I did not post any info on our Custom Map Friday Night, but I promoted it on PlanetBattlefield.com and BF42.com, along with my local lan group. I wanted to give a review of the maps we played last Friday night and what I thought of them.

The three maps we played for Regular Battlefield 1942 were:

Okinawa

Battle for Rome

Valley of the Shadow

To get the reviews and my favorite of the three, click Read More.
Okinawa: This looked like it was going to be cool map, but I didnt find it that much fun. There were some great ideas on this map, but there were also a lot of bugs. Several places had invisible objects that got in your way. A few players had problems with the map not playing very smooth, but that is probably like most other Pacific maps with ships on lower end video cards. I really wanted to like this map, but it was just OK. If the bugs were removed, I think it could fun with 32 players.

Battle For Rome: This map looked really big when I was testing it out. I didnt think it was going to be very fun with just a few people. I was wrong. With only 3 on 3, this map was a blast. It was a very fast paced tank battle with air coverage making a big difference. The funny thing about this map is even with all the spread out space, most of the battles took place along the east line of flags. The single beach flag on the western side was really insignificant. I only saw one problem with the map and it was not much of a problem. The craters were a pain in the butt with tanks, but that made it interesting. I liked this map and would love to see it played on a 32+ player server.

Valley of the Shadow: This map was pretty much a square with uncapturable bases in opposite corners, with cool looking capturable bases in the other corners. The allies get 2 P-51s and the B-17, while the Axis side gets three planes, a stuka and 2 BF-109s. In the middle ran a river and a capturable town on each side of the river. The river edge was elevated to prevent you from swimming across, but a bridge at each end allowed access. This is where the fun was had. Planes were important in the country-side (which looked great), but infantry ruled the towns. Ill never forget being rushed by the other three players. They did a great job of coming in hard and fast. The one thing that seemed buggy actually made the map fun. When you spawned in the center town, you came out of the air, but your chute was not deployed. Seemed like a bug to me, but you could get across the river this way and get into the fight fast with the other side if they held the opposite town. I really enjoyed this map and think it would be great with 16+ players.

Of the three, I think Valley of the Shadow was my favorite, with Battle for Rome coming in a close second. Okinawa still needs work, but has potential.

If you like vanilla BF Conquest or CTF, drop by. If you want to try some new maps, give me a shout and Ill review them. If we do this again, we could play your favorite.