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DE_DUST_PCG by
DaveJ The June issue of PC Gamer, on sale from this Thursday (12 May), features a must-have exclusive for any Counter-Strike fan - a brand new Dust map by renowned mapper Dave Johnston. His previous creations Dust and Dust 2 are not just the most played maps on Counter-Strike servers, they're probably the most popular maps in online gaming. The third map in the series has been created exclusively by Dave Johnston for PC Gamer, his first for Counter-Strike Source. Dust_PCG has the all the hallmarks of the previous maps with a few surprises thrown in. With full bot support, gamers will also be able to enjoy the map offline. The June issue will not only give gamers the first opportunity to play the new creation, it will also give would-be mappers the chance to create their own version with the first part of a CS Source mapping tutorial by Dave. The map is available on both the CD and DVD editions of the magazine." |
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Above is
a conflict map for de_dust_pcg... this shows the rough path points
at which `first-contact' is made by both teams (assuming
all routes are taken). The two coloured zones indicate the playable areas
for each of the conflicts. CTs have blue arrows, Terrorists red.
The interesting thing about de_dust_pcg, compared to de_dust, is how the Terrorists have the theoretical upper hand - they have more positions to attack from in the yellow area, and need only consider one point for CTs to appear (the double arches). However, this is only true if their defence on the green area is up to par. Once CTs break through there, defending the bomb at site B becomes much tougher since CTs have 4 points in which to attack. The restricted initial movement of the CTs is one of the major failings of the map... for CTs, the gameplay is more about interrupting the planting of the bomb (or defusing it) than about prevention of the plant at all. This means strategies must be formed much more like de_dust2. It's a bizarre layout, and not ideal... but it's interesting how it balances out once a bomb is placed. The best strategies for Terrorists is to ignore the mission objectives, spread out to cover both sites, and concentrate on killing the CTs, since this is the easier task. For CTs, the best approach is to outnumber and overwhelm the Terrorists at one of the conflict points, such that they can loop round and take advantage of the Terrorist landscape. It's a reversal of the strategies one would use on de_dust. That's the theory, anyway... |