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Review:
Wow. Os-Iris packs a punch.. visually, and physically. Demanding skills to be proficient, this map somehow manages to provide something for the "newbie" to do as well, effectively combining nearly all the aspects of Tribes2 into one neat package.
Firstly, you've got the visuals. Your eyes are the first things you'll use on mission-load, so it's appropriate to mention them here. The flag is situated right in the middle of a huge "eye".. a circle, suspended in mid-air by four supporting arms. This makes some caps hard.. and defense rather simplified... to a point.
Defense is interesting. It'll take a fairly good judge of a farmer's eye to take full usage of the flag "eye". I was able to get three spider turrets on the inside rim.. but a talented person could perhaps make that number four. With that presence, anyone coming in un-guarded would have the horrid experience of being within tracking range of four turrets at once.. and then the front-side ELF turret lying in wait as well. With a few judiciously placed landspikes on the surrounding terrain.. well, capping could be hell.
It's a good thing the offense can stay completely undetected all the way to the base if they want.. a round-about route provides so much hill cover that you can pop up anywhere near the base you choose: either side or behind. A well-used tactic is to surface, zoom in and target the offending guard turrets.. a few spinfusors, and they're gone. Of course, watch out for Defensive sniping.. that could be a pain.
The center area is a great place to hold down.. no capturable objectives, per sè, but if you can manage to create a small base (mobiles and such) you could gun down and trap any would-be enemy attackers.
The Playability of this map is really great. Not only is it fun, but it's a challenge, at the same time not being overly daunting to those who aren't "7334" yet.
The terrain and bases are mirrored, giving this map a complete 100 percent on the Balance category. Usually, balance between offense/defense is tipped, upsetting other maps.. but while Defending can make caps hard, a co-ordinated offense can so easily upset the most well-layed network.
Item Placement is just fine. Inventories are in your base (3 openings into the world for the structure) as soon as you go down a chute.. with the Generators situated inside the basement. Not too hard to get to.. but certainly not wide open.
Mechanics are a notch above "good".. everything about this map just seems to click.
No matter what you do, you are sure to find a nichè playing Os-Iris.. defense, offense.. base rape, base D. Sniping, Heavy Offense.. (skiable terrain!) ..it's all here, and wrapped up in a beautiful setting. Congratulations to the author on such a stunning piece of work.. it just doesn't get very much better than this!
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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