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Review
of Airport
By: Pie's
Tactics
Introduction [Airport] is the long-awaited conversion map for Rogue Spear/Urban Operations from Rainbow Six. The highly popular multiplayer map is the second such conversion using the 3d Studio MAX plug-ins (the first was the Mint map, by John Sonedecker). Cynical Saint's Airport is a straight conversion over from the original file. There are very little differences between it and the original. The Airport map comes with two versions; one day and one night. Both versions also have single player missions, done by Serellan. The Airport map is contains one of the largest open spaces of area in the Rainbow Six series, which makes this a very popular sniper map. Two hangars face off against each other from across the runaways, a small control building is situated next to one of the main hangars. Along with the original insertion points, Cynical has also added two more sets of starts, as well as reverses for all insertions. In the interests of disclosure, Pie's Tactics hosts Cynical Saint's map section and Serellan works on our staff. Question: How well do the installation features work? Is it easy to install? Documentation? The installation is very well done, using the standard issue ClickTeam .exe file. All that's required is that the user identify the proper location of his/her Rogue Spear directory and hit the "install button." The mod is only for Urban Operations, so users of Rogue Spear will be left out in the cold unless another version is packaged. Of course, since it's for Urban Operations, starting the map is also quite easy. Serellan also made sure to include easy accessibility for single player games. Finally, the readme is a simple (as you might expect) file from Cynical, including a few of his comments. Very nice, clean. Score: 16/20 Question: How original is this mod, in relation to its peers? Anything strikingly new? The Airport map is the second R6 to RS conversion (after Mint, by John Sonedecker). This is, however, the first conversion by a non-Red Storm employee, so it is a particularly important and significant milestone. The map has all it's i's dotted and t's crossed -- the conversion was extremely well done. Since this is a conversion, there's not much else to be said in relation originality. So why does the map lose points? Because it's not an original, although we did love the day AND night versions. Score: 18/20 Question: How much does this mod affect gameplay? Have such changes been considered? Again, since this is a map conversion and the map's design is not his own, the score is largely based on other factors. While the map is an accurate conversion in terms of spacing, building size, and so on, the game engine itself is a bit different. For starters, players move significantly slower, making the possibility of rushing around the left side of the map significantly more challenging. This does affect gameplay, making the map more popular with snipers. However, the nighttime version can significantly cut down on the effectiveness of snipers. In one remarkable intelligent move, Cynical made sure that the insertion points were tweaked just enough from the originals that they were now perfectly balanced. The slight advantage that blue had in the R6 version of the map has now been eliminated. Score: 19/20 Question: How impressive are the visual and audio effects? A few minor complaints here. For starters, I didn't find the textures to be that much of a step up from the original Rainbow Six version. While I do know that they were improved upon, there weren't as impressive as the texture upgrades found in the conversion of the Estate map from R6 to RS, for example. Also, some smaller things were not included. For example, there were no chairs or furniture as was found in the original Airport. Also, there are no planes included in the hangars. Score: 15/20 Question: Are there any major bugs with the mod? How well do the patches work? After testing both the single player portion and multiplayer play, I found few if any errors. The only problem is that if you download the night and daytime versions separate, you'll need a small patch to correctly run the mods. This a slight inconvenience and perhaps could have been worked around. But then of course, players should have downloaded both versions at once using the "full" version. Score: 18/20 The Verdict This is an extremely well done conversion from the Rainbow Six version and conversions are something that the community has been clamoring for ever since the announcement that the plug-ins would be released. Cynical Saint (with some help from Serellan) has done some terrific work on the map (the night and day versions was particularly impressive), although it falls short because of a few minor quibbles. These include the lack of Rogue Spear support, the unimpressive textures, and the lack of planes in the hangars. On a related note, some of you may find the Airport related links useful: Pie's
Tactics original Single Player mission walkthrough
Final Score: 87/100
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The Rooster's Nest (c) 2002, Christian L. Allen, All Rights Reserved.
