12/12/2016 - "Watches of the Night" by Hellscrag

[Jigoku]

Map Title: Watches of the Night
Author: Mike "Hellscrag" Wilberforce
From: Tashara's Cove
Filename: Tashara3.unr
Music Files: Sacred.umx




Video Playthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDw3xSR8e9k

Synopsis: A tiny Nali village penetrated by the Skaarj.

Discuss!

[Semfry]

A nice climax map for the set; it's not especially intense or anything for being the "badlands", but it comes together in the context of the set essentially being one map split into three for technical reasons, and the progress of time and the village changes are done well.

[Nalisavior]

By hellscrag not screg, I enjoyed playing this map, The spaceship at the end was a nice touch.

[Jigoku]

I'm surprised no one fixed my mistake. Fixed.

[Sat42]

It's a good map but I can't give it more praise than that:
- the village is really nice but you essentially already know it at this point
- the action is pedestrian with only the last fight being actually dangerous on a first playthrough (overall the difficulty is average, not ideal for a finale especially as the previous map in this set is actually harder)
- the build is standard fare, again only the village stands out (it's really the centerpiece of Tashara's Cove, fittingly I have to say)
- the appearance of the Titan is dumb, that did hurt my immersion
- it does wrap things up in a more conclusive way than a lot of small mappacks, I admit, which is definitely a plus

IMHO, Hellscrag's early contributions to Unreal (I'm also thinking of The Landing here) are interesting but oddly restrained in a way. No major issues, but rarely great. Very true to the spirit of the mothergame in any case. He definitely embraced that relatively novel approach to FPS flow compared to his first mapping experiences with... Quake