CTF-StadiumHS
Map Info
	File Name ctf-stadiumhs.zip Author Homeslice Gametype UT Capture the Flag Date Added 02-18-2003 File Version 3.00 File Size 562 kb Player Count 2-8 Map Description None Review Rating 3.5 User Rating 6 Overall Rating 4.5
Review
Reviewer ArcadiaVincennes Awe Score:  1.0/3 Date 12-17-2004 Build Score:  1.5/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  1.0/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  4.5/10 CTF-StadiunHS (UT) Converting a standard sports stadium of the twentieth/twenty first century to a fun, good looking place to battle has been a challenge to Unreal Map makers for many a year now. Not many succeed and, sadly, neither does this map. AWE: 1.0 The idea is a standard football/soccer field surrounded by a wall, with bleachers along both long sides, a press box, a room up and behind the bleachers, and a mystery box overlooking the field. First off, let's tackle the field. It's raised above the ground. It looks like the dirt and grass around the field was removed so that there's a small dirt shelf that the field rests on. Second, the white lines in the field don't conform to any standard field game we have now. Third, the white lines in the center forming the circle around the central rocket launcher overlap horribly and cause the white surfaces to flicker. Finally, add in the brilliantly white goal posts that seem to reflect any lighting applied to them and the overall odd hue of the lighting cast on the field and the effect is less than ideal. The bleachers are composed of two textures, one for the seats and sides, and the other texture is applied to the front of the seats and the back of the bleachers. Very little form to it and the resultant blended repetitive textureing, lead to visual confusion when looking at them. Behind the bleachers are pillars holding upthe press box, a teleporter, and a team-colored invisibility pick up. And the stairs coming down from the trophy room seems to be completely unsupported. The press box is quite narrow, is the flag location, and also contains the flak cannon. It has one texture and minimal lights. It is accessed through a teleporter behind the bleachers all the way to one side squashed between the wall and the bleacher. The 'trophy rooms' are located behind and above the bleachers accesible by a small set of stairs. There are windows looking out onto a very boxy skybox with no decorations in it except for a rock wall/mountain texture applied to the floor and sides of the skybox and a moon. The textures are industrial wall grey with a misaligned ceiling texture. There are two small sections of seperate wall that jut up from the floor in front of each of the two teleporters in here. One leads to the sniper box and the other leads to the top of the press box. The top of the press box is quite dark and leads to some health, the redeemer, the keg of health, and a team-colored damage amp. The sniper box is all grey, it floats above the playing field next to the press box and is completely unsupported by anything. Inside you'll find the sniper rifle and the shield belt. The textures throughout are oddly but competantly applied. The athor's choice of textures for the sniping box, the press box, and the trophy room are dull and bland and don't really fit the sports arena theme. Then again, using the original UT textures for a locker room would be difficult. The textures used for the bleachers, stairs to the trophy room, and the doorway to the trophy room look just awful and blend together in odd ways due to the construction of the BSP. Nothing is really trimmed off and just seems like a bunch of boxes sewn together. The lighting overall is questionable as well. The corona's coming off the hi-output field lights are huge and do kind of conribute to the sports stadium feel. However, I can't really put my finger on what exactly is wrong with the rest of the lighting for the field in general. It causes the field to have a sickly hue to it, making the green look odd. Maybe it's too much red and blue cast onto it. The lighting above the press box is almost non-existant and the lighting in the press box seems to look ambiant and coats the walls in the team color. The lighting in the trophy room is pure white, very bright compared to the rest of the map, and just doesn't really fit with the rest of the map. In all, the lighting is bizarre, the skybox is a box, the architecture is clumsy and unsupported, and the texture work leaves a lot to be desired. BUILD: 1.5 The build is also not so good. All the brushwork is meticulously but clumsily assembled with a few problems that jump out. First, the stairs coming down from the trophy room to meet the bleachers look like they meet the bleachers one or two steps below the top of the bleachers producing an odd gap. Also, there's an HOM in one of the sniper boxes. And, as I touched on earlier, the center ring in the field consists of overlapping brushes that create a flashing effect where they overlap. Finally, it seems to me something better could have been done with the bleachers to make them more 'bleacherlike' rather than just what becomes a wide set of stairs. The teleporters work fine but the author chose two different visual representations of them. There's one sound in the map and that's of wind. It's strongest in the field and fades toward the edges. This really could have been fleshed out more with, at least, a custom sound of some crowds cheering or something else indicating a stadium. Overall everything seems jumbled together and the lack of sounds really degrades the overall picture. CAST: 1.0 Most of the gameplay takes place on the field or in the press room. Therefore most of the play is flat. The only real opportunity for z-axis takes place on the stairs. The Press Room area is quite narrow and tight leaving only enough room to pass by another player or bot. This can make getting the flag excedingly hard especially considering the author chose to place the flak cannon and two flak ammos in the press room as well. The area behind/to the side of the bleachers is extremely narrow, especially towards each end and placing the teleporter to the press room here seems out-of-wack with the rest of the level. I kept using the two teleporters in the trophy room to try to get to the press room. Each team has a redeemer, damage amp, keg of health, and invisibility at their disposal. This is entirely too much for a map of this size. The rocket launcher is probably the best placed item in the map seeing as it lies at the dead center of the field. However, the author placed 4 rocket ammos around it at each of the cardnial points which means that one players gets loaded out with ammo and everyone else is relegated to the default ammo count the RL comes with. The bots do somewhat poorly on this map. They travel straight down the middle of the map and they camp the flag. This means that they are either mowed down on their way to the flag in the wide open field, or they're flaked to gibby bots as soon as they either enter the press room or immediately after grabbing the flag. They did have a tendancy to take the teleporter to the damage amp over the press box which was good, but I never saw one take the teleporter to the sniper box to pick up the shield belt. The sides of the map, around the field, are littered with various goods, amoung which is the boots of jumping. However the only use this had was to propel one up to the area over the press box or to avoid fire. I never saw a box take the side route to pick up any of the material around the field. Put together, the gameplay lacks in many different ways. Some questionable both pathing, an extremely easy to defend flag base, sniper roosts that do not get used, and pickups that are ignored. Straight-forward botplay with almost no z-axis renders this map more of a flat deathmatch rather than Capture the Flag. Yet another stadium map that fails to deliver. Plagued with borked lighting, clumsy brushwork, unexplainable floaters, odd texture choices, questionable application, and gameplay that leaves much to be desired, this map was probably good practice for the author but not much fun to play or to see. A stadium map collector might add this to their collection but for the rest of us, it's a no-go.
Map Comments
Louise 02-09-2003 09:56 PM MST Rating: 7   I think that Homslice did a very good map. The flow is good, the light's, the bots kik some ass in this one. Good designe. Very fun to play. Good job HS. Homeslice 02-19-2003 12:20 AM MST   Whoo! It worked. *sighs* Now problems with version mismatches should be NO MORE. I look for more feedback here, anyone? Vertigo 02-19-2003 01:18 PM MST Rating: 5   i didnt like DM-Stadium and i dont know if that map is goin to be on my HD... keep mappin Ticalion 02-24-2003 06:46 AM MST Rating: 5   Good map m8, but the frame rate gets a bit high, maybe the stairs could have been ramps. Mxtrmntr 05-19-2003 08:02 AM MDT Rating: 2   Not very good imo :| The lighting just seems...hmm, wrong, unrealistic.. The architecture isn't really detailed, and doesn't feel right at times (the stairs, the thin window "walls", etc). The theme doesn't really fit either, at least this would be a rather weird football stadium --- it's obvious that you wanted to add as many aspects of a stadium as possible, but didn't really succeed due to the standard-UT content's thematical limitations :) Also, I don't like the gameplay, with the teleporters, the wide open center and the flag, errr, "corridors". Petrus 12-18-2004 05:16 PM MST Rating: 7.5   Yet another solid (in gameplay terms) map trashed by a Nali City reviewer simply because it wasn't put together by somebody with an arts degree. Botpathing is effective. Architecture is admittedly a little basic, but error-free on my system, and gets the job done. While I agree that the lighting is somewhat surrealistic, it is at least sourced and reasonably consistent. Yes, the lens flares are excessively bright, but that is easily corrected. In terms of actual gameplay, I enjoyed this map. As stated above, the bots work well, made flag captures, and were attacking me rather tenaciously as I attempted to cross the map. I think reviewers here need to stop focussing quite so heavily purely on aesthetics, at least in the case of someone who is a somewhat new mapper. New mappers are less likely to become seasoned mappers if their initial attempts get put down. I believe this map illustrates a good understand of basic mapping concepts in isolation...if Homeslice were to concentrate a little more on an overall theme with a future map, the results could well be very interesting. Mister_Prophet 12-19-2004 01:05 AM MST   I thought the reviewer gave an equally effective judgement call on gameplay as in visuals. This myth that NC reviewers judge soley on looks is starting to get really...REALLY old. I'd prolly rate the map the same, gameplay wasn't quite interesting enough. Wanna see more stuff by Homeslice though. Keep it up man:-)