If you already read what I wrote about the first two maps, my Highlands impressions is at the bottom of my post.
So, I was fortunate enough to have a couple of rounds with the Defiant Map Pack at the Emerald City Comic Con and I must say that these maps are pretty awesome. Certain Affinity did an AMAZING job putting these maps together. When Bungie told us gamers that we were in good hands for this map pack, they were totally right!
I had a chance to play Condemned and Unearthed… I sadly, didn’t have a chance to play Highlands, but I might tomorrow if’n I can luck out.
Condemned:
Talk about corridors! There are so many places to go! I played 2 FFA matches on this map with a total of 8 people. Only 8 players made the map still feel large. It took me a moment to finally find someone to start shooting at, though. Armor Abilities on this map are worth it. AA, Jet pack, Sprint, etc… There’s plenty of room to jet pack around; as well many corners to bust out that Armor Lock or long hallways to sprint and melee your opponent. The area with the gravity really low is pretty neat, but most people stayed away from it.
The environment is spectacular! Everything is vibrant and colorful; like Halo should be. Reach being glassed outside of the map adds to this and I stopped for a moments when I was playing just to look at the beauty Certain Affinity has achieved.
Weapons are pretty close, scattered around and decent to memorize. I can see many “fights” happening over the Sniper and Sword locations as they are pretty easy power weapons to get to. I would like to try this map with a team (objective or not) and not FFA Slayer. I am sure the flow would be that much better as you aren’t on constant guard all the time. Still with the time I was able to spend on the maps, I am really impressed. Far better than the Noble Map Pack (Which I think is a good map pack).
Unearthed:
You want a big map for Firefight? You got it! Unearthed is one the biggest maps I ever played Halo on. It took me a good few moments to get from one side of the map to the other side. I saw that 3 weapon drops happened instead of two like in initial firefight games. (Sniper, Laser designator and one other. Someone else that was playing grabbed it before I got to it. Most likely they are rockets) With this map being pretty large and plenty of Covie vehicles to take (ghosts) when you kick the grunt out of them, there is also the Rockethog that is right around the corner from the initial spawn when the game starts. This map sorta reminds me of Boneyard for some reason. Probably because of the similar color palette. There are so many places to get the drop on the Covies with this map. I would love to try Gruntpocalypse on this map and see how I like it. If I had a blast playing regular Firefight on the map, Gruntpocalypse for Score Attack is going to be insane.
When I play the other map tomorrow, I will post my thoughts and impressions on it. Guys (and gals), get this map pack. You won’t be sorry.
Highlands:
This map is pretty large as well. I was able to get into a 4v4 TS match on this map. It felt just a little too big for 4v4. (I guess that’s why it is the Big Team Battle map. :P) If you want to have a somewhat of an idea what this map is like, it reminds me of Tempest. A very LARGE Tempest map. Lots of corners, jumps, vehicles, nooks and crannies, as well as large open spaces to have our all-out battles.
When the trailer for the Defiant Map Pack was released, David Ellis captured the feeling of these maps perfectly. They are frantic (with enough players), intense, fun and extremely beautiful. I honestly cannot wait to play these maps on my 61" tv.
