New Ages CTF

  • Rating: 8.6

Reviews and comments

    Superjazz 5 Dec 2006, 14:35 (edited 9 Dec 06, 08:35)

    9Recommended:

    Here goes Snooze again with a pack of levels. The things I saw about the levels already in the testserver were pretty promising. And what is obvious, is the inspiration and productivity the author had got while creating the levels, yet they still ended up being decent. I just wished a few more levels still if those ones were finished in just a few hours.

    The eyecandy is something I don’t really have anything to complain about. An amount of creativity was used and all it adds way more of suitable atmosphere for the levels. Nothing looks confusing for me at least. It might be still a little repetitive, but is barely noticable during gameplay.

    The gameplay’s quality is a little variable between the levels. I mean both the quality of gameplay in overall, as well the good thing, which is the variableness of layouts. It’s also good that there is a nice mix of solid and thinner platforms in the levels to make it all exotic and interesting. There’s some floating also to help you to move easier between some platforms. The levels can be learned fast, except ‘Radiation’, that might feel a little confusing at first.

    I really expected more from the pickup-placement. It was improved only slightly after the betas. I was looking for something else than linear or squared loose-ammo flocks. Neither do I fancy those flocks with mixed ammo-types. The pickup-choice for each level, and the additional food were a little strange at times. Not much wrong with the carrots, but are the PowerUps questionable perhaps?

    But I’m not done yet at all…

    ‘Question;’ is a level with four levels of height I would say, thus making it very linear. The background seems to be quite alright but not too original. There’s no sprite-eyecandy for some areas like the carrot-spot, but would that make it too confusing if there was? The level has the placement at it’s worst indeed. The two Bouncy-PUs are maybe nicer than Bouncy and Toaster, but they could have a different position in my opinion. The level contains a Blaster-PU too, in open. The author still hasn’t fixed the float-bug next to red base, that I requested during testing, although not many use that route to get up. I neither recognize anything that would make this level “made for Viv-”, except the replaced text-string maybe.

    In ‘Complex’ there is a rather empty background, and with it’s current music, and mild lightning, the level gets an ambient atmosphere. There could be a little more of special eyecandy for solid walls. The layout itself is okay, but I don’t get the point of all the tubes. The level isn’t after all very special. Toaster-PU seems to be the only PU here.

    Now we come to ‘Persona Lity’ which is my favorite of the pack with it’s great music that I suggested to the author. It was probably a nice idea to use the textured background as transparent for layer 6 instead. What makes me quite like this level that much anyway, is the sprite-eyecandy with darker(distant) and lighter(closer) wall-tiles(might have been used before). The layout is anyway something that just clicks, and I do like the situation of carrots. Ambient lightning is somewhat suitable and sewers are a nice bonus. Even placement is slightly better here than in previous levels, with two somewhat hidden PUs(Bouncy and Toaster) and the shared RF-PU in sewers. A bad thing in the level is the few weird dead ends, in sewers for example.

    In ‘Radiation’ the red base wants to be blue in single-player, eek! The level has a decent background with a yellow hue. Eyecandy probably the best of the pack in overall. The top-route between bases is very short, and there’s no obstacle even, so moving between bases is very fast. The match I had here for once proved that it could be actually more a tactical thing about the level. While you’re ready to capture from enemy base, and in case your opponent’s flagcarrier died, you could quickly go back to middle of the level and wait for the new flagcarrier to come out of the basement. And so, you could possibly hurt/roast him immediately, as some people often choose that way to exit the base. The rest of the layout was quite nice after all. The carrot-concept was somewhat a good idea, that let’s you restore health with halfcarrots, while hanging out in either base. You can also go to the somewhat bottom-middle for a fullcarrot. I also liked the PU-choice, and the rest of placement is just as good as in ‘Persona Lity’. You might want to take a bath in the soup also, except it pushes you up, if you try that.

    Like r3p said the level, ‘The Boneyard’ has a tunnel-feeling mostly. With P4ul’s special tileset this level succeeded quite well however. Eyecandy is fairly good, but this is the level that has the most of “repetitive eyecandy.” With this I mean for example the “mushrooms” at ceiling or just the solid wall, that has the same tile used for large areas. This might be because of the original tileset though. In this level there’s some linearity, but it seems to be okay this time. There are a few warps to help you moving in the level. I’m just wondering why was the Toaster-PU placed as the only one again. Top basement could be more open too.

    Now a summary about the pack would be, that it had quite awesome eyecandy, nearly as good gameplay, and not as good pickup-placement. I was looking for some more creative placement for loose-ammo, and perhaps a little difference with PowerUps or something. This is probably because of the rush the author had while doing the levels, that placement was left rather unimportant. The levels would have separately been worth of 7.5-8.2, but together they deserve more! 8.5! So I also suggest you to download this pack. Each are worthy enough to be hosted or played sometimes too.

    P.S. (You know to not do this. At least not here. ~Cooba)

    SJ

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    The Emperor 5 Dec 2006, 23:11 (edited 5 Dec 06, 23:12)

    9Recommended:

    DS covered everything, so I’ll just give him credit for that…

    The levels are stuffed with eyecandy, but are still fairly easy to play…
    Although it might at first seem a bit different, especially 05 (Radiation), which has an abhorrent amount of eyecandy. =D

    The pack completes itself,
    There’s a level for every thinkable taste and the flow is good enough everywhere.

    “Betatesting” the levels was a lot of fun. It seemed as if Snooze can just poof and there goes another level…

    I think we can safely call Snooze a JCS Hall Of Famer (or sth) by now…

    This is definately worth downloading
    and is likely to also be a good pack for tournament use.

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