Pew pew. This is fun and gives me shit to do when I don't want to write my homework. I can't survive for 5 minutes once the red s'pht'kr appear.
Seriously, this got me and my brother back into Marathon. Me likey.
Really good design concept. I had such fun plowing through this on Total Carnage -- there was nary a dull map and I'm now a better player for having gone through it all. "The Final Sacrifice" is so depressingly difficult, though -- it seems like there's no health or save point whatsoever for the player after you jump from the starting ledge. I guess that was the intention. I also seem to recall at least one map in earlier editions that isn't here. Other than that, however, pretty addicting.
5/5, my life is now complete. On a more serious note, props to Wrk for writing this script. It's legit (for once). I suppose it's a shame no one really plays anymore, I would have loved trying it out in a full 8-man free-for-all.
I think all programming manuals should be like this.
50% Of the time!
Hey W'rk, Sparklo and I were wondering, when you got hungry at the end of this guide did you eat a sandwich, and if so, what kind of sandwich? I will change my rating to 1 star if you do not reply.
I would have given this 5 stars, but you tagged it "xpert" instead of "official."
Please take Simplici7y seriously.
minus one star for implying mararthon is not 2.5d
You did fix the no recharge ending to The Accolade right?
Same with the friendly VacBobs in Sonic Firestorm?
Very relaxing. The landscape truly is sculptural. It only takes a few minutes to finish. The pillars work better if you stand in front of them than in them. Play with the lights out, especially on the last level in order to see in the darkness. Love the sounds too.
You took survival from its original form and made it 10x better. Completely alien from the original script, even the code doesn't resemble the original code at all.
Having a continuous stream of aliens definitely adds to the tension of the gameplay requiring much more attention to team effort. Also the addition to bobs to help out the team is a nice touch.
Its progressively climbing difficulty greatly adds to the challenge of the gameplay. No more 30 min slug and chug fests until the players tired out that plagued the old survival script, instead a slow build up of harder opponents that requires some bit of strategy and teamwork. Most games only last about 12 mins, which is good because people tend to get tired of long and repetitive fighting.
Another good thing about this script is that the player can no longer just camp and blast aliens from a safe zone on any map. Players are always kept on their toes and constantly moving in order to survive.
Just one thing, the upper display text sometimes gets cut-off for windowed mode players such as myself. Not really much you can do about unless if there is a way to have the text create a new-line lua. Also I still think that the call-in-bob powerups should be something other than an invincibility powerup.
Other than that, my main gripes are due to the limitations of the games engine and are totally beyond your control.(i.e. needing to limit the amount of aliens because A1's engine only allows for 32 active monsters at the same time, something that shouldn't even be an issue with today's hardware, and not turning off angry bobs that feel betrayed because lua doesn't handle anything like that)
5/5
Finally we have a worthy replacement for tim4i's old HD scenery plugin. Although it's a little laggy on my old hardware, I absolutely love it!
This doesn't seem to work in M1A1 1.3a1 and 1.2.1, returning the error:
"Assertion failed!
Program: C:\...\Marathon.exe
File: shapes.cpp
Line: 1635
Expression: bitmap
For information on how your program can cause an assertion failure, see the Visual C++ documentation on asserts
(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)"
Except last time I hosted, I made a few kills with fists and only got a few points :/
To an extent I haven't seen in other scripts, Kill With Style's effect on gameplay varies with the level you play it on. In some cases, you'll more or less play as you always do. In the more fun instances, you'll end up chasing each other up and down the same staircase, going in circles until one of you can line up a good shot. It's a hell of a lot of fun.
Man, I want to give this a higher rating, but this is one of the most irritating scenarios. You cannot go into one room without getting attacked from every direction. I end up just dying on purpose to memorize where all the enemies are, then try to complete it without getting hit as much. The maps are EXCEPTIONAL, however. The level design and flow is beautiful. But, the amount of enemies kills it. The Red and Yellow Droids are NON-STOP. If they cut the amount of enemies in half...it would STILL be too much. That's not even an exaggeration. Too bad. This could have been great. Marathon Rubicon is still what I measure perfection against.
7 out of seven on a scale from VII to stop camping.
And now for the serious part! :P
Overall, the majority of these maps are pretty decent for Small sized rounds, I'd say 4 at most. I've had some fun ones in them before! The biggest issue is that majority in the pack feel so similar, particularly in size.
Yes I know, they're 7-polygon maps. But even so, even with that amount I have certainly seen some attempts to make them have some difference with each level. Then again, maybe I expect too much. :P
Finis Operis is the most confusing. Is it a legit suicide map, or is there some trick to it?? Even it being an irons map, I am totally confused by it!! You're killing me, Smalls!
Though these maps all share the limitations imposed by the 7 polygon limit, it's impressive to see the sheer variety in design that irons was able to produce from the formula. Some creative use of scenery/lighting/geometry goes a long way, and that is the stand-out quality of this pack. The small to medium maps are the standouts as they play pretty fast and have decent variation in height.
Now I'm just waiting for the Greatest Hits Remastered® release which should include some 777-polygon maps. Irons totally promised me it'd be out soon so we can just cross our fingers can't we!
Track 14.ogg sounds WORSE after this remake. It is still in mono with a lot of grain. The rest of the tracks however are excellent.