You are being sent by the Rebellion to rescue several prisoners captured by the Empire. They've been taken to a castle the Empire has converted for it's own purposes. The base is unfamiliar to the Rebellion, so you will have no maps. |
The idea of converting a castle to modern standards for Imperial use is not unheard of; in Timothy Zahn's novel Dark Force Rising the Empire reworked a castle on Jomark for the insane Jedi Master C'baoth. And several of the new textures made for the level are really good, and when combined with some of the old Imperial banners from Dark Forces, they make up a great medieval environment. It's not the idea that fails in this level. It's the execution of that idea. Why would anyone in their right mind fill a level (any kind of level) with dozens of Darth Vaders? And why is an Imperial prison crawling with bounty hunters? And why do doors that slide up to open have doorknobs? And why aren't the doorknobs broken off when the door slides into the slot? There are hundreds of unanswered questions about this level, not the least of which is the design. The castle is incredibly cramped in some places, requiring you to come in at just the right angle to squeeze by. That ends once you get down below, but once in the dungeon, you lose your map! I understand that the description said you would not have a map going in, but why can't the HUD create a map as it goes along, just like every other level? To make matters worse, the entire lower portion is a giant maze, consisting of right angles everywhere, and every wall covered with the same texture. There's no way to find your way around, short of making your own map, or just by blind luck. This part absolutly drove me crazy, but really only set me up for the next section.
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Strangely
enough, I found myself enjoying the level, at least at certain points.
Needing to jump to get up to the ramparts was fun, and flying through the
windows of the keep was something I wish I'd thought up. This level has
it's good points. So I can't really discard it, but I can't put it on a
pedestal either. Just set it in the middle pile, and try it if you're
curious.
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Level(s) replaced: | SECBASE |
Difficulty Settings: | No |
New BMs: | Yes |
New FMEs: | No |
New WAXs: | Yes |
New 3DOs: | No |
New VOCs: | No |
New GMDs: | No |
New LFDs: | No |
New VUEs: | No |
New Logics: | No |
Base: | New level from scratch |
Editor(s) used: | WDFUSE 1.66 |
Known Bugs: | Supposedly some clipping in large areas. But it depends on the speed of your machine. |
Download Castle (castle.zip, 224k) |