RPG Base attack

Description
Every sage has a story to tell, for there are many untold tales floating in the rivers of time. One such tale follows the New Republic General lolwookiee in the final assault against the Dark Lord of the Morons, Desann.

[i]lolwookiee turned to the marines under his command, and with a growl, encouragingly assured his men that the hour of victory was at hand! As the Republic Gunship [i]Camaro[/i] inserted them into a canyon, they were beset by turrets. What were they to do?

While lolwookiee bravely deflected the blaster bolts with his dual-bladed lightsaber, the marines bravely charged forward under the cover of their commanding officer. Upon bypassing the turrets, they approached the secured gate of Desann's fortress. "I know how to... [i]handle[/i] these things!" lolwookiee roared triumphantly, as he sliced the gate console. Moments later the marines fearlessly rushed in, and swarmed Desann's guard, who were cut down in moments.

Slicing the inner doors while under the cover of his marines, lolwookiee slowly progressed to the power generator, which he then shut down with a mighty roar. Meanwhile, up in the control room, Desann said "Well, that's lucky. It's the middle of summer and we can't afford the heating bill!". Backtracking through the base, lolwookiee cut down more hapless moro- er, [i]guards[/i], and taking the elevator, proceeded to beat down Desann's elite guard.

Confronting the Dark Lord, lolwookiee ignited his saber, and goaded the overgrown stuffed lizard. Desann, in response, growled "icanhazcheezeberger?" before igniting his lightsaber and rushing our wookiee hero. Blades clashed, Force powers were used, and as the battle raged in the control room the fighting minions below suddenly stopped to gaze, as each warrior became more and more fatigued.

Sensing the upper hand, lolwookiee unleashed a flurry of katas and sweeps against Barney's adoptive son, before Desann could withstand no more. Having finally subdued the Dark Lord, lolwookiee fell to his knees, gasping for breath, relieved that the battle was over. Silently, he uttered a prayer to his gods, who had given him the strength to emerge triumphant.... "Oh, [url="http://www.scubb.com/images/products/PS2%20action%20replay%20max%20evolution_box.jpg"]sweet merciful Datel[/url], I thank thee for guiding my hand through these trials and tribulations!".

The End[/i]

I've seen many attempts at converting an Assault gametype (in the style of UT2004) across to iD Tech 3 games. Raven Software's attempt at a Siege mode, Splash Damage's free game [i]Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory[/i], and countless maps that have tried similar play styles. I can honestly say this one probably comes closer than any of them, for the reason that the map isn't static.

By far the most impressive element, for me, was the ship you'll probably spawn in. The whole thing moves, and I use the term "whole" as in the context of "the entire thing moves together". This is the first time I've seen a mapper seamlessly combine movement of seperate structural elements, usually there'll be discrepancies which can be noticed by looking closely. None here, not noticeable ones, anyway.

Other high points would be the base layout, it's fitting for a military base, and despite simple architecture (due to the high brush count, no doubt) it looks the part exceedingly well. The surrounding terrain is up to par, although the turrets are annoying. There's plenty of space on that canyon approach for an AT-TE, if you catch my drift.

My only real complaint with the mission itself is that it's linear. Your objectives consist primarly of running to the next console and holding Use to slice it, and you have to restart if your crosshair moves so much as a pixel, which is a bummer ('specially on the first two consoles). I feel a little variety in objectives would have been good - although at least the player interacts with these objectives, which is more than can be said for UT2004, which consisted of either standing in a target area or blowing something up.

On the technical side, there are a hella lot of NPCs running around, and eventually you'll run out of ghoul2 transform space. This is inevitable. Short of editing the .bsp in Notepad and hauling out all the entity spawners (if that's even remotely possible), there's no way to prevent the respawning of NPCs aside from the mission objectives which shut off some of the spawners.

Still, an interesting take on the mapping scene, and worth checking out if you want to look at something different. However, you won't get much "standard" gameplay out of it due to the mission elements interfering. A version without all the turrets, objectives and NPC spawners for just messing around, Lugormod/Makermod, or making your own gameplay in SP with /npc spawn, would be a nice follow-up release.

~ Kouen