Wew lads, I did not follow this contest at all so I'm discovering the maps right now. Here's the result according to me and in no particular order:
DM/DOM-20AC-IciclePyramid: No offense but this is not a very good map. It feels unfinished: the ceiling texture is the wall texture, the shapes are extremely basic (by which I mean square), and the archways are plagues by texture alignment and lighting issues. Most of these could have been fixed easily by merging the many faces each half-arch is made of. Many other alignment issues plague the map. I like how the frozen aspect is limited to the floor but covers 100% of it. This leads to a few disappearing polygons here and there when looking through the ice floor at the top, but that's pretty much inevitable. The lighting is poor and very artificial, with a couple of lanterns here and there. As for the way the map plays, it's not great in DM as it is symmetric and largely flat. Also the entire map is slippery which is fun for exactly 7.13 seconds. It fares better in DOM, to my surprise, where the slippery floor makes pushing enemies away from the control point amusing. However, neither DOM nor DM, in this case, really fit the symmetrical layout which, no matter what you think about it, is also ruined by the presence of most important weapons in a small circle in the middle of the map on the second floor. Also, did you know that Unreal Tournament has the capability to play sound? If you didn't, then no worries: this map has none. I rate it 3.5/10.
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DM-20AC-CrypticDungeon: First of all, this slightly remixed version of Fire Breath is weird. I'm not saying I didn't like it, but it's weird! Now let's try the map. It looks amazing, I love this, the rocks, the lava, the architecture of the central tower, it's so well put together I'm both jealous and reminded of Q3. Now on to the game: it's good. I like how the +100HP keg is in full view yet out of the way and incredibly risky to access. Normal use of sound is always nice, but really, the visuals steal the show in this map, it's perfect and wouldn't look out of place in one of the later installments of the series. Also included is a nice bonus: a very specific crash when using OpenGl. It's always lovely to have to work a bit to get a map working and then be greeted with something so good. It deserves a 10 but the crash probably needs to get it a bit down, so it's going to be 9.89/10.
DOM-20AC-CastleGeorge: This one was a rollercoaster of impressions for me because I first thought it was a joke, but then I saw the package name and I understood the mapper was probably going for an Unreal 95 beta retro style and succeeded in doing so. So congratulation, the map looks like it's 24 years old! It has a cool layout, not too complex, but suffers from a great issue: everything inside the castle looks the same, so it's very hard to get a sense of where you are, where doorways lead and where the control points are in relation to everything. The build is questionable too: the entire castle is modeled all around while you can only see a tiny portion of it from outside, in the only outdoor courtyard. A lot of polygons are wasted (not a huge loss because the entire map is made of like 5 of them), but I'm always disappointed by unnecessary things like that. Also, this might be intended but the map seems to have a scale problem: everything is so cramped you have precisely enough space to move but none to manoeuver.
When playing the map however, several issues appear and this unfortunately diminishes this map's merits. I was running towards the lower control point in the jail (one of the nicest-looking place, I really loved its simple style) and was met by someone from the red team guarding this point with a flak cannon and a shieldbelt. I was promptly shown the exit out of this jail and out of my own skull, but when I came back, I figured the shieldbelt spawns in the cell just in front of the control point. Basically, the first team to grab this point cannot be made to abandon it as long as it has one player with flak ammo ready. On the contrary, the courtyard point is extremely difficult to defend because there are three ways to access it and two of them deliver sniper rifles and ammo to attacking players. Good luck keeping your head on your shoulders when defending. Too bad because I was starting to root for this map. Still a nice 6.5/10 in my opinion.
CTF-20AC-Foundation: The industrial map of the day. It's very well made, I appreciate this. From a visual point of view, it won't make you fall off your chair because it's the type of indus we've all seen more often than our family, but this very familiarity and perfect execution just screams UT, so it's fitting for a celebration of our dear game's birthday. The layout is a bit too maze-y for me in some places so I might take a good while to get used to the floorplan, but nothing strikes me as bad: there are several floors everywhere, which is always good, there is a variety of ways to reach the enemy flag, defense is easy but attack is not impossible. It's generally good. My only criticism is that this might be the most silent city on the face of the earth because the only sound you hear is the sound of enemy steps in the water. I acknowledge that just as CrypticDungeon, this review is shorter, but I'm afraid the better a map is, the less you can explain how good it is without simply telling others to just try it. 8.5/10.
CTF-20AC-Valhalla: I thought for a few seconds somebody had puked on my screen after a long night drinking, but that was just the skybox. I came to my sense when I saw the blue asteroids racing downwards and I thought this was a nice touch. The rest of the map then appeared when I looked down. The title is well-chosen: this is Valhalla and it's the good kind: there are open casks of booze overflowing around the armour, rainbow starlight bridges, flying longships waiting to take you on your final journey, great halls with fire and tables where, instead of a feast, weapons await, and of course the coffins of your fallen comrade by your flag, in the great room with sculpted pillars. The theme is perfectly executed, and using only stock textures, this is an impressive achievement. The divine hall on its rocky peak and the grandiose vaults inside are marvelous. Did the author play Skyrim? This reminds me of it, but that's probably just because it follows the traditional representation of its subject so well. As for the game, it's hit and miss. The main hall and the bases are really fine, but the areas in-between are lacking. First, there are only two ways from a base to the central area (the longship and the rainbow) and I would have like at least one more. But then, there is one sniping hideout in each base, with the sniper in it obviously, but it is very exposed. Meanwhile, in the central area, the grand windows and the turret without the longship are perfect to snipe the defending team. So defense should mostly be done inside the base if the enemy has a good grasp on the central hall. But still, this map is awesome, it does the best of its strong theme and in my opinion, the issue with snipers is not a game-breaker. 8.5/10.
DM-CorporateOffice-AC20: Unreal Tournament players are all the same: after a long day's work, we all long for the delicate embrace of death and murder, mutilating mouth-breathing colleagues and being generally disagreeable. Finally, we are given this opportunity. I first wondered if the mapper had gone nuts because it is well known realistic spaces are horrible in UT since the hulking tank-clad behemoths we embody run like motorcycles and jump like kangaroos, making navigating an office open-space extremely tedious. But then it dawned on me that this was intended in this case. Don't misinterpret me: it's still tedious as hell to run in and out of every single cubicle to grasp some ammo, a rusty minigun or to jump from a chair to a cabinet to get a health vial, but once this is done, you have the satisfaction of blowing out every window in the building and painting this damn computer running Windows XP (without service pack) with the entrails of some poor sod as Go Down plays in the background. Then you jump on the walls of the cubicles and run on top of them, like a tightrope walker, until a rocket sends you flying through the central alley right on the armour, burning a few office plants on its way. It's not a great map to play on because it's an office: cramped work areas, tedious corridors, conference room where chairs are an annoyance, even the toilets are here, and it's all a single floor. But there's something cathartic to mayhem in the workspace. In the end, the attention to detail, the great build and the perfectly rendered ambiance make a map, which should and is tedious to play, simply too fun to pass. 8/10.
PS: I was wrong, the computers are Franklin Ace 2100, so no WinXP for you, this is pure DOS.
In my opinion, the best map in the bunch is CrypticDungeon. My favourite, however, is Valhalla.
Overall, I want to congratulate the authors because there aren't many maps this time but the result is generally of a very good level. I don't know most you guys (except Chamberly, whom I've seen here and there (yeah I used whom, all these years in college were not wasted, mom!)) but good work, all of you!
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You must construct additional pylons.