So... last week-end I travelled and was able to access my gaming PC and boot
Unreal for what was meant to be a mapping session but then I realised I wasn't going to have enough time due to other planned activities and in light of this, I instead decided to finally play
Star Shoal Chronicles: Episode Infinity (advertised as being a relatively short experience).
I'm not going to beat about the bush: I loved this!
- Specifics - WARNING -
SPOILERSThe good (lots of that!):
-
firetrucks owns - one day I'll use this toolkit (yeah there's other stuff to get done first but that's OK, after all I have to get more proficient with the base editor first, but I have one great story to tell in
Unreal one day and firetrucks.u will allow me to realise my vision)
- good introduction, the ship's atmosphere is lovely (that silly custom music turned out to be ideal!), the interface was intuitive enough (the starting room also provides clues as to what to do), and along with that the narrative is carried out effectively - by the way, you like having a Brute toy around don't you?
(thinking of The Oll Stone Prologue: The Ibyn Complex)-
trashbag is awesome
- nice humour
- the second part of the adventure is guaranteed to make everyone happy - there's more humour, there's more storytelling, there's
actual adventure with some exploration and action in the mix, and the build is occasionally brilliant! and to quote Turboman (who commented on OldUnreal): "
this map has to have the most creative use of unreal assets ever"
- I lol'd at one point, but also, in another instance I got a fright - that means I really got into it and the, say,
escapist entertainment-quality of the level really works!
- the design in general is excellent
- those alternate pawns are so cool
(I know this comes from Qtit)- awesome candles
- the statue for the brave volunteer is neat
- very good scripts, didn't see any wonky stuff...
The bad (nitpicking, to be honest):
- well, OK, I did wonder why the Giant Gasbag remained so still until I decided to attack it - didn't stop the encounter from being cool though, as I almost died during the fight - while shooting I was jumping around avoiding spawns and projectiles and unfortunately got a rare punch from the boss that sent me flying across the arena (literally!)
- the first part on the Star Shoal is frustrating to an extent: the alarm goes off after a fixed amount of time, and let me tell you that the first time round I barely managed to enjoy the observation deck in addition to the bridge before the alarm went off! I played through the whole level a second time just to be able to do the rest of the ship without the alarm ringing in my ears
* (and in order to find and cook and
eat that steak! I didn't screw up the cooking by the way)
- that waterfall, in the old temple: really nice visually, but... what about the sound it makes? it's really too weak given the setup
The ugly:
- shame about the "broken geller device"!
- spell checks man...
So there you go! Great stuff all around, I wish there'd be a whole campaign like this! The level may be quite short, but I still spent about an hour playing through this the first time round (in order to savour it), and another half hour during my second playthrough.
ebd had a clear vision for this episode and more to the point, he's a gifted developer for this old game.
Star Shoal Chronicles: Episode Infinity is really fun and refreshing - hopefully (and there's reason to be hopeful) there will be another episode
* Nah I just played the level again because I loved it!EDIT:
- I liked the ending too, it definitely comes as a (nasty) surprise!
- the last cinematic shows the Star Shoal in all its glory - regardless of its reputation, it looks fantastic!