Date: 25-08-99 Teams: 2 File: spacedout.zip Players: 10-16 Game: TFC Size: Medium Briefing: Fun!

Spaced Out

A Ship!

The space dock.

A pack of clowns...

Author: Dirtbag | Reviewer: Borg

Objective:

Steal the keycard from the enemy space ship. Take it to the reactor core located at the stern of the ship and hit the switch to initiate the self-destruct sequence.

Scoring:

10 points for each self-destruction of the enemy ship for your team.

Evaluation:

Well, I found this to be a slightly new version of the 2fort-style map. As I was involved in the beta-testing of this map, I'm a little on the biased side on reviewing it. The maps' author, Dirtbag, wanted this to be reviewed here, so I was more than happy to oblige! You'll maybe notice that the score wasn't all that high, but that's not due to an overall bad design, just many points that could use work.

Instead of the traditional forts, you're opposing space-faring crews, who suddenly find themselves docked to the same space stations as their enemy. Your objective is to get the keycard from their bridge, and run it back to the reactor core and hit the self-destruct switch. This will effectively "destroy" the enemy ship, and anyone unfortunate enough to be caught inside or too near the ship when it blows.

While playing this map, there was a very good point about it, even if you hadn't read the readme.txt file accompanying this map (which most people don't), you could still learn the lay of the land in very short order. This made this map such a blast to play, due to the ease of knowing where to go, and what to do. The place where this system does fall short, is in use of signage. There could be more directional signs used, letting you know where certain points of importance are. Most areas of importance are marked when you're right on top of them, but there's nothing before that. While this may not come as too important to most, as both ships are laid out the same, if you go right for the flag on offense, this could be a lengthy process while you learn the layout.

Overall, the theme is pretty consistent, but other than the manipulation of existing textures, this is pretty standard fare to look at. New textures can really make a map like this stand out, and we need to see more of them. As a result, you don't really "feel" like you're in a space dock. Besides, how do you breathe in all these open areas without spacesuits? Maybe the addition of tubes, instead of ramps would have lent themselves more to the overall theme.

Of note on this map....r_speeds...even though I know a bunch of them have been worked on, and reduced, they are still rearing their ugly heads. It's nice to see a concerted effort to get them down, but I only know of this, due to my experience with the beta releases.

Teamwork on this map is a good thing. The map's design and tactics demand that you use co-ordinated efforts to achieve goals, especially when the numbers on teams get to the limits outlined. Strategy is ok, but choke points are pretty easy to anticipate. More less-obvious places for sentries and defensive positions would have been nice. The bridges are too well open a target for multiple spammings, and it happens...often.

Verdict:

Definitely worth the download. Give it a try. A good map for clan grudge matches. I look forward to more from this author!

Delta Bravo Final Score: 
- 32/50 -