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Author |
File Description |
Pitt_Man (id: Dark_Reign) |
Posted on 08/15/06 @ 11:31 AM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Entry for ACSC, production was cut short by deadline, so end was rushed... |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Byzan (id: ByZaN) |
Posted on 08/16/06 @ 10:11 AM
Playability: 4
FUN, FUN, FUN!!! Honestly, the music suited this scenario perfectly, it was a real pleasure to watch. Probably the first scenario to use "Rock" music, I would recommend you to download this scenario for a number of reasons: 1) If your a Metallica Fan, 2) A Great Pleasure to Watch.
Balance: 5
Under the so-called "rules" or "guidelines": Cut-Scenes are an automatic "5"
Creativity: 5
The creativity was great in this scenario. The begging showed "chats", which displayed the name of the designer (Dark_Reign), the Designing Team (Imperial Creations) and the Title (Hero of the Day), this was the first scenario I saw that used this trick. The "chats" were two different colours and gave off a good effect. The moving of the View was also very good to watch, for example the beggining, it moves several times to reveal the map, I think this was very "creative".
Map Design: 5
The Map Design was outstanding! The beggining with the boat moving down the river, well if you look around the Map Design was amazing, Only one downside, it was that some of the Flowers were not revealed and the grass was shown underneath, and it looked very "plain", and not much design done there, but other than that, it was a great style of Map Design.
Story/Instructions: 4
The Instructions and Story was shown in mainly in the "History", it explained all you needed to know about the scenario and the factions at war.
Additional Comments:
Well done Dark_Reign! I am guessing that this is your first scenario posted on the BlackSmith, and...WHAT A START! A very talented Map Designer, and a Rising Star in the BlackSmith, keep up the wonderful work and best of luck in the future!
-ByZaN-
[Edited on 08/16/06 @ 10:13 AM]
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JackalRat (id: BrandNewCar)
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 08/20/06 @ 03:00 AM
“ACSC- Hero of the Day” tells the story of Robert, an exiled warrior for previously losing battle plans. This cutscene tells of how he became ‘Hero of the Day’ against the pictish enemies.
Playability: - There is a reasonable amount of replay value here. I liked the introduction view when the game starts with the credits, and the river. The cutscene isn’t particularly long and manages to hold the viewer’s interest.
Balance: - In accordance with guidelines in the review tutorial the balance scores highest.
Creativity: - There are some creative elements in this scenario, using send chats to display the intro, along with the title and authors name as a ship sails across a river I liked. The use of music is also creative, rock music is not normally used for in age of empires scenarios, however it was pulled off well here. The only problem was that where the song wasn’t edited, you had some overlapping near the end of the story.
Map Design: - The map design is good in places, however it didn’t stand out enough to be worthy of the highest rating. The best design parts I saw were the river introduction and Robert’s camp when he was exiled. The map design could have been improved with more variation of different types of tree and less clumped ‘block’ trees and more time taken on the design of the city.
Story/Instructions: - The introduction screen provided an adequate bitmap, with game settings for in-game, this was welcome. The use of send chat for the introduction was good, most of the dialogue was very simple throughout. I was impressed by the way the starting location was also the end of the scenario point with Captain Morgan and Robert effectively trading places. This cutscene I felt lacked enough background and build-up dialogue before the pictish armies had attacked the city, this would have helped improve the score here.
Overall: - On the introduction screen the author notes how he was short on time so didn’t include all his plans for the story. This could be seen in places, from the design of the forest to the straight forward interaction between characters. The use of rock music surprised me and worked quite well despite overlapping between songs near the end. Worth a look, even if you aren't a Metallica fan! ;-).
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Snacks4dinner |
Posted on 09/25/06 @ 02:29 AM
Playability: 4
Brillaint Music!!! is suited very well, it made me want to play the game. i enjoyed the little snipit with the fishing ship at the start to create the mood.
Balance: It is a cut-scene. 5
Creativity: 4
Creative use of music once again, I thought you really brought out the personality of the characters by using the chat. had a typical storyline whcih detracted a mark but the way it was presented was brilliant.
Map Design: 4
I agree with ByZan about the river and the boat, Brilliant detail. I thought the enemy camp with the army marching was extremely effective. ( how did you make it do that?)
Story/Instructions: 4
Well explained in History but it would be intresting to see follow-up games.
[Edited on 10/01/06 @ 09:32 PM]
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Lord Basse
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 07/14/07 @ 06:06 AM
Hero of the Day is an entry to the first ACSC, Age of Kings Heaven Cut-Scene Competition, hosted by Mashek in June to September 2006. In the competition, it was given a total of 104 points out of 165 possible, and ended up in fourth place.
PLAYABILITY: 4
I enjoyed this cut-scene quite a lot, and I found no bugs or anything. It played smoothly and I was able to read all the text without any problems. This cut-scene lasts for about 8 minutes and it's 8 minutes of good quality.
However, the music might be well suited for the battle and other scenes, but in some places - most often when people just talked - it seemed out of place. The Apocalyptica song later on was better suited for its work.
I'd say this is a cut-scene just above average. It has action, a decent story, and so on, but I never got glued to my chair by ut. There was simply not enough excitement to give this the top nothc score, so a 4 is the most suiting for this cathegory.
BALANCE: 5
The ACSC, AoKH Cut-Scene Competition, had rules saying that the cut-scenes should be absolutely self-running, i.e. the player dont have to touch anything, just watch and read, all cut-scenes submitted to the competition has no playable elements, thus qualifying this one as a pure cut-scene.
Balance is judged for how well the scenario is balanced in difficulty. If it's really easy or simply impossible to win, it's not balanced very well. Pure cut-scenes have no balance, and so the review guidelines tell a reviewer to give a perfect score in Balance to pure cut-scenes.
So, logically, a 5.
CREATIVITY: 4
This scenario was quite creative. At the first look I found the story a little clichéd, but it still has some unique elements, bigger than the cliché-ish ones. The songs, as said before, might not suit the cut-scene in all aspects, but in some places - such as the war - it was just perfect.
Then we have the little details. There's soldiers marching slowly forward, using zyxomma's slowing down units trick, there's the elegant title-scene displayed in coloured chats, and more.
But there's still a lot to wish for. The story's a bit clichéd, the most of the scenario is quite simple - yet enjoyable - andthe music isn't always fitting. I give it a 4 because it's good, but far from perfect.
MAP DESIGN: 4+
I liked the design of the scenario quite a lot. It was dark and atmospheric, with good ammounts of eye-candy and stuff. The river looks great, but as one enters the city and the bases, it gets worse. Not that it's bad, but this is what makes the score drop from 5 to 4. The city and the bases have an overuse of flowers. Flowers everywhere. It looks unrealistic to have heaps of flowers in a military base, or next to lots of the buildings. In smaller amounts it could've looked much better, but there are simply too many of them.
The better parts of the design is good terrain mixing, good use of elevations, and varying landscape, from dark forestpaths to light city-atmosphere. I give it a 4+ because the only thing really bad with it is the overuse of flowers, else it's an excellent map.
STORY & INSTRUCTIONS: 4
First off: The story. The story was quite clichéd, with an unaccepted man getting back his honor. The reason to why he was thrown out of the city has been used before as well, but I dont recall seeing in in an AoK scenario, only outisde AoK stuff. But overall it was good, a decent story. The flaws would be that there's little background for any of the characters or the locations, thus making it a quite shallow story.
The instructions where good. The pregame instructions weren't all too long, but short and informative, although they could easily get better and more interesting with facts about the characters and places. The bitmap included is welcomed, although it's merely some text on a black background, it's better than nothing. The 4 sums this up quite well I believe.
OVERALL: A decent cut-scene
IN CLOSING: Although clichéd, this cut-scene is quite enjoyable and I'm sure Metallica-fans would be glad to see one of their songs in a cut-scene.
With better background story, deeper characters and such - and less flowers - this could've been higher up in the Top Rated of the Campaigns, and even more enjoyable to watch.
RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD: Yes |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.3 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.0 | Pacing | 5.0 | Creativity | 4.3 | Map Design | 4.3 | Story/Instructions | 4.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 929 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 4.60 MB |
Added: | 08/15/06 |
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