Tanneur99
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 09/24/02 @ 12:00 AM
You are stranded on a Desert Island and a deadly quiz awaits you.
PLAYABILITY: The scenario is short and fun, a nice way to spent 10 minutes of your time when beautiful girls ask five medieval questions which are multiple choice and reasonably difficult. You have two minutes for every question, take your time and think it over, one wrong answer and the quizmaster will kill you, cruel but the prize might be worth it. 4+
BALANCE: This category relates to the skill of the player and is somehow subjective, as the reviewer rates, if the scenario was too hard/easy to complete for him or if the scenario is well balanced. The scenario is a quiz and it is in the intention of the author that there is no struggle to survive and he wrote in his author’s description, ‘No building ? No exploring ? No fighting ?? Intrigued ??’ From the review tutorial: “One important item to note about scoring the balance category for scenarios where no fighting takes place, such as cut-scene scenarios, some puzzle scenarios and some rpg style scenarios, is that just because the player cannot die in such scenarios, that doesn't mean the scenario isn't balanced. You also need to take the author's original intent into account, giving the author some benefit of the doubt. If the author never intended the player to face a struggle to survive, then there's no reason to knock down the balance score if there isn't any fighting. So keep in mind that you do need to take the intent and goals of the scenario into account when scoring the balance category, especially for those scenarios where fighting is not included.” 5
CREATIVITY: With a quiz, the scenario has a new and creative approach to the Age of Kings game. Your joy about victory is humorous and shows with a trick, walk-able water, which was new at the time of this scenario, AoK released about four months earlier. Even though the bridge removing trick known in the SD forum before, to my knowledge this is the first scenario to show it, the first utility used it two weeks later. 5-
MAP DESIGN: Disregarding the map size for the rating as we only rate what we see during game play, the island’s design with desert, grass, elevations and some palm trees is of random map quality, average. 3
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS: Instructions and questions are clear. A unit stranded on an island that has to answer questions to leave is not a story, are game instructions, not enough to score above average. 3
SUGGESTIONS: Try a story; the how and why he stranded could serve for a small story. As for map design, some added Gaia, different terrains could make the difference, not overloaded, maybe a larger island.
OBSERVATION: Water becomes walk-able where bridge parts removed, other than AoE II : TCE, where a saved game does not save past building destructions, AoE II : AoK does, the trick works from any saved game, no shallows needed under bridges.
IN CLOSING: A good scenario, I recommend downloading The Quiz.[Edited on 10/18/05 @ 08:13 AM]
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