Ok pubbers, listen up. Tonight I played First Strike for the first time in....well months. Purely to try this map out, personally I hate going through a map alone on local, I think a map can only truly be checked out in competition.

Now, let me be brutally honest, this is not a finished map. Now by that I mean there are certain things the BI group who pulled this together are aware of. They have done what they could but have been unable to edit some game files. This means that checkpoints do not appear on the map properly named, and that the loading screen has no mission briefing, instead it appears in the game mode description area. Lighting is another issue, but again this is due in part to the limits placed upon them.

So, how went my first foray in to public First Strike gameplay? Good actually. The map has some great areas of concentrated fire fighting and interesting use of static objects. It calls for judicious use of practically every weapon and kit item. Snipers will find many places to take cover, while medics will need to stay alert in order to revive fallen comrades. Both sides will depend heavily on the spawn beacon, while intense firefights mean that shields and ammo will be in constant demand.

This does have its drawbacks though, in the map I played (possibly 64p?) low numbers meant that at times the going could be pretty hard when trying to break a stale mate. This can be translated two ways, it means that more numbers will either see a better chance of breaking such deadlock, or that it will merely compund the problem as more people rush in t the same lemming spots. A prime example of this is the first CP, here Rebels must break forward and capture an Imperial point, unfortunately there is only one way towards this point and that is over a river bed. Imperials can setup heavy defnces along the river bank and fire down on hapless rebels who must rely on heavy covering fire to allow a small number to break across. More routes to flags would alleviate some of the stress faced here. Though the approach route may seem to offer a wide angle of attack, if we should ever face a full server of 32 a side I fear that we will merely see a WW1 style kill zone as Imperials mow down hapless Rebels.

In the end, many flags come down to team skill. This means that the team without players experienced in First Strike, use of its assets, or even in the maps layout will rapidly find themselves overwhelmed. I myself had to have routes pointed out to me by Gwynzer. On the flip side, I believe I managed to provide some diversion to the enemy on a number of occasions by finding ways to attack from behind, this meant defending players ended up turning back to neutralise the new threat.

A new map will always take some getting used to, and I may have missed a few things, but I felt that both teams would have benefitted from more vehicles. A mortar freerunner would be a welcome addition to the rebel's particularly in that first flag, while in other areas Impps could have made good use of a walker or two.

All in all, a decent map for public play, albeit one that could use a little tweaking to prevent stagnation.

Bite my shiny metal Tie Fighter!

Er..theres no bridge at the first flag the rebs have to cap. Therefore, no speeder. No other route except via that one river bed which can be easily be defended by 2-3 squads of imps.

The backstory isnt obvious unless you read the gamemode. I didnt because its not RIGHT. Until string files, lighting etc are fixed this will remain.

Bite my shiny metal Tie Fighter!