The DvD - OMC reviews

Well Banshee I've made it easy for you and already weighted the scores :) (Layout, Eyecandy and Playability are all 30% while triggers are 10%)

******** MAP 0001 *********
Map Layout: 7		This map is very big and has a rather complicated layout with MANY bridges. Player bases are on islands.

Eye-Candy: 3		Aside from heigtened/lowered terrain, tiberium, waterfalls and some rough ground, the map is flat and boring. There is no lighting or anything.

Playability: 5		This is very hard to rate for me. You know the argument that what matters is gameplay and not graphics? IMO, it's only partially true for TS. This is map is so unexciting to look at that the gameplay becomes boring. I guess i'll just give half the points here, as clearly this map is simply unfinished.. it would have been a great map had it been actually finished and crammed with details (and cities!)

Triggers: 0		No triggers (Well there's a reveal map trigger :P)

Overall: 45%



******** MAP 0002 *********
Map Layout: 3		Very poor. The bases are in the four corners, but there are no cliffs or anything that really separates the bases from eachother. There is Tiberium in-between though.

Eye-Candy: 6		In this map you play during night-time, and so the map has bluish lighting. It adds to the atmosphere, but calling it 'well-done' would be a bit of a stretch. The ground detailing suffices, and the tiberium pits have many trees around them.

Playability: 6		I think this should be seen as a battle map that might be fun to play online. The bases are very close to eachother and the little tiberium that's on the map is in-between the bases. 

Triggers: 0		No triggers.

Overall: 45%


******** MAP 0003 *********
Map Layout: 8		The map layout is excellent. It's a good mix between realism and balance, with the bases in the four corners but each with a weakness in the form of a destroyable cliff or a tiberium that's somewhat further away than usual.

Eye-Candy: 8		This maps looks quite natural, there's a nice ground texture, there are towns and research labs that are well-done, while the lighting is also good. The cliffs look natural and look nicely deserdous with the yellowish lighting. I however think the height differences could really have been done better, they're squary.

Playability: 9		The AI in this map is very good, there's enough tiberium to keep your money rolling. I really don't find anything to complain here except for the small GDI outpost. It has 4 GDI Helipads and a GDI Tech Center, which will be an advantage for Nod as they can capture it and cloak it, replacing the Kodiak in the center with a stealth generator. Yes, I'm nitpicking here.

Triggers: 5		There are quite a lot of meteor and the tiberium that comes from their debris is nice :)

Overall: 80%


******** MAP 0004 *********
Map Layout: 8		The map layout is excellent! As you'll see from the minimap the area is very believable. Every base area is different, and there's enough tiberium nearby to get you started, and there will be blue tiberium further away.

Eye-Candy: 5		Ok... As you will see later, this map's looks can be described by one single word. But hey, I gotta review this map right? Alright, the attention to detail is excellent. The beach is flawless and there are nice touches like tiberium swamps, deserted bases and dirt roads. The amount and complexity of the cliffs is impressive. So you'd sure like to see all this, right? Well, too bad; you can't. Because aside from your buildings, all you'll see is GREEN. GREEN. Repeat after me: GREEN. Argh! This map has some insane lighting. The green value is set to 2.5 (compared to the standard 1.0) and to make things worse, there are ultra-bright, you guessed it, GREEN lightposts on the map. And not just in the tiberium pits, but also in just slightly mutated areas. Really, if i exaggerate a little I could say all you'll see in this map are different shades of green...i'm at a loss how to rate this, i'll give half the points.

Playability: 8		Well i've set the lighting to non-headache-inducing values in order to review this map's playability. It's excellent, The AI does quite well (although they might not have enough space to build. It's good to set up secondary bases in the desered bases around the map.

Triggers: 5		There are various triggers set up in this map, some of them involve capturing radars, and they're supposed to reveal the map to you, but they crash the map instead. There are triggers for floater and visceroid movement though. I get the idea this map wasn't tested properly. The lighting was outrageous and the there are trigger errors.

Overall: 68%


******** MAP 0005 *********
Map Layout: 9		This map is extremely cliffy, and the bases are either in-between many cliffs or on a somewhat larger cliff. Tiberium is mostly on cliffs, many of which have to be accessed by backdoors or by destroying a destroyable cliff (duh). The bases that are in-between cliffs have many narrow entrances, which makes defending quite easy; the bases on cliffs feel somewhat more vulnerable but they benefit from their height advantage. The only gripe I have are that there are some rivers/waterfalls that don't make sense, but apart from that the layout is very good.

Eye-Candy: 9		This map is very detailed, with no undetailed areas at all. Detailed Tiberium pits are everywhere, it's a pity this is not a Firestorm map though. The tiberium is very well lit by invisible lightposts, a lot of attention has been paid to making it look just right. There are a few minor errors (shore errors :P) but these are easily forgiven because there's so much to see on this map.

Playability: 9		I had quite a few games on this map and they 'felt' really well. The AI was surprisingly good for such a complicated map; I was pleased to see them actually beating eachother. It's very fun to just explore this map and all the narrow passages; you'll have to find new tiberium patches but there are enough tiberium trees that spawn new tiberium (even Red tiberium Aboreus that gives 1680 credits per full harvester). Hunting harvesters, and protecting your own is something you'll find yourself doing a lot in this map. A nice touch are the Night Stalkers that are scattered throughout the map, although they could have been a bit more powerful IMO...

Triggers: 5		There are a lot of meteors in this map and they come in all sizes and shapes. Adding meteors isn't exactly complicated though, but they are a nice touch anyway.

Overall: 86%


******** MAP 0006 *********
Map Layout: 3		Haha, isn't it funny, he has written 'OMC Champion' on the whole map using water tiles! Erm yes.

Eye-Candy: 2		Well..except for some completely random grass and beach there's nothing to see.. I wonder if he used the 'Convert from BMP' in the 'New Map' menu in Finalsun? BTW, what's that detailed piece of map doing there in the topleft corner? :S

Playability: 2		Meh

Triggers: 0		None.

Overall: 21%		Let's hope this is the lowest scoring map in this OMC.


******** MAP 0007 *********
Map Layout: 6		The layout is sufficient but not great.. four bases in a corner and tiberium pit in the middle...and the base on the bottomright is on a cliff which makes defending easier..and there's a bad error with the bridge, unit act a bit like it a tunnel there :S

Eye-Candy: 7		Well the tiberium pit looks very good, and the whole map has a nice red glow, but the 'forest' lighting areas are too large for the 'forest' itself which is a few trees. Really this map was made by a good mapper but i get the idea he ran out of ideas a bit while trying to fill up all the space.

Playability: 7		There is plenty tiberium and the layout is quite simple so AI will be strong. There isn't really much to say apart from that..

Triggers: 0		No triggers.

Overall: 60%


******** MAP 0008 *********
Map Layout: 10		This is just amazing. In this score i'll include the originality. This map is just HUGE and insanely populated by many bases, cities, and creatures. The area is extremely believeble. There are small AI bases and they did some patrolling and i also spotted a large group of wolverines.

Eye-Candy: 10		This is also just great. There is just soo much work that went into this map. The lighting is perfect with no flaws. I could go on and on to describe everything on that map but really... the score for this category should say enough!

Playability: 5		Again I'm at a loss. This map would be so fun if it wouldn't be so damn SLOW. I'm reviewing it on a VERY high-end machine and it's running at a speed comparable to the lowest speed you can set TS to. Infact the only way to make this map run at a good speed would be to alter the TS engine so that it can make use of multiple processors and then run it on some 8-way system or something. About the balancing of the map: there's always a small tiberium patch near to get you started but for every player there's a larger one farther away with three tiberium trees which is good as it makes for strategic opportunities. Apart from the slowness though, there are things that bring this score down: There is tiberium on slopes, and as you may know that will crash the game VERY hard as soon as you have it on-screen. This surprises me, this map must have been tested quite often as it has triggers and stuff.. why weren't these errors taken out?

Triggers: 10/10		There are civilian vehicles moving around which makes this map just even more life-like.

Overall: 85%


******** MAP 0009 *********
Map Layout: 8		The overall map is incredible, There's this huge crack in the middle of the map but it's integrated into the layout of the map (hard to explain but you'll see it). Certainly a lot of planning went into this map. I do have a complaint though. In the bottom-left corner there are two bases right next to eachother. Ofcourse, by just starting with 4 players you won't have a problem as the game automatically positions all players as far away from eachother as possible, but still, I'm not sure why this was done. There is also this part of the map with waterfalls that really don't make much sense at all.

Eye-Candy: 10		My god. There isn't a single CELL in this map that's not detailed it seems. The lighting is perfect. The tiberium pit is great and there are some nice smoke fumes coming out of crashed meteors. The cliffs are very complicated and look great. Congrats, Wes (yes I know this is your map, just looking at the tiberium patches :P)

Playability: 8	Apart from the base position problem i talked about in the Map Layout section, there isn't much to complain about. Bases are easily reachable with at least three entrances that are too far away to build real defenses there,but you're good points to defend with when you use units for defence.

Triggers: 8		There are many tiberium triggers, like in some other maps, so I'd rate this 5/10 for the triggers, but these meteors add something to the map, they make the central are that is chock-full of tiberium very dangerous.. if you want the real money it's a bet ;-)

OVerall: 86%


******** MAP 0010 *********
Map Layout: 8		Although this map's overall layout is pretty basic with bases in corners and tiberium pit in the middle, it's more interesting on a smaller scale; there are more paths to take that you would think. Surrounding the tiberium pit is a ring of buildings that should make for some good capturing and try-to-hold-the-outpost battles. Tiberium for the topleft player is not positioned that well though. Also, this map would be better if there was real NEED to harvest the central tiberium pit. But IF you manage to capture all the buildings you'll be rich ;-)

Eye-Candy: 7		The main complaint here is that large areas, and the base areas in particular, are undetailed; it almost looks like the creator ran out of time to add more texturing. I like the lighting though.

Playability: 8		This map is fun to play, capturing the central buildings is fun and thre are good opportunities to approacht your opponent.

Triggers: 10/10		Moving trucks, me likes :)

Overall: 79%


******** MAP 0011 *********
Map Layout: 9		I just love the layout of this map. In fact, i love 2 player maps :) There's a lot of place to hide your armies here, and with some searching you'll find a spot for a secondary base, which is a tactic I always use in a 1vs1 game.

Eye-Candy: 6		This map is clearly unfinished as there are areas with no detailing at all. (topright and center) This is what give the low score; the parts that are finished are detailed just right. I also like the lighting in this map. The whole map looks very realistic (the areas that are detailed)

Playability: 8		This is good. I just love good 1vs1 maps and this would be a good one. It's clearly unfinished though; which makes the map more boring. I would want to encourage the maker to finish this map and publish it; I'd surely play it a lot.

Triggers: 0		No triggers

Overall: 69%