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According to the author’s website, he has held down several positions as a commercial level designer. This alone should spark your curiosity. Whether you choose to scoff at the notion or investigate out of some other motivation the notion begs questions which can only be answered by downloading and playing the level. No doubt the single most pressing question in this instance is if this level warrants your download time. Fortunately we brave souls here at Insite pride ourselves on taking the risks for you and then share the intelligence on our reconnaissance. Prepare for your briefing…
The level is set in an alternate reality which according to the author is set in our current time but with many of the trappings of the 1950’s. A few of the elements felt more reminiscent of the 1930’s to this reviewer, but the overall effect is an interesting blend. The setting had a vague resemblance to the similar notion in the movie “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”, but with no hints of the 1930’s art deco sensibilities. So to summarise: a fairly original setting. The majority of the level still ends up feeling a bit too much generic industrial in the style popularised by Hourences in UT2004, but the little touches help elevate it from the pure imitators. Architecture throughout is reasonably simple, but as with a few other recently reviewed UT2004 levels I find the overall look to be clean rather than purely simplistic. There is more than enough detail to flesh out the level without needless clutterings of meshes. One aspect that struck me within a minute of so of scouting the level was the amount of z-axis the level offers. Perhaps more important is the fact that such z-axis is not thrown in your face, but rather feels very natural and purely happens as part of the substantiated architecture. This is a clever style and authors with less experience would do well to study its implementation. The layout is reasonably, perhaps even deceptively simple, but features some nice variations in height along the ground floor. If I had a gripe about the layout, it would most probably be that the upper level suffers a bit more in this regard with a lot of flatness along the catwalks. To be certain there are areas on the ground floor which could do with a little more height variation, but as is what’s there works well enough. I could have done with a few more dips and twists on the upper floor. One other element that I found a trifle odd in the architecture was the use of skylights. There are many nicely recessed skylights in the ceiling, however part way up these skylights there are fluorescent lights. Whilst the lighting effect is nice enough, seeing electric lights shoved in a skylight just seems inherently wrong to me. I did like the “views to elsewhere” which always add something to a level, such as the giant robot out one window near the lightning gun, or the suggestion of alleyways beyond the courtyard that houses the minigun. These little touches add to the perceived floorspace of the level. Optimisation is first rate, the kind of level I would expect from a commercial level designer. There is significant work done with zones, the results of which leave little in the way of requirements for antiportals and even the lower end machines should be able to run this one quite smoothly. This is another area where less experienced level designers could do to check out the methods used and the results they provide.
The texture work here is very good. I didn’t see any misalignments and the level features numerous custom textures. I loved the texture on the bountiful monitor screens. It was really well put together. There are also several textures which are signs or pages from a newspaper that are scattered around. The sign for the movie “Forbidden Planet” would have garnered an extra half a point on its own were I not such a restrained reviewer. I also loved the little homage to Campbell’s Soup called “Camper’s Soup” with accompanying slogan mentioning nervous sheep. There are more, but I suggest you explore the level yourself to find them. Personally I could have done with a bit more to break up the red brick texture. I’m a strong proponent of maintaining theme, but I think a bit more relief from the red brick was in order. The static mesh use was nicely controlled, with a few stock meshes trotted out which don’t often see the light of day and they blended well into the setting for the level. There are also a few custom meshes to liven things up some. Lighting was a strong element in this level and features my preference for hotspots and contrasts both in brightness and colour. The scheme as a whole works very well. No area is swallowed in darkness, nor does any area appear overly bright and the author’s management of the scheme is very sound. Sound work is rather sparser than I would prefer. There are just over 20 ambient sound actors, and though radius and volume have been varied, there isn’t that nice overlap of sounds to create something with a little more texture. Most of the sounds used needed to be smaller radius spot effect style, such as the radio playing gently in the background and the entrance to the “13 Blue Notes” bar. I should point out that this is the closest thing to a music track that the level has to offer, with no music track being set at all. Normally I would find this annoying, but the musical silence, save for said radio, seems to work well enough for the level. I still would have preferred a music track set. If people don’t want music they can turn it off. There are also a few triggered sounds to clue players in to the location of their opponents. Nothing flash, mind you, just the predictable old groaning metal and wood, but they are serviceable.
Game play is a little bit harder to score. Looking at the weapons loadout, I got the feeling that the author got his floors mixed up. On the lower floor we have weapons such as the flak and lightning, whilst the upper floor has the shock and the pulse. Then there are more sensible placements like the rocket launcher and bio rifle on the upper floor whilst the minigun is lower down. I didn’t like the exact placement of the pulse gun as it seemed too close to the edge/pillar. The supershield is very well placed being difficult enough to get and exposed. I'm still not convinced about have the fifty shield charger in addition to the UDamage and one hundred shield charger. It risks being overkill for a duelling level. However given that each powerup requires at least a modicum of skill (lift jump, precision jumping, double jumps etc.) I'm less concerned. It isn't as bad as if the pickups were just laying around. Health seemed sufficient. Ammo is spread out over the level, normally a significant distance from its weapon. This does have the potential to draw players through the map and is a sound enough principle, but then I didn’t feel the layout really needed to resort to this kind of ammo placement to keep things flowing well. Bots move through the level well, even lift-jumping and collecting the supershield. The author recommends 2-3 players, though I believe the intention was primarily a dueller. The level works quite well for its intended purpose, being bigger than many self-styled 1-on-1’s and the better for it. I can see this level having something to offer those predisposed to single opponent altercations. Three players didn’t quite feel right to me as an FFA, but I did find that a 2-on-2 TDM worked very well in this level too. Even a 3-on-3 works if you like an insane amount of action and a more visceral experience. Where the level really shines for me is in the height variation and z-axis implementation. It’s a shame that much of the upper floor is walkway which limits movement somewhat, but the walkways are wide enough to not overly impinge on player movement. Players will very frequently find their duels taking place where one player has a height advantage, and there is certainly benefit in gaining the higher ground in this level, but it is not so great that players will ignore the lower level.
This is a very good level and certainly deserves a place on your hard drive. The level is sound in its construction and solid in visuals without wowing the audience. Once you start actually playing the level and learning the layout, you will realise that game play was the first consideration for this map and this plays out, if you’ll pardon the pun, again and again with each round. The level doesn’t try to break the mould, either visually or in terms of game play. It seeks only to offer up a very solid game play experience with very serviceable visuals that do not offend and work well enough for their intended purpose. Further works from the author should be of interest to everyone.
Bottom Line: Very good game play and solid visuals make this map worth your time.
Score: 7.0
Average User Score: 7 (2 scores)
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T2A`
Score: 7.0
Could be better with a different weapon/powerup setup, but I enjoy the base layout and the scaling. Nice realistic visuals too.
2006-09-06 12:01:31
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SkaarjMaster
Score: 7.0
Good gameplay, AVA could be better; I've heard some people say the weapon/item placement is bad but the only thing I see is maybe switching lightning gun and flak cannon locations.
2006-09-06 08:09:56
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