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	Tempus Irae Volunteers - Polygonium Opus
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 11/28/03 11:35 a.m.
	I really hate to bash another level after I just got done bashing Wiping Away the Dirt and Glue, but Polygonium Opus has some unfortunate shortcomings that can really spoil it for the serious Marathoner. Don't get me wrong - this is a great level in terms of gameplay and it has a very nice, challenging layout with some great eye candy, but there are significant inconsistencies and at least one major bug. Other than that, it's a great level! OK - the Sh'aptide has been infiltrated, the S'Pht have been cut off from the bridge and we have to come to the rescue. Starting from the teleport site, we have easy access to a pattern buffer and a 2X recharger, so this is actually a relatively easy level. There are lots of fall-back positions, good open areas from which to round up and eliminate the worst of the bad guys and the way to go is usually evident with few exceptions. One of the first problems I have with the level is right at the beginning. We are told to free 4 elder S'Pht who are in stasis nearby. Remember, this is a Pfhor ship, so why would there be 4 elder S'Pht in stasis in the first place? Why would the Pfhor have had any interest in keeping these revered members of the S'Pht on their ship. It is doubtful that the S'Pht had time between leaving Lh'owon and traveling back to Earth to pick them up, so where did they come from? Sadly, I have been unable to save more than one of these when playing on TC. They are just no match for the troopers and you have to be really fast and tricky to save one at that. This is not what I would have expected from the terminal text - these S'Pht should have been much more aggressive and much more resistant to being killed. Once you've managed to see the revered elders killed, you have an opportunity for an encounter with a blue hunter with an in for you. You killed his brother! Who would have ever thought that Pfhor have family ties? Who would have thought that Pfhor have families at all? This is also the first incidence that I'm aware of where a Pfhor communicates directly with the player. Many scenario developers and mapmakers have employed this strategy since, but it always seems contrived to me. Perhaps I just don't like things that deviate from the tone originally set by Bungie. In any case, I really don't think that a hunter would make it a personal vendetta to kill you because you had killed their brother, even if they had brothers in the first place. Tycho would clearly do this, but this is just not like the Pfhor - as evidenced by a terminal in Ain't My Bitch at the beginning of TI. Getting around the central core is surprisingly easy, if not just a bit intimidating. If you make the wrong choice of which ledge to jump to, you can still jump across to the ledge where you need to start. This brings you to the first major bug in the series. You have an encounter with a contingent of troopers in the blue cooling tank area under the watchful eye of your blue hunter, who makes his escape before you can touch him. Too bad I wasn't doing beta testing back then. You indeed can kill the hunter at this point, only to see him resurrected later so you can kill him again. Rather than leaping into the cooling tank and corralling and killing the troopers, you can fire a shot into the cooling tank to get the troopers to come to you. It's a bit harder this way and you'll expend a lot more ammo, but after killing off the troopers, you can fire a fusion pistol shot at the blue hunter, who is now clearly visible at the other end of the cooling tank. This will provoke him to get off that raising platform so that when you do enter the cooling tank, rather than him being wisked away, he'll be fair game and rather easily to kill. There are so many ways the Nardo group could have prevented this. Oh well. Once you do traverse all the areas around the central core, lower the goo in the core and eliminate your hunter (for the second time), you will have the opportunity to explore the outside of the ship. This is another point of contention for me. How can you fully enjoy being outside in the vacuum of space without being in vacuum. The Marathon engine does not permit mixing vacuum and non-vacuum environments in a single level. She-Bob came up with a truly ingenious way around this in Pfh'Joueur by filling her vacuum area with a completely transparent liquid. This had the side effect of causing the player to float with the run key held down, but she cleverly got around this by claiming that your gravity boots would loose their footing if you ran. Too bad the Nardo group didn't think of this first. Faced with no known way to mix environments in Polygonium Opus, they were forced to make a choice between all vacuum or all non-vacuum. IMHO they made the wrong choice. After battling the Pfhor on the bridge of the ship and restoring control to the S'pht (engaging a switch on the bridge that is unique and easily missed), there is a rather strange request made of the player - to replace the colors of the Pfhor with the S'pht's own colors. Since when do the S'pht have their own colors? Oh, I'm sure that they did at one time, before they were conquered by the Phor - in fact I'm sure that each individual clan had it's own colors and emblems - but when did the S'pht have time after the destruction of Lh'owon to "raise their own flag" over the Sh'aptide. Not that I don't think it would have mattered to the S'pht, but I just seriously doubt that they would have done so in the very short time between gaining control of their ship and their visit to Earth's past. OK, now that I've thoroughly trashed this level, let me talk about what's right about it. The layout is very nice and enjoyable to play. The monster level is challenging without being overwhelming. To me, however, the really nice thing about Polygonium is that it is our first introduction to the new TI ship textures. Not the limited set that we already discussed in Ain't My Bitch, but a full, rich set with a great deal of attention to detail. This is one of my favorite texture sets in all of the Marathon universe, and it was nice to see them incorporated into Ben Potter's Fell as well. Most people think about the textures of TI strictly in terms of the Earth textures, but the Nardo Team did a nice job with the space textures as well, even though there was no real need to. TI is truly a groundbreaking scenario.

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Replies:

	Tempus Irae Volunteers - Polygonium Opus	Steve Levinson	11/28/03 11:35 a.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Polygonium Opus	Gholsbane	11/28/03 12:25 p.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Polygonium Opus	Keith Palmer	11/28/03 4:03 p.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Polygonium Opus	Mark Levin	11/29/03 8:44 a.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Polygonium Opus	Steve Levinson	11/29/03 7:32 p.m.

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