Theming and Eyecandy – 2 out of 5
I ran down the first level in the pack and suddenly was utterly dismayed. It suffers from the same problem as Epic’s levels kind of do – while it’s supposed to be a cave, why does it look so darn open?! There’s something unrealistic floating in the background too, making it look like the place is actually a lush grassland dubbed as a cave because instead of sky you see a giant drab wall. Violet’s example level showed a cave-like environment, and that is where the standard was set. As soon as I got past level one, I got to the second one. My Spaz started in a cavelike thing again (which looked way better than the first level overall), and then he proceeded to the surface. I was immediately dismayed (again \\o/) to see that there is nothing in the background! Just the sun floating below the sky and something supposed to be large tree branches to help out the trees on layer 4. Putting a few mountains in the background would be a way better thing to do, and Littlefreak could even try to make the building you approach in another level out of some tiles. The aforementioned trees look kind of dead too, as for the most part they’re devoid of any kind of leaves. Are the trees dead for a reason or another? Anyway, I found my way out of the dead tree canopy and approached the building, even though nothing in level 2 looked like one. SURPRISE! Level 3 suffers from the same problem as 1 does! LF barely used any of the cool possible effects WSF features, and the eyecandy turns out being worse than in the example levels again. On the contrary to the first three levels, level 4 actually uses background eyecandy. The problem is, they have been borrowed from Mike’s battle level! Bah. Other than that it looked just like level 3, maybe except for the sewer environment, which was kind of original and is the one of the few things saving the eyecandy from getting the lowest score possible.
Gameplay – 2 out of 5
The gameplay in those 4 levels wasn’t really any better. They were all rather short and easy (I played on Hard). And yet again, the most disappointing level is level 1! Considering the open structure of that level, I just jumped above most of the enemies and dodged the rest of them. Blah! No challenge at all. On the contrary, the latter levels were pretty challenging, but not because they had some extremely well done traps. Level 2 is evil because lots of the branches in the dismal tree canopy are on layer 5 and thus it takes you a while to climb up after you crashed a certain trigger crate (why would anyone leave a switch opening the door of a fortress in all open?). Then you fight the Tuf Turtle Boss (no real challenge either) and approach level 3. In one certain spot, there’s a row of doors and you need to do a certain thing to open/destroy them. The problem is, you are supposed to figure out what do you need to do, and it obviously takes a while and is rather tedious. After that you must destroy a crate with a frog (why with a frog? =( ), and then face a few demons in a small room with collapsing scenery. Fun? Not really. Then comes the rather tedious as well level 4. You need to figure out what to shoot in order to proceed a few times, destroy a few crates, and approach the sewer. The sewer is probably the coolest part of the whole levelpack. You fall into something like acid, and must quickly get out. Then your character gets dizzy and sees himself on an airboard (coincidientally enough, I felt rather dizzy on that certain part as well ;D), and gets out. If the sewer part wasn’t this short, the gameplay itself would get a 3 instead of a 2. However, it’s extremely short for one reason or another. Anyway, your character exits the sewer, passes a collapsing bridge and fights something supposed to be a blur wannabe (As if me and Defost weren’t enough.) and looking like an Uterus boss. The arena was barely challenging at all, so the boss died and everyone lived happily ever after. Blah. Uninteresting gameplay.
Eventing – 2 out of 5
The eventing was also floppy. Most of the ammo was just scattered around in some random forms, and so were the coins. All the bonuses require 20 coins (more variety required =( ) and often they’re overpowered. Level 1 lets you choose between a Bouncer PU or a Toaster PU, Seeker PU in level 3 and Bouncer PU again in level 4. So if you pick Toaster PU in level 1, you will get Bouncer in level 4 anyway, so what’s the point of choosing one over another one?
Summary- A few original things in level 4…
- Basically the rest.
Overall
This wasn’t all that good. Doesn’t really apply to today’s standards, and most of it is rather evil and tedious. The level 4 is semi-cool as it has an original part, which is the sewers. Unfortunately, not much else is original here, so…
EDIT: This was kind of too harsh.