Forgive me, Mark for tackling these two levels together, but Big Man with a Gun doesn't leave much to discuss, even though it is a full level of play. If you'd like to skip a day to catch up, that would be fine with me - we can make our next post on Christmas ;^)
Big Man with a Gun is a very strange level. It's based on a level from Quake - why anyone would want to emulate a level from an inferior game using the Marathon engine is beyond me, but the level is none-the-less fun to play. The environment is very surreal - I assumed that this is a dream level with the exception of one thing - you pick up the 11th manuscript here. How could you find the manuscript in your dreams and carry it with you when you're awake ? In any case, the level deviates from traditional Marathon play in many respects. The physics are drastically altered. You cannot swim. Ticks fire mud. Your AR fires cyborg grenades. Your shotgun fires multiple repeated shots. All of these things are designed to simulate the original Quake level. And on top of this, there is a design in a part of the level that is reminiscent of an Escher drawing. But at the end you pick up that manuscript, guarded by two gray S'pht firing guided bolts. And there are 3 stories of madness - actual events from 19th and 20th century earth. Very strange indeed. There may be an explanation of all of this on the next level.
I Do Not Want This is also a port - in this case of a net map from Arx Immanis. This is also a surreal environment - could this, too, be a dream, or are we in an altered state of reality? In any case, this is one of my favorite levels with much to explore, lots of eye candy and a lot of good fighting. This level also has the only working shield recharger in an earth level - as per the author - to get the player to keep coming back to the castle rooftop so that they will know how to get there when the time comes. The real point of the level, however, is contained in the terminals in which Leonardo recounts his encounters with S'bhuth. From these terminals we learn of the W'rkncacnter and the madness they bring. We learn that they came to earth and that some of them are buried deep beneath the surface (ala PiD?). We also learn that they have had encounters with humankind and that these encounters often lead to madness. S'bhuth calls them the "Old Ones", but their identity is of little doubt. There are a couple of interesting side tales - one involving a "fold in space" created by S'bhuth near the lighthouse we visited in SatG to contain some of the madness S'bhuth has encountered, and another involving a madman from Verona that Leonardo encountered. Could Big Man with a Gun have been the result of that fold in space, and does that explain the altered physics and the stories of madness contained therein? This is my best guess. The second tale is interesting, not because of Leonardo's story, but because of S'bhuth's reaction to it. S'bhuth apparently deduced that this was the work of the W'rkncacnter and that they were doing their work through a group of priests. After S'bhuth destroyed the church where the priests practiced, prosperity returned to the region. A bit convenient to blame adverse events on the W'rkncacnter? Perhaps, but no more so than blaming evil on the devil. But theology is beyond the scope of our discussion.
At the end, Leonardo tells us to place the 11th manuscript in a bookshelf. But not before we try to read it. Did it's contents drive us mad, or was it just too much for even our Jjaro implants to comprehend? In any case, we are unable to interpret it at this point and head off to La Fine di Innocenze.
