Tribes2Maps.com - Review of "Unholy Ground" by DrPimento

Review:
Unholy Ground has, first of all, one of the best environments I've seen in a map. From the ambient noise, which is not too loud, nor too quiet, all the way to the ground textures, it gives the impression of a dead, evil land, with a thin layer of dust on the ground, ready to be whipped up at any moment by a vile windstorm. As if this wasn't enough, the gameplay is stellar..

Of course, the windstorm never happens (alas for the limitations!), but it feels great, nonetheless. The sky fits in perfectly with the map, as do the structures.

Those structures are small and unobtrusive in one manner, yet at the same time they jump out and grab you by the throat. One is instantly reminded of UT:2003 with all the spikes and such. Particularly impressive is the flagstand; this consists of four "arms", arching to meet right over the flag. To grab the flag, you must fly in.. no dropping from the heights. Even though it is so much in the open, it is still fairly easily defended. Mines, satchel charges, and the guard towers cover the area easily, not to mention farmed ground near and around it.

Speaking of the guard towers: these pieces play an important part of the map. Two per team, they hover high in the air over the land, allowing snipers or scouts to scan the battlefield with ease. In addition to an inventory station, there is a teleporter, allowing you to jump from tower to tower in an instant.

Snipers can prevail on this map.. not only using the guard towers, but the hills making up the playing field seem designed to hide a scout from enemy eyes, and the distance in between flags allows for high speeds while skiing, and many, many deuling areas.

The distance is just about the only thing I found 'off' in this map. Perhaps a personal taste, but I found the long meters to favor light armor.. light with no energy, medium, and Heaven forbid, a heavy (!) will find very hard going without a vehicle. (Unless you happen to be God-like at skiing, of course. Even then, you're prey to those with vehicles)

One more fact bears mentioning. While this neither adds nor detracts much from the game (in my opinion) the main base (Inventories and Generators) is completely open. It is extremely vulnerable, so a decent defense is going to be a must. A single warrior with Plasma (or a mortar!) could wreak absolute havoc on the other team's entire base structures. (Power and otherwise)

All in all, though, an incredible map. This is one I wouldn't mind playing quite often.. I had an absolute blast. (So did Celios, who was the unwitting victim of a satchel TK, but that is another story..)

To see the rest of the map details, including the map author's description of the map, and user-submitted comments, go to the map detail page.