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shitpost of this decade
That's Brilliant, mate
Wildfire achieves what it sets out to do remarkably well, creating a well-balanced and enjoyable environment for competitive 6-vs-6 Capture the Flag. With its unique mechanic of having your own team's flag being the capture zone, it definitely stands out from any other Capture the Flag map, and I applaud it for being able to pull off such a feat. Its layout leaves nothing to be desired for 6v6, having a good variety of combat areas and holding spots in it while not sacrificing the potential for flanking that a good Capture the Flag map needs to survive. I've particularly enjoyed playing around the spires with the flag on them for each team, however the mid area of the map shouldn't be neglected; it's an interesting combat space, and makes nice use of what modern mappers call "dish gameplay."

Herein lies the underlying issue with Wildfire though. Capture the Flag is not a viable gamemode for 6v6. And as such, Wildfire seriously falls by the wayside as a result. This has left the map in a rather unfortunate predicament, where its main audience doesn't want it, and its supplementary audience, 12v12, doesn't mesh well with the map at all. Put simply, Wildfire is too small 12v12, and too CTF for 6v6, and this makes it unfortunate to critique since the map no longer has any audience. I think for what it's trying to achieve, it's pretty good, but that bar of what it IS is, well... not very good. Capture the Flag just fractures teams way too much for 6v6.

Moving onto the detailing, I think it's good for its era. You can certainly tell that it's an older map from its visuals, but sort of in the way that Frontier still looks good nowadays; It's simple, but I like it. The environment it tries to portray, which is a Hydroelectric plant right next to a forest fire, is pretty well executed and I think very suitable for its target audience. This map really trims the fat of some unnecessary detail, although it still has the occasional "cringe sticky bush" that can lead to some unfortunate interactions. The ash particle is a really nice touch on the overall feel of the map, and the sundown lighting and skybox of sky_wildfire_01 really add to the illusion that the forest fire is slowly creeping towards you.

I think overall the map deserves applause for getting what's probably the second-best Comp CTF map after Turbine, but that's about it. The detailing is good, but not great, and there's some strange dark bits around the main doors. I will give this map a reluctant 5/10, it just doesn't really fit into TF2 anymore. Makes me sad.
2 points but ctf
everything is free
The most fun I've had in the Vscript version of Gun Game so far. I absolutely adore the roof area, feels awesome to play around and jump around and fight people in. I think there's some serious prop clutter on the lower floors but that can get fixed later. May be one too many floors but I do like the trains being a seperate play space; They would suck to play around in normal gameplay space. Currently an 8/10 in terms of Gameplay. Can't give the aesthetics a bump at the moment, it's all dev textures and all FLAT dev textures (which is lame).
Gravidea
Gravidea
Hi! I just wanted to say thanks for the kind words. Most of the issues you mentioned are going to be addressed, but I did want to elaborate on my reasoning for using flat textures. It's mostly a reason that has to do with my mindset. For me personally, I feel like the grid style of the original developer textures causes me to think too much about the grids. They cause me to try and align things to them, especially the 128 grids that are often used for walls.

When I see my textures aren't lined up or don't fit the scale, it bothers me immensely in a way I can't quite describe. I also spend a lot of time aligning separate textures with "treat as one" and facing them when I see them like this, which is time that could be better spent actually working on the map. Either way, this is obviously an alpha issue, and if the map is ever artpassed I will obviously not be using flat textures such as these. Just wanted to elaborate on the reasoning!
Pretty bright colors for my brain and great classic styled gameplay, a wonderful combo.
For pl_tower in Payload
IK you consider this crap but idk it ain't perfect but I had a lot of fun playing it. There were a few odd bits (last probably needs a rework) but aside from that I think the Tower gimmick makes this a lot more fun than if it were a traditional cart layout. 6/10. Give it an artpass maybe if you need something to do.
i think this is one of the best King of the Hill maps i have ever played