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	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?
	Posted By: Ben A. Potter	Date: 3/26/04 3:05 p.m.
	In Response To: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill? (Mark Levin) : The first thing to notice upon launching RED is the slow, dissonant theme : music and redone menus. The sections of the preferences dialog have been : renamed, and there's a rather creepy... something staring out at you from : behind the logo. There are actually a few beta testers listed in the : credits, although there's definitely some question as to how good a job : they did :P : After a nice chapter screen, we drop into part 1 of the scenario: Resistance. : The first level introduces the general story and some of the new tricks : RED has up its sleeve. The first quirk to notice is that "shield : canisters" have been changed to pieces of body armor. This doesn't : really change the dynamics of the game, but it's interesting to notice- : shield recharger panels will be dealt with later. The HUD is all-new, and : the motion tracker no longer identifies friend from foe. Your weapon is a : ".33 Mercury Pistol", but we won't get a chance to use it until : the next level- there's absolutely no ammo here, and even your fists don't : work. The health colors have changed: Level 1 is red, level 2 is a bright : green, and level 3, when we see it, will be grey. The textures are more modifications of Infinity textures than I remember. Shading got better later on in the scenario - it looks rather 1 dimensional on this level. : The key to getting off this level is one of RED's new features: Talking to : characters. To your right as you exit your quarters (or whatever) and : enter the area named "Lounge", there's one of the new RED : marines. These guys are described in detail (along with most of the other : enemies) on the RED Bighouse site . The new marines are far bulkier than : the original Marathon sprites, echoing the change from shields to armor, : and they're immune to fists, so don't think you can just steal their ammo : when no one's looking. Ian has a good point about the pulse rifles, too :P : You talk to the marine by hitting your action key, which activates a : hidden terminal containing only a Picture section. : This level has a bit more to do on it than just get to the cargo bay. : Directly across from you as you exit the marine room is a small door which : can be activated with the switch to its right. In there is the : "Hydroponics", and one of the new Science Bobs , made to : provide the utterly helpless victims that have been missing in the games : since Marathon 1. Not much else in there besides a switch that will get : you back out of the room (be careful not to hit it too quickly, or you'll : have to wait for the doors to cycle again). : The textures and scenery on this level foreshadow the art of the rest of the : scenario: Grey and red are the primary colors, with the occasional brown : thrown in. There are cylinders containing partial human bodies lying : around, much more bold than the more subtle "Pfhor experiments" : in Marathon 1. The texture set also contains some custom lighting, as we : saw in TI, but it's not applied with the same polish (look around the : cargo bay doors). Are these containers explained later? I thought they were just cryo-containers. Looking at them again, they remind me of cyborgs without the tank tracks. : Once you enter the cargo bay, you see another of RED's new creations: The : assault drone . These things really aren't used much in the game, although : they look pretty cool and pack a wallop. On that page, Ian mentions : complaints of "too much grey". Oh, if they only knew... : You exit the level by (eventually) figuring out that you have to talk to that : dude in the far right, who identifies himself as... Ian. The idea of : inserting yourself into your own scenario is frankly a bit silly; : fortunately it's easy to ignore this fact as the story progresses. He : explains that you're going off to investigate a dead Pfhor scoutship and : download the contents of its databank. What could possibly go wrong? I admit I didn't immediately catch on to the "tab the action key when standing in front of certain sprites in the game in order to access a 'terminal'" the first time I played RED. Actually, it was somewhat irritating. There are shades of "matrix" in that Ian is an "operator." Apparently "Paco" is the player's name... Ben

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Replies:

	RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Mark Levin	3/26/04 2:07 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Ben A. Potter	3/26/04 3:05 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Ernie	3/26/04 3:09 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Mark Levin	3/26/04 7:39 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Mista_B	3/26/04 9:10 p.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Document	9/9/07 10:05 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Steve Levinson	3/27/04 3:49 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Mark Levin	3/27/04 5:40 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Elliott	3/27/04 8:41 a.m.
	Re: RED Volunteers: Too Tired to Kill?	Dylan	9/3/04 6:39 a.m.

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