Semfry wrote:I'll hopefully have much better internet from now on, so I've increased the resolution and video quality now uploading isn't awful. I'm not sure it matters in practice since modern encoders already do a good job even with bad settings and Youtube infamously butchers footage whatever you do, but hopefully video quality is a bit better now. I also played the whole new flyby at the end since I guess it won't be seen otherwise.
Let me tell you: I noticed! I always use my 27" Thunderbolt display (2560 × 1440) to watch your videos and just with this MOTW's intro sequence, I perceived that I could appreciate the HD texture pack you use better than ever before
and thanks for playing
Unreal PSX Rework's full flyby at the end, it's perfectly on point!
So yeah, this is a curious one: not everyone knows there was an attempt at porting/adapting
Unreal for the original Playstation! A silly idea really: no Unreal Engine game was ever released for the Playstation due to the console's technical limitations (it's not enough that you can technically run something at 15 FPS which is approximately the limit for a real-time game to be playable, you have to look at the conditions: small level, max 2 enemies on screen? and so on). That said, with more support the game could have been made for the PS2 instead, and talented individuals actually worked on the project before it was canned. Nick Pelling was the lead. Design docs were written and draft maps were built and many years later, a certain Leo (T.C.K.) comes along and undertakes the monumental task of attempting to (re-)work the bits and blobs into a coherent campaign, with various other people also contributing.
This MOTW isn't really about the main PSX campaign, however, as Episode 0 was actually built from scratch based on some notes left by James Hamer-Morton of
Operation Na Pali fame, indeed
(thanks Semfry for reminding me of where I'd seen that name before, I'm more used to his nick: eVOLVE!) The main mapper here is Yrex, with a certain Josh apparently leading the effort on the outro map, and I guess Pterodactyl is a nod to the original development team.
The intro map is fine thanks to the indoor segment and the human characters you meet, I agree with Semfry that it's a bit boring due to the initial flying segment lasting a full two minutes despite there being little to look at: simple and samey static environments, as if the intro expects us to be impressed like it's 1996 (the
UT cityscape background with the starry sky is more pleasing than the actual 3D environment we're navigating, which makes sense since, you know, the UT cityscape skybox was made circa 1999)... And this is coming from someone who
loves these kinds of slow-burn, "immersive" cinematic moments. The custom music track is nothing special, so it can't really elevate things.
But yeah, the main part of the episode is
Horror Deck: it works well in context, I like the representation of how the simulation loads in at the start with a transition from the "wireframe" graphics to the "life-like" environment (which nonetheless lacks an unnecessary ceiling at this point), there's some good variety both in themes and gameplay and various bits will recall different parts of
Unreal: the area pictured in the 3rd screenshot reminded me of the ISV Kran levels, while the area pictured in the 4th screenshot is undoubtedly a call-back to the hydroponic gardens in
Terraniux - and at that point I thought the level was going to become challenging with the Mercenary hitscan attacks, but it remained on the easy side, even with the slightly obscure progression in a couple of instances. By far the greatest highlight is the Flamegun, which does come across as OP in this level, yes
it really feels like the kind of stuff you'd find in
EXU2.
Glad you liked the outro, Semfry! I too really enjoyed the massive scale of the rocket and adjoining facilities: while it also made me wish it were used for more gameplay-wise and/or story-wise (aside from the start with Hari and the ending with Fay which wraps things up nicely, there is only one blip of dialogue by a certain Boris who quips "
'Sup"), I did appreciate how the whole map hoodwinks you into thinking you're getting ready to board the (realistically sized) rocket, when actually you end up going to another adjacent facility to board an
RTNP shuttle! Very good overall and in fact, I think this is the best map in the episode! EDIT: it even reminds me of
GoldenEye 007's
Silo mission
The point about the dialogue being easy to miss as it's non-voiced and relegated to some small text appearing in the top left is a recurring problem in
Unreal PSX Rework. You can maybe help a bit with a bigger and better font but let's be honest, the way the campaign goes about it, with some significant chunks of dialogue, it really needs voice acting. A production values problem, at least for now (the project is still ongoing).
The focus on AI entities in the main campaign's story is nominally true (I haven't finished the latest version yet but, outside of the first act of Episode 1, I feel storytelling is weak and feels unfinished), so the holodeck training can indeed be seen as a bit of thematic foreshadowing.
