I didn't have problems with those 3 Skaarj Lords at the beginning of map 2 - they fought each other. I didn't have allies with me obviously, so that could be a reason. But looking at the empty pool, the real battle would have been a real piece of cake.
salsaSkaarj wrote:BUT!!! By that time (as I have written before) I was thinking, either this is major gameplay design flaw or my approach to the battles is flawed.
I PMed Jazz about this - showing how I could either avoid battles altogether, or at least take advantage of the surroundings so that I it's no more a question of having luck. And jazz confirmed my impression that the battles are NOT set up in a way that you can rely on firepower alone.
The fact that in the beginning the DP and enforcer (with limited ammo) are your only weapons, also should make it clear that there is no way you are going to last the whole campaign if you cannot think of a way to either avoid a fight, exploit the environment so that you can get a relatively easy kill (either by hit and run technique, or by manoeuvring around to where you can easily escape a closing enemy, or even getting to a location where the enemy can't reach you).
In every pack you do use environments at your advantage. Actually, that's how you should play Unreal all the time; it happens with the original Unreal, it happens with Zephon, it happens with ASMD-Ortican, it happens even with Botreality and more. Nothing new here. All I did in Xenome was just backtracking or running around a crane while shooting a Skaarj with the DP (it's cool with a higher speed). Oh and regarding weapons, I almost used the DP permanently. The
Enforcer-sucks-compared-to-the-Automag and the
low tier BioRifle were totally ignored,
Ripper-is-not-useful-as-the-Razorjack and
Pulse-Gun-which-shoots-stuff-confusingly-all-over-the-place were rarely used. Rocket Launcher instead did its job against groups of enemies, but 95% of the enemies fell due to the DP. At this point I didn't care anymore about its unlimited feature, but it shows how unfairly powerful is the weapon. I was fully prepared for this so I didn't have problems throughout the whole pack.
Yes, "Trial and Error" for the first fight (s) but after that it should be clear that there is another way. One thing which already helps the player is that most enemies can be heard (or read about in the messages) so ample warning is given. I really hate is when and enemy just pops up for no reason and takes away half you health and armor before you can react. As Mman mentioned in his review, sometimes he relied on exploiting the AI - great, but isn't that what you do with every enemy - fighting technique changes with enemy encountered.
I didn't bother to read the messages. At a certain point, and really early in the game, I understood that anything (and I mean,
anything) you would do story-wise or progress-wise throughout the maps will make Skaarj appear. Almost 40-something ambushes, made by Skaarj Lords or Skaarj Gunners or Skaarj Infantries, they work and end in the same exact way. There's a door here okay; there's a large corridor here okay. The gameplay awe shout it in your face basically.
And that is, until the end of the game. Seemed nice at first, but then the variety vanished and I was really annoyed to death. I can't define anymore the gameplay awe being good: it's sub-par and poor. Even more repetitive than ONP's one ever was, which I also despise.
I recall sections where enemies did pop up out of the blue or just in less than a second, usually impossible to expect. Mah, totally unconvincing. Cutscenes weren't really necessary; i.e. why I have to wait three Skaarj Lords that exit from their ship, instead of attacking them? And I can't go around because the next area is filled with Skaarj Gunners that are able to hit you always. Some of the Gunners were badly placed and extremely hard to see in general. Thanks god there weren't Snipers.
Another flaw, as stupid as it is... why can't I walk over those small firewalls? Are they that hot? In recent games, like Fallout 3, stuff like this is harmless.
Overall, I didn't feel any kind of progression during the pack - it was all the same with no real build-up. The jumping sections didn't help, and the layout wasn't that clear on where you have to go.
Solely regarding gameplay, Xenome has giving me more pleasure than most other packs because there were really few sections where I had to rely on saving after a succesfull kill (or even partial hits). If I compare this with Vigil - I can't really because it takes quite a few attempts before one gets the hang of fighting KrallKings or IceBehemoths or IceLords or OverLords - those are really Trial and Error. But even so, having cleared out the lower and upper level in Vigil (on Unreal), it was done because of knowing what to expect and how to use the walls so that the fireballs can be avoided.
I do this everywhere, mostly during the first few playthroughs of hard stuff like Ortican or Seven Bots.
Before I get lots of criticism on my (positive) prejudice concerning Xenome: I have started Xidia (on Medium) and I can see no resemblance in gameplay - which does not at all imply that the gameplay is flawed - I'm just not good enough to beat Xidia on Unreal.
So in conclusion - I can understand your dislike of the gameplay (although you can't really have an opinion on how he used the allies) and now at least we have UB's opinion on where Xenome fits concerning difficulty compared to other maps ( I would classify it in a slightly easier section).
Team of Skaarj thrown at you reminds me of Xidia. There's nothing special to know about the ONP-coded allies - one reason I like Unreal is that I don't have annoying or flat-out weak AIs around, no exceptions. You're the lone one, and you're the only one to prevail.
This isn't anyway a Xenome thread, so I won't respond to other replies about it. I'll make more detailed comments on it during its future MOTWs. Well look, another rare USP review which I don't agree upon.