^Cool stuff!
To tell you the truth I must be someone who plays uncharacteristically cautiously (or something), because throughout the whole of
BI I only ever had
one instance where the XLoc disc was destroyed.
And now our journey continues...
Ah, YES!!
Realm of Corruption! As long as you are not allergic to the EXU2 gametype, then this map has TONS going for it! You'll find crazy hard, insane action, but also an excellent atmosphere, story developments, moments of awe and contemplation, and, yes, there's even time for some funny things!
OK, first things first:
Realm of Corruption is a conversion of
The Ceremonial Chambers, and as was the case with
Frostclaw Outpost, this level is much more than a reskin and new lighting job... you'll find the best entirely original area of
BI in this map!
You know how it begins: it still feels like the previous map, with the level of infestation possibly even higher (cursed Demon Sliths everywhere in the tunnels). Of course, the plan hatched by Polaris Command backfires, it didn't take a wizard to figure that out, but since you're a dumb-ass you carried out the plan anyway, and now you have to deal with what could amount to one of the worst things in the Universe: Doom Orbs. Fantastic.
One of the really best things about this level is the atmosphere: I didn't actually get any frights, but I did feel a chill go down my spine a couple of times. The sight of the Demon Skaarj performing a ritual with the levitating Demon Skaarj Master while the blood chant can be heard is particularly ominous. Composition is everything.
Took me a while to figure out there were "red orbs" shooting me!
Of course, there's that awesome episode in the spire room where you get a temporary Invincibility power-up... but it's a pity I did not realise then that I had just wasted my only chance of getting the RFPC!
Anyway, another great moment comes from the first time you are confronted with a Doom Orb... and invincible monk statues shooting pentagrams at you! And the Demon Skaarj Master's sacrifice prompts the other Demon Skaarj to be like "Oooh What the hell is 'e doin'??" "
What the fuck is this shit?!" with those cartoonish-like voices
(I loaded again a couple of times just for that sequence!)
Then there's Charles, the friendly Demon Brute
And before I move on, I also want to mention something I discovered after finishing the map and reading UBerserker's tips for the level: the friendly, sleepy Demon Krall Elite on top of the temple's roof - the things said there are among the funniest of the whole campaign, it's almost a shame the encounter is out of the way!
Then there's what could possibly be the hardest single battle of the whole campaign: the huge clash in the valley. Dude... I mean, it's so intense, so
hard, it is what makes this map
extremely hard IMO. But the particularly remarkable feat here is that, despite being extremely hard, the engagement does not get
annoying. That is because of its good looks, honestly: the battle is epic by design, but even manages to
evolve as you go on (and yeah, I had to save and reload at multiple points during this battle), and sudden external factors can come into play - there are meteor showers every now and then, which make the battlezone even more dangerous... and the centrepiece of this show is the Rock Monster. Yeah, you heard that right. The Rock Monster is fuckin' awesome and resistant, floats around while shooting demon orbs and can kill you in one go with a charged up energy beam. In effect, this creature is a completely new pawn! And the rock loses mass as you inflict more damage to it! Congrats on that one!! This truly novel enemy is guaranteed to make players happy
And it's also one of the best orchestrated massive battles in
BI.
I immediately considered that to be a boss fight, but as it turns out it is more of an intermediary boss fight. Regardless, it was the hardest battle. I made it through by initially running and translocating all the way up to that ledge facing the valley's exit, from which I was able to weather the storm more efficiently, before going back down to finish off all the remaining foes (while dodging most of the statues' attacks!).
After something like that, you need a break, and something that can build up momentum again. And that is exactly what you get!
The story takes on a more dramatic note, and suddenly it is unnaturally calm, with only the eerie sound of the wind to break the silence... And conceptual grandness is back with a vengeance. The new geometry comes into play here. That chasm is the biggest one I've ever seen in
Unreal/
UT (I wonder if this is an instance where without uncapped draw distance, the bottom of the chasm is not rendered when viewed from above?), and the build up to the
real boss fight is brilliant and awe-inspiring: that massive cave with lava spewing out of crevasses is superb. The number of effects here is quite staggering, too. And then you cautiously move down toward the central crater, and check the fallen soldiers and weapons littered across the bottom floor, before inevitably provoking the final battle...
And again, we get what is pretty much a new adversary, both in stats and looks - the Archdemon. OK, the 3D model isn't exactly new
per se, but modified from an existing pawn - however, it works brilliantly, all the more due to the creature flying around much like a GasBag, when the base model is clearly not a GasBag
It's a hard fight the first time round, even though I tried to be cunning and hid my XLoc beacon around the exit area before triggering the fight. The Archdemon is at ease in such a huge area and came after me, attacking me from a fare distance. After a number of tries, I made it, and finally exited the level.
Now, I
did come back to this part of the level later because it makes me happy (I kept a save just after the battle in the valley), and I tried other ways of defeating the boss (now that I was more confident). As it turns out, you can win easily: by sticking to the other side of a pillar with respect to the Archdemon, I was able to strike it before it could "see" me properly; and for some reason, it never tried to make any fast movement to one side or the other, so that I was able to finish the job without being hit once aside from the initial fire exchange. By the way, the Screamer anti-fighter missile is super cool!
Use of sound and music is perfect in this level. There's variation and it always suits the context.
It took me about three and a half hours to see it through, but out of that game time, half an hour alone went into simply admiring and savouring the mood in the latter part of the map.
It may be extremely hard overall, but this is, in my humble opinion,
Batshit Insane's best map as of now and one of the best maps I've played in the whole of
Unreal/
UT Oldskool.
Clever! I wouldn't have guessed, to be honest!