Date: 10-18-99 Teams: 3 File: urbanesc2.zip Players: 10+ Game: TFC Size: Large Briefing: Dark, and very confusing.

Urban Escape 2

A dark street.

The Garage.

Did I mention dark?

Author: Lord Bishop and VorTeX | Reviewer: Borg

Objective:

You know the drill. President tries to escape, body guards attempt to protect him, and the assassins want to kill the man. The escape point is down into the parking garage, way on the other side of the map. The switch to open the door to the escape vehicle is located in one of the far buildings by the garage.

Scoring:

If The Hunted dies, the Assassins get 25 points. If The Hunted reaches the truck, he and the Bodyguards get 50 points.

Evaluation:

This map is the first attempt from Lord Bishop and VorTex, part of the crew over at Zfactor Productions, a fellow member of the PlanetFortress community. Being Quake TF mappers from the past, they decided to try their hand at some TFC action, and the result, while disappointing, was better than most I've seen. These guys like their maps dark, and believe me, it shows.

Construction, well, this is an area where this map is having quite a few problems. Namely, no signs, poor, non-existent, or radioactive lighting schemes, and some architectural flaws. Admittedly, Lord Bishop has been quite understanding of the flaws in this map, and acknowledges these issues. I have to cut these guys some slack, as they do quite a bit to help out in the community, and are still learning themselves. There is a positive note here though, the theme was great! It may have been simple, but the authors achieved what they had intended to create, and urban escape. It would have been quite a bit better with more development time and criticism, but in the days when map building takes months, I can understand some impatience.

Layout was very confusing on this map, with the total absence of signs or directional indicators, we found ourselves constantly trying to establish where we were on the map, and where the hell it was that we were going to go. The announcement system would tell people where the president was, but not having a way of identifying buildings or rooms blew that aid all to hell! Having the snipers respawn out in the open, with no protected places was really aggravating as a sniper, much to the delight of the bodyguards. Also, make sure to bring some oxygen, as this map is overly large, making for long runs. Mobility was also hampered by this design and size. There's a particularly annoying set of stairs in the initial respawn for the bodyguards and the prez. When you have to duck down to get the hell out, you start to get quite miffed. Again, with no direction to go in, you spent an enormous amount of time searching things out, fighting for you life, and getting frustrated to boot. A large number of people complained about this fact, and I can't stress it enough....signs!!!

Teamwork was ok on this map, after all, the hunted-style is pretty much the best teamplay oriented map available. You HAVE to work as a team to succeed, otherwise, you just get dead. It would have been nice to have some place for the snipers to call home, but alas, the authors intention was to avoid this, although I'm not sure why. Strategy is standard hunted fare, but again, lacking individual team bases kinda shot one level of this all to hell. Many people told me that this map wouldn't be staying long on their hard drive. All in all, this map is a good first attempt, but the authors have a way to go in terms of design theory.

Verdict:

Skip this one. I hate to be this hard on a map, being something that was created by good natured authors, but there were just too many flaws in this one. I hope that this will inspire them to create a better map for us to pounce on, and I look forward to it! For a first attempt, this was an excellent start, and hopefully I haven't stepped too hard on their egos!

Delta Bravo Final Score: 
- 22/50 -