Maker: IAM_Clawfford
Type: Rumble
Music: Custom
IAM_Clawfford is a guy whose forte seems to be creating tracks around an idea, typically something unusual and fairly unique. You almost get the impression Claw is somewhat of a frustrated inventor of some sort who's wife (or similar facsimile thereof) got sick and tired of all the gadgets, specialized tools, scrap metal, etc laying around the house, and "suggested" he find better ways to channel his energy. Enter MTM 2. It's neat, clean, there's no mess or spare parts to contend with (at least there shouldn't be lol), and best of all, it's absolutely free. Some day we'll have to ask him how he got his start in this game, but for now, it's kinda fun making up stories about it lol.
Claw's contribution to this year's expo is Banana Boat rumble, and it's quite impressive to say the least. As we alluded to in the previous paragraph, the word "ordinary" doesn't seem to be in this guy's vocabulary, and after playing this rumble you'll see what we mean. You begin on a dock by the ocean in what appears to be a tropical location, and the first order of business is to mount the flat bed boat in front of you. Mind you, this boat doesn't wait until all its passengers are aboard before setting sail; it goes whether you're on it or not, so like…you'd better get to steppin!
The platform itself is fairly large, and easily supports a full house of rumblers, but regardless of the number of players, Banana Boat should prove to be quite entertaining with respect to its playability and eye-popping appeal. Claw combined some of his own creations with items he borrowed from Malibu's site to produce what's arguably the best looking rumble to hit the scene in quite some time. A single trip "around the world" beginning and ending at the dock includes a flying airplane with a banner, a stranded Robinson Caruso (not as tall as we thought he would be, either lol), sharks in the water, a cyclone, extremely impressive water geysers, a maze, a lighthouse, buoys, and a few nice islands perfectly suited for hoisting up hammock and enjoying the view, along with the beverage of your choice. By the way the geysers aren't just nice to look at; they're actually used to catapult you back onto the platform when (not if) you get knocked off. The maze gives you one additional hazard to contend with in addition to trying to stay atop the moving platform. Specifically, square-shaped boxes extend down from the bottom of the deck and hamper your movement across the platform. In some cases they can actually prove to be your downfall if your not careful. There's also a section toward the end of the trip where giant nails are protruding down from underneath a deck. The effect, and maybe even the intent is much like the maze, but we feel it was overdone and drags on for much too long a period of time.
Claw cites Pounder & MoneyMaker as the originators of the moving platform in a rumble, and in fact, even Pounder & Moneymaker believe that. The truth is Monsta Driva was the first to come up with such a concept, and the name of the track he applied it to is called <a href="http://mtm2.com/~tracks/dl.cgi?dl=569" target="_self">Ramble</a>. Not many people are aware of that because a lot of the old timers are long gone. Still, moving platforms are great fun, and this one is certainly no exception. As for the cyclone, we've never seen one quite like this before, however, conceptually speaking, mike204 used the idea in a track he made back in '99 called <a href="http://mtm2.com/~tracks/dl.cgi?dl=1085" target="_self">3-Way Paper Run</a> whereby he used twisters, and which was pre-dated by <a href="http://mtm2.com/~tracks/dl.cgi?dl=1433" target="_self">BNB Tornado</a> by BlackHawk. We can't say with any measure of certainty that he was the first, however.
Other observations are more technically oriented with exception of this road texture here, which seems grossly out of place. That's our impression, although some...most notably, Claw himself, may disagree lol. Ok let's move on to the tech talk portion of this review. It's gettin to be lunch time, and when that whistle blows, we're outta here...whether this review gets done or not. Needless to say lunchbreaks are serious business here at MTMG lol.
For starters, the bottom half of the boat should've been fitted with properly sized and angled object boxes. The top portion of the boat was done that way, so if for no other reason but consistency the bottom portion should have been done as well. As it is, there are large areas you can't drive in, and they're very close to the boat and rumble zone. In the case of the cyclone, it crosses the path of the rumble pad, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing. The problem occurs when the cyclone's bounding box forces trucks off the platform and into the water, leaving you wondering what happened. The easy fix to this would have been to alter the route of the cyclone. However…it is our belief that Claw intended for the cyclone to cut across the path of the boat, creating a hazard for rumblers, hence he could have loaded that spout into binedit, then translated it about 100 feet along the X or Z axis before loading it into the track. What that would do is trick the game into placing the bounding box 100 feet out of harms way but the visible water spout would be where it's supposed to be as 'non collide'. Then he would have to build a second simple 'invisible' model that is the same size as the smaller base of the cone, place it inside the center of the cyclone cone and set it in motion at the same speed and heading as the cyclone model. This photo illustrates what it would look like. Finally, the banner attached to the plane is set to MTM 1 transparency type vs MTM 2 transparency. As a result, it's visible thru everything between you and it. We also noticed that Claw omitted setting the extended courses, which we felt was a rather significant oversight on his part. As a result, some camera angles don't work and others bury you under water.
When it comes down to it, given everything that's been said, whether positively or contructively critical, the bottom line is Claw has produced another very nice track. Furthermore, the reception it received from MTMers in the Gaming Zone attests to that, which comes as no surprise to us. If you've never heard of Clawfford or sampled any of his work, we highly recommend you do so. He's an extremely talented track maker who happens to have carved out a nice little niche in the MTM community. Very well done, Claw - superb effort on your part, guy! Oh one other thing; if you see this guy on your trip down the ocean...throw him a can of shaving creme and a razor!
