Tribes2Maps.com - Review of "Misery Mire" by DrPimento

Review:
Misery Mire is a fun, playable, and at the same time epic Siege map. It combines excellent ideals, execution, and combination of factors which make a Siege map good.

Everyone starts out going for the same objective: a small island surrounded by lava. The defense has a bit of island hopping to do quick off, but if they're fast, they could stand for a minute or so before losing the first point. Offense starts of with Shrikes, so look for a bunch of medium armors to swarm the place. The first objective is the only one to be available at first, (the rest being under a lava field) and this serves to foster one of those "clash" battles.. two armies meeting headlong over a single point.

With the fall of the first generator, the lava resides somewhat.. revealing the second point. Since the generators are unrepairable, the defense must again rush to defend this next spot.. build from the courtyard of Trident. A single lucky (or good) mortar shot down into the gen pit, and this area is gone.. and the lava resides completely.

With the second generator's demise, the offense has Thundersword Bombers made available.. so look to see more Heavy O, plus bombs falling from on high..

The third objective can be held for a long while, as the Defense has had quite a time to set up.. but a coordinated, quick rush can put them out of their misery, if it's done right by the offense.

Then it's on to the final staging ground.. and woe for the Defense, for the Havocs are now being in use by the attackers. Two generators need to be down for the switch to be open.. and it's in a bunker with no walls, so don't expect even a defended switch to stay up for long if there's no forcefield there as well.

Playability is great, just a single point being taken off for a bit of confusion regarding the initial goal: I wasn't sure if perhaps the lava was just a "blind", so I plunged blithely in, hoping to defend one of the further objectives, and have the area farmed by the time the Offense got to it. Needless to say.. that doesn't work too well.

Attention to Detail is good.. very good. It shows in item placement, and eyecandy as well.

Balance is as evenly divided as I've seen in a Siege map.. first, the defenders have the advantage, singe the O can only come in Light or Medium (unless they fancy a Heavy trek), but as the game progresses, the advantage shifts by degrees over to the Offense, with first bomber, then Havoc being useable.

Item Placement is very, very well done. Nothing is out of place or off-center high.. Inventories are perfectly aligned, and the one and only "strange" thing I noticed was a solar panel clamped to a vertical wall.. hardly something to complain about.

The Mechanics of this map are executed to perfection.. with the falling lava, and the allowances of vehicles.. only one flaw was present: in the second round of gameplay, the offense wouldn't ever be able to buy Bombers or Havocs.. they'd become available, but the count would be "0". This is serious, but since it's easily fixed, I didn't take very much off the score for it.

This map comes highly recommended.. everything about it speaks for itself, and I hardly need to elaborate further. Download it, and walk through yourself on Offense so you can see what you need to do (and where you do it), then jump in for some multi-player action... the strategies possible here are boundless, and everyone should have a lot of fun.

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.