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Have you ever been playing some random video game and thought, “I bet this level would be awesome for killing zombies on.” A man named Triscuit had this very thought while playing the level Canyon Oasis for the classic game Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. But unlike most of us, Triscuit acted on this thought and commissioned seasoned JK mapper Beefcaike to envision a full-fledged Left4Dead 2 rendition of the map. I was fortunate enough to be among the beta testers of this map and I made sure to capture a few screenshots during the test session. Currently the beta is playable in Survival mode.

The first thing you notice when the map loads is just how much like the original it really is. The second thing you notice is how it differs from the original. That is because a straight across port of the Jedi Knight map wouldn’t work well in Left4Dead 2. The original layout has too many isolated corners and distant cliff ledges for the zombie horde to be effective in it. Zombies would would be forced to take very long and narrow pathways to reach survivors camping in ridiculously over-powered corners. In Jedi Knight, the super hero-like speed and jumping abilities of the characters made every inch of the level just a stone’s throw away, but zombies lack these abilities.

To compensate for this, the author added alternate passage ways and connected key areas of the map such that the zombies can move around the map almost as good as any Jedi ever could. A JK veteran will be pleased with many of these additions/alterations as they mimic the paths taken by FF players or NF elite. One notable difference is that the oasis pool is drained! That’s right, it looks like the zombie apocalypse spells disaster even for mythical desert watering holes. It is still possible to make the leap from the bridge safely into what’s left of the oasis pool, but it’s a far smaller target to hit and even after you land there is the problem of running through knee-deep water. It’s a shame the zombies after your brains don’t share this problem.

Overall the beta was fun in itself and the map looks very promising. It featured many re-makes of original Jedi Knight textures and the size and scale of the map just felt… right. The modifications made thus far to the layout made the map provided for near perfect Left4Dead 2 game play. The framerate was excellent; leaving lots of room for visual improvements. I look forward to seeing what the completed version of this map looks like. I also hope that it will support additional game modes such as Scavenge, but for now all we can do is wait. Here are some additional screenshots to kill the time…