: They just felt like M2 levelpacks to me, and hard ones at that. Phoenix is
: the better of the two, I agree, and the biggest pro I'd give it is it has
: music. There is one level I liked a lot that was underground with some
: non-lh'owon texture metal structures over a deep pit, but at the same time
: it was perplexing to figure out and I was on it forever.
You're probably thinking of Escape Two Thousand. Yeah, that one was pretty rough. Curse those Enforcers! Still, I liked the action on a lot of other levels.
: Mostly it just doesn't really explore anything new. It's centered on some
: rogue s'pht'kr clan hiding out somewhere. Umm, okay? The other big
: scenarios had time travel, the pfhor homeworld, other alien species, pfhor
: elders, renaissance italy, non-marathon-universe storylines, etc. Lots of
: new territory. Having s'pht'kr as enemies, and a giant boss s'pht'kr, is
: really, really hard in an unfun way.
Granted, the story wasn't spectacular, but at least it was well-executed and felt very natural. I also thought the rogue S'pht'Kr were kind of fun - they added a whole new dimension to the combat that we never really had before. The only instance where they were really not fun was the final room of the last level - that room just sucks. Otherwise, they make for very interesting enemies.
Vale,
Perseus