As the name suggests, the map is set in a small village on the island of Crete. The allies have to blow up a Flak88, whilst the Germans have to defend it.
Presentation / Technical
The first thing I noticed about Crete was the way Youri has used LOD terrain to good effect. Its not the most effective use of the terrain system I've ever seen but it is a good attempt. Unfotunately the terrain interfers with your progression at some points of the map with a rogue piece sticking out of the ground or stairs here and there. Nevertheless the terrain definately works well with this map.
On the other hand I was quite dissapointed with the texturing in the map. Whilst more than a few textures were used, enough to create an impression of the theme that Youri was going for, they were used in a bland way. Z-Fighting occured in more than several places all over the map. As a mapper its an error that I really hate to see, because its one of the easier mistakes to correct. There were also a few houses that appeared to "float" above the ground. I'm not sure whether this was because they wern't connected to the LoD terrain properly or the brushes connecting them to the ground hadn't been textured. Either way its another niggling error.
As for the lighting...well most of the indoor rooms were poorly lit, normally with only 1 small lightsource. Most lights did have a model with them, but several, including those in the garage just seemed to have light coming from nowhere. The "outside" portions of the map are lit by a pleasant sunlight, but the areas in shadow are pitch black and could have benefited with the use of ambient light to raise them to grey areas.
The audio side of things was done with good attention to detail, and several relevant ambient sounds added to the atmosphere. The FPS / MTexel performance was, for the most part, good, and only falters when you can see most of the map. The architecture was on the whole fairly substandard, but the attempts at a Greek temple and the building with the dome were good efforts at trying to raise the standard.
Playability / Game Flaws
This is a fairly small map, which normally leads to some frantic action, and this map is no exception. Unfotunately the maps size is also its weakness, in that, the axis's spawn points can be sniped from the building the allies start in. This can be very frustrating if your an axis player. There is also little cover around the objective so it can be very hard to defend. A point of note is that the objective is a Flak88, with only half of it put together, so it looks a little wierd and spoils it slightly.
It unfortunate that the objective is but a few turns away from where the allies start. It leads to simple rushes down one or two of the streets and means that some of the map doesn't normally gets used. Maybe blocking a route or two would have led to more sustained action, and forced players to think about their routes to get to their target.
Conclusion
This map, despite its variety of flaws, actually shows some promise. It can be fun for a while but soon the repetative rushes and/or sniping spawn points can get very tiring, very quickly. If Youri keeps mapping and learning whilst he goes, he may be capable of producing some really great maps in the future. However this map is one to leave by the wayside.
