Okay, for those who don't like long reviews: it's a mighty fine non-semetrical CTF map, with some issues that are pretty unique; download it. For those who want some detail, don't say I didn't warn you. Bring a lunch.

Visually, SpireValley is a throwback to Unreal 1, and it doesn't disappoint there; it's simply beautiful; it could have been used for the opening castle flyby and I wouldn't mind. There is arguably a bit too much colored lighting, and the sound might be a little too loud for my tastes, but these aren't major issues.

As for the gameplay...well, this is where things get complicated. As I mentioned earlier, the bases are asymetrical, yet they have similar design. The Red Base has a bit more open structure, however, and seems easier to infiltrate than Blue. It looks like the author recognized this too, and made up by giving Red something to balance it out: the Rededemer.

The Redeemer is located a good bit out of the way from normal game play, going atop the bridge to an alcove, with the nuke protected by concrete slabs. It's not difficult to get to, and doesn't require any translocator handiwork, but it'll take a minute or two to reach it. It's clearly on the Red team's side, however, and once a Red Team member gets there, though, she's there for good, sufficiently out of the way that no one can touch her.

And when she's in place, the whole game goes haywire. She can sit there and alt-fire the thing, and basically do defensive patrols around the base, staving off anyone who tries to leave with the flag, or any Blue trying to get after her. After a minute or so, she'll pick up another Redeemer as it spawns, and she can use it to go after the blue base, giving air support to an attack or whatever.

It boils down to one point on this map: teamwork is absolutely necessary. Blue's base architecture is too easily defended for a single Red hero to make a run by himself. And the Redeemer makes a one-person run into the Red base impossible as well; Blue will need someone to either send someone after the Redeemer person to draw fire, or have someone else go into the base to pick the flag back up after the frist member gets nuked. Games tend to be of a defensive nature and can run very long (figure half an hour per capture), but it's oh so rewarding to get that capture after so much work!

Bots, however, are the map's Archille's Heel. For the most part they play fine, taking multiple ingress and egress paths, etc. But-and this almost kills the map-they don't go for the Redeemer. This means a human's going to have to do it themselves (admittedly fun as it is), or Red will be at a disadvantage. I realize that this is more a limitation of UT's bots than any fault of the author; I've never caught a bot guiding a Redeemer on any map before. But the fact stll stands, and it takes alot of merit out of offline play with this map.

So there you have it. With people to flll it up, Spire Valley can be a tactician's dream; if you're sick of CTF games where it's everyone for themselves you'll be in Heaven here. It won't be for everyone though.