Faust

Level Background

A TIGHTLY SECURED Imperial base lies in the center of the trade port city, Faust. Once housed in this base were valuable data tapes detailing future directions of Imperial tactics and weaponry. If recovered, these tapes could have proved a small victory for the Rebellion, and save many lives. The data tapes were recently stolen from the Empire by an undercover rebel operative. Unfortunately, he was soon discovered by the Empire, but not before he managed to hide the tapes somewhere in the base.

His whereabouts are currently unknown, meanwhile the Empire scours the base for the tapes. Our only information is that the tapes seem to have been hidden in a part of the base undergoing construction/expansion. Your mission is to negotiate safe passage through the filth-ridden city, infiltrate the gaurded barrier wall of the Imperial base, and recover the data tapes. Beware of bounty hunters in the city; watch yourself once in the base. You're gonna have to use your head on this one.

Initial Comments

Oh goody! Another storm Imp base, retrieve valuable disk, get out in one piece mission. Not like there are enough of those already. By the way, in case you have lived on another planet and never played a Dark Forces add-on mission I am being sarcastic. These types of missions are heavily done. What strikes one from the rest is it's gameplay, architecture, and texturing... something this level had very little of.

Level Design

Hey... maybe you can help me. I'm trying to search for the rest of the city. Most of it was already in the level, but I just can't seem to find any warehouses, loading bays, or ships in the city. For a trade port city, I would think that the economy would be doing pretty poorly.

Other than the economy of the situation, I find this city to be fairly well designed. It's certainly not my pick of the litter, but it will do for an average city. Not many city textures though. Not only was it not very good texturing (some were city like, others were just thrown in it looked like), but the stitching job was not that pretty either. Many of the pieces didn't line up together, nor did they match (goes along with the thrown in there part). At the beginning on one of the walls, the author put in some textures from the Nar Shaddaa level. Only problem with that was it didn't fit there at all and made me just laugh.

"You're gonna have to use your head on this one." You can say that again. I used it over and over and over again. Not the full part of course, just about a quarter of it. That was all it took to get me past the levels puzzles and traps. They didn't pose much of a challenge, even for my thinking capacity (and that's pretty sad).

Level Dynamics

What!?! "Tightly secured". "Guarded barrier". "Bounty hunters". Sounds like to many enemies for little old me to handle alone. Luckily for me, I have on enemy repellent that repels most enemies in my sites. Not only that, it seems to have worked on the entire level too. Oh goody! My hopes have been answered. No more "tightly secured" and "guarded barriers" for me. Just spray a little on and it makes the entire level appear as easy as a cake walk. (NOTE: Actual level not as easy as cake walk. Cake walks are much easier and more delicious.)

Ammo seemed to be the complete opposite of enemies; there was more than enough except once (stinky gran won't stand still). Sheilding and health were good too. I never died except once (stinky gran blowing me off a building). In actualality, I don't think my health dropped at all. My trusty shield held most of those enemies away (stinky gran wasting away my shields). INF was like the enemies in most respects. One, There was not very many sequences; two, They seemed pretty boring; and three, they presented little challenge. INF mainly consisted of elevators, although there were a few off-beat blinking lights too.

Level Experience

The atmosphere was OK for me. Not great, but fairly decent. Part of the time, I thought I was in a unpopulated city. The other 75% of the time, I thought "Big level for 83K." or "Wow, what interesting texturing." or the classic one "Is this level over yet?" Needless to say that I was not focused on the level, nor did the level keep me focused on being in a city.

The lighting was somewhat less to be desired. Rooms blinked on and off for no apparent reason other than the Impys forgot to play the eletrical bill. Thinking about it, it was actually probably supposed to be "part of the base undergoing construction/expansion". It didn't really look much like construction/expansion though, just off-beat blinking lights. There were little or no glitches I found, which was shocking. A little HOMing here and there, but considering the big open areas, it was understandable.

Overall Response

Well, there is certainly nothing special about this level. All in all, this level is much too big for it's own good. I really doubt anyone will become seriously interested in the level. It might be worth just taking a gander at the big open areas just to see it, but chances are that you will heave-ho it before you can say "Is this level over yet?"

Score

Design - 6.5
Dynamics - 6.0
Experience - 7.0

Total - 49%