This level is perfect. Peak Marathon. Light combat with enemies because the map is the primary antagonist.
Needed more of this.
This level is everything "Charon Doesn't Make Change" should have been.
This scenario is so interesting and the maps look great using mechanics like stealth to spice things up.
Then the game gets ruined because you can't find the uplink chip to progress.
If the developer of this scenario is still alive they should go in, give the terminals some much needed brevity, and provide some maps to the uplink chips that this scenario relies heavily upon.
This makes old scenarios playable because while the occasional scenario will have interesting maps the vast majority are ass when it comes to conveying what you're supposed to do.
I just got finished playing through Marathon Dissent and I definitely could have used this plugin to find the one chip, in the one closet, in the one room, mentioned in the one sentence, in the one terminal, hidden in a hopelessly cluttered map screen and glaciers of terminal text.
This scenario has so many mapping tricks but it does a piss poor job of conveying where you're supposed to be going and what you're supposed to be doing.
"Oooh, that's a cool lighting trick." "Where do I go now?" "What am I supposed to do?"
Awful. Having no idea where to go next is the kiss of death for any scenario.
3 levels, I really like the mapping style. The third level is the very best and is a great take on human environments.
This scenario has a particular section that makes BoB's formidable due to very thoughtful enemy placement where in which you can't always see where you're being shot from.
I've never played a scenario that had me spraying the assault rifle wildly in the general direction muzzle flashes and fusion bolts.
It could have used two more terminals to explain that the tan colored Vac-Bobs are on your side.
Most of all, at no point during the scenario was I ever confused as to what I should be doing or where to go.
I don't have time to play this, can someone spoil the whole thing for me please?
Create the Adminn_1 Lighting Template.
Creating custom lights are a pain, so if you created a map with every room being a class of light and every polygon is a variation of that class: Smooth changing lights, strobe lights, flashing lights, flickering lights, lightning and lights used to control liquid levels it would be incredibly useful.
You could import the lights to each new level with the Copy & Paste tool and save your self hours of time.
Absolutely Terrible.
The scenario has no story and the buildup in the first level was terrible.
Sound design was terrible.
Too many fake terminals.
SMG is placed in an area that you can only get to after you've cleared the whole level so its effectively worthless.
After clearing the last level I had no idea how to exit.
Some things you accidentally did right:
-Made me appreciate the Assault Rifle, finding it was as exciting as the first time I played Marathon because when you get it you can finally start clearing rooms. The AR should have its own room to increase the feeling, same goes for the Napalm projector.
-The Shadervoid is an existential nightmare and is absolutely unpleasant to play. If you book ended what you have with classic regular textured exposition levels the sense of relief of getting back to normalcy would make all the unpleasantness worth it.
Great physics file, hope to see more of these in the future to bring back more of Marathon's one off special physics files that aren't some kind of joke.
Looks worse than the original landscapes built into the game.
Its a good effort but does not alleviate the core problem of Marathon being a complete sausage fest, as though the 3rd party Marathon Universe wasn't bleak enough to begin with now it has human women with no sex appeal.
The wait continues for sexually appealing BoBs, a feature that would fundamentally change the Marathon sandbox.
At best it answers the question as to why there are no children on the Marathon, the men and women of the Marathon won't touch each other.
You did fix the no recharge ending to The Accolade right?
Same with the friendly VacBobs in Sonic Firestorm?
Checkpointed the instant before death.
No way to take back.
No hope.
First level was too tedious, I wasn't having fun so I stopped playing.
I've often brainstormed a Marathon scenario where the Pfhor win and you as the player have to survive in a Pfhor dominated galaxy.
Scratch that idea, I could never top this. This scenario is a NIGHTMARE.
The textures, the imagery, the sounds, the story its all just a nightmare.
Its actually more bizarre than Pfhojeur, another nightmarish scenario. I wanted it to end so badly.
On a positive note, it is beatable. The scenario reminded me of those miscellaneous scenarios you would find on fileball that you couldn't beat because of convoluted map objectives. Not the case of this scenario, its beatable.
But that's it, playing this scenario is unpleasant.
Does not work for PC Weland.
PC Weland does not register any plugins.
May not be the plugin, may be Weland.
Why is this getting so many 5 star ratings when there is something clearly wrong with the monster placement?
In a lot of places there seems to be no rhyme or reason to where monsters spawn.
As though you just took the monster placement clicker and had a seizure while placing the monsters.
There seems to be no FUN way to engage the enemy.
It was a 2. Then I figured out the TOZT & VISR mechanics.
Wonderful scenario for its unique features.
However, its not a 4 because this scenario is not scary at all.
Marathon Evil's Devlin encounter, Marathon Apotheosis Assassin enounter, heck even Marathon Eternal scared me more with the first Wraith encounter.
Also the level itself will get you hung up on just about everything.
EDIT:
I take a little back. While the scenario itself isn't scary, if you forget to turn off the scripting your other scenarios will literally be haunted.
That second level is a pain in the dick.
The rest are very atmospheric, and the blue pillar terminals require some dancing for them to work.
I beat it on Total Carnage. This experience was more Halo than Halo. Its very mysterious, I just wish there was more to it.
The new Marathon Phoenix is the best Marathon Scenario I have ever played.
One can only gripe that some level secrets can only be found via the PDF walk-through, or TABTABTABTABTABing every wall.
That is to say some secrets are not indicated by anything out of place.
S'PHTSTORM is the only bad level for its terrible game play. All enemies teleport in, the level would otherwise be uninhabited, so anytime you enter a new room, you get ambushed and DIE instantly.
The level can only be beaten via NEW ROOM+DIE+MEMORIZE+NEW ROOM+DIE+MEMORIZE+NEW ROOM+DIE+MEMORIZE=BAD GAME PLAY.
Marathon Phoenix is a great scenario.
More Action packed than any scenario I've ever seen.
Textures are great. Well placed. Weapons have great variety, and each holds a special niche in certain encounters.
The levels are amazing too, enemies, architecture, and flow, all top notch...
...Except for "Escape Two Thousand." It's a level filled with nothing but dirty tricks and a badly placed switch that opens a door that you'll likely miss. After you memorize it, it'll still kill you.
F*** Escape Two Thousand.