You know, about a month ago, I was wondering where all the good tourney maps for UT were. Most of the good stuff was for no less than 6, some as large as 12. But I'd found very little for just 1-on-1, and I've had lukewarm thoughts at best concerning Epic's offerings, Morbias and Fractal. Now that I'm reviewing again, however, I've unearthed some pretty good Tourney maps, and DM-plat-TOURNEY simply adds to the list.

Visually the map isn't too bad at all; texturing, architecture and lighting are quite pleasing enough. Sound is used well, with an ocean surf giving hint of a beach out of sight (unless you drop into observer mode). But it's clear that the look of this map was designed around the gameplay, and not vice versa, for that's where this map flat out rocks.

The open architecture here makes flow an almost natural consequence. The weapons are well placed, and bots are well pathed, which in a 1-on-1 map usually means severe pain for a player. The poly count is very high--up to 350 in places--but with a tourney map this can be forgiven; framerates are generally smooth at any rate.

To be honest, however, the level design almost feels almost like a (good) QuakeWorld or Quake 2 map. Nothing wrong with this really; I still have a blast with QuakeWorld and help run a server, but I'm just letting the old folks know they just might be waxing nostalgic with this map. In fact, I bet this map could be converted to a QW map pretty easy; maybe I'll ask Platinum if I can do it sometime...

One possible caveat, however: the Shield Belt and Damage Amp both make their appearance on the map, and this can turn off purists who can't stand powerups in a tournament. Of course you can always turn them off with mutators if you want a pure tourney experience. And as usual, the bots'll find these well before you do :)

You may as well grab this map now; if you don't you'll have to anyway when your fave tourney server starts rotating it.