Suppose this is a good start. Though, I died a lot of times trying to do this in solo. Why I died: I had my difficulty set to Total Carnage.
Destiny and I are bitter enemies and I hate him forever and ever. That said, I was surprised with the quality of this pack. It has problems, but if Destiny keeps mapping, he might learn how to avoid mistakes like these in the future.
"Mr. Roger's battle world" is simple and symmetrical; therefore, it's also monotonous. The texturing, lighting, and sounds are adequate, and he's even done a good job with the notorious Pfhor texture set. There are plenty of weapons, but I have a problem with his inclusion of the invisibility powerup. A player who gets this and shotguns will probably have a very long run on this level, especially because there's a health recharger in the lower area.
"Playing, at night" is the labyrinth thermo and time chose to poke fun at, and with good reason. This level's competent texturing and sounds are overshadowed by the level's design. It's a senseless maze, definitely not something I'd want to throw a mere four players into. The lighting encourages everyone's favorite pastime, camping, but so does the structure. Destiny seems to get an OK idea for a room or two, and then goes on to replicate it over and over until it's the whole map. I did like the floating bones area.
"Battle at hill 21" is another symmetrical monster. Destiny also has a penchant for sharp corners in his levels, which is a good way to snag players and piss them off. The southern area of the map has tons of these. He also put so many shotguns and shells around the level I had to wonder why there was any other weapon, and I ran across an invincibility powerup. He needs to work on balance. The pedestals in some of the corner rooms were a bit too tall: if I ran over one of them, my head got snagged for a second on the skylight above. Players will die this way. I understand the general idea of the level, which is a big battle, and the main arena conveys this idea pretty well. It even has some trenches that add a nice touch, even if that touch is of questionable use. I expected the structure at the center to have a little more to it, or to be elevated at the very least.
"We're waiting for the boxes" is just a rectangle with some elevated areas and lots of irritating platforms and jumps. The Jjaro textures look bad, because I think he chose the wrong ones - Jjaro is a tricky set to use, but with the right (non-tan) colors, it can look nice. Anyway, probably the worst in the pack, but it's got stiff competition in the form of "Playing, at night."
If Destiny can get over his obsession with symmetry, repetition, and lack of variety in elevations, he might be able to make some good maps. Players might have fun on these, but not as much as on other levels.
The mapper clearly knows what he's doing aesthetically, but I have an issue with the map's layout. It is open enough that a player can spawn-kill just about everyone using time-honored tools like the shotgun and the rocket launcher. The curves introduced by those hearts also take a huge toll on my admittedly weak computer's framerate. It seems to me that a better map would come out of breaking this one up a bit, in order to fix both issues. However, since it's clearly a theme level, I'm not too bothered. I think the mapper has the potential to make more "serious" levels that I'd actually want to play. Nice HUD.
This level is unattractive for numerous reasons. It is split between a cramped maze with 5D touches and an inverted ziggurat "arena." Both areas look absolutely horrible, as the textures are some of the blandest in the Water set. The mapper chose to use the default (paved) floor texture, which almost always looks bad, but is even worse in the "arena." Lighting appears to be fullbright everywhere. The mapper seems to have given little or no thought to actual gameplay balance. He attempted admirable innovation in creating a dichotomy of fighting style, but he seems to have neglected tactics such as running to the arena, grabbing the shotguns, and then camping in the maze area. Other players might wait in the arena for people to teleport in, for the helpless teleporter has a very small chance of even seeing his attacker before it is too late. In a duel, I can see one player following one strategy while the other does the opposite, thus creating a game in which nothing happens. There is no fun in running around mazes, and 5D space is a novelty only to those who have not "enjoyed" its extensive use in real network play. While I'm sure the creator envisioned tense shootouts in this area of the level, the more likely case is camping and goose-chasing. The arena is similar to an arena level I once saw for the original Marathon, which used almost the exact structure seen here. This is not a compliment. Neither is the fact that the M1 version looked a whole lot better. The mapper would do well to make an extensive study of game balance in post-Infinity network levels, and to practice more attractive texturing and lighting practices. The time it took to review this is probably more than anyone would want to spend playing it, and that's not a long time at all.
Only four spawn points, one in the ceiling: these are the least of this level's worries. The haphazard and very sparse placement of weapons and ammunition is only made worse by the frequent appearance of 1x and 2x cans, which essentially render useless all weapons but the TOZT and the WSTE. These weapons are useless in their own special ways: The TOZT is almost impossible to reach thanks to excrutiatingly slow elevators, and the WSTE ammunition never respawns. The eastern and western spawn points are next to pistols, sure to be a hit if anyone should start in this area. The alien weapons these players might seize do not come back, which means anyone who spawns in these places after about a minute is fucked. The hill, like the TOZT, is only accessible via the slow elevators, but whoever makes it up there is guaranteed to stay there. He'll have the flamethrower and up to four cans of ammo to fend off anyone who tries to come up. This lack of balance finds analogues in solo play. I seriously doubt the mapper tested this level in Total Carnage, where spawning from the ceiling almost always dooms the player to failure. If he can survive the first second or so he spends on the ground, he has to contend with choke points, thanks to the poorly-placed scenery objects. Of course, since there's no real goal if you play this as a solo level there's no need to play past the first 20 or so seconds. The overall design is bland: we have a symmetrical room split into four main sections, with a central area that mainly serves to break the room up. The only positive things I can say are that the texturing is more attractive than I expected, and the lighting is OK. This level is not worth downloading or playing for these features. This level is not fun for any of the game types it supports.
Very fast paced with good weapon placement. Timothy, what's with the HUD review? Lol...
this automatically downloaded when i opened irons' review, without me having clicked on anything. fate has brought me together with Bleeding Requisite, and so i'm sure it's top notch
Detracts somewhat from the JOUST experience
Looks like a great custom HUD, but most of your screenshots are taken up by some random map in the background. Consider turning on 2x HUD scaling and cropping out the rest to reduce download time.
@thermo ok that looks kind of cool. I guess I'll have to actually download this one.
I heard from $lave that this was an amazing netpack. While that is good enough for me and ought to be good enough for anyone, maybe you, skeptic reader, need further proof: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/616960/srsly.png
Low resolution, with huge black borders and a giant HUD at the bottom. These screenshots make almost every mistake in the book.
Aside from the technical problems, the composition is poor and the lighting in inadequate. Is that a wall or a hallway? What weapon is that on the floor? Who was that masked man, anyway? Everything is so dark, I just can't tell. Try using the lighten filter in Photoshop to bring out those details and make the colors pop!
don't believe the screenshot. You got me all excited for a second with that screenshot, man! So don't be fooled by this screenshot and load the script and come back to S7 and whine in a like manner as the previous sentence.
Finally something that pushes AO step towards AAA ;)
It might seem like a useless idea, but by making it a plugin , you no longer need to unzip anything, making installation easy, and taking up half as much HD space.
Playing through this pack was (literally) one big-ass blast and is done just the way I like it: Totally vanilla without any add-ons, with clever level-design and plenty of carnage. Causes you to think on your feet, manuever with grace, and strategize on the spot. No one but a team of experienced elites could have crafted map packs as strong and as consistent as these. For the whole series to be compiled like this is the perfect way to experience sadism at the hands of seasoned Marathon veterans.
My one gripe is about the level Fury: There doesn't seem to be any way to get out of that one. Maybe it was just some glitch. Honestly, I killed every single enemy, hit every switch, explored every crevice, and smacked every wall, and I would not be teleported no matter where I stood. I figured since each level is a Rebellion level anyway, I'd just quit my current game and jump to the level after that.
Beyond that, however, it's definitely a classic in my book. It had me wanting to grind my teeth at a few parts it was so difficult, but it was still hooking enough to keep me from stopping right then. Besides, every level was a learning experience: I can safely say that, fun on one hand and difficult as it was on the other, I am irrefutably a better Marathon player now than I was when I started. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a challenge and who doesn't think that storyline is what makes a good game.
nuff said :)
this was good but i think that the levels were a bit to long and there werent enough save/health terms on the maps. Also the terms seemed to be useless in MOST information.
whenever i download this it says its corrupted