Sith Council v2

Original review by @Szico VII from JKFiles in 2005, for preservation purposes:

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Griffenclaw's Jedi Council map was voted the favorite map of JK2 on JK2Files.com just a few weeks ago. It's no wonder everyone wants a similiar map for JA. Kahn has answered that request with the Sith Council map.

Incidentally, the version one of this map has had over 40,000 downloads, and comparing the screens between the two versions, I can't see how this one has gotten worse, but then again, not having played the first, I can't say much more about that. What did I think about it?

Well, for starters, it's big. Really big. Not as in huge terrains or giant FFA areas, but there's a lot of small, localised areas within the map, as well as a fairly spacious outdoor area with a few trees and a pretty, (albiet very square and unatural-looking) waterfall. I'm gonna start with the music used, as I think it combines with the outdoor atmosphere and the rain particularly well, even though I believe it's from the bit in Episode 6 where Vader dies, but meh, whatever. Every time i died, I spawned back in the main room. That's not to say there might not be other spawns elsewhere, and I hope I was just unlucky, as having all the spawns in the same room would be a bit boring. I'd have to say my favourite area was the cafe, as it reminded me a great deal of a typical university cafe, and I'm all for real-life stuff.

I didn't have time to explore all the secrets, but I did work out that a great deal of the main room can become destroyed, leaving a giant lava pit in it e.t.c. Lots of the rooms are very well detailed and made, but of course, there's always a gripe. Some rooms kind of look like they've been slapped on, and obviously haven't had as much effort put into them, plus some are far too dark, most noticeably the bedroom areas, which are pitch black even when they have windows... (Plus I couldn't find the lightswitches, bah!)  There's also a few missing textures on the toilet handles and stuff in here, and looking out of a few windows you can see bits of map which you shouldn't be able to see. It's an easy error to fix using the system/antiportal texture, or a decent vis blocker, and it's unfortunate this error is here, as it does spoil the views somewhat.

Oh, there's also a skin called Kahn in here, wonder where that name came from.. *cough* Anyway, it's a fairly decent skin (based on the Quinlan-vos model, although the hair clips through his shoulders and the textures used on the hair seem a little odd. Aside from that it looks okay, although not very sith-like, as you'd expect with this map. It's also good to see Kahn has taken onboard some suggestions from Amy's previous review: 

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You press a button and get a weapon or ammo. It's perfect except for one thing - you can't tell what you're getting until you press the button. It would've been nice to have seen some clear labels over each button.

Now, there's clear identifiable labels over each button, so kudos to you for fixing this. Underground, theres a lot of small, torch-lit rooms for dueling and there's also a scary-looking, but easy to complete jumping room, which leads you to a suspended dueling pad, which was nice. I guess the area which was most lacking in detail was the church/choir singing section. (At least thats what it looked a little like) This area looks just, bland and the lighting was a little nasty, with no viable sources. Naturally, there's also the water bug which isn't really avoidable (with water flowing sideways) and a few other small errors with light-shafts e.t.c but I think they're all very small and localised.

To top it off, there's also bot support, and some new models made for quake3. The paths are a little strange due to this, but it shouldn't effect gameplay  

New Sounds: Yes
New Textures: Yes
Bot Support: Yes

~Szico VII~