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| DM-WA_Beach | | | Map Info |
| | | | File Name | dm-wa_beach.zip | | Author | Wedge Antilles | | Gametype | UT Deathmatch | | Date Added | 07-27-2001 | | File Version | 1.00 | | File Size | 706 kb | | Player Count | 3-6 | | Map Description | None | | Review Rating | 4.5 | | User Rating | -- | | Overall Rating | 4.5 |
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|  | | | | Review |
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DM-WA_Beach (UT99)
Feeling hot? Wanna take a cool dip? Want that dip to be heated up with some hot DM action? Well, this map might not suit your DM needs, but it may make you want to get away from your PC and take a trip to the beach.
AWE: 1.5
The texturing here is fairly basic, but good. Summertime cabins with a bit of a Nali Feel dot the estuary shore. Piers provide places to tie off your boat, not that there’s any place to get in or out, and some beach caves add a little variety to the theme. The texturing is pretty well done here, despite some of the awkward architecture here. The texture choices were made well and really help bring off the beach theme. The cabins look pretty good as do the piers, although the cabin textures are not aligned very well. The landscape texturing is basic but does a decent enough job.
The lighting, is pretty awful. There are lighting sources, but the light actors don’t match up with them. Plus, all the light appears as if it’s coming from the skybox – which is not the case at all. All the lights are pure white, all share the same default radius of 64 – which is unnecessarily large considering how close they are - and most of them share the same default brightness of 64 as well. This solid color scheme produces no shadows, no color variation, and nothing of note in general. Despite these deficiencies, the map doesn’t actually look bad, but that’s only because of the sunny beach theme the author chose. It fits right in with the way the lighting was constructed.
The architecture is pretty nice, though. The cabins look nice, the piers fit well, the caves are nicely cave-like, the beach could have been a little smoother but the restrictions of BSP terrain being what they are, I guess we can forgive that here. The concrete block walls are probably the map’s best architectural features with blocks sticking out, and some missing. The architecture in general is convincing, with a few nice details, but overall is somewhat desultory in feel.
Overall, the visuals are a bit disappointing – mostly in terms of the lighting. The texturing could use a little more attention to detail, and the architectural features are nice enough, but the lighting brings down the whole score a bunch.
BUILD: 1.5
The build’s not so great either. Not many of the brushes are aligned and I’m surprised the map isn’t riddled with BSP errors – and I’m not talking about the BSP terrain. Still, they fit together fairly well. The map is barely zoned, and I get the impression it’s largely by accident. The caves are not zoned off, and only the water areas are. So framerates for those on older computers may be a little lower than normal, but overall not a big problem. Still, the map was not built with zoning in mind, which is always a mistake when composing the original design. The water zones are fairly nice with a low amount of fog. However, there was a water area with no waterzone which means you just keep walking around like normal when you’re below the water. The pathing in general is okay, but the nodes are too close together, and the shield belt is not pathed into the network. Finally, the author didn’t place blocking volumes around the map, so it’s quite easy to exit the play area using the impact hammer.
Overall the build works, although many aspect of it were accomplished accidently, or without much though or research put into the ‘how’.
CAST: 1.5
The gameplay here, like the rest of the map, is only so-so. There is flow – you’ll find yourself running around pretty much every area. But so much of the map is so open that hitscan weapons are the obvious choice. As mentioned earlier the shield belt is inaccessible to bots so you can just grab it whenever you want. The bots also have trouble getting out of the water at a couple spots which makes them easy prey. The weapon layout isn’t too bad, although I think the flak and RL could have been switched. There are a few ‘dead-ends’ but they really don’t hurt gameplay too badly. There’s a purposeless ledge only accessible by impact hammer jumping but there’s nothing up there to grab so what’s the point? Z-axis is somewhat limited – this is a beach after all – so most of the time you’ll be fighting on level ground or firing down into the water.
In general, the gameplay can be kinda fun, if you’re not looking for competitive-level gameplay. It has many deficiencies, but won’t spoil your fun.
A day at the beach isn’t quite as attractive in terms of this map. The visuals aren’t that great – especially the lighting – although it does pull off the beach feel. It’s not really built well, but that won’t really affect the playability. Finally, the gameplay is hitscan dominant and you’ll be fighting on level ground most of the time. When you’re not, you’ll be shooting into the water. Overall, not a horrible map, but only people who really feel the need to try every single DM map should download.
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| | | | Map Comments |
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UT
UT2k3
U2
UT2k4 
