Leningrad for COD2

Level name : Leningrad

Author : Babycop

Date of release : 9 February 2007

Size : 27 171 ko

Number of maps : 1


Website : here

Download link: here

Other map reviewed from the author :

Stalingrad, SP Offensive, Homefront: Cells, Homefront: Downtown

Story:

Less than two and a half months after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Red Army was outflanked. On September 8, 1941, the Germans had fully encircled Leningrad. The siege began.
The city's almost 3 million civilians refused to surrender and endured rapidly increasing hardships in the encircled city. Despite the fact that the Germans never set foot intoLeningrad, at least 600 000 to 800 000 people died of starvation, an unusually cold winter,and enemy bombardment.
A Soviet counter-offensive started in the morning of January 12, 1943. After fierce battles, the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications.
A year later, in January 1944, a Soviet offensive drove off the besieging Germans from the outskirts of the city. The 900-day siege finally ended.

Review:

This one came out around 14 days ago and can easily be considered as actually the best COD2 release out here. Authors (yes two brothers are work under the same nickname) are experiencing script and coding for sometimes now (2 sp CODUO release) and have now decided to created a quite atmospheric map.

Design is well put together in a quite good layout mixing town and country, In my opinion the mapping is perhaps the only thing which isn't great, it's just good, like the short city part that is massive but perhaps too boxy and not enough varied or more like the country you will walk through that is quite flat with a well oriented progression from place to place but without terrain variation or even a village, a road or something comparable. It's more like a succession of traps put in a variation of places from hangar to trenches and underground bunker. It's not a massive architecture but it's neat and certainly close to the best layout according the theme of this release.

Gameplay is nearly perfect (was a little confuse at start with this kind of blocking invisible trigger) but after the gameplay is really flowing through the country with a good team/squad experience. Experience is really fun. Challenge is perfect with the mission objective and 'saving' on good place to make it take back you breath before you rush into the other zone. You will encounter all kind of combat from simple trench fight to a massive counter attack supported by tanks. All mission objectives are really well build and enhanced by the general atmosphere, highlighted by some custom music.

In conclusion: After two experimental maps from babycop here is finally a strong release from the authors. It' not perfect (just says this to have something even better in the future) but really create an original battle atmosphere in which you rush with great pleasure. It's certainly too short but since it's an intense one you can replay it again an again without any frustration...It's really a great work and just hope there will be more in the future.


Playtime : 25 minutes





Rating : A B C D E (85%)

Campagne for CODUO

Level name : Campagne en Europe

Author : J F 'Bushman' Piotte

Date of release : 3 June 2006

Size : 8 122 ko

Number of maps : 2





Website : here

Download link: here

Story: none

Review:

This mission consist of two bsp oriented in the same village ; The first mission (by night) is an infiltration mission. You need to get into the village capture two German and get back to the starting place of the mission (truck). The second one, that take place (by day) in the same village (but extended) is more a fighting mission since the first objective is to take the village and the second objective is to resist to a German counter attack.

Everything is here present and perfectly creates a perfect experience. You will need to progress with your squad, realise objective and have some descent fights. All being put together in a well-designed village. The scripting from you squad is also brilliant witch give a even better dimension to the entire release like if it was part of the original game.

Is there anything to complain about perhaps some detail like respawn of enemies in several places, the not fully clear objectives (since the map was coded in French I just hope, like the author told me, that it also work with other version) but perhaps it was the aim to make a not too clear mission, and finally the heroic resistance of you squad (you will know what I mean in the last attack) cut a little the realism of this release. I need to mention that those small glitches don’t alter the real quality of this release.

In conclusion: The mostly perfect sp release you need to play for CODUO…just enjoy this one.


Playtime : 45 minutes



Rating : A B C D E (92%)

LeonCOD2 for COD2

Level name : LeonCOD2

Author : Leon Stephan Brinkman

Date of release : 4 October 2006

Size : 1 921 ko

Number of maps : 1

Website : here

Download link: here

Alternative download:



Other map reviewed from the author :

Leoncod2, LeonCOD1
Story: none

Review:

This is another release from one of the actually most prolific mapper. that decided to make a release for COD2 because he made several for COD1 (and so he knows the editor well) and also because there was a lack to COD2 sp releases.

Even if there is no real story it's an easy to handle release, you will need to progress mostly forward without no objective or puzzle to solve, just eliminate enemies to get further till you will get a black screen and end the map with the ending anymation of COD2.

Design is well put together with a good looking to scale, realism in a mix between outdoor and indoor places. Every new place you will visit lead to some ambushes or attack from enemies from all type (witch look a little unrealistic to mixed different german type of model in a 'so' small town). Use of texturing (outdoor and indoor) perfectly fits to a snowy city during WW2 but lack perhaps a little of atmosphere.

Gameplay is correctly balanced beween open area with ambushes and tiny cave or storage room where grenades are highly damagable. I would have prefer to encounter a little more variety in gaemplay through some scripting or updating objectives that could have also create some 'saving' position which are totally absent from start till end (so if you die you restart from the beginning).

In conclusion: This map like all other releases from Leon is really well design in a really short time (5 days). Regarding the time he spend and the way he did this map it's a perfect enjoyable release well worth to play. I still stay a little disapointed to the potential of this map that highlights defenetly through it's design but lack of a general good atmosphere.


Playtime : 20 minutes



Rating : A B C D E (70%)

Whats ther future of this blog

I will try like for my other blog to put several update reviewing sp map for games like MOHAA, COD, CODUO, and COD2. I will only focus on worth map to be reviewed and perhaps sometimes to make a short updated with a list of release i didn't like.

I would like to appologize for my apporximative English and i hope you will not take the much in account the mistakes you will find all over this blog