Operation Dark Sith

Author(s): Colin Pear

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Well, I don't think I need to go into all the various plot problems this thing has. It violates so many given storylines from the movies and the novels that it would take too long to list them. You can figure them out anyway. But even without the gaping holes in the plot, this level would still fall flat on it's face. The rooms of this level are all squarish, with maybe one or two with a couple angled sides. But none of the rooms serves any valid purpose in being there. The whole architecture for the level is built upon the idea of just getting things into the level for the sake of them being there. Here we have water, here we have the 3DOs, here is the ventilation duct to crawl through, and here is the large room for the final confrontation. Almost all of the rooms have the same high ceiling open feel to them, which in this setting does nothing more than mean to me that the author was trying to make the place seem bigger than it is. The entire level really shouldn't take any more than 5-10 minutes. One of the biggest problems with not bothering to think about where things are going is that quite often it causes more problems than it might make up for in 'coolness'. For instance in here the author has trapped two large AT-ATs in a room with only a small door and a ventilation duct as access. Unless they plan on blowing out a wall or taking off the celing, the only way those things are getting out is in pieces. So why would they be there fully assembled? Because the author didn't think before he clicked his mouse, and didn't think again to take them out or fix it. The C'baoth WAX is cool and works well with the logic, but the rest of the mission doesn't stand at the same level. The confrontation with C'baoth was about the only thing that could have saved the level(I will ignore the fact that he doesn't come along until Heir to the Empire and certainly shouldn't die before then!), but that was ultimately dissappointing too. The WAX is nice, I must admit, and does a good job fitting with the Phase 3 DT logic. But the author went and used the same VOC for C'baoth that we heard for Mohc. This bugged me since it wouldn't have been too tough to record a new VOC with perhaps a variation on the dialogue. This would have furthered the story a bit, and made the final battle a little more interesting. But without it, and lacking even the interesting setting that we had on the Arc Hammer or other levels with a Phase 3, the last battle is only interesting for the WAX. I really don't even need to delve more into the level, but I'll hit a few more points. Texture placement is terrible, with stitching problems in all places and not fitting correctly in others, and I still can't quite figure out why the author chose some of the textures the way he did. Grates don't make for particularly good doors, espsecially when you can't see through and the doors line up with the walls anyway. And the VOC of the AT-ATs stomping was probably meant to go with the 3DOs, but that fails anyway since the sound is of the AT-ATs marching overhead and the 3DOs don't move anyway.

The WAX is the only reason you might take a look at this level. Nothing else is worth the effort, nor the download time, and even the WAX could be better. If you want I can pull it out and set it up on the download page so you won't have to suffer through this horrid level.

Level(s) replaced:	SECBASE
Difficulty Settings:	No

New BMs:	Yes
New FMEs:	No
New WAXs:	Yes
New 3DOs:	Yes
New VOCs:	Yes
New GMDs:	No
New LFDs:	No
New VUEs:	No

Base:	New level from scratch
Editor(s) used:	Dark Forge 1.1, DFINFEDIT 1.0.1
Known Bugs:	In a couple rooms the textures for the floor and ceiling are scraped up really bad.
Download Operation Dark Sith (sith.zip, 142k)

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To offer comments and suggestions please email Matt H.
These pages originally created and maintained by Geoffrey Elliott, c. 1997.
Last Updated February 13, 2004