Two More Contest Reviews

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 19 Feb 2007, 22:06

Because a few years ago having more than one review for a Heroes map seemed a very unlikely event, the map database currently supports only one review per map. For that reason, two reviews written by Psychobabble overlap with existing articles by The Qurquirish Dragon. I'm publishing them in the forums for prosperity, hoping we will have a multi-review system someday. <h3> The Keymasters </h3> Design: 8 Graphics: 7 Story/Concept: 7 Overall: 8 SP: 6 MP: 0 Pros: Well paced challenge, good designfacilitates map's concept. Cons: Oddly paced opening, 'gauntlet'path poorly balanced, obleisk hunt didn't seem to work. Overall: An enjoyable little map whichputs the player under constant pressure as they try and achieve the main goal. Comments: It's a bit unusual to begin amap with no hero and no buildings in your town, not even a tavern. I'm all forinnovation, but this is an innovation which doesn't do anything to improve themap, it just means you sit around doing nothing for most of the first week asyou try to build up enougIh forces to take on the nearby stacks. It's alsonormal for map-maker's to link creature dwellings to the player's town so thatthe creatures in them are useful, but this wasn't done here which also felt abit weird. Luckily, once this map found its groove it was pretty enjoyable,forcing the player to make many strategic decisions and fight quite a few toughbattles. The basic idea here is that there are three keymaster tents which the playermust unlock in order to defeat the enemy across the river. Technically you onlyneed to unlock one of these to complete the map, the green one which guardsangel's wings, but the others are easy enough to get and provide well balancedrewards. While you're hunting these keymasters and building up your town, theenemy is invading you via a well placed one way portal. This exits about threedays walk from your town (and right next to your gold mine), so you can neverget too far away without fearing that it will be captured. Of course, the greenkeymaster tent is much more than three days walk away, forcing you to split yourforces and fight a defensive battle which is a nice touch. On your way to thegreen keymaster, you are presented with the opportunity to run the 'gauntlet'which looks like a fun side quest, but it's actually a really bad idea as itinvolves walking for about a week while fighting about a dozen stacks of shadowdragons to get a relatively pitiful reward of a dozen treasure trests and threeartifacts - a case of risk and cost far outweighing the reward at the end. Once through the green key tent and over the river with your new wings, I foundtwo of the three enemy castles very lightly defended, while the third was reallyquite tough to capture, which was a pretty good outcome. I assume the map-makerhas done something in the way of AI-boosting scripts and, if so, he has done agood job as he has created a challenging and enjoyable map which keeps aconsistent pressure on the player and sustains its challenge basically right tothe end. Errors: None noticed. <h3> Triple Trouble </h3> Design: 9 Graphics: 8 Story/Concept: 7 Overall: 8 SP: 3 MP: 6 Pros: Superb multiplayer design, alliedversion available. Cons: Terrain balance issues, mediocoresingle player experience, some interaction paths may be a little out of balance. Overall: A great 4 player FFA or 2v2multiplayer map. Comments: I often find it difficult tojudge multiplayer maps in a single player reviewing environment, but afterplaying this map it was quite clear that I had just played a really goodmultiplayer map. The key to interesting multiplayer maps is the interactionbetween the players, and this map has that aspect down very well, especiallyconsidering it's a 4 player small sized map. As is usual with 4 player maps,there are four quarters, with one town and player per quarter. Interactionhappens either via boats, over the water which divides the quadrants, ateleporter, a garrison or a narrow peninsula. Each of these is heavily guarded,though the boat is less heavily so in recognition that it's a slower way toinvade. There's interesting touches to each of these paths, too. Taking thepeninusla route means you get a powerful artifact, a bonus which obviously onlygots to the first player through, but that player also needs to kill two strongstacks if they want to pass all the way through. And the guards on the otherpaths seem pretty well balanced compared to the rewards they provide, althoughthe stack guarding the garrison was possibly a tad on the strong side (or theship guards were too weak, one of the two). Interesting interaction is also encouraged through good placement of "common"rewards, which are accessible by more than one player such as the gold mine inthe middle and treasure stacks on the outer reaches of the river. The garrisonsalso appear to gain guards via a script, giving some benefit to the player whocontrols them. Overall the map appears interesting and mostly balanced inmultiplayer, although if I were the player with the lava terrain (SE) I wouldfeel a bit ripped off as movement is significantly impeded here. Unfortunately, as is so common with multiplayer maps, this doesn't play well insingle player. Nevertheless I appreciate that this is a superbly designed mapwhich could be a great, frantic, muliplayer map. Errors: None noticed.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1171922798

Caradoc · Unread postby **Caradoc** » 19 Feb 2007, 22:44

Would it be feasible to concatenate all the reviews into one file?

Angelspit · Unread postby **Angelspit** » 21 Feb 2007, 02:58

The results would be a bit messy I'm afraid. I'll try to add support for multiple reviews instead, with each article accessible via a folder tab or something.

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