Another nice deathmatch arena from Aaron. Somehow his maps have a look of their own. You know immediately whose map this is just by looking and playing it.
The map has a very slick gameplay and it has very good z-axis action. It is also very small and suits perfectly one-to-one or two-to-two matches.
Like other Platinum maps, also this one has no manifold decorations. Everything You see has something to do with the geometry lights or other "concrete" stuff around. This makes the map a bit plain.
I had no opportunity to play this map with real ppl. However, I have a scent that it might be even better that way. The map would make a great addition to some 1-1 or 2-2 DM server.

The map is not exactly of low poly construction. Most of the time the poly count keeps well under 150 but then again there are spots that top over 300. Node/Poly ratio is well below 2 which is a safe value.
This map is playable in the low end machines but the player should be aware of some slowdowns. These may become an issue especially when playing against bots.
The eight player starts seemed to have enough space around them and were pointing to reasonable directions.
The map behaves strangely sometimes just after the startup. This is because the extra reachspecs left by the UED2.

The pathing is there but do not expect too much of that. The bit brained antagonists can get every item on the map, even the hidden shieldbelt.

=== BUT ===

The setup of the elevators is wrong. They are of type Bump_open_timed, which makes the bots believe them as doors. Also, the lift tag is missing from the elevator itself. Somehow I didn't spot a single bot "using" them. Nonetheless, the setup is not correct.
The hidden door has a setup to crush on encroach. However, it will not crush the bots as the encroach damage is zero.
The bots are not told about the shortcuts so they will use a long way around instead of jumping down. This is a minus in a z-axis oriented map like this.
Also, some use of ambushpoints near the sniper rifle would make the bots a bit harder to defeat.

The flow of this map is typical Platinum. It's excellent. No matter what direction You are looking, You always seemed to know exactly where to go.
The weapon placement is ok. Although the map layout does not encourage camping, there are some excellent spots for this purpose. One of the best is near the flak which I found very profitable especially because of the revealing water around.
There seemed to be enough weapons and ammo not to run out with the low consumption. Also, the health seemed to be there as needed.
The shield belt, which is the only powerup, is hidden and getting a grip of it may be dangerous as the door opens slowly and does not keep open long.

The textures come mainly from richrig texture package (included) which looks a lot like SGTech1. Some textures are from UTtech1 package.
Texture alignment is perfect with some exceptions. The bevels near the armor are directioned fortuitously. Some regularity would be a great thing in these. As they are now, they do not create the effect in full. Also, the ceiling on the rounded corridor near the secret door has been left unaligned revealing the underlying geometry. There are also minor misalignments here and there but these are very small. All in all, You won't probably notice these alignment errors during the furious gameplay.
The lighting consists of bluish general lighting with white and reddish spots. This is a dead certain way of doing convincing lighting. Done this way with flares and all, the lighting is as near perfection as it can get in this map.
Ambient sounds are quite simple. Some wind outside and lamps emitting electric humming. The waterfall has the purl as expected. This, along the choice of music (Razor-ub) are definitely the weakest elements in this map.

The architecture is simple and solid. However, there are some things that would have made it a lot better.
The map has no zoning. Only the downstairs water has been zoned (must). There would have been opportunities for splitting the map into smaller pieces by small zone portals making the occlusion calculations easier.
Although the map has a reasonable Node/Poly ratio, there are some door openings that would have benefited from isolation.
There are also some decorative elements which would have been semisolid instead of being solid.

All in all a very nice, small 1vs1 DM map with very good flow and some opportunities for hardcore gaming.
Well worth the download.