Prime Front

Description
Today RED51 brings us his new total conversion mod, [i]Prime Front[/i]. Just reading through the content (and the planned content) kind've gives me a sense of vertigo - there's a [b]LOT[/b] of stuff he wants to do. The good news is that he seems to be well on his way to getting most if not all of it done with his 0.5 beta version of Prime Front.

The premise behind Prime Front is a strange one, one I'm not sure I've even quite figured out. It obviously incorporates a large amount of material from its eponymous source, the Metroid (Prime) series. There also seems to be some Star Wars content interwoven (as well as some from Warhammer 40000) - your guess is as good as mine as to what's going on here. Not to say it's anything bad - I've never played [i]any[/i] of the Metroid series (yes, that's right) nor have I played any Warhammer 40k, so I couldn't honestly tell a lick of difference (were it not for some prior research).

What's most interesting is the sheer amount of content. Even in its early beta stage, there are two complete factions (with 6 heroes total) and three additional maps. Planned is easily more than triple that content, which to me seems almost incredible. But what can I say? The proof is there that at the very least a lot of work has already been put in, so I have no reason to doubt more work coming in the future.

The sides, which are featured on every stock map (and this is a lot of work by itself, guys) as well as the three new maps, represent the Galactic Federation and the Tau Rebel Alliance. As mentioned before, I don't have any background with these, so looking at it objectively - the sides are pretty balanced. They feel really similar to the stock sides, and nothing's too out-of-control (although the gameplay is pretty grenade-heavy). It's worth mentioning that a lot of work has been put in to making new textures for these units; I particularly like the common texture the "Tau" side shares. Likewise, there's been a lot of work done in localization and weapons work to make the sides feel different.

The new maps are nice, and above and beyond what you usually see in a sides mod. They're not the best maps, but they're nice and they do feel different - which is already a step past a lot of maps. My favorite was the cliffside map (which is a really neat concept), although it could use a little work on the actual cliffs (sheer terrain walls don't look so hot).

It's really tough to tell what exactly I should say about this, in the end. On the one hand, there is the part of me that sees just [i]all[/i] the [i]stuff[/i] and is flat-out impressed by the volume. On the other hand, there is the part of me that sees things like the units feeling very similar and wishing that a little more variety was present (although often these things take time to appreciate, so I could be wrong here). I guess all I can really say is to try it out yourself - I can definitely agree (with myself ;) ) that there's been a lot of work put in here, and at the very least that deserves some recognition and some time spent trying it out.

Make sure you read the installation instructions, since this is a BETA and doesn't have an autoinstaller yet.

-Mav