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	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 9/6/04 8:15 a.m.
	In Response To: Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers) (Steve Levinson) I never heard anything else here from the team that brought us Lost Lands and was wondering if anythine more was coming of the scenario or if the bugs I identified had been fixed. I need to ammend my original review, however, as I had a lot of problems that had nothing to do with Lost Lands. Ah, the joys of patches and forgetting what's what. When I played this the first time, I had patched the game to use the 3D shapes files. I didn't realize that this only works with the included textures and that it's not sufficient to simply uncheck the 3D shapes box in the AO prefs - the scripts have to be removed as well. That explains why everything was so dark. Secondly, the self-regenerating O2 was the result of an enhancement script that I didn't realize I had installed - one of those things you download try out and then forget it's there. OK, with these things fixed, I could now play the game as intended! : OK. Now that I've finished P.F., I've turned my attenntion to Lost Lands. : Well, there are some cool tricks here that I've never seen anywhere else. : Some of them work, some don't, and one level in particular is basically : unplayable. You have some work to do before this scenario is ready for : prime time. Make that 2 levels are unplayable. : First of all, the coolest trick - O2 that replenishes itself. Why haven't we : seen this before? Why shouldn't you be able to replenish your O2 when : above water? Exactly - it works nicely here - no need for O2 rechargers or : canisters. Again, that had nothing to do with this scenario, but it is a cool concept and Forrest has incorporated it into Eternal. : First level - handle with care. This sets the stage for what is to come, a : basic intro level with an interior area that is unlit and would be : unnavicable were it not for lit doors. More of this to come, but much : worse later. Terminal text with simplistic language and poor grammar - we : can help you with this later if you fix the rest of the scenario. The terminals in general need work - this problem continues throughout the scneario. : Second level - Trapped beneath the waves. A really cool level. The layout is : fairly straight-forward but there are lots of places to explore and many : different approaches. The pattern buffer is too far into the level, : however, making repeated attempts necessary. Also, some platforms don't : work as intended, I think, so that the player can easily be trapped and : have to use hangtime - it they picked up the AR first! This definitely : needs some work. Once the pattern buffer is found, the rest is fairly : easy. Too bad it becomes essential to kill some Bob's, though - just no : way around it when they get in the way and refuse to move. All of these things remain true. : Third (& fifth) level - Smashed Golf ball. Well, this one's certainly : unique. The player starts out in complete blackness and is ambushed as : soon as they reach a point where there is light. It takes a few attempts : to get this right. The use of landscape textures on walls, floors and : ceilings is very disconcerting, but I think this is the effect you were : going for. There is a suicide trap early on - go through the wrong door : and there is no way out. This needs to be fixed. The rest of the level is : pretty good, although dark for my taste. Unfortunately, the player has to : do a lot of exploration to find they necessary switches, chip and chip : slot to access, and there is no logical sequence to help guide the player. : The exit can only be reached from an underwater transporter - something : that is not at all obvious and would only be found by an inveterate : explorer like me ;^) Much lighter now, but everything else holds true. I spent a lot of time searching for a way to open locked doors before finding a very well-hidden room with a couple of switches. Also, this time I didn't need to use an underwater transporter - the exit is through a weird sometimes blocked-sometimes not transporter. : Fourth level - Transition. Don't play this level if you have epilipsy. Not : only are the floor and ceiling textured with landscape textures, but the : walls switch textures at a rapid rate. : Sixth level - Cold, Lost and Dead. What were you thinking? 99.99% of players : will give up on this one. I basically found it to be unplayable without : cheating. Perhaps you could do this one blindfolded since you designed it, : but the rest of us can't. So why did you blindfold us? It's an interesting : trick to make the level completely unlit except for brief flashes of : light, but there is no way to visualize the elevations in map mode, so the : correct path is not at all evident. I did learn quickly how to take out : the solitary monsters without taking damage, but the lack of a pattern : buffer meant I had to keep doing this over and over again. Totally : frustrating. And once I took out the second monster, I found myself in a : hole I could not get out of. Apparently there is a way, as you put a : shield power-up down here, but I never figured it out and had to use AO's : cheat codes to escape. After this, I still found myself trapped in the : room with the first alien weapon. Perhaps there is a trick to getting to a : high enough elevation to exit this room, but I never found it, and believe : me, I tried - for more than an hour. I had to cheat again to escape. Since : I didn't want to repeat all of this in total darkness, I cheated and used : AO's cheat codes to save my game. Actually, the rest of the level was : beatable in map mode after about a couple dozen tries and multiple monster : ambushes. I would hate to have to do this without a saved game! You gotta : fix this level - I think it's probably fixable and could be interesting to : play, but there is a need for a pattern buffer somewhere and the flashes : of lighting need to be much more frequent. And you need to make it easier : to climb up the formations! OK, the darkness part is no longer a problem, but getting around in this level still is, and there is no way to get where you need to go without cheating from what I can tell. At least there is a pattern buffer now that I had missed seeing before, but it's a bit lame to identify it with english text, 'Press Action Key'. : Seventh Level - The Crusade of King Andrew. This is really two different : levels in one - the first being a continuation of the last, but with : partial daylight. This can be tough going, but it's possible to beat it : without cheating after several tries. Unfortunately, withought a pattern : buffer in the last level, that means repeating all of the last level. : You desperately need that pattern buffer! The second part is on board a : crashed UESC ship, but you used a lot of Pfhor textures which seem out of : place here. The ship is fun to explore, but there is no fighting. This is : probably OK, but I would have thought that some of those native beasts : would have made it inside the ship. In any case, who would have guessed : that those nearly black squares are actually switches? I figured it out, : but a lot of people might not. The biggest problem, however, is that the : main power switch up on the bridge didn't work. I replayed the level twice : thinking I had missed something or messed up and failed to make the switch : operational but, no, I just couldn't get it to work. And with that, my : Lost Lands experience came to an end. OK, with a PB on the previous level, this is significantly easier now, but the player can still arrive at the entrance to the ship without sufficient shield strength to swim through the boiling liquid to access the ship. For some reason, the switch at the end worked for me this time, making it possible to play the rest of the game. : Perhaps I'll give the last two levels a try later by vidding the first of : them, but I've had enough frustration for one day! All-in-all, there's a : lot here to like, but some major reworking is needed to make it playable. Eighth Level - Sewer Power. Again, what were you thinking?! There is no pattern buffer that I could find until near the end of the level; ditto for the O2 recharger. The level is populated with a ton of aliens (black f'lickta) and there is not nearly enough ammo to take them out. The only alternative, given the cramped quarters, is to stand-punch them, but there are so many of them that the player is occasionally trapped without enough wiggle room to get around them. The one cool trick is the use of dead aliens as 1X shield power-ups (they basically drop a power-up when they die), so shield recharging is not a problem - it's just that without resorting to cheat codes to save one's game, the player will never reach the final PB alive - at least not on TC. Speaking of which, at one point I dropped down to kindergarten just to try to make the punch-killing go faster. It didn't - although they are less aggressive, they still take just as long to kill. This makes no sense. The player must spend a fair bit of time under water fighting aliens - there just isn't enough O2 to make it. Finally, the labels on the terminal maps are way too small - they are barely legible with my eyes pressed right up against the screen (I'm nearsighted). Without these labels, the player has no idea what to do, so you really need to enlarge them. Ninth Level - Foreign Vizitorz. Basically just a repeat of the ship level without any monsters or anything. It's supposed to be a transition and information level, but we'll need to see chapter 2 to properly judge it. Well, to summarize, there are a lot of problems with Lost Lands. Still, there are some things that are really unique and gameplay is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed playing parts of it and would definitely like to see these bugs and miscalculations straightened out so that I can play it without resorting to using cheat codes. And I would definitely like to see Chapter 2!

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Replies:

	Lost Lands	Mazaro	5/31/04 6:12 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands	Mista_B	5/31/04 9:21 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands	Mazaro	6/2/04 1:48 p.m.
	I'm too busy playing Phoenix Falling - Later *NM*	Steve Levinson	6/1/04 8:23 a.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Steve Levinson	6/19/04 7:35 a.m.
	I can't play this thing!	ukimalefu	6/21/04 1:43 p.m.
	Re: I can't play this thing!	D-M.A.	10/7/04 10:36 a.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Steve Levinson	9/6/04 8:15 a.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Adam Ashwell	9/7/04 11:08 a.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Steve Levinson	9/7/04 1:30 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Mazaro	10/7/04 2:22 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	D-M.A.	10/7/04 7:25 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Mista_B	10/7/04 7:50 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers) *NM*	gBoth...?	10/12/04 1:30 p.m.
	Re: Lost Lands (Spoilers)	Andrew Nagy	10/12/04 6:50 p.m.
	BLAM! *NM*	Mista_B	10/12/04 9:13 p.m.
	Your Mom! *NM*	ukimalefu	10/12/04 11:54 p.m.
	Dink! *NM*	Vid Boi	10/13/04 2:34 a.m.
	Not *that* again! *NM*	Steve Levinson	10/13/04 7:32 a.m.
	For great justice! *NM*	Mista_B	10/13/04 10:15 a.m.
	What you say ??? *NM*	Forrest of B.org	10/13/04 10:16 a.m.
	Re: Someone set us up the bomb!!! *NM*	•M	10/13/04 11:02 a.m.
	Roziante VIII *NM*	Andrew Nagy	10/13/04 9:40 p.m.

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