Imperial Academy

Level Background

One year after Kyle destroyed the Arc Hammer, the Rebel Alliance gets a report that one of the facilities of the Imperial Academy is being left relatively unprotected. Since this place happens to be where Kyle was trained, he decides to destroy the facility without consulting with the Rebel High Command. Ignoring Jan's warnings that this is an obvious trap for the Rebellion's new agent, Kyle prepares to enter the complex without the notion that the trap is set...

Initial Comments

This level has got an excellent rating on the Crow's Nest, but there is another review elsewhere that wasn't nearly as good. As well, many people don't care for the level as much. So, going in with mixed ideas, I was impressed. The excellent ratings come from those who enjoy good puzzles and the poor ratings come from people who don't have much patience and/or brain capacity to solve the puzzles.

Level Design

Perhaps the most important design note is that I had to cheat to beat the mission. At the beginning, before I had any keys, I got stuck and couldn't figure out where to go. So I had to cheat to get all the keys and then proceed. Once I had already beaten it, I figured out how to go back and win without cheating. The briefing said that it might end up to be a trap. It quickly showed itself to be a trap, indeed. Pits open up under your feet, swallowing you so that Imperial troops can shoot at you.

But for a trap, it sure is easy. There are a few too many revives and extra lives sitting around. There is a large hallway at one point. At one end are a pile of boxes and on the sides of the hallway are large doors that open to rooms with TIEs in them. This hallway is segmented by gargantuan spinning doors that function very well as a puzzle themselves. This was a good showing of programming excellence.

Level Dynamics

There are two main dynamics concerns that I have. The first occurs in a small room where troopers step out of small alcoves in the walls when you flip a switch. The problem is, the alcoves are smaller than the troopers. I'd sure hate to be those troops, being squished in there for so long.

My second concern is that I ran out of ammo for my blaster. Unless you are stringent with your blaster charges, you'll probably run out somewhere around the first sequencer charge while you're battling with dark troopers. The author may have done this on purpose, to force you to switch to a new weapon, but it's all fine because by that point you'll have enough charges in your repeater to keep you going until you can get more blaster charges.

Thankfully, there are good points to the dynamics. This level is a showcase of puzzles. Other levels have been released before that serve a purpose to showcase an idea; this one showcases new ideas for puzzles. The best one involves two doors. Open the doors to find two rear doors and two switches. Hit one switch, and the opposite door closes and the opposite rear door opens. The object is to get in the rear room. So somehow you must the switch while inside the room...but how? I'll let you figure that out for yourself, but it's creative. Another puzzle involves a sliding block that is very intersting...

Level Experience

The atmosphere is a low part of the level. It doesn't seem to be much of an academy, because there's no place for troopers to train. Some little weightlifting rooms and some tracks going around a field would have added a lot. Plus, there are little things that detract. There are some places where false walls allow troopers to step out of nowhere to fire at you. And sometimes you have to jump through a false wall to get on with the level, but there's no hint that the wall might be false.

However, you can tell that this is an Imperial base of some sort, and that the Imperials have set an elaborate trap for you. Unfortunately, the author went overboard just a bit on Dark Troopers. Perhaps one less would have made it just perfect. It wasn't bad, just was a tad too much. Plus, the stationary guns got old, but then again if I were setting a trap, I'd probably have even more stationary guns.

Overall Response

If you're looking for a few ideas for puzzles, you might want to check this level out, because it is one of the harder levels out there. It's a classic and was probably good for its time, but it just doesn't measure up these days.

Score

Design Score: 77
Dynamics Score: 79
Experience Score: 87

Total Score: 81%