Map Title: Noork's Elbow
Author: Eekels
From: Unreal
Filename: Noork.unr
Music Files: Fourth.umx






Synopsis: You leave the Mercenary ship behind and find a valley with an entrance to a temple.

Discuss!

There's nothing really wrong with this level but it feels short to the point of seeming half-baked, and seems like it's lacking optional areas that most other terrain transition maps have (the water secret is nice though). It's also a shame this is the only map with the late-afternoon atmosphere and the fourth track. This being the only map with a Mercenary Elite is kind of odd too.

Darkening has a Mercenary Elite too.

Pretty mediocre map, my least favourite one from Pancho. The valley is devoid of anything impressive, and the gameplay has some problems: the fight between the Mercenary and the Fly which should never happen, Mantas that spawn only if you cross a certain point of the level and the way Biterfish have been placed is just plain annoying.

Wow, can't believe I never noticed this being the only map of the Terraniux series with a Mercenary Elite. Maybe they had originally planned to make the Elites more like minibosses but that didn't pan out for some reason. There's also a useless forcefield powerup here, so my guess is this is one of those maps that had different plans from what happened in the end.

Mercenary Elite were supposed to be late-game enemies, found in places like Cryox. The boosted Mercenaries in Terraniux are still tougher.

I was impressed by the temple entrance and I liked the secret area, but the map just felt too short. I think this map had a lot of potential, but it ended up being kind of underwhelming, especially with the lack of enemies. It would have been nice to see some kind of interaction between the Nali and Mercenaries as opposed to the Mercs just investigating an abandoned village. The lack of Nali was the most disappointing part for me.

The first time I played this I spent a great deal of time in that window right by the starting point, trying to take on the whole Elbow. I remember sitting up there for like half an hour taking potshots because I left the previous map with low health and no armor for some reason.

One of the best maps in Unreal.....

I remember the first time i played it,the place had some unsettling feeling which left quite an impact on me (still being a child in 1998), with an eerie dark village overshadowed by a hulking spaceship, and the music! I was quite cautious when i went down the ramp towards the abandoned village, i wondered what gruesome fate happened to the villagers back then. I gained enough courage to move on and was happy to see a more optimistic locale at the temple entrance, i was a bit saddened by the secret at the temple though.

Nowadays i see the map very differently then i used to, there's some randomly incoherently placed houses, the whole canyon is one linear L shaped drag. Speaking of lazy level design. Its something producable in less then 10 minutes. Its pretty dull and only gets good when you reach the temple. Nowadays i tend to run along and ignore all the detai.... wait, there are no details.

How ironic

I thought the area in front of the temple was just.. empty. Felt weird.

As a transitional level between Terraniux and the Temple of Vandora it just works. It really could've benefited from more details though. The Mercenary use of the Nali as slaves could've been expanded on. There was little indication of their presence in the Terraniux base apart from maybe a single translator message. Some kind of confrontation between the Mercenaries and the Skaarj from the temple would've been another cool touch and would've tied in well with that Skaarj kneeling over that dead Mercenary at the end of Harobed.

And yes the battle music in this level is over all too quickly as that video shows.

I'm surprised that this level gets no love but your criticism seems well reasoned. But to me this might just be the most favorite level - because of the scenery with the spaceship and two setting suns. I used to load this level to fly around and make screenshots.

The only map I hate from this game is Cellers at Dasa Pass. Noork's Elbow is better than that.

Cellars at Dasa Pass has like the best gameplay in the whole game so it's still a buttload better than Noork. Hell, Dasa Cellars is the only level I'd like to play every once in a while from the original Unreal since it never stops being fun.