This is a totally rocking map. It's fast, original, easy to navigate, and well thought out. Just thought I would clear the air before I continued.

As the name suggests, there is a fair amount of air flowing around in this map, and whenever the fan points towards the ceiling, you can ride it up to a higher level, or use it as a jump assist (very well zoned low gravity), I think that this is a cool idea as it makes me think of the wind tunnel map in episode 3 of Quake, which was a great map. The three domination points are clearly labelled by the colours red, green, and blue, each area being lit by the respective colour. It is a nice close map, with few long open stretches, which means the flak cannon is the king, fortunately, it is not close to the control points, and there is not too much ammo. The main central chamber was inspired by the wind tunnel used for practising sky-dives, and the uplift is simulated by low gravity, which is a very cool effect.

Moving around the map is easy because it is quite small, and very cleanly laid out, it also plays very fast due to a low polycount, which I found surprising. Texturing is clean, tidy, yet not amazingly original, I think it could be optimised a little better. As I already mentioned, the lighting is functional, although it still remains the largest aspect against the map. Because of the colour labelling, each room is very saturated (The red is very red etc.) I think that more neutral lighting, with well placed coloured spots and mood lights would have sufficed, as it is, there are many places where the coloured rooms are too dark, especially the red room.

I found item placement to be very good on the whole, I especially loved the placement of the redeemer, at first I thought it was overkill, but when I fired it past the funky red air shaft and detonted behind the wall hiding the control point, I safely removed three blue team members (the nerve of them trying to nick a red control point :o)). The bots were equally well thought out, and they really did test my limits even on the skilled setting.

Overall, I know that this map is going to stay on my HD, and I would have given a nine if the lighting was a little less rich.

This review was imported into the database from the original, pre-schema review. The ratings have been set such that they will supply the original rating, and do not reflect current schema values/perceptions. Feel free to post user comments to follow up.