Mordru the Dark |
Posted on 05/25/02 @ 12:00 AM
The author of this scenario may wish to consider the fact that, if the hero of this self-proclaimed role-playing scenario is killed, the player can still be victorious.
The hint file is worthless. There is no starting picture. I got tired of waiting for the cinematic with Carlos to end, so I pressed the escape key, and I had to engage the cavalry before getting on the transport. Maybe that is the way it is supposed to work, but if so, then why did Carlos tell me to board the transport?
I let the hero die fighting the cavalry, and to my surprise, the scenario did not trigger a defeat for me. That struck me as extremely odd, but I went ahead and played, anyway.
Objectives are lacking. I took the other units I had across the water, and landed them, and walked them all over, but nothing happened. I finally stumbled across the enemy navy, and defeated it, and victory for me was trigged.
The map suffers from a complete lack of challenge, since you can win, no matter what happens to the hero, be it that he lives or dies. The map suffers from an extremely low challenge factor all the way across the map. It has a replayability factor of zero, in my considered opinion.
The terrain doesn't look too horrible, but at best, it is average. Nothing spectacular or noteworthy at all about the terrain. It is better than a number I have downloaded and seen, though, but when I factored in the overall lack of challenge, lack of fun factor, and overall poor map design, I decided to rate the map design as a 2, rather than a 3, since terrain looks was only one consideration for me in this area.
Creativity is utterly lacking. I did not notice anything at all that even remotely bordered on being creative. There is no history, no real tips, and an extremely short briefing. All in all, a recipe for a score of 1 in the category of Story/Instructions.
The map gets a rating of 1 for playability because it isn't fun, it isn't challenging, it doesn't chart new ground - all of which it could have been, but wasn't. I rate this scenario's replayability value as zero, and this cannot but impact the playability score negatively. Aside from the terrain, which honestly doesn't look all that bad (even if it isn't notable, either), the scenario has a "rushed" feel to it, as if it was released prematurely before its time.
The author's claims of the scenario having "lots of triggers, dialogues, and cinematics" is, at best, an overstated claim. However many of these things the scenario actually has, the cinematics are somewhat crudely done, and I encountered very little in the way of trigger activity during the course of playing this scenario.
All things considered, this scenario fails in a big way to really accomplish anything at all, and my recommendation is for others to skip downloading it, and download some of the more deserving scenarios here on Empire Earth Heaven, instead. |