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16/12/99: QII: Oblivion Review / Preview, Part 2.
< < < Back to Part 1: mission, maps, architecture, exploration...
New weapons and items:
You get the usual amount of new items, and as is common with mission packs, some are completely superfluous, some are quite useful, and a few are damn cool. Models
for all of these are good, some are quite simple, but they are all well made and professionally done. They all fit well into the Q2 ethos as well.
Plasma Pistol
Similar to a blaster, fires green plasma blasts. About as useful as a blaster too...
Plasma Rifle
An upgraded Plasma Pistol with larger ammo capacity and packing a bit more punch. Completely useless once you have any other weapon, and you start the pack with
a Shotgun anyway...
Hellfury
Remember Rise of the Triads' "drunk missile"?? Well this is almost identical, a rocket launcher that fires 4 lower powered rockets that weave enthusiastically if
erratically towards the target, with a good area effect. Often useful for catching lots of small enemy, and for those Enforcer-manned guns too.
Deatomiser
*The* cool weapon, simply for it's effects. Fires a blue spinning projectile, that hits a target with about the same power as rocket. However, once the target dies, it doesn't
merely keel over or gib as normal, it vaporises into a cloud of blood tinged particles. Very nice effect indeed, making it a satisfying weapon to use.
Laser Grenade
Every pack has to have a novelty grenade =). This one sits in the floor until a monster gets too close, then spins blue laser beams around it before exploding. Powerful enough
to be useful, though setting traps slows the normal pace of combat.
DetPack
Another cool weapon. This lays down an immensely powerful explosive charge with the first shot, then you can detonate it remotely. You can only throw it a short way, but
due to it's extreme power, it's often useful against slow moving enemy: Run up to a Tank, politely ask it to hold the DetPack, then run a safe distance before detonating.
Donut of Destruction
This is a almost circular device which when activated, fires a circular wave of energy outwards around you, killing smaller enemy and damaging larger ones. Quite effective,
but needs a good key binding as it's most useful in hectic combats when it's unfortunately harder to select.
RTDU
Pretty neat item, a double chaingun tripod turret that you set on the ground with one activation, and control with another activation, once you are safely away from any
enemy. Very powerful, but you need to hide from the enemy when it's in use, and when you can hide it's easy to kill the enemy with normal weapons.
 
New monsters:
The usual amount of new monsters too, and again, some are good and some aren't. Overall they are well balanced as far as power and durability, and quite fun to fight.
However, three out of the five monsters *really* needed stronger Quake2 themes as they look very out of place. The use of custom monsters is done well, they are used regularly, but don't
take over the whole pack. Kigraxes especially, and Spiders, are most common, with other monsters used sparingly and mostly in later units.
Deatomiser Soldier
Every pack has to have a modified soldier =). This one fires that powerful Deatomiser, though you can't see it's cool effects when used against you. The beige skin is a bit odd
on this one, it looks scarily like a mostly naked Guard. Not that I'm accusing the team of having "nekkid Guard" fantasies or anything....
Kigrax
Flying monster, very much like Unreal's Gasbags, as it's a blobby floating head thing with two arms. Fires a Plasma blast at you and takes quite a bit of damage. The
model is fine, appropriately biomechanical, but it really need a better skin, the pale grey one just does not fit in with the Q2 theme.
Spider
*The* cool monster. Imagine a Gunner's torso on top of 4 vicious spiked spindly legs. Now imagine it moves very fast, jumps, and fires rockets. Great monster, vicious looks and
powerful enough to present a good challenge. Most importantly, it fits perfectly with the Q2 theme, it has exactly the right style and skin, very appropriate.
Cyborg
Ugh. Quite good monster to fight, armed with a spike arm and Deatomiser, and a "fake death" fall it sometimes takes. But the model looks nothing to do with Q2,
it's proportions, style, and lack of any organic parts just look right out of place.
Sentinel
Ugh again. Decent to fight, as it's fast, tough and fires plenty of rockets, good as a mini-boss. But the model is ED-209. That's Robocop, not Quake2.
Gameplay combat:
Gameplay is standard Q2 gameplay, but spiced up with a few things: Firstly, there is one major and very cool aspect that hasn't been done in any maps nor mission packs
before. I won't spoil it too much, suffice to say it doesn't alter the combats that much, but sometimes a little help can be nice. Secondly, there are occasional tricks and traps that spice up the
gameplay, though should have been used more. Often traps "suck ass totally" (technical map review parlance) as they are frustrating and pointless, but there are some neat ones in this map.
At the start of one map, there is a small minefield - another thing not done in Q2 before, and it's really quite cool, as you get some indication due to the slight humps on the ground, just enough
to make you nervous. Unfortunately this isn't used elsewhere, a pity as it could have created good tension. Other surprises include appropriate ones like walls caving in or things exploding,
which are quite common.
The actual combat is good, and generally fun throughout. There are never any overwhelming numbers of monsters, but there are some challenging situations, as you often
appear in courtyards with several, often tough monsters, attacking from various angles. These arena-esque combats provide the main test, with gameplay elsewhere being more normal and
straightforward. It's hard to describe the gameplay specifically as it is just normal Q2 gameplay, with a wide variety of monsters, fights and combat situations. There's a lot of popping into rooms
full of monsters and ducking back to take cover, with most areas having sufficient enemy to provide continual interest, though a few sparser areas could be filled up a bit. Overall it's fine Q2
SP gameplay.
 
Gameplay balance:
Gameplay balance is good overall, though it might not seem that way at first. When you start, health and ammo seems sparse and it all seems a bit tricky for the start. Then
within a few maps you accumulate plenty of powerful weapons, and it seems to be getting a bit easy. However, powerful ammo remains fairly limited, so relying on your best weapons will make
later maps, when such firepower is more useful, harder work. So in the end it does balance out as far as weapons go. As far as power-ups go, well you do get a *lot* of Quads early on - one in
every map for the first few maps (in secrets of course). None of these are really useful due to the good weapons, and it seems strange receiving so many of such a powerful item. On the other
hand, the power shield, often the bane of mission packs as it can make things very easy, doesn't appear until much later, with the weaker power screen coming first. Once past the first map,
ammo and health balance are fine too - sometimes there seems to be enough to be careless, but like the powerful ammo, this can prove disadvantageous later on. Monster balance is also
good, although there are increasing amounts of tougher monsters as you progress, they are not overwhelming.
Deathmatch, speedrunning and other malarkey:
The pack comes with 4 deathmatch maps, and typically for a mission pack, it's all about FFA, with no maps even remotely suitable for a fast paced duel. Icepick is the
closest, a fairly small scale blue-tinged map in the Water Treatment theme, though it's twisty corridor based layout is confusing. Friction is the opposite, a sprawling Id textured map, with large,
very open areas, some outdoors. A well made map but too much space to fill. Medieval is a strange map, it has a sort of urban feel to it, lots of undecorated concrete, it feels rushed. The
layout is a bit complex and confusing, though some areas look good to fight in. Centrifuge is the pick of the maps, a large, solid 3D arena based design, with lots of multi-level atriums, good
proportions, and a good Water Treatment style. The new weapons and items would seem fine for DM, most of them are obvious and immediate enough to work well. I suspect the DetPack
could be very annoying though, as they are hard to see and mean instant death if you are caught in one - a camper's dream security measure.
The maps are surprisingly unsuitable for speedrunning, unlike most mission packs. This is probably due to the changing missions and the complexity of dealing with that, as well
as unavoidable key/switch based tasks. However, being Shambler, I've spotted a couple of potential runs. I haven't done them yet, I might wait till the final downloadable version in case the
maps change, but rest assured you will see them right here at some point. For weird tricks and buggerising around, there is not much to play around with, except
the DetPacks which can provide massive and easily controllable explosion jumps - just make sure you have God mode on =). Oh, and if you want a neat desktop icon for Oblivion, download
this.
Conclusion:
This is an interesting pack to conclude about. One the one hand, it's head and shoulders above almost all other free download maps/units, and certainly highly recommended
from that perspective. On the other hand, it's not as polished nor as finished as a commercial mission pack, including the regrettable bugs in the PC Gamer version - and that polished,
complete feel does count. On one hand, there are some extremely cool aspects to this pack that haven't been done previously, or are neat twists and improvements on Q2, and are
really worth seeing. On the other hand, some of these are definitely underused when they could have spiced up the pack a lot more. If you are averse to large downloads and can get the
PC Gamer version, I'd recommend that as long as you can cope with the bugs. Otherwise, it will be well worth waiting to download the fixed version - plenty enough of it is interesting and
stylish to capture most Q2er's attentions, and it's very worthy overall.
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