b]Game Types:[/b] FFA, TFFA, CTF

~Nozyspy~