Fish Story

Description
The first file of 2009 is decidedly odd, as [b]Freak Fish[/b] brings us his [b]Fish Story[/b] single player missions!

This small little file contains two single player levels that you must load in SP, so uninstall RPG-X for a bit if you want to play this. My initial reaction to the entire thing, was, to be honest "WTF?". You begin the first level in a Starfleet corridor armed with a phaser and compression rifle facing an Imperial. Until you kill him, you can't move, so get that over and done with before spinning around to see another Imperial guard beam in and proclaim "YOU KILLED THE CAPTAIN!". He will then shoot you, and you begin your mission to... um... well, I don't know. Apparently, this mission has a purpose, but there is no information about the background of the plot, nor do the hilarious voiceovers give too much away beyond objectives. You sort of just... follow the corridors and hope you know where you are going.

There are a few hallways to pass through before you reach a large shuttlebay with a ship landed inside. Now, if you have even made it past the first few corridors worth of troops, your health will be lowish, so eliminating all the hostiles in this room (which include random Chaotica Guards) may take several attempts. Once they are gone, you can hit a button and the ship takes off into space (quite cool actually), and the voiceover gives you a new objective: "Get to the transporter room if you want to live". On cue, another dozen Imperials march from a door and you must fight through them to reach the Transporter where, for some reason, a single Borg is waiting, who has already adapted to half your weapons. All you really need to do is jump into the actual transport chamber and the next level loads, which is totally different.

The second level is shorter and set on a planet with a temple, where for the first (and only) time in the mission, you get health and weapon powerups. The voiceover tells you "Kill everyone and you win", and the enemies are, at first, around twenty Reaver-like creatures which won't stray up to the top of the temple, so its easy to pick them off, and then, another few Imperials beam in. Sadly, once this has come to an end, the map doesn't finish. You have to exit through the menu.

'Why the long walkthrough' I hear you ask? Because this mission and this file is utterly nuts, but at the same time, it is very very funny. Its a "wonderful combination of comedy, offensive language and lots of excessive gunfire", and needs to be experienced. The custom sound files and speech ("Oh no! You killed me!" is my favourite), whilst not recorded professionally by any means, adds to playing the levels, and the level design is actually rather good and logical. [b]Freak Fish[/b] has created an enjoyable, if short, little mission here, and in this era of solid RPG maps and mods, its nice to see some single player action.

I hope to see more from this mapper :D

~ Luke20 (The Tenth Doctor)


Video Review by