Reviewed by foultzy.

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Fighting it out in the snowy mining colonies of Endotermik III.

Gameplay 13/30

It's a Warfare map that takes a much more wide open approach than most do. It's a cool change of pace actually, and the snowy section ends up playing like a sci-fi version of Battlefield 2, and best of all, the UT3 vehicles provided also work well and give a range of options for the player to choose from. It's a lot of fun, though not really unbalanced still, to just fly around and blast puny targets with the Cicadas and wreak havoc in land vehicles. This is the kind of map that you'll play just for the sake of screwing around because the concept just makes for mindless fun. He even included a Pulse Rifle which I really like to play with.

Trying to play it like a Warfare map is rather awkward though. Not necessarily the Battlefield-esque gameplay, though the odd layout that I personally had quite a bit of trouble following. There are the above ground snowy sections and the underground cave sections, though they feel very separated from each other. There are certain points where you can go from one to the other though they're few and far between in a big map like this. The floorplan occasionally makes sense though not always. Its Battlefield-ness escalates when you notice there's no player-reachable power core and that holding nodes is actually what decreases the power core's energy (as in Battlefield's tickets).

The above ground section is mostly just snowy ground and some ice with the big wide open terrain and very few indoor passages. The cave sections are far more complex structurally and more carefully constructed, with twisting and turning walkways and enemies that could come from multiple directions. I often found myself taking the cave routes for serious play and the snowy areas for just plain mayhem, though the snowy parts have some particular issues--specifically vehicles. The indoor passages are often times just seemingly big enough to make it through though it's really tight trying to fit through and the water you may have to cross spells instant death.

Bots do decently, though whether they passed their driving test or not is questionable most times. They're reckless and senseless drivers and will do whatever gets the job done. They seem fairly confused many times, though again, they were alright and made good viable opponents. One problem with the pathing network though is many of the spawn points which often have nasty drops.

Not to really be addressed here, though the exceedingly high brightness of the snow made it difficult for me to easily navigate, and gusts will occasionally come in obscuring your view tremendously. In addition, there's a weird, apparently intentional, thing with the Shield Belt where you have to quickly dodge or you will end up gibbed half the time. Players getting the map for server play though won't understand what this is and I'm really not sure about the idea behind this myself.

Collision was also a fairly big issue with random objects just not plain having any or having trouble navigating vehicles through small paths. The biggest issue though (in my opinion) is that if there was no minimap I'd be completely lost the whole entire time, which hurts the planning involved in taking one of these nodes in a team game too.

Construction and Performance 11/30 (Hardware)

Again, very iffy here. The large emitters in the snow section I think are the culprits for its really poor framerate, though the seemingly much more advanced underground area performs almost twice as well (though still not all that well).

Eye Candy 12/25

A mixed bag if there ever was such a thing. Bleached white snow is really hard to navigate around, besides the fact that it just appears too white and you can only see the texture in shadows. The mesh setup looks alright up top though the textures look stretched or often times boring and uninteresting choices, and it's overly simple and plain looking.

Culling is a huge issue here, and structural meshes will appear right before your very eyes (sometimes almost literally) out of nowhere and they're really big meshes too. The gusts are even worse--a logical effect yeah, though it makes it so much worse to navigate and fight in, let alone find your very destinations.

On the other hand, I was extremely surprised when I could finally locate this isolated cave area, and it looks so much better than the unremarkable snowy areas. In fact, it really looks great down there! Finally an appropriate use for ground-level HeightFog, modified stock textures, much better mesh arrangements and lighting and even culling. (Still extremely obvious draw-in, though much less serious anyways.) The little flying things that whiz by perfectly smoothly--what a great (and unique) touch! This section isn't perfect either, though it is still a great cave design and at times I almost wished the whole map was like that.

The Details 15/15

He's got it all here.

Final Score 51/100

A lot of tough scores to decide on considering the huge contrast within the map itself, from the unimpressive snowy terrain to the surprisingly impressive caves. There's a lot of interactive type material and scripting though some of it makes very little sense and other stabs at it might come off as novelty. Keep the ideas flowing, though not every idea can make it. You might find some fun in it, though my guess is that it might not always be the Warfare gameplay as much as its open Battlefield-type tendencies and potentially mayhemic nature. Not bad, though it still needs some more work.

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Tags: 50+, Large, Snow, UT3, Veng3ance, War