[Jblade]

Just literally stumbled across this on deviantart, it's a HUGE usermap set on a Mars colony base for the AMC TC. You can download it at the author's DA page here.

It took me about an hour to finish - it's a huge map! The design is fairly good, it's cramped in places but that makes sense for a Lunar colony. The map really picks up when you hit the Bio Labs area, and the author's made inventive use of many of the TC's new sprites and stuff. Since the map is big, the detail is fairly low in places but it feels more intentional rather than poor design since the author's capable of doing high-detail stuff really well. It's fairly tough gameplay wise, if you're not that experienced at the TC I would play on Easy for this map since you'll be hunting for ammo in the first part, but you get a much better loadout once you go further into the map. Snowfall uses the map markers, so if you get lost look on the automap and look for the exclamation marks to help you find places to go.

If I had a good PC I would do a video playthrough, but it's definitely a great map to play for fans of the TC (I only managed to find 3 out of 10 of the secrets, so there's loads of stuff to explore)

edit: author's name is Snowfall, not his profile name. sorry I've been up since 5AM and it's 11:45PM now, I need to go to bed

[Micky C]

Just had a quick look in mapster, the map is definitely worthy of the TC! At least judging from what I've seen, he's a bit like me how he focuses on interesting architecture rather than intricate details to make a map look good. It's too bad he didn't try to get into contact with you earlier; if he'd known about the TC's map caching feature he would've been able to break the map up and get in all the detail he wanted (although he still can if he's motivated to continue work on it). I wonder what the new map he's working on is for.

[Micky C]

Wow, I just finished this map, and it's absolutely amazing. I'd even go so far as to say that it's one of the best maps of the TC.

I'd written a sort of mini-review except I accidentally hit something on the keyboard and lost it somehow I'll try to recreate a version of it below.

First off, the map is HUGE, with a long playtime. Took me over one and a half hours once I'd been everywhere and done everything. It's not a long map because it's been artificially extended with repetitive keycard hunts, but because it really is a really huge, explorable map with a fantastic layout. The area you start off in is a small portion of the map, but as you progress and major doors get unlocked, the map begins to grow and also fold back on itself giving a real sense of progression. The fact that the map is huge isn't impressive alone, except that it's pulled off really bloody well, with high quality detailing, texturing, shading and architecture throughout (except where occasional areas seem relatively bare which is obviously due to the wall limit.) Plus it's always fresh! I certainly couldn't pull off something on this scale without a large degree of copy and paste, but I can't detect any real evidence of that. If there is copy and paste, it's masked well, which is just as good.

The atmosphere is great as well, with effective use of darkness, and hologramatic sprites everywhere to create a moody, futuristic feeling where bad stuff has happened/is happening. Every location has a purpose to it and feels "real". As you get immersed you'll completely believe that you're exploring a fleshed out, plausible futuristic mars colony. Combat is consistently fun throughout the entire map, and considering it's hour+ playtime, that has got to be the achievement of the bloody millennium! Part of this is due to the author using a wider range of enemies than in most AMC maps, leading to some good combat variety (don't know how James feels about enemies from different "factions" in the same map though). However the nature of the layout also adds to the combat; there's battles in large open areas, small rooms, corridors, and there's either plenty of room to strafe, or otherwise desks or walls to take cover behind; all of which further enhances the fun and variety of combat. Plus lots of windows to shoot through (which means lots of glass to break ) While most of the map is relatively flat (although IIRC there are two main levels), there are still rooms placed at different heights which leads to some vertical shooting and progression. Once again how he pulls it off without getting repetitive amazes me.

Maybe part of the reason why it took so long to play is because sometimes I'd press a switch, and not quite be sure what it did, or where, which led to some confusing moments and a lot of back tracking. Sometimes there are viewscreens but not always, so a touch more guidance would be nice (although not too much since the exploration is half the fun). Still, that's the only possible downside of the map I can think of.

Long story short, the map ticks all the boxes with a vengence. Unless you're 110% allergic to large explorable non-linear maps, I very highly recommend trying this out.
If the author is reading this, please, please make more. I don't think I've ever played a map quite like this, it's all downhill from here

[Apiai]

Is it the same map in AMC TC 2 ?

[Micky C]

Yeah, although the version included in Episode 2 is improved: longer, better details, more polished, better use of AMC TC features.