This one's going to be short for a change - there really isn't much to say about this level. It's one of the simplest, least inspired maps in the scenario, but perhaps I'm still feeling the pain of playing it at frame rates in the seconds per frame range.
OK, I think I know what Matt and Andrew intended to do with this level. It was intended to have a very simple layout, but to be hellish to play. Just look at the monster population - major fighters, troopers and compilers all sniping at you. Unfortunately, the level is problematic and basically doesn't work. The objective is actually very, very simple. All the player needs to do, as instructed by Mece, is to grab a computer disk that he needs so as to reboot the colony's network. To do this, the player need only shoot two switches located high up on a wall in the northwest and southeast corners of the map, grab the disk from a lava pool in the northeast part of the map and leave the level via a teleport pad in the southwest corner. What was supposed to make the map difficult was the constant onslaught by monsterss, some of which are in difficult to access places. What actually made it difficult was the loss of playability.
This is one of three levels that I strongly recommend playing booted up in a pre-OS X OS if your computer supports it. Fortunately, most of the computers that can only boot in OS X are pretty fast, but this still doesn't completely make up for the general problems seen playing these levels in the Classic Environment of OS X. As I think is well known, the M1 engine doesn't do well in Classic in the first place and there is a definite performance hit across all levels in PF. For a decent player, this is easily overcome on most levels. With the 3 levels in question (we'll discuss the others when we get to them), as the number of monsters in action increases, play slows to the point that the frame rate is too slow to interact with the game.
Canyon is another beast entirely, however, and Matt and Andrew need to delve deeply into the guts of it, or to rip it up and start over, or perhaps to drop it entirely. Things start out OK - the player is inside a box with nothing but Mece's terminal to read, but then the walls of the box lift, exposing the player to an onslaught of monsters. At this point the game is still functional and the player will likely take damage. One problem - the player can easily get knocked off the walkway and there doesn't seem to be a way back up - at least not in the area where I fell the one time this happened to me. The player lacks weapons with which to commit suicide as of yet, so the only option is to quit the game - a less than staisfying approach.
Access to the rest of the level is through a series of air locks, many of which contain pattern buffers. Shield rechargers are located in the spokes of the central area. Upon exiting the first air lock, however, the game really starts to slow down. Even with these problems aside, however - even playing in a pre-OS X boot-up, things still don't work. This is most evident with the troopers - they won't attack you, but they can't be killed either. When shot, they bleed red. More importantly, they just get in the way and there is one point where they completely block the player, forcing you to shoot one of those switches from a greater distance that you otherwise might. The other monsters don't behave normally either, although they do bleed in the proper color and they can be killed. I also found at one point that I no longer took damage.
Oh well, at least you can complete the level and move on to Switch - a much more satisfying level
