Balance: The Balance is not great, allowing for some serious camping in places. Fun: The map, regardless of the balance issues is incredibly fun. Looks: The looks aren't perfect and could be improved, but they are still good.

Pros: Incredible fun. Cons: Extremely unbalanced, whichever team wins in the initial fight usually wins the round. The combat around the points is also incredibly dire, with teams opting to camp each other's balloon and spam, until someone wins. More structure is needed around the point. Improvements: Add more spawn exits, and possibly make it easier to raid the other team's ship, would make the battles much more worthwhile

It's simply too unbalanced. The first team out of the gate has no chance of winning whatsoever, unless the other team starts to just screw around and not drive. If nothing else, raise the captain's wheel up so it's more vulnerable to the enemy behind it. If possible, make it so that shooting the ship (or possibly just the propellers behind it) will slow it down. Also, to make it balanced, you should be able to get on top of the cabin (where the dispenser is in the ships)

Pros: Fun race map.

Novel Idea.

Cons: Exceedingly unbalanced. Loosing team has no chance.

Not rounded for all classes.

Teams could be excessively spawn camped.

Cliffs and scenery needs more detail. Quite bland. Improvements: Add walls/railings to the sides of the balloons and the points. Notes: Hasn't this map been upgraded to Version 18? Whats going on?

One more thing I need to suggest: Try using custom Particle effects on the teleporters onto the ship. Players will understand their function better this way. The new custom particle effect maker will serve you quite well in a map like this. Could be used to even add things like smoke stacks to the vehicles if you wanted.

Bananite

Pros: Ok Wow! This is a proof of concept map, I can tell from the look of it, but the concept is certainly proven and it is one awesome concept. Ideally it might be best to have some form of a custom GUI just to display the rate of movement for the vehicles. It's like a push map only both teams are riding on the carts. Because the balloon also serves as a spawn room this makes for fun and interesting combat scenarios. Cons: Engineers obviously can't build on moving structures, this isn't necessarily bad it just means some classes get left out of the equation. They still can work to defend points if they get their first by setting up of course. Improvements: I'd have the players teleport into a room with a one-way-door on the ship. This way they would be safe when first boarding the ship but they wouldn't be able to make it move faster. This reduces spawn camping possibilities by firing at mid-air but that's just a minor detail. Obviously you're going to need to detail the ships a little more as well as the level itself. The types of arenas that the players combat in also might not be too balanced. If there's an arena where blue is high and red is low there should be a similar arena where they switch roles. You get the idea. Notes: This map is incredibly fun and shouldn't be overlooked.

Bananite

Pros: Awesome concept, good execution, nice design. Love the giant canyon drop off. Cons: Needs to be balanced, if you fall off of your ship, there isn't much of a way to get back to it besides killing yourself or trudging back to base to take the teleporter. Improvements: Balance it out, and it'll be pretty much perfect. Some more detail wouldn't hurt either.

Just thought you might like an update about version 2. :P http://chuckstar.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/balloonracev2-old-vs-new/

Pros: FUN FUN FUN Cons: Balance, I can somethimes hold off a whole ship with spikey balls :P, but that's part of the fun :D Improvements: Longer map, don't make it stop after 3 caps Notes: Love the idea, would like to see more maps like this

Pros: Super fun to play. Great idea. Cons: Snipers can ruin the fun of a team totally, particularly near the first cap. Improvements: More cover to the deck of the balloon. Notes: I've spent dozens of hours playing this map. Such a simple idea can attract players to play and have fun for a long time. You've done an amazing work making this map ;)