This is the first public release of Joar and I found none of the typical newbie stuff in it.
It has excellent bot pathing (the readme claims otherwise), good lighting and it is not completely
silent. The usage of semisolids is somewhat liberal, some boxiness but not too
much... Very good map for a first release. Joar has done the right thing by letting his map be
beta tested AND being patient in listening to them. The map is definitely worth the try
especially because it is of decent size (1.5Mb).

The floorplan of the map is ingenious. You have a short route to enemy base but You can't come back
using it as is can only be used with translocator. There is a decent amount of Z-Axis, sniping and
close combats. Weapons are suitably scarce, same for the health and powerups. The map has very good
flow and even though it looks somewhat plain, it has a consistent style in it.

This is a low to medium poly map. It has the poly count below 80 in most places but then You have
some areas where it is pushing up to 200. The dynamic lights on those areas are not making the map
any faster. I would say the map is propably playable with low end gadgets if the player is not too
fastidious with frame rates. Just keep away from the center tunnel. All the 20 player starts seemed
to be in proper places with the direction taken good care of.

The bots play the level very well. The reason for this is the complete coverage and the good placing
of defense points. There are two of them with sniping on with missing distance view triggering. This
will make the sniping bots sitting ducks for attackers. Other than these two, the pathing, including
some quite advanced stuff like fear spots keeping the bots away from the laser field,
is elaborately done. For a first map this was very well done and made the map enjoyable to play
offline.

The map flows well. Although You can't safely jump just everywhere, the dangerous places are easy
to identify and therefore avoid. You may get lost in this tiny map as there are what I would call
semi-blind-alleys. If You are the flag carrier, You have very limited choise of routes to select
from as some of them are blocked with the laser field which only can be passed by the TL. Teaching
the bots to avoid these and STILL not choosing always the same route has not been a trip in the park.

The map has very suitable amount of weapons and ammo. Some of You might think the weapons are too
scarce and that the selection is too narrow. I say it is perfect to have only those present here.
The health seems to consist mainly from the vials but that is an optic illusion. There are four
med boxes, they just are not directly in front of You. The powerups, damage and belt are there and
especially the damage is hazardous to get.

The textures and geometry are cooperating pretty well resulting in a solid atmosphere with strong
feeling of concrete and aluminium. The geometry is very clean with only a few places where the
semisolid brushes have been used in a questionable way. The map is properly zoned
helping the occlusion process.

The textures are well aligned and I didn't notice too many textures stretching gone too far. The
green FX texture around the SB and near the RL looks fugly. Also, some of the masked and translucent
textures won't be seen with all renderers as they are behind another translucent/masked texture.
Although the general impression is a bit monotonous, the map has style in it.

The lighting of the map is consistent and it is supporting the architecture. The slimes around
would have benefited of some more coloured lighting and some of the red lights seem to be a bit
dim compared to the light they produce. Some of the light boxes are immersed into the ceiling
and they look a bit bad from some view angles.

The ambient sounds are scarce. There are some dynamic sounds and all movers make the noise they should.
Somehow, I would expect to have echo setup, some hum from the lamps and maybe some dynamic ambient
sounds. Some windy sounds upstairs won't hurt as the sky seems to be a bit stormy.

The music is the Colossus which suits here beautifully.

To the author:

Joar, You have made a perfect entrance to the footlights of the mapping forum. Your map is not
without faults and it has some texturing errors (the invisible electric textures). Your bot support
surprised me (lost the first match, had to make the godlike bots adept). If You had used the
distance view triggers, I would have lost the second round as well. You should consider to bring
in more stuff to see. Although we Scandinavians are very selective on the gear we bring on sight (we
prefer to keep places tidy and empty), the players usually want to see just a weeny bit more. Some
more sound and especially the echo are important as they, if done properly, are very immersive.

Thanks for this map. It was a pleasure to review it.

Hooray Scandinavia !