Flavor is a subjective score based on a set of sub-criteria that I can pretty much choose at will. A map with just the basic SC2 units will probably not get a flavor score above C. That being said, even if the score was a B, the overall rating would remain the same because Flavor, being a very subjective score, counts the least toward the final score out of all of the criteria.
Yes, I did notice the terrain improvement from the beta. However, improving on utter crap is not all that difficult, and reproducing even Nexus Wars' current terrain would take me (or anyone else, really) a matter of minutes.
I'll be putting these reviews in new threads instead of putting it on some page in the Central Review Conglomerate. Talk about my reviews in general, what map should be reviewed next, and so forth in the CRC, and discuss the map itself or this particular review in this thread.
Letter Scores: Grades can be F, E, D, C, B, A, and S in order from worst to best. + and - modifiers indicate slightly better or slightly worse. An A is essentially a 5/5 while an F is similar to a 0/5, but the letter grades are purposefully meant to be ambiguous. I am aware that Europeans may be unfamiliar with letter-based grade systems, and I apologize for any confusion this may cause.
Replayability: Score ranges from 0 to 5 with + and - modifiers. It follows a logarithmic scale; the difference between 4 and 3 is much more than the difference between 2 and 1.
Failures
Mass Units Lag - [-]
No Unique Units - [- -]
Plain Terrain - [-]
Bonuses
Team Cooperation - [+]
Review:
Nexus Wars is currently in the #2 spot on the North American custom games list, behind Income Wars. It dominated for a very long time, especially during the beta. Of course, the beta version of Nexus Wars was rough around the edges, especially with the terrain, but I’m reviewing it as it is now.
Firstly, the terrain is very bland. There are three cliff levels (higher approaching the nexus), some water in the middle, randomly-generated shrubs and flowers (fucking flowers!) in the middle of the two paths of war, and a single terrain texture on each cliff level. This map could really use a visual tune-up, and is a big part of the reason why I gave this map a flavor score of D and a polish score of C. The other reasons why the polish score was docked that much include the common stalker blink animation (seriously, just replace it with a poof or flash, not a stalker!), the unprofessional names for some of the unit-producing structures (Sheeeeeep, for example, instead of Hydralisk or Hydralisk Den), some badly-written or badly-formatted or even completely unedited-from-the-original tooltips, and the fact that way too many units are spawned, causing massive amounts of lag and huge framerate drops. Either slow the spawn rate, make units die more quickly, or shorten the lanes to counteract this, whilst of course rebalancing the units to account for the changes.
Look at that wonderful quality of terrain. It’s like this throughout the entire map.
There really isn’t much else to the map other than the goal, the fact that the vanilla StarCraft II units are the only ones that can be made, and a triad of hero units (directly from the campaign). Combined with the bad terrain, the flavor score takes a huge hit. The lack of unique units is a really low point for Nexus Wars, since I feel that having unique units, or at least new abilities or behaviors, or anything beyond the default StarCraft II unit set would be a great improvement for this map. The content score, therefore, takes a significant hit because there is essentially nothing unique about Nexus Wars.
Nexus Wars, however, does manage to get the gameplay dynamics done correctly. Partly because StarCraft II itself is balanced, this map offers a large amount of strategies and situations while keeping the game interesting and suspenseful. The flow naturally ebbs back and forth as the players counter each other, or fire nukes, or unleash a deadly strategy, and eventually the better team wins the game. Income spices up the dynamics by adding another layer of strategy on top of the unit combat (the players do not command the units; they all essentially attack-move toward the enemy nexus). Truthfully, the game can be exciting to play and is usually an entertaining, if not fairly bland and unoriginal, experience.
A genuinely heart-pumping experience: imminent defeat.
Unlike other games of its type, Nexus Wars generally does not have too much of a problem with an unstoppable buildup of ranged units (melee units are actually useful), which is a nice bonus. On the other hand, with the inevitable huge mass of units towards the latter half of the game, it becomes very difficult to change strategies and counter the opponent, especially since there are so many damn units and there is no way to micro what you have.
It’s nice that Nexus Wars brings people together; the team that works together is the team that will win the game, for the most part, since most strategies require more resources than any individual player will have. Cooperation is essential for higher-level play, so that’s a good attribute for the map.
This is what happens when your team fails to cooperate.
In general, Nexus Wars needs improvement, especially with its variety and polish. The gameplay dynamics are pretty good, though there are the occasional problems and the ever-present blandness. It turns out that this map falls right in the middle of the Bronze rank, meaning it is a decent map that could become Silver or even Gold if it was given some serious revision.
RATING:
Bronze: This map is decent, but rough around the edges or somehow lacking.
Flavor is a subjective score based on a set of sub-criteria that I can pretty much choose at will. A map with just the basic SC2 units will probably not get a flavor score above C. That being said, even if the score was a B, the overall rating would remain the same because Flavor, being a very subjective score, counts the least toward the final score out of all of the criteria.
Yes, I did notice the terrain improvement from the beta. However, improving on utter crap is not all that difficult, and reproducing even Nexus Wars' current terrain would take me (or anyone else, really) a matter of minutes.
I'll be putting these reviews in new threads instead of putting it on some page in the Central Review Conglomerate. Talk about my reviews in general, what map should be reviewed next, and so forth in the CRC, and discuss the map itself or this particular review in this thread.
Edit: added pictures
Central Review Conglomerate: http://forums.sc2mapster.com/player-zone/map-review/7788-central-review-conglomerate/
Letter Scores: Grades can be F, E, D, C, B, A, and S in order from worst to best. + and - modifiers indicate slightly better or slightly worse. An A is essentially a 5/5 while an F is similar to a 0/5, but the letter grades are purposefully meant to be ambiguous. I am aware that Europeans may be unfamiliar with letter-based grade systems, and I apologize for any confusion this may cause.
Replayability: Score ranges from 0 to 5 with + and - modifiers. It follows a logarithmic scale; the difference between 4 and 3 is much more than the difference between 2 and 1.
Nexus Wars by Lipschitz
Fun (Enjoyability, Thrill) - (B)
Gameplay (Balance, Dynamics) - (B)
Content (Completeness, Assets) - (C+)
Polish (Bugginess, Presentation) - (C)
Flavor (Style, Charm) - (D)
Replayability - [2-]
Failures
Mass Units Lag - [-]
No Unique Units - [- -]
Plain Terrain - [-]
Bonuses
Team Cooperation - [+]
Review:
Nexus Wars is currently in the #2 spot on the North American custom games list, behind Income Wars. It dominated for a very long time, especially during the beta. Of course, the beta version of Nexus Wars was rough around the edges, especially with the terrain, but I’m reviewing it as it is now.
Firstly, the terrain is very bland. There are three cliff levels (higher approaching the nexus), some water in the middle, randomly-generated shrubs and flowers (fucking flowers!) in the middle of the two paths of war, and a single terrain texture on each cliff level. This map could really use a visual tune-up, and is a big part of the reason why I gave this map a flavor score of D and a polish score of C. The other reasons why the polish score was docked that much include the common stalker blink animation (seriously, just replace it with a poof or flash, not a stalker!), the unprofessional names for some of the unit-producing structures (Sheeeeeep, for example, instead of Hydralisk or Hydralisk Den), some badly-written or badly-formatted or even completely unedited-from-the-original tooltips, and the fact that way too many units are spawned, causing massive amounts of lag and huge framerate drops. Either slow the spawn rate, make units die more quickly, or shorten the lanes to counteract this, whilst of course rebalancing the units to account for the changes.
Look at that wonderful quality of terrain. It’s like this throughout the entire map.
There really isn’t much else to the map other than the goal, the fact that the vanilla StarCraft II units are the only ones that can be made, and a triad of hero units (directly from the campaign). Combined with the bad terrain, the flavor score takes a huge hit. The lack of unique units is a really low point for Nexus Wars, since I feel that having unique units, or at least new abilities or behaviors, or anything beyond the default StarCraft II unit set would be a great improvement for this map. The content score, therefore, takes a significant hit because there is essentially nothing unique about Nexus Wars.
Nexus Wars, however, does manage to get the gameplay dynamics done correctly. Partly because StarCraft II itself is balanced, this map offers a large amount of strategies and situations while keeping the game interesting and suspenseful. The flow naturally ebbs back and forth as the players counter each other, or fire nukes, or unleash a deadly strategy, and eventually the better team wins the game. Income spices up the dynamics by adding another layer of strategy on top of the unit combat (the players do not command the units; they all essentially attack-move toward the enemy nexus). Truthfully, the game can be exciting to play and is usually an entertaining, if not fairly bland and unoriginal, experience.
A genuinely heart-pumping experience: imminent defeat.
Unlike other games of its type, Nexus Wars generally does not have too much of a problem with an unstoppable buildup of ranged units (melee units are actually useful), which is a nice bonus. On the other hand, with the inevitable huge mass of units towards the latter half of the game, it becomes very difficult to change strategies and counter the opponent, especially since there are so many damn units and there is no way to micro what you have.
It’s nice that Nexus Wars brings people together; the team that works together is the team that will win the game, for the most part, since most strategies require more resources than any individual player will have. Cooperation is essential for higher-level play, so that’s a good attribute for the map.
This is what happens when your team fails to cooperate.
In general, Nexus Wars needs improvement, especially with its variety and polish. The gameplay dynamics are pretty good, though there are the occasional problems and the ever-present blandness. It turns out that this map falls right in the middle of the Bronze rank, meaning it is a decent map that could become Silver or even Gold if it was given some serious revision.
RATING:
Bronze: This map is decent, but rough around the edges or somehow lacking.