Yeah, I know it’s Thursday. If it’s that important to you, wait until Monday to read this.
As I play TF2 with mostly east coasters, they’re usually slouching off to bed just when I’m getting warmed up. Some nights, rather than rolling the dice with the usual collection of mic-spamming pubbie retards, I look around the server list for new custom maps to play, or go to fpsbanana and download interesting looking maps and run around in them for a bit. Every Monday or Thursday or whatever day I’ll review a map unless I forget to or don’t feel like it. That’s my solemn promise to you.
Map: ctf_jinxed_b3
I’ve been waiting a long time to play jinxed, but I’ve never seen it live on a server. This past week I’ve finally gotten to play it a few times with my friends.
Jinxed is a capture-the-intel map, but there’s only one briefcase, dead center of the map. To capture it, you don’t bring it back to your own base, you have to reach the capture zone in your enemy base. Kinda like American football, if that helps.
It’s a medium-sized map that seems both too big and too small at the same time. It’s quite wide, with a complicated layout and sewer system. It can be pretty confusing at first, even with colored arrows pointing you to the capture zone, and quite often I find myself running through the sewers, getting turned around, and invading my own base. I even spent a moment as an engineer crouching and shooting at a sentry that turned out to be my own.
I should note that this happens to me even on maps I know pretty well.
Once you’ve figured out the layout a bit, it’s easier. There are some very good vantage points for snipers, though that’s balanced by the fact that it’s easy for pyros and other classes to sneak up behind them using the sewer tunnels. Spies will enjoy the layout as well, since there are lots of nice spots to hide and change disguises.
Gameplay isn’t quite what I expected. I was picturing large coordinated pushes and the intel being traded back and forth between teams every few moments, but most rounds ended fairly quickly, and most caps are made by the person who picked up the intel at the middle.
I think the problem is the map isn’t nearly long enough. In regular ctf, you have to make a huge round-trip: from your spawn, to the rear of the enemy base to get the intel, and then all the way back to the rear of your base. With jinxed, the run is basically 1/4th that distance: from mid-point to enemy capture zone.
I think the capture zone would be better at the absolute rear of the map, behind the spawn point, as opposed to where it is now, which is sort of adjacent to the spawn. I also think the map would be better if it were longer and more narrow as opposed to wide. I could see this brand of ctf working a lot better on a map like Well, or even on 2Fort. I think the openness of the floor plan makes it a little too easy to get into the enemy base as well — there aren’t a lot of choke points that I noticed.
Also, predictably, the Scouts rule the map. A Scout leaving his spawn at the start of the round will grab the intel and be at the enemy cap point before a lone engie can have anything more than a level one sentry up. So, I think the map would also benefit from a 20 or 30 second set-up timer to allow some defense to get into place.
Something else that could be fun: if the intel started off and respawned at one of several random spots instead of always appearing right in the middle. Makes it harder to camp and gives other classes a chance to grab it before the faster runners do.
Still, I really enjoy the twist on the standard ctf mode, and the map is still a lot of fun and nicely designed. If you put it on a server, though, you might want to set the cap limit higher than three or it could be over before it’s begun.
Gameplay: 8/10
Class Balance: 6/10
Originality: 9/10
Appearance: 7/10
Total Score: 30/10. Wait, no. Maths. 7.5/10
Suggested Players per Team: 4+
22 responses so far ↓
1 Ev // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:28 am
The scouts ruling the map at the start of the round is pretty normal. It happens at every map. When I scout rush in 2fort, I usually manage to take down 3 level-0 (still building) sentries and take the intel with me before anyone knows what’s going on.
2 NateDeGray // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:32 am
I love this map alot, it has lots of points to guard in your base, I personally love chasing spy’s around the sewers. But I agree, a size change and set-up timer would be excellent.
3 Shane // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:40 am
Chris, you should set up some kind of grading system. It’s nice to see you give in-depth pros and cons but it’s a bit hard to see if the pros win out to you in the end without some kind of perspective on the issue.
4 Christopher // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:48 am
But I love being enigmatic.
Okay, fine. I’ll add one.
5 Mike // Apr 10, 2008 at 11:25 am
Maths - Better Living Through Percentages
6 Mike // Apr 10, 2008 at 11:40 am
If you ever get tired of playing with “mic-spamming pubbie retards” you’re welcome to join my clan server:
208.167.245.214:27015
We have lots of custom maps and a friendly community.
[/shameless plug]
Good map review, do more!
7 halcyon // Apr 10, 2008 at 12:21 pm
sounds like Grifball.
8 Pentadact // Apr 10, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Wow, so what’s in the intel? Is it really, really bad news? Is it, like, a restaurant cheque that both teams walked out on at the big office party when Blu and Red were part of the same conglomerate?
Or something written by Dan Brown?
The mechanic reminds me a little of CTF Joust - which I’ve played far more than any form of football, and hence springs to mind more readily. It’s the UT map where the two teams (usually one man each) spawn at the enemy flag, with a rocket launcher and lightning gun/sniper rifle, so they can cap instantly but getting it to ‘your’ base to score means surviving a long, thing corridor full of rockets. And unlike TF2, your flag has to be in your base for you to cap - which is all the way back where you spawned by the time you get there. It should be a nightmare, but somehow it’s just endlessly fun.
9 chris12 // Apr 10, 2008 at 7:56 pm
hey, cool
10 Dan // Apr 12, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I figured out the difference between categories and tags on Wordpress if you care.
Tags are flat. If you tag something with a tag, only that tag can be used to find that same tag on posts.
Categories are tree-like… I can make a category called “Games” and a subcategory called “Wii” and then everything I mark “Wii” will automatically show up if someone looks at the category “Games”.
11 Mike // Apr 13, 2008 at 12:28 am
That’s not the only difference, I think. I’m pretty sure that tags are indexed globally by Wordpress, whereas Categories are local to your blog.
12 Gothic // Apr 13, 2008 at 3:13 am
“That’s not the only difference, I think. I’m pretty sure that tags are indexed globally by Wordpress, whereas Categories are local to your blog.”
So Chris is really screwing with the tags now, eh?
13 TK // Apr 13, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I’m gonna feel like a total douchefag attention whore for asking this, but I wanted to know what your (Chris) screen name was on Steam. I figured it’d be all cool and such to play a few games with you. Or, if you wanna be left alone, that’s cool too.
My name on Steam is Frohm[lambda]n Lives!
Yes, it is a stupid name that you’d never consider adding in a million years. No, the name does not mean I’d pester you every second of every day with “OMG BRING FROHMAN BACK INTO EP 1 AND 2222222222!!!!1!!! HE WAS SOOOOO FUYNNN ^_^” etc. etc. etc., nor will I be bugging you shitless about 1fort and every other little thing in the world I think you should or should not do/have done.
I just wanna hang and play a few TF2 games and stuff with a cool guy.
(Also, the screen name is not a literal belief. It is a statement that Frohman lives on in our hearts and minds. Frohman is a part of all of us. Or maybe he’s, like, a blue hologram ghostie, like Yoda.)
14 Punjabi Fury // Apr 14, 2008 at 12:47 am
I like maps reviews. I only recently became a PC gamer, so custom maps are still a new thing to me. My favourite’s probably Mach4 (as good as the Valve maps I think), but I also enjoy Corporation a lot.
Chris, a question for you. I’ve just starting a wordpress blog (see the link) and I was wondering how to do little things like remove the little unneccesary things at the bottom of posts like the permalink thing. Also did you have to edit your CSS to make your theme, or what?
Ta.
15 Nicholas Browne // Apr 14, 2008 at 4:20 am
Hey there. I have been following your blog for a while and was wondering if you wanted to submit it to “The Fortress”, (website address attached). It has content for Team Fortress 2 files, clans, links, screenshots, comics, videos, servers and blogs and i wondered if you want your blog on there as well? Whether you want me to stick it up there or what. Let me know:
Nick
16 Christopher // Apr 14, 2008 at 10:46 am
Mike– Thanks, I will definitely stop by your server. I’m looking for some new places to play.
TK — my Steam name is Gordon Frohman.
Punjabi — just left you a comment on your blog.
Nicholas — sure!
17 Nicholas Browne // Apr 14, 2008 at 11:05 am
Erm that “sure” is that to me adding it or are you adding it? :P
18 Punjabi Fury // Apr 14, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Thanks Chris. Or should I say “‘Preciate it, mate!”
Thing is, I have somehow got a blog on wordpress.com without having wordpress downloaded or installed. Do I need it downloaded in order to use custom themes? Sounds like a question for the wordpress forums, I guess.
Yeah that was me on the Control Point Podcast. It was quite a surprise - I didn’t know they were playing it till I heard my own voice.
PS I like Pearson’s Copyblogger theme…
PPS I posted on the comments here before under the name Tales, that was before I got my blog.
19 Christopher // Apr 14, 2008 at 12:51 pm
PF — I don’t think you can customize the templates unless you host the software on your own site, or subscribe to wordpress for whatever they chanrge. Like, on my Oblivion blog, I can’t really tweak the templates (though they give you a bunch to choose from).
Nicholas — sure!
20 Christopher // Apr 14, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Just kidding. I’ll add my site.
21 Punjabi Fury // Apr 14, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I see. So I’d need to get a webpage of my own, then upload the wordpress stuff to it, right?
Now to find a cheap UK web host…
22 TK // Apr 14, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Coolio, thanks braw!
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