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GMD Verdict  

Review of Bugports Maps
"a great design which makes for great gameplay"
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Map Name   Bugports Maps (bugport16/32.bsp)
Map Version   8/12/99
Map Author   Bidmix[RxN]
Web page   Click here.
Download   bugports.zip (4.5mb)
 
Reviewer   R1CH
Reviewed on   Fri Mar 17 04:01:52 2000
This map earns the GMD Seal of Approval!

When I first heard Bidmix was making another map in the 'bug' series, I immediately thought of all the times on Bughunt where I was quite simply, lost. My first few games on Bugports seemed to confirm my fear that the map was over complex and too big.

Then I discovered it was really a very simple layout, a circular station with 3 levels. Spiders and humans both have access to the middle and lower levels from their bases. The upper level is the accomodation deck with plenty of places to hide. The layout forces you to take a long route round the station (imagine starting at one end of the letter C and going to the other rather than cutting across the gap) for the first 10 minutes. After this time, the security systems fail and access to all routes becomes available, allowing you to take a much shorter route to the enemy base to end the game quicker.

Gameplay on this map works great. With two levels meaning two entries to each base, camping one entrance and bottlenecks never become a problem. The humans base is designed so that one kami blast can't take out all the spawns, and they start with plenty of turrets. The spiders start with eggs spread amongst some crates, with healers and spikers to boot.

The map contains many creative elements, such as the human/spider life form tracker in the middle section, forcefield doors and more. The map contains everything true to life as you would expect to find on such a station (then again, not that I would know), docking bays, escape pods, ventilation system (which purge automatically so no dead-end games) and cargo bays.

I do have one slight bad point to make about this map. Although the forcefield doors, which look and sound very cool, work most of the time, sometimes during the game they can reverse themselves, staying open until someone approaches them, at which point they close. This seems to happen when two people approach either side of the door at almost the same time. It seems quite easy to fix, as soon as a crowd begins to gather outside the door, the process happens again and it fixes itself.

Besides this one gripe (which only happens every 1 in 10 games roughly), everything else is perfect. The map is a great base for missions (cue review of bugport missions :), and it just rocks for gameplay. Well done Bidmix. One GMD seal for you.

Included in the ZIP are both bugport16.bsp and bugport32.bsp, the 16 version is smaller, with no access to the upper (accomodation) deck.


User comments:
A game on Bugports is always a good game. Bravo Bidmix!! - Saig
Bugports is ONLY good when u play it as h00mans... you dont quite get t... - BandWidth [more]
Bugports rocks! - The Pyro
BRING BUGPORT32 BACK TO ONECALL!!! I LOVE IT! I HAVE A FETISH FOR IT! - Carcinogen
Bugports suck cause i cant dload it faster then 1 kb/s!!! - Sheep.BAAA

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Average rating for Bugports Maps: 6.1/10

Rate-O-Map™

Total: 21 ratings
 
Textures
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Comment: All of the textures used throughout Bugports are perfect. The textures fit the theme of a space station perfectly, my only gripe being some of the 'blander' textures which filled some corridors. There were no mis-alignments that I could spot, and there was lots of variety throughout the map.

Layout
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Comment: This is where Bugports excels. This layout is simple, yet offers very good gameplay. Everything is where you would expect it to be.

Creativity
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Comment: Well, a space station isn't a new idea, but the design and features such as forcefield doors make this something special.

Overall
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Comment: Brilliant!
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