Reviews

...and hard. The white-bloods are pretty tough to fight, even on Kindergarten. Still, that difficulty makes some of the levels really good. 'The Rise and Fall of Dugit' is awesome, as is 'The Asphodel Meadows'. However, I would note that Aeon has some major and some minor flaws. For instance, the first Green Trooper on Lapsis Linguae is insanely aggressive, to the point where I was listening to bullets clinging around my head while saying to myself 'What is going on here?' Still, at least he isn't too hard to kill. You just need to get your grenade to land at his feet. Furthermore, vacuum levels (aka 'Words Which I Command' are never fun. G4 Sunbathing was the rare exception, and Acme Station was just plain rough. In sum, don't do vacuum levels unless you know how to really make them fun. To top things off, you really need a pattern buffer at the start of 'Blaze'. Even so, Aeon is very fun to play. This scenario should easily get 5 stars once some of the issues are tweaked.

Nothing great, nothing bad. Decent maps.

Also, can you upload the rest of the ORIGINAL Rubicon netmaps that aren't in Rubicon X? I can't find them anywhere.

Thanks in advance.

I'd rate this as an intermediate level map - it's not full of beginner mistakes but it's not up there with the top maps, either. I think there was an overemphasis on monsters, though I will say the difficulty ramped up smoothly playing on normal. The battles would've been more interesting with a fusion pistol, to take advantage of many monster's weaknesses and to get more chain reactions going. You should also make sure there aren't whole groups of monsters that congregate together without attacking. The final battle was well constructed in a couple ways. First, the geometry was complex enough to allow the A.I. to chase the player in different ways, and secondly there was a good sense of anticipation after hitting the switch, waiting for the climax to arrive. Ironically, it was advantageous to leave the green fighters alive to absorb projectiles from later waves. I would've liked to see some small-scale nonlinearity, more glimpses of spaces the player will visit later, and some cases where the player gets the high ground. Lighting was odd in some places, particularly in the interior Jjaro-themed room. There's no effort put into story or exploration, but I say that's a good thing. It means you had the discipline to stay within a limited scope.

Actually, pretty good. Sure felt like PiD (aside from the lack of talking dead guys and some other minute details). Oh, and that M-79 is nasty: "Oh look, some Headless. Now let's see what this-- BOOM! Ugh, there goes my triple health." ;)

Seriously, nice battles. Loads of fun on Kindergarten (yes, I'm a Spazeroid) and probably up there with Emerald City Citizens and Paratroopers (both from KTA). Still, Ryoko is right about differential shading. Often, it's difficult to gage what's the floor and what's a wall. However, this map does make up for it a bit by having a nice variety in textures. Great architecture, by the way. Keep it up!

I gave you a bunch of suggestions, and I'm pretty sure you didn't follow any of them, so I'm not entirely sure why you asked me to test your map to begin with. I said I would have given your map a 2.5 as it was, and I'm rounding down.

Anyway, in short:

• Differential shading
• Differential shading
• Differential shading
• Your battles are pointlessly oversized
• No balance for Total Carnage; there's not enough ammo without relying on fists/infighting, and the card room is a pretty ridiculous fight on TC that you can't really win without stupid amounts of luck
• KTA maps aren't really any better when they're bigger, look at Marathon 2 or something to figure out how to make interestingly designed maps with actual objectives

Liking these new additions, Wind! I also do like the SSM-free ones that you have for the smaller levels.

I know you like using multiple sets and I can say that your use of them has definitely improved. I'm glad you're keeping the Jjaro and Pfhor sets to themselves now as, in my opinion, they really just don't go well with other sets.

But, in general, great stuff.

I remember I posted AGES ago that I realized that the HUD scripting might allow for this kind of classic HUD. Someone decided that was true and did it. I'm really quite impressed...

An AI going rampant, only to fall so far into love to wipe out BOBs to fashion a body for herself... Interesting hahahaha.

These will be quite useful to me for some projects. :)

:P Great Job W'rkcacnter!

Far beyond my abilities. 99/5

The architecture in this scenario is impeccable. This RyokoTK deserves the highest applaud for the effort he put into this masterpiece. inf/5 rating, but 5 is the highest available. RyokoTK, make scenarios like this one, and you'll get me hooked.

Adlib added 3/12/14

Btw, Stone Temple Pilates at Normal is wicked difficult. Serial number of tries just to make it about the 20th time? Relentless brutality, but it's the way it should be. Rock on RyokoTK.

AND HONESTLY, Phoenix beats the original Marathon trilogy. Played it more than the originals.

Adlib added 9/29/20

So far, I'm at Tantive IV in Total Carnage difficulty - wonderful and difficult scenario, surprisingly beatable in TC.

I wanted to dismiss this pack out of hand for being old, because most maps made before the metaserver era were made by people that never really had the means to play multiplayer extensively, so they were generally really idiotic and horrible to play. Turns out these aren't so bad.

This pack has a lot of dumb problems: stupid dead ends, gimmicky traps, lots of corridors and tight spaces, and architecture that's generally unclear or muddy. The lighting is also, on the whole, pretty flat. So yeah, comparing it to maps made in the last few years, these don't really hold up. But when comparing it against stock Infinity maps, or Coriolis Loop, these are actually decent; I would expect maps made 15 years after these to be better, because that's how these things work.

And, the mapper gets a cookie, because these maps don't have monsters AND they have enough ammo -- two problems that consistently plague old maps, or new maps modeled after them. So, on the whole, this pack is recommendable as a curiosity, but nothing really stood out.

EDIT: Treellama pointed out to me that I'm just assuming that these maps are actually really old. If these maps were made after, oh, 2005, then they're completely terrible.

Here's a crazy idea: release something original and fun. Like... oh, a map, maybe?

I hope you at least started by cribbing the physics files that came with Infinity/Forge, so at least you had a head-start on your zero-effort "monsters fight themselves!" physics file.

All of the new maps in this version were of the reliable "open space in middle, ring around the outside" format.

Stop it.

Other than that these maps are pretty much flawless. I was particularly impressed with the uncharacteristically subtle lighting on Dunces and the very gentle curve on The Pod. Just make your layouts more complex (or at least more unique) and you'd have a truly top-flight pack on your hands.

(ETA: I posted this, and then realized I hadn't yet played Convinced of the Hex. However, it ALSO fell into this format. Double stop it.)

(ETA 2: The high quality of your newer maps is making the early Caustic Dystopia maps look terrible. Time for a new pack!)

For people that are trying to apply a consistent lighting effect over a large/geometrically complex area, this utility is great.

But if people start using this to light their entire maps with the same effect, I will reach through my ethernet cable through the entire internet to where you (yes, you, Crater Creator) live and murder you.

I hope it was worth it.

Now I can play the classic known as Marathon with the original & cool-looking HUD. Thank you very much.

Though, the only thing that seems off with this update is the brightness of them. They seem a bit too bright compared to the older ones. Just a heads up.

Had a 4-player round going last night. Lots of carnage and fun!

I am very happy to see this released! I am having a lot of fun playing it.

Danish style indeed, you can see the Bang & Olufsen influences. ;)

I bet Ture never expected to see this piece from his University of Kansas student days unearthed after 17 years.

Great work on reanimating this one. :)

Research suggests that the artist is Ture Wibrand, who went on to a successful design career in Copenhagen. Here's to you, Ture!

Any file that pushes Ryoko's crap down on the main page is a file worth uploading. I was getting worried no one was left to make this happen.

It's really important that every hideous rendition of the Marathon 1 HUD is its own separate file. That way, when I visit Simplici7y, half the front page is filled up with insignificant variations on the same awful HUD. Thank you!

Short, sweet, simple. That's all I need to say about these maps, aside from that they are carnage-filled and loads of fun even on lower difficulties.

Just as I remembered it from Marathon 1!

...HUD...also growing. Nicely done!

This should be a mandatory part of the Marathon scenario download. (not a joke)