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	The Grasshopper Challenge - Arrival
	Posted By: William Spencer	Date: 7/27/01 10:52 a.m.
	>If anyone's interested, I'd like for some of us to go through M1 (and more if we >can), in sequence, completing roughly one level a day, and discussing each level >chronologically as it is completed, with a focus on the story, of course. Maybe >we can bring in some additional perspectives from the arrival.bungie.org >documents. Okay, I'll take the Grasshopper Challenge. Arrival: Yes, indeed - some truely lovely level constructions here - I second everything the guy said in the post below...and add my own: Nice introductory screen - the damaged pod limping into the shuttle bay, trailing steam from the maneuvering jets, scattering debris behind as it scrapes along the hangar deck. And that opening schwaaaaaaaaa sound is just cool - atmospheric, portentious, and spooky. And that enigmatic opening view - you, with pistol in hand, a locked door behind, and a terminal flickering to life just ahead. All is silent...nothing moves. Where is everybody? And then you get ambushed by the aliens. Great moment, that. Weird aliens, too - they have some sort of electroshock spear or staff, and a gas mask? Three eyes... The motion sensor's cute - like in "Aliens" - but it hasn't been helpful so far. The map is confusing - it jerks all around when I try to move. I guess I'll figure out how to use them later... I love the music on this level. Mournful and suspenseful, low tones carrying the rhythm with the wails improvising high above it, that continual cymbal beat pulsing along with it. That first terminal is a classic. A cry for help from Marathon's bridge - "the situation is dire" - and then the transmission is suddenly cut short...But why does Leela have to introduce herself to you - surely you'd know who she is, being a part of the colony and all? She DID say she was damaged...maybe she didn't recognize you. Yeah, that must be it. She must think you're just some sort of rescue team. Yeah. Hm. No C.A.R.R.O.T.'s on this term, though. Shucks. Looking down at the hangar after killing those first Pfhor (and wasting some pistol ammo in panic - though you don't yet know you should be saving it) and seeing your shuttle pod...and those big open doors, with landing lights flickering calmly in the vacuum. The room with the big windows, and the lights casting perfect rectangles upon the ground...and its contrast with the bright lights of the cargo-loading area just before that locked airlock...and if you crane your neck, you can see some sort of alien ship out there...the kind that attacked your shuttle? And in the next room, with the "pattern buffer", you can see another fightercraft out the window...there must be a whole fleet out there! Cool! I mean, uh-oh. Trying to find your way up to that airduct, and finally figuring out that you have to go up to that elevator, go right, right again, and hop across the way...and miss the jump, and have to go back and try again. Hey, there's another alien back there, reading that computer terminal! He's...floating? So you shoot him, and he flashes and flickers as his force field intercepts the slug, and then he turns and rushes at you. You keep shooting and shooting, and he doesn't stop...until he vaporizes, just before he reaches you. What ARE these things?! That first terminal in the airducts: Hey, they changed this one from the demo, too! Instead of that spiritual blistering thing, it's now about how "society has some controlling force or forces which decide its direction, but the relationships in society are arbitrary-" I guess the aliens are trying to figure out what makes us humans tick. Interesting...and what did the original one mean? Hey, I can kill the cloaked robots just by punching them! They don't get a chance to fight back - I can just sit back and hold down the space bar. That makes it easier. That moment of tension before jumping down a drop in the airducts. Will I be able to find my way back, or will I be trapped below? That moment when you cheer yourself for finding your way into the room on the far side of the hangar...and then curse when the step behind you suddenly and noisily reveals itself to be an elevator...and lifts up, and up...sealing the entrance behind you. No!...have you been trapped?! Oh, phew, it retracts. Okay, I'm okay, really. Phew. And where did that orange fighter across the way come from? Is he searching for me?...These aliens must be smarter than I thought... That room where you look down out of the corridor and see those orange fighters below you...and you dive down into the thick of things, swing around them, and get them to shoot themselves in the back! Wow... And then, after reading the MSG, you check out the secret in that room - jumping onto the ledge and diving into the concealed chamber just behind the electrical staff bolts...and then wondering how you get out...and then wondering how to get out without being shot... Or those times when you're getting fancy in the corridors with the cloaked aliens, once you've gotten the hang of dealing with them. Do you just stand there and bash them over the head or grapple their force-field units - no! You "make with the kung-fu fighting action" and do some run punches...and then curse yourself when you back off a little TOO far, giving the robot a chance to take a shot at you... That second terminal in the airducts - just meaningless binary code, right? Or... And then the final terminal room, with the terminal pad glowing faintly in the dim light, and the now-open door letting light spill in to pierce the gloom...and Leela warning that her systems are under attack. She's already damaged badly - does this mean that things might get WORSE? Oh, and those cloaked aliens have a name - "compilers?" Oh, like in computer code - cybernetic hackers! That'll be trouble later on...I hope Leela will be okay, she seems like a nice AI... And then you teleport out. I like that teleporter effect: your body covered in a static sheen, and you watch (at first in surprise, later in complacence) as it and the world fold back, then inwards and away... Tune in next time...

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