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Review:
Cinereous: another map with an atmosphere, and a gameplay attached that you won't want to miss. Lightning-fast speed and mad dashes alike, this map leaves you breathless in more ways than one.
The first thought when spawning is one I wish I had more often: "wow" I didn't even have to play this before I knew I liked it.. just on the feel alone. Play will start you out near your "base", but this is a term used very lightly. What your base consists of is two inventory stations, and these placed in such open locations that the saying "two walls and a roof make a house" takes on new meaning.
Grab your gear and hit your flag hard, because the other guys will be doing the same: almost no defense exists, other than what you set up yourself. The dark map and rolling hills make it child's play to get in position, then ski your way to a quick cap if the defense hasn't improved on the area a bit. Speaking of the defenses: a Sensor and a Turret are supposed to be helping you out, but with their exposed locations, without full time protectors, they will be down in a matter of minutes.
The structures are incredibly detailed, and fit just right with the dark surroundings, looking like something pulled out of a graveyard, or resurrected from some dark past. The flagstand area consists of a sort of "arbor": four arches meet overtop the flag, and do little but just make sure that cappers can only come in from all four compass points, instead of eight.
Because of the hills, you really will find your flag on the loose quite often. This is where defense will prove critical. You need designated chasers: oftentimes it would come to the flag carrier and his pursuer, deuling it out in the midfield, with the victor claiming the spoils; either a valient return of the flag, or a decisive cap. A satchel or mine on the flag would help, but you're going to have to get creative.. a smart capper will just dump the area full of grenades, and your hard-placed explosives just may go up in smoke.
With a running offense, a team will be hard-pressed to keep their flag around, and the defense will in all cases be put to the test in the extreme. This is what lowered the Playability score as far as it is. Attention to Detail is, in my opinion, perfect. The sky, lighting, ambience, architecture.. it's all where it should be. Balance is so heavily favored to the Offense that I had to lower the score a bit.. And the same with Item Placement. The wide open inventories mean that a juggernaught in the base will be a pain to take out.. especially if you're forced to use spawn armor! Mechanics are fine: as a fast-paced, rush sort of map, this is ace-quality and deserves to see many, many games of service.
This is a very, very enjoyable map. I loved every second I played on it, and almost wished that we hadn't capped that last time, just to stay around. You won't be disappointed for joining up when this gem comes around on rotation.
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.
To see all reviews from DrPimento, go to DrPimento's bio page.
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