It's taken a while, but finally some 'home-made' OP4CTF are finally appearing. It's a pity practically no-one plays this mod, as it's just Capture the Flag but without classes (no pesky medics conc. jumping around everywhere!) and with most of the Half-Life weapons. Anyway, this particular author has released a few DM and OP4 maps, this one being his newest.

As with most CTF maps, the map is symmetrical- down to the weapons, items and powerups, with the only difference between the bases being the team colours. The level itself is set in space, and consists of several floating platforms- it reminds me of one of the original Quake 3 CTF maps. Both bases have an ammo powerup, a spore launcher, and a health/HEV charger, and consist of a flag platform above a lower ammo/spawning platform. In between, there's a central arena with 2 raised side platforms that let you 'ambush' people below, and a couple of grapple points. There are jumppads here and there- they can be a bit annoying to use at first, as you have to jump to get them to push you up, but you'll quickly learn how to use them.

To makes things interesting (and keep r_speeds low), the map is split into 3 totally separate arenas, with the only way between them being a network of wormholes/portals. However, instead of merely being teleported from one portal to another instantly, you experience an excellent tunnelling effect (see middle image on right)- don't worry, you won't collide with anyone mid-teleport and telefragging is impossible. To enter the wormholes, there are 'push pads' that fire you at high speed into the plasma balls, but watch out when you come out on the other side- you'll either hurt yourself from falling damage, or nearly fall off the edge to your doom...

Overall, it's comparable to op4ctf_hairball- with both maps, you may find your life expectancy being counted in mere seconds, there are some powerups missing (e.g. longjump & armour), and you know where everyone else is in the map. But the difference between them is that you can't attack (i.e. snipe) anyone in the enemy base with this, making base defence a cinch (i.e. base offence difficult). There's only 2 wormholes/portals leading into the base (but 3 leading out), which cause you falling damage, so any competent team can defend their base with ease. However, the map does tend to 'force' people to go on offence, so if you play this against other people don't expect it to turn into a camping match.

Although this is a perfectly balanced (team wise) map and ideal for home LANs due to the small size, it's just too hard to actually do any flag capping due to how you get around the map if you have more than a handful of people playing. The wormholes were good ideas, but maybe it might have been a better idea to have them as an aid to getting around the level, not the only way, and have the whole level in one single arena so some sniping etc. would be possible.

Design
Nice "space tech" style; also, wormholes are great idea.

Gameplay
Wormholes should aid your moving around; makes it hard to cap flags and feels disjoint

Verdict
Ideal for 2 or 4 player CTF games, but forget anything bigger than that.

Pros
Fast and frantic

Design
Bit too small

It's taken a while, but finally some 'home-made' OP4CTF are finally appearing. It's a pity practically no-one plays this mod, as it's just Capture the Flag but without classes (no pesky medics conc. jumping around everywhere!) and with most of the Half-Life weapons. Anyway, this particular author has released a few DM and OP4 maps, this one being his newest.

As with most CTF maps, the map is symmetrical- down to the weapons, items and powerups, with the only difference between the bases being the team colours. The level itself is set in space, and consists of several floating platforms- it reminds me of one of the original Quake 3 CTF maps. Both bases have an ammo powerup, a spore launcher, and a health/HEV charger, and consist of a flag platform above a lower ammo/spawning platform. In between, there's a central arena with 2 raised side platforms that let you 'ambush' people below, and a couple of grapple points. There are jumppads here and there- they can be a bit annoying to use at first, as you have to jump to get them to push you up, but you'll quickly learn how to use them.

To makes things interesting (and keep r_speeds low), the map is split into 3 totally separate arenas, with the only way between them being a network of wormholes/portals. However, instead of merely being teleported from one portal to another instantly, you experience an excellent tunnelling effect (see middle image on right)- don't worry, you won't collide with anyone mid-teleport and telefragging is impossible. To enter the wormholes, there are 'push pads' that fire you at high speed into the plasma balls, but watch out when you come out on the other side- you'll either hurt yourself from falling damage, or nearly fall off the edge to your doom...

Overall, it's comparable to op4ctf_hairball- with both maps, you may find your life expectancy being counted in mere seconds, there are some powerups missing (e.g. longjump & armour), and you know where everyone else is in the map. But the difference between them is that you can't attack (i.e. snipe) anyone in the enemy base with this, making base defence a cinch (i.e. base offence difficult). There's only 2 wormholes/portals leading into the base (but 3 leading out), which cause you falling damage, so any competent team can defend their base with ease. However, the map does tend to 'force' people to go on offence, so if you play this against other people don't expect it to turn into a camping match.

Although this is a perfectly balanced (team wise) map and ideal for home LANs due to the small size, it's just too hard to actually do any flag capping due to how you get around the map if you have more than a handful of people playing. The wormholes were good ideas, but maybe it might have been a better idea to have them as an aid to getting around the level, not the only way, and have the whole level in one single arena so some sniping etc. would be possible.

Verdict

Ideal for 2 or 4 player CTF games, but forget anything bigger than that.