Posted by Kampy on Mon May 3rd 2004 at 10:17am

fantastic map, wonderful if you got LOTS of players )

Posted by Leperous on Mon May 3rd 2004 at 10:17am

Ah, another map from Peter Manson. It's been almost half a year since his previous map <!-- BBCode u2 Start --><A HREF="http://showreview.php?mapname=Shaolin&amp;mod=HL" TARGET="_blank">Shaolin</A><!-- BBCode u2 End -->, which, unfortunately, didn't come close to bettering <!-- BBCode u2 Start --><A HREF="http://showreview.php?mapname=Eden&amp;mod=HL" TARGET="_blank">Eden</A><!-- BBCode u2 End --> for various reasons. Is this any better than either of the two? Well, yes. I'd even say this is better in some ways than Eden. So enough useless introductory banter, let the review commence.
<BR>
<BR>There are several characteristics to be found in maps made by this author. First and foremost is the fact that this map is huge. As ever, expect several indoor and outdoor arenas, with the odd waterfall, road bridges with semi-opened doors either end, plenty of windows in buildings to snipe the plebs far below your current position, and a lot of big corridors. The texturing is very similar to Shaolin, with the occasional Chinese symbol thrown in here and there, moss covered rocky walls encircling the outdoor areas, and pale-yellow sandstone buildings built into the cliffs. It's not as multi-tiered as Eden was, which isn't really a problem, but the general architecture of the outdoor sections seem more 'natural' (for instance, see the dried up ponds and eroding rocks), and in conjunction with the plethora of sound effects used the general level ambience is excellent. I still don't know exactly what the map is meant to be, though!
<BR>
<BR>Next up are the various means of transportation to help you move around the level, which are very useful due to the sheer size. You'll find teleporters, standard lifting platforms and vertical and horizontal push-pads dotted around the level- the latter often placed in such a position as to fire the player spectacularly across the arena and to safety (you don't ever get hurt on the way down, thankfully). With every new map from this author comes a new teleporter innovation; this time, sadly, the stock teleporter is simply a tunnel built into a wall, which sucks you into a swirling teleporter thingummy and flings you out the other end unspectacularly. A couple put you into a small room with a one-way door (complete with one-way glass window, too. And hideous trip-mining offences committed by sneaky players), others throw you out tubes. And there's a horizontal teleporter too, which makes for some crafty gauss-related combo moves. However, the Clever-Teleporter-Thing? to be found in this map would be the Rustmill-style teleport destination chooser- sit on the teleporter pad, and shoot the picture of the place you want to go to. There's a really cool visual effect here, with the pictures of the destinations apparently shimmering before your eyes. Look carefully.
<BR>
<BR>While I'm on spinkee features, there's a couple of other small things worth mentioning. First up are the health pools; there's two of these which, in a Xen fashion, will recharge your health rather quickly (too quickly perhaps, more on this later). Another one, which I particularly liked for obvious reasons, are the 'Snark tubes'- small holes in one of the walls in the level which you can throw Snarks into (or your rubbish or something), which teleports the Snarks elsewhere, whereupon they leap out of a pipe and chew upon any nearby enemies without them suspecting a thing. I imagine that'd be fantastic fun to use on a crowded server. And near the egon, there's a 'futuristic' bridge with sections that drop just after you step on them, thus killing/blocking the path of anyone trying to follow you. They reset after a few seconds though; perhaps a smaller delay before they dropped would have made things more exciting, as well as the dirt paths which allow you to reach the same areas (why bother walking over the platforms when you can take the safe route just as easily?)
<BR>
<BR>Some of this authors previous maps, especially Shaolin, suffered from item placement problems- usually a lack of them. This map is fine in terms of weaponry, with the stock shotgun/9mmAR on offer, with the odd RPG/gauss/crossbow lying around, and an egon in a fairly odd place (sitting under a Xen tree, which doesn't look too out of place...). Satchels, trip mines, ARgrenades etc. are also fairly abundant. There's also two secret areas in this map offering the RPG/gauss (which you can get outside anyway), I managed to figure this one out on my own though! Health, as I previously mentioned, comes mainly from the 2 health pools found around the level. There's also a few health kits to be found, and a 'bunker' complete with 2 wall mounted health chargers and 4 HEV chargers. Overkill, perhaps; the health pools will recharge even the most leprous player within a few seconds, then it's just a short hop on a jump-pad and into the bunker to get full HEV power. You're not even that vulnerable while sitting in the health pool, either. I'd recommend you play at least 5 other players on this map, in order to try to overcome the size and the above pitfalls.
<BR>
<BR>And onto the standard quick paragraph about r_speeds in this author's maps. The highest they go is about 800 w_polys, and usually hang in the 400-500 region. Just thought you 486/Pentium owners might want to know that, as there's not really anywhere in the map you'll experience much loss of frame rates (and where there is, you can easily avoid that section). They're slowly getting better, but then again I'd rather have the increased detail and slightly poorer r_speeds than blocky rocks and w_polys strictly less than 600.
<BR>
<BR>My major criticism with the level is that I feel there are some areas which are fairly useless, and the map would be no worse off without. The first part that comes to mind are the two identical lava rooms- basically, bridges across a pool of lava, leading into a teleporter which will probably just take you back to the area you just came from- and to some degree, the egon area. These areas feel really 'out of the way' and are usually only visited because the player is randomly running around the level. Perhaps players with a better map knowledge will be able to use this to their advantage and be able to sneak up on others, but still after about an hours worth of playing they just feel like secret areas without a hidden button to press. Nonetheless, the other 90% of the level more than makes up for this, and I more than heartily recommend this map to anyone with a penchant for large maps and Half-Life. Get it. Now. Better than <!-- BBCode Start --><B>Eden</B><!-- BBCode End --> in my opinion!<br /><br /><b>Verdict</b><br /><br />Your large Half-Life map of choice.

Posted by Leperous on Mon May 3rd 2004 at 10:17am

Ah, another map from Peter Manson. It's been almost half a year since his previous map <!-- BBCode u2 Start --><A HREF="http://showreview.php?mapname=Shaolin&amp;mod=HL" TARGET="_blank">Shaolin</A><!-- BBCode u2 End -->, which, unfortunately, didn't come close to bettering <!-- BBCode u2 Start --><A HREF="http://showreview.php?mapname=Eden&amp;mod=HL" TARGET="_blank">Eden</A><!-- BBCode u2 End --> for various reasons. Is this any better than either of the two? Well, yes. I'd even say this is better in some ways than Eden. So enough useless introductory banter, let the review commence.
<BR>
<BR>There are several characteristics to be found in maps made by this author. First and foremost is the fact that this map is huge. As ever, expect several indoor and outdoor arenas, with the odd waterfall, road bridges with semi-opened doors either end, plenty of windows in buildings to snipe the plebs far below your current position, and a lot of big corridors. The texturing is very similar to Shaolin, with the occasional Chinese symbol thrown in here and there, moss covered rocky walls encircling the outdoor areas, and pale-yellow sandstone buildings built into the cliffs. It's not as multi-tiered as Eden was, which isn't really a problem, but the general architecture of the outdoor sections seem more 'natural' (for instance, see the dried up ponds and eroding rocks), and in conjunction with the plethora of sound effects used the general level ambience is excellent. I still don't know exactly what the map is meant to be, though!
<BR>
<BR>Next up are the various means of transportation to help you move around the level, which are very useful due to the sheer size. You'll find teleporters, standard lifting platforms and vertical and horizontal push-pads dotted around the level- the latter often placed in such a position as to fire the player spectacularly across the arena and to safety (you don't ever get hurt on the way down, thankfully). With every new map from this author comes a new teleporter innovation; this time, sadly, the stock teleporter is simply a tunnel built into a wall, which sucks you into a swirling teleporter thingummy and flings you out the other end unspectacularly. A couple put you into a small room with a one-way door (complete with one-way glass window, too. And hideous trip-mining offences committed by sneaky players), others throw you out tubes. And there's a horizontal teleporter too, which makes for some crafty gauss-related combo moves. However, the Clever-Teleporter-Thing? to be found in this map would be the Rustmill-style teleport destination chooser- sit on the teleporter pad, and shoot the picture of the place you want to go to. There's a really cool visual effect here, with the pictures of the destinations apparently shimmering before your eyes. Look carefully.
<BR>
<BR>While I'm on spinkee features, there's a couple of other small things worth mentioning. First up are the health pools; there's two of these which, in a Xen fashion, will recharge your health rather quickly (too quickly perhaps, more on this later). Another one, which I particularly liked for obvious reasons, are the 'Snark tubes'- small holes in one of the walls in the level which you can throw Snarks into (or your rubbish or something), which teleports the Snarks elsewhere, whereupon they leap out of a pipe and chew upon any nearby enemies without them suspecting a thing. I imagine that'd be fantastic fun to use on a crowded server. And near the egon, there's a 'futuristic' bridge with sections that drop just after you step on them, thus killing/blocking the path of anyone trying to follow you. They reset after a few seconds though; perhaps a smaller delay before they dropped would have made things more exciting, as well as the dirt paths which allow you to reach the same areas (why bother walking over the platforms when you can take the safe route just as easily?)
<BR>
<BR>Some of this authors previous maps, especially Shaolin, suffered from item placement problems- usually a lack of them. This map is fine in terms of weaponry, with the stock shotgun/9mmAR on offer, with the odd RPG/gauss/crossbow lying around, and an egon in a fairly odd place (sitting under a Xen tree, which doesn't look too out of place...). Satchels, trip mines, ARgrenades etc. are also fairly abundant. There's also two secret areas in this map offering the RPG/gauss (which you can get outside anyway), I managed to figure this one out on my own though! Health, as I previously mentioned, comes mainly from the 2 health pools found around the level. There's also a few health kits to be found, and a 'bunker' complete with 2 wall mounted health chargers and 4 HEV chargers. Overkill, perhaps; the health pools will recharge even the most leprous player within a few seconds, then it's just a short hop on a jump-pad and into the bunker to get full HEV power. You're not even that vulnerable while sitting in the health pool, either. I'd recommend you play at least 5 other players on this map, in order to try to overcome the size and the above pitfalls.
<BR>
<BR>And onto the standard quick paragraph about r_speeds in this author's maps. The highest they go is about 800 w_polys, and usually hang in the 400-500 region. Just thought you 486/Pentium owners might want to know that, as there's not really anywhere in the map you'll experience much loss of frame rates (and where there is, you can easily avoid that section). They're slowly getting better, but then again I'd rather have the increased detail and slightly poorer r_speeds than blocky rocks and w_polys strictly less than 600.
<BR>
<BR>My major criticism with the level is that I feel there are some areas which are fairly useless, and the map would be no worse off without. The first part that comes to mind are the two identical lava rooms- basically, bridges across a pool of lava, leading into a teleporter which will probably just take you back to the area you just came from- and to some degree, the egon area. These areas feel really 'out of the way' and are usually only visited because the player is randomly running around the level. Perhaps players with a better map knowledge will be able to use this to their advantage and be able to sneak up on others, but still after about an hours worth of playing they just feel like secret areas without a hidden button to press. Nonetheless, the other 90% of the level more than makes up for this, and I more than heartily recommend this map to anyone with a penchant for large maps and Half-Life. Get it. Now. Better than <!-- BBCode Start --><B>Eden</B><!-- BBCode End --> in my opinion!

Design
Fantastic outdoor sections; indoor bits also well made. Various cunning systems to help move around the map.

Gameplay
Learn the map and play against 5+ players, and you're in Half-Life heaven

Verdict
Your large Half-Life map of choice.

Pros
Looks & plays very well for a map its size

Design
A few too many redundant areas