[ Transcript of review for MapMixer v1.00 | Posted by Shuri on 2003-11-09 | Score: 9.7 ]
Whenever anyone asked me what I thought the essential things to download for Unreal Tournament were, XMaps always popped up. It was undoubtably one of the most useful mutators around. If you don't know what it was, basically it allowed you to switch gametypes on the fly, have maplists and favourite maps for gametypes that it would switch to, set default mutators for gametypes, and much more. MapMixer follows in the same way, but for UT2003. It has a very large feature list, and is packed full of ways to enhance the game.
MapMixer is available in the mutator list when you have it installed, and you can simply click the Config button to view the many settings. On the left you can see images of every main thing you can do, although some screens don't look exactly how they should - it seems the game doesn't like screenshots taken of menu screens
The easiest way to show what MapMixer can do would be to go over every tab of the menu in order - and as we all know, I like the easy way...
<b>Main Config</b>
The main screen where you can set general settings. In the Match section, you can tell it to skip the match start countdown (3... 2... 1... Fight!) and go straight into the game when you press Fire. Auto Map List advance makes the game go to the next map automatically after X number of seconds.
Player Matching is a normal UT2003 setting, but you can go into more detail here - do you want to use the lowest number of recommended players? Highest? Randomly choose?
Map List is probably the main feature, and allows you to choose what gametypes lists to use (and whether to switch gametypes at all), what map list to use - all of gametype, or a list you made, how often to change gametypes (if at all), and whether to shuffle the map list, so you don't know what map you will be playing next.
The mutators section allows you to set how mutators will be picked, and you can also set whether the Admin Menu pauses game when open.
<b>Client Config</b>
This is one of the pictures that is messed up. What you actually see, is on the settings tab you can set whether the scoreboard automatically comes up after the game, and after how many seconds. The admin tab allows you to automatically log in as admin when you enter the match.
<b>Map Lists Config</b>
Here's where you can set what maps (and also gametypes if you wish) will be chosen from, if you select the map list option in the Main Config screen. You can make and save many different lists, and they can consist of maps for different gametypes. Although you can't see on the screenshot, on the right side of the screen you can see all available maps for whatever gametype you choose, then you can move these into the actual maplist with the arrow buttons. There is one thing the screen is lacking - next to the Duplicate button in the bottom left, there should be a Sort button to alphabetically sort the map list.
The Show Info button under the gametype maps list enables you to see the Map Info for any map you click - recommended player count, description, author and screenshots.
<b>Game Rules Config</b>
The screen to set gametypes to choose from, and what rules they should have. You can have as many different lists as you want, and set seperate rules for all gametypes.
<b>Mutator Lists Config</b>
2 purposes to this screen - one, you can make mutator lists that you can then select from in the Main Config screen. All mutators you have installed are shown on the right, and you can simply set them to Enabled to have them on.
Also, you can set default mutators for any gametypes - for example, you may want Carry The Flag on for any CTF matches, or No Self Passing for Bombing Run games.
<b>Mutator Maps Config</b>
Similar to the last screen, but for different maps. Have a map that works best in LowGrav? Simply enable that mutator, and whenever that map is on the LowGrav mutator will be on when you play it. Similarly, works well for if you have maps from a certain mod, so you can enable the mutator for those maps (like ChaosUT2).
<b>Console Commands</b>
There are also things you can bind to buttons to use ingame. You can bring up the client config or admin menu screens, change maps, see what the next map will be, and more.
<b>Overall</b>
This mutator is one that <i>everyone</i> should get (unless you only play online, on other peoples servers). It is completely customizable, has a small filesize, works perfectly in most cases, and really makes the game more fun. Just get it!
-Shuriken
