"TCK how it became!" is a campaign based around the characters of Martin the Warrior and Ratail a enemy attackers who we are not told where he belongs, Martin is part of RedWall Abbey.
Playability: Let me first say that both scenarios are cutscenes so you never really play and have to watch the cutscenes playout. The cutscenes themselves were a little below average because the amount of time you waited before another thing happened was too long. To improve the cutscenes using some change view effects to the location so you know what your looking at, with this i'm particuarly addressing scenario 2.
Balance: Well, I'll judge the balance as an average of the 4 other categories scores. Which are 2,3,3,2 which averages out at 2.5 so I'll round up and give the balance an average mark to keep it on par with the rest of the campaign.
Creativity: Creative features of this scenario include the sounds and the use of the various elements from templates which are unavailable in the standard scenario editor. A note to the author, you have to ask permission from the author of Tamerlane Prince of Destruction before you can use most of his sounds! To improve the creativity the author could continue to build upon the ideas he has to take them one step further.
Map Design: The map design of TCK how it became is reasonable, it isn't very beautiful but the author has made nice use of the map copy effect in certain areas. The map could do with a little spicing up for it to gain a higher mark. The author could do this by adding more gaia elements to the map to make it stand out and make it more beautiful.
Story/Instructions: The story is based around an invasion by Ratail of Red Wall Abbey and how many warriors die, including who I thought was the main character Martin. Then a new leader is born who helps them build up a force to capture Ratail and then the second scenario shows Ratails escape from Prison. Its not particuarly depicted well, with some of the sounds a little irratating and the story a little far fetched in places, such as enemy warriors being allowed into the Prison for no real reason. Instructions wise the game could do with more dialogue, but particuarly longer dialogue as most of the conversations were far too short and in places made little sense. Introduction screens dialogue were one liners with no bitmap, so you were left to jump straight into the game with no idea what was going to happen or past events.
Overall: A 2 scenario cutscene campaign, while this is trying to be original it fails to entertain in the way I think the author set out to. I can't really recommend it as it stands.
Evil Sephiroth
Posted on 05/11/02 @ 12:00 AM
Okay. First rule: If you're going to steal storylines from a very good book, get it at least marginally right. Rule 2: Don't put in lots of strange modpacks and stuff. Rule 3: Playability is the key word here. Two cut-scenes and one very short scenario do not a good campaign make. Rule 4: You don't need to play sounds all the time. Rule 5: Martin the Warrior is from a series of books called the Redwall Abbey series. The bad guy in the first book is called Cluny The Scourge. This campaign is nothing like that book. And Rule 6: Why the hell are you in it?