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	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Big Man/Don't Want Th
	Posted By: Mark Levin	Date: 12/23/03 7:52 a.m.
	In Response To: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Big Man/Don't Want This (Steve Levinson) : 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. The placement of a Quake level here is quite appropriate, as both Quake's plot [insert snide remarks here] and TI2's borrow heavily from the Cthulhu mythos. For the most part, the conversion should be recognizable to anyone who remembers the level, which is quite an impressive feat considering how much more Quake can do graphically than Marathon can. Most of the unique features of the level are present, although I wish the physics changes hadn't been so extreme. It would still be fun if we were simply playing Marathon in a Quake level, and the level would be recognizable on the architecture alone. The battle on the final elevator is something that Marathon has been historically bad at and really shouldn't be forced to do, even with the physics tweaks. : 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? I don't think this level is surreal; it's a realistic if unlikely castle. The mapmaking, by Randy Reddig, who also worked on Infinity, is superb, as most of the level is interconnected and it feels like a single huge space despite the engine's limitations. The solo conversion consists mostly of adding a ton of rear admirals; while climbing the path to the castle you are constantly being attacked from both sides, or from 3 sides if one of the Juggernauts has woken up. Getting around in the castle involves finding several well-hidden switches. The first is the front door switch, accessible by going to the right of the front door and shooting through the window. The second is the "look up" switch; I don't know if I would have found it by myself as I had already read complaints about this level on AGM by the time I played it. You also have to backtrack all the way to the beginning of the level; fortunately, this is a pretty painless process as the level is designed to funnel anyone who falls out of the castle back to the start anyway. Network levels are supposed to emphasize flow and ease of movement more than solo levels. Finally, there's a rather well-hidden switch on top of the castle that opens the room in the basement containing the key. In the separate library complex, you read the end of the story of the evil church and place the last manuscript. The idea that the "otherness" of an alien species causes terror and insanity in humans is another idea taken wholesale from Lovecraft, and it's not entirely consistent with the rest of the Marathon universe. Any fear of the unknown in the original games or other scenarios is more based on the high likelihood of things that can jump out and kill you than anything less tangible, and no one seems to have any trouble communicating with anyone else. : 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. I take the "streaming translation: massive failure" at face value: Whatever's in the book cannot be interpreted by the translation software in our battlesuit and we haven't seen any of it. It's probably a good thing, as reading eldritch books can also drive you insane according to Lovecraft :P

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Replies:

	Tempus Irae Volunteers - Big Man/Don't Want This	Steve Levinson	12/23/03 4:56 a.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Big Man/Don't Want Th	Mark Levin	12/23/03 7:52 a.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers - Big Man/Don't Want Th	Keith Palmer	12/23/03 3:00 p.m.

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