D-Legion Monolith

Description
Oh, dude, you were so gaining street cred until I found those pre-spawned NPCs. Spawn buttons aren't overrated. Really, they're not! :(

Okay. Warhammer 40,000. Nazis, clichéd sci-fantasy villains, and everyone's an evil, corrupt bastard. Anyone with any moral fiber would be sickened by the attitudes portrayed by WH40K, [i]especially[/i] the Space Marines, who along with the rest of the Imperium are the aforementioned Nazis - and yet they're the most popular. Man, there's a scary thought.

The Necrons are essentially the zombies of WH40K. Big... metal... zombies. Yeah. Now that I've broken the minds of half our audience (I knew there was a reason I liked WH40K despite it's representations of the worst humanity has to offer :p ), I'll point out the 'Monolith' part of things - the Monolith is a Necron fortress, which serves as a headquarters and... fortress.

Upon entering the map, you'll start in a misty alcove. You'll notice that individual elements are overall rather primitive, but they tie together elaborately and when looking at the bigger picture, "primitive" is going to be the last thing on your mind. First, cross that finely-constructed wooden bridge, then turn 180 degrees and look up. Yeah. If only that were to scale, y'all would be too busy drooling to spam the comments for a week.

First thing's first, get up that mountain trail and above the fogbank. Wait, wha- you're asking [i]why[/i]? C'mon, haven't you ever read the Stephen King short story, 'The Mist'? No? Okay, well here's another great reason to get up that trail: [b]MOVE IT OR I'LL CUT YOU OPEN![/b] Ahh, that always works. As you get up to the top, you'll see another nicely-done wooden bridge leading into the Monolith, and a side path to a landing pad. Shuttle, some guns and supplies, and a turret. Load up then head across the bridge. Now, personally, I think someone's been watching too much [i]Doctor Who[/i], because the Monolith is bigger on the inside. Open the gate, you'll figure out how, and proceed through the trans-dimensional rift in space and time to enter the Monolith. (Okay, so I didn't want to say "magic door". Sue me.)

[b]Area 1: Or should that be Area [i]51[/i]?[/b]
You'll be spewed out teetering on the precipice of a doom pit. If you fall in, then stop with the drunk gaming, it's embarassing. You see those faces carved out in the rock walls? Oooh. How very Necron. Both WH40K and the last boss of FFIX. Aside from fighting over the name, those guys would get along. This is all very cyberpunk to the tune sang by Quake III Revolution, but hey. Points of interest on the first floor, aside from the marvellous blending of several themes, would be the statues. The job done on texturing is essentially flawless, the whole area's construction is nothing less than appealing, the lighting can be a bit psychedelic at times though.

Second floor, we've got the throne room. If you haven't realised by now, it should be fairly obvious that this Monolith has undergone some customization. The Lord and Master's throne and control panel, as well as control systems for his left-hand and right-hand men, plenty of 40k/Star Wars themed portraits and statues, as well as a few Q3 homages. If I had to guess, I'd say that book contained the tenets of the Na- er, [i]Space Marines[/i], sorry. The construction is as solid as the lower floor, even if the visual theme doesn't work so well. There's a third floor above contains a few more portals, and a couple of impressive classical style textures.

Overall the area is flawed like the lower floor, but the construction is fairly solid if not the most attractive. The skylight is probably the highlight of the room, so be sure to look up.

Let's check the portals next.

[b]Portal 1: Barren Lands[/b]
To reach this area, return to the first floor entrance. Head to the back-left corner. The portal is surrounded by two green illuminated walls, and is a dark shot of a rocky landscape with green crystals.

This area carries off the shattered world theme brilliantly. The mostly-buried statue will attract your notice no doubt. Nice touch. Terrain isn't this engine's strongest point, but it's been pushed pretty far here and doesn't suffer too much because of it. From the top of the head you can see two green crystals - the one on the right will warp you to this area's secondary entrance in the pit room - the one beside the Unnamed Havok statue. The one on the left dumps you near the Dan statue, where you came in. Ahead you notice a red toothy structure - still not sure what they're called - but I'm fairly sure structures of this nature are of Chaos origin, not Necron. If I may direct your attention ninety degrees clockwise, you'll see another warp crystal in an archway. Let's hop over there, not an easy task.

[b]Portal 2: The Tank[/b]
Yes, tank. As in, a Space Marines Land Raider tank. Fully stocked with armory, engine rooms, crew room, medbay, and control room. And turrets. Not much to say except it's as accurate to the real deal as it's going to get without a crapload of concept art which isn't available to the public.

Coming from the crystal warp point, you'll be thrust into a sniper nest way above the tank. It's pretty dark this far up, even with the brightness cranked up, so watch your footing. This area is mostly just rock walls overlooking the tank, so it's relatively pointless.

There's a doorway embedded in a ledge above the tank, leading back to the portal room. This also reveals the portal to the tank's location from said main area: second floor, just east of the throne. Which brings us to our next portal, on the other side of the wall immediately to your left after returning from the tank room.

[b]Portal 3: Lara Croft Would Have A Field Day[/b]
Yes, this is the kind of room you'd expect to find the new, 'badass' Lara Croft hanging around in. Come to think of it, wasn't there a museum level in the [i]TR: Angel of Darkness[/i] demo that had a similar theme to this room (minus the glass floor and Vjun skybox)?

This is basically a one-room personal gallery. A few photos, couple of game screenshots and some illustrations. The room is well-constructed and I do like the understated museum theme with a touch of futuristic trans-dimensional styling, though I'm not sure the choice of decorations does it any favours. The next portal is straight ahead from this one upon returning, so let's go there next.

[b]Portal 4: Looks Just Like Relic Entertainment's Offices![/b]
After the critical reception Soulstorm got - don't see why, it wasn't that bad, albeit a little underwhelming - many Dawn of War fans will appreciate that reference.

There's a hellish theme on one side, the Yavin skybox on the other. Major clash there. Lava wall, skewered corpses, skeletal conference table, a mirror, two gargoyles and some Space Marines concept art. One thing I'll never get is the Space Marine hero worship. Funny thing is a lot of Warhammer fans claim to have a distinct anti-Nazi stance if you were to ask them, but the Space Marines have and promote ideals which make the Nazis seem like fluffy puppies - okay, sure, they're fictional, but still, said ideals are rather disgusting nevertheless. Ah, I digress. Not the time nor the place.

This room is fairly standard, you can get what you need from the screenshots.

As with the tank room, the next portal is directly to the left after exiting, right on the other side of the wall.

[b]Portal 5: Well, ONE Of You Is Spartacus![/b]
Old-fashioned colosseum, eh? You can use this as a duel arena or an NPC training room - which again is a redundant concept, but to each their own - however if you plan on using it as the former, I'd either force other players into spectator mode, or remove the NPC files from the server. There's a lot of spawn buttons up there. It's a basic room, so not much for me to rattle on about.

Upon exiting this room, turn ninety degrees counter-clockwise. See that Space Marine painting? That's where we want to be.

[b]Portal 6: Facing Worlds?[/b]
You'll be thrown off on the side of a large pyramind. Climb to the top, you'll see another one at the opposite end - accessed through the portal opposite the one you just entered.

Each pyramid works as a duel arena, I suppose they'd work as teleport points for a team FFA match too. Construction is basic enough, but for something like this you hardly need unparalleled complexity.

For anyone not getting the title reference, play more [i]Unreal Tournament[/i]. Namely the first one, and the CTF-Face map. The thematic likeness is most uncanny.

[b]Portal 7: Mario Kart Takes To The Skies[/b]
The next portal is right above the last portal you entered. It'll drop you on top of the Monolith in the first area, where you can spawn and fly Mini TIEs. I've already said my piece on this area, so on we go!

Note the Scepter of Ragnos cased beside the portal?

[b]Portal 8: More [i]Portal[/i]s Than Source Engine![/b]
The next portal is - yep, you guessed it - in the same place as #7, only at the other end of the room. It's a boxing ring and gym. Be careful of the Shadowtrooper if you didn't run a killall when the map loaded. Yeah, annoying, ain't it?

Exiting back to the main chamber, that archway just ahead holds another portal, this one showing a lush, grassy area.

[b]Portal 9: In The Garden Of Eden, Honey....[/b]
Yeah, it's a garden. You've got some grassy areas, bit of a hill, a waterfall, a lake and a veranda. The veranda contains a wardrobe, a Dawn Of War victory screenshot, another piece of Space Marine concept art and a Tavion spawn button.

One more portal, and it's opposite the garden.

[b]Portal 10: [i]Halo[/i] Should Sue Your Ass Off[/b]
So, let's see what- wait. Long bridge over a large abyss. Holographic projection of a planet dead ahead. Now either I'm getting deja vu, buddy, or I had bad shrimp for lunch. And I didn't have shrimp for lunch.

So yes, that bit is very reminiscent of [i]Halo[/i], and probably half a dozen other sci-fis. I suppose the conference room either belongs to Dr Evil or Matt Damon, one of the two. Having the statue actually [i]holding[/i] the conference room was a nice touch indeed. The statues on either side of the bridge, the gargoyles over the two visible portals, and the giant statue add a brilliantly sinister effect to this room. The iD Tech 3 engine may not handle these types of environments as good as other engines, but damn if you can't pull it off anyway.

The portals at the back take you to a five-story base inside the tower. Reception lounge, library, veranda room, conference room, and roof. Slight bug on the roof, in that the back of the statue is untextured.

[b]Area 11 - The Awesome that Kouen Forgot{Skull Castle Edit by Averus}[/b]

As a gesture of good will, Averus is making an addendum to this review at the author's request in a previous sector. There was an excellently crafted section that I can see why the author was so eager to have it known to the public. As reference, I posted a new screenshot below featuring this castle's gate. Suffice to say, it's the most awesome gate I've seen in a while now. A giant skull opens its gaping maw, sticking its tongue out as a bridge for you to cross =_,= Oh man that rules. I'm so adding that to the tower...

Now then, once inside, there's quite a bit to see. On your left is a small roman shrine with a statue of what I presume to be Zeus, lit by two....unshaded light sources? The two light sources here weren't functioning too well, and I noticed a couple other bugs: Sounds did not play UNLESS your saber was on whilst in this shrine's presence, and I do mean just your saber. Another odd bug was that the statue disappeared when you jumped high enough o_O.

Across from the shrine is a small garden with a crystal in it. It's nice looking, save for the obnoxiously repeating bird noise. I'd at least switch it up, eh?

The spires of the castle contained a couple interesting areas, IE a conference room, a den of sorts, among other routes to the outside of the castle, where atop is an awesome circular shrine of sorts. A bug I noted: the balcony of the spire facing the garden/throne room has some mal-fitted brushes, leaving a nice visible hole.

And now, we make our approach to the throne. Whilst it looks basically like the other thrones in the area, it's still pretty awesome to behold, especially on the way. The vaulted ceiling is most impressive to behold, and I definitely liked the use of flying buttresses outside the castle. Going behind the throne, one can force push the glass and open it to reveal a nice observation area. Moving back inside...hey' whassadhis? A tunnel? Indeed, and guess where it leads to? If you guessed vaulted interior with a rancor in it, then you win. A shame this place doesn't allow sound, as even the rancor can't angrily eat you...It'd be a quiet dinner v_v there's also a tunnel breaking off to your right as you enter that leads to another observation area.

That should at the very least hit the bigger chunks of the map for now. There are still some demonic surprises in store, but for now, back to ye, Kouen =_=
[b]{/addendum}[/b]

Well that's possibly the longest review the site has ever seen, and I suspect I may have left a few stones unturned but enough is enough - two hours is a ridiculous review period. This may easily be the largest and most epic map we've had, and while it's not perfect - and the personalisations will hurt it's appeal to the general populace - you won't run out of ideas, especially not if you're into roleplaying.

One important bug you should be informed of - bots are not compatible with this map. Also, I wouldn't advise spawning anything either. Keep it strictly for humans, unless you want instantaneous server crash. Obviously there's the issue of pre-spawned NPCs, but whatever. People are going to keep using them despite the inherent flaws in the system, I guess everyone will just have to deal with it.

The construction as a whole is brilliantly handled, there's a few errors and one or two minor performance downgrades but nothing that will hurt too much. Not a bad end result and no doubt a lot of work went into this. There is room for improvement, though, as well as maybe redoing certain details to make the map more suitable for public use.

~ Kouen

[b]Bot Routing:[/b] No
[b]Custom Meshes:[/b] Yes
[b]Custom Textures:[/b] Yes
[b]Custom Audio:[/b] Yes

[b]Review Statistics[/b]
[b]Characters:[/b] 11904
[b]Time Taken:[/b] 117 Minutes