|
Author |
File Description |
Bearded_Dragon |
Posted on 02/04/03 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Role Playing Only |
----->HUGE THANKS TO CRASHER FOR FIXING SOME MAJOR BUGS!<-----
The Underworld II Campaign includes:
-A giant map with a high level of detail. No lag, but something worse (Read on).
-Everyone talks.
-Everyone has a name. It's either a class name (Ex. Rune Master) or a race name (Ex. Human).
-Real forests you can walk through like in real life.
-414 triggers
-Upgrades for all three characters. These include Weapons, Items, Spells, and Armor. 15 in all.
-Upgrades include detailed information.
-Sound effects for rain and thunder.
-Soundtrack
-Talk as long or as short as you want.
--------------NOTE------------------
As the first line says, "-A giant map with a high level of detail. No lag, but something worse (Read on).." Here is what's wrong.
The game dosen't lag much, but will crash if you system isn't powerfull enough. I had 64 RAM and the Underworld II beta crashed whenever you would start it. So I had to redo the whole triggers again after I copied the whole map and pasted it on a new one. I had gotten about 10% through the "new" creation when I upgraded my RAM to 320. With a Celeron 600 with 320 RAM, it would crash sometimes. I have fixed it, and runs great on my system. Anyone lower than 600 MHz or 320 RAM might get a lag or a crash. (That's going to reduce my overall review)
------------------------------------
After Daedalus, Majestic and Helious destroyed the Illuminati base in their country, it has started a chain reaction with the "half-breeds". This chain reaction has spread throughout the whole world, and The Illuninati has become weaker. But when Daedalus got back home after the victory over The Illunimati, Tenchrey wasn't there. The three waited and waited untill Helious and Majestic found a new journal in Tenchrey's room and read it. They found out where Tenchrey had gone to, but they couldn't figure it out why he went there...
The story starts in The Underworld |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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DiGiT |
Posted on 02/07/03 @ 12:00 AM
Wow. Thanks crasher for fixing this great map! (And of course thanks Bearded_Dragon for making it!)
Playability: Now that the bugs were fixed, this was great. The enemies were defeatable, but not if you were stupid. The finding resources thing was a bit strange, still, but not enough to take off a point. The whole map was fun, so 5 here.
Balance: This, also, was great once the bugs were fixed. Everything was basically good except for the villagers. They just stood around for most of the game and it seemed a bit unnrealistic. It would have been cooler to have them farming, mining, etc. The kinda boring long walks also add up to take off one point here. Still, good job, 4. (+1 Map)
Creativity: This was definitely one of this map's strong points. The every-unit-has-a-name thing was amazing and the strange little dialogues between people and main characters were entertaining. Using Stormy Dog as a dragon was pretty cool, too. Definitely 5 here.
Map Design: The height of this scenario. This was unbelievable! The forests that you could walk through, the awesome realism of 'nature', the eye candy. Wow! Nothing much more to say. Definitely 5! For this, I'll add an extra point on another catagory.
Story/Instructions: This map's story was very creative and entertaining. I never played Underworld I, so I guess I was a little confused at parts. The only main things that took off here were the slightly confusing phrases used sometimes (example: in diary entries) and the shortness of the scenario. I was surprised when I beat it after only about an hour 30 minutes. I wanted more! :-P
Overall, great job! Even greater with the bugfix! |
Magnum Pi |
Posted on 12/15/03 @ 12:00 AM
The Playability was good, but somewhat difficult to "catch on to" at first. 3 or 3.5 I think.
Over-all good balance, but certain little "gliches" and non-regenerating heroes adds a little unnecassery difficulty.
There are many fantasy scenarios out there, but this on seemed a little toned down from ones I've played. And had some new (to me anyway) features that were quite enjoyable.
Excellent eye-candy, nice little random resourch toches, and use of beta units, as well as the 'stormy dogs' as dragons, lol. Not much else to say, very good.
Probably the most difficult part of the campaign was figureing out exactly what to do. I was confused on what to do on most of the instructions. Recomendation: Be a bit more specific, i.e. tell the player to garrison in a building to talk, or specify the color of a player that is involved in an instruction. I can tell you worked very hard one this campaign, and you did good, but remember; I'm the player...I don't know what you thought when you wrote messages, so explain them clearly.
I am not a big fan of Fantasy scenarios, but this was a good one :). |
Tanneur99
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/22/04 @ 12:00 AM
EDITED REVIEW OF THE UNDERWORLD II 2.0
The Underworld II is a single scenario; the second part of the unfinished two set Underworld series, it is a Mix of RPG and RPS with FF elements. The story is fiction; the events take place in a world of Orcs, Humans and Elfs. The Illuminati became weak after the destruction of their Kolgioan base. Daedalus, Majestic and Helious arrive in Zagon to find out why Tenchrey left Denton.
PLAYABILITY: A could be great scenario, I enjoyed exploring the cities and towns, to gather clues, use the read as long as you want triggers and the texts were good, informative and humorous. Beta units from Rasher's Template and map copy features like the harbours, sea gates, tall palisade walls and sea towers from Enrique's Template were a pleasure to discover and fitted perfect into the fictitious world. The sound effects, mod packs and a good music file added to the game play; still this was not always fun due to a major bug and other playability issues. The country of Zogan, best to explore by boat, is a "water world" situated at the seaside, with two rivers streaming into the sea. In the Shoreline City Drumpth, the player arrives too late to buy a transport, in the city of Jubarn the docks are closed, but a Jage tells you about a transport in the north end of the country. When you find it, it is useless with impassable sea gates that force you to explore by foot, to take circuitous routes, long walks on a giant map. To find resources was strange, frustrating, especially gold, set with tiny tiles, easy to miss even when you explore the whole map. Avoid stepping on a flag near a blacksmith (grey player colour); it will deduct 350 stone and 500 gold from your resources without any upgrade in exchange. I will refer to more playability issues in the related categories. 3
BALANCE: The balance is above average with reloads. I played the scenario on moderate and hard difficulty. Compared to the first part of the series there was more fighting during the RPS part, but overall too easy, missing a challenge throughout the scenario, which includes the final battle. One reason for the scenarios unbalance is a repeated trigger error. You get messages about HP increase for a specific unit, but all heroes benefit. In the end, Helious has 25 HP, Majestic 95 HP and Daedalus 90 HP more than intended. Furthermore, if the 'weak' jaguar warrior joins before those upgrades become effective, these triggers will raise his HP by 105, and thus eliminate a creative balance aspect. 4
CREATIVITY: The Underworld II is creative, with many beta units and map copy features. You will find a good choice of mod packs, great sound effects, music file and renaming of units. A varied upgrade system with armour, weapons, spells and items, the player finds, receives or simply buys HP and AP enhancements. The balance, map, story, playability, resource placements and the use of some triggers was not up to the highest standard of this category. 4
MAP DESIGN: A lot of effort went into the giant map, a great detailed design of cities/towns. The landscape is not so good. There are elevations, the rivers were good, but the terrain mix consists in most areas of grass one and flower beds. The forest has a terrible mix of pine, oak, jungle and bamboo. The so-called "walk able" forest forces your units to go roundabout ways. As an example, on the island the triggers are set to find 348 gold in five places, but you leave the island with 78 gold because the other four areas are not accessible due to an overload of Gaia. The roundabout ways do affect the playability too. 4
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS: Not much of a story, your mission, to find out why Tenchrey left, no development in game, just "go and see Lord Karzo" and "talk to Tenchrey". The Lost Race does not work as a stand up alone scenario, it is supposed to be the link in a multi scenario campaign between The Underworld and the Underworld III. A not finished project, a Bard says: "I wonder what the Underworld III is going to be like." Confusing, the scout section mixed the four cardinal points. I did not find the cat eye in game for the only side quest due to a misleading hint. It was not in the ruins of Thor, which were located at three different places, but south of one, in a shipwreck to step on, missing the highest amount of resources to buy upgrades. You find a short summary of what happened before, a bmp, a good author's description, some hints and a read me. 3
OVERALL: The Underworld II will be a great scenario after an edit.
SUGGESTIONS: Edit, extract the scenario, and fix six sea gates (the one behind a bridge is not necessary) to make them passable. Move them, delete more than twenty multiple gateposts, and move the sea gates back between the high palisade walls (player 2 and player 4). Place a Gaia trade boat near a transport (grey area) up north. You can also fix the following triggers, which is not necessary to enjoy, important is to pass the sea gates with the above fix. Triggers "Helious Info", effect 2, it is AP by five instead of HP. "Buy Dragoon Sword", effect 0, increase the quantity to eight. Triggers "Gold on island" and the following triggers below, __2, __3 and __5, the set areas are inaccessible, best to make the set area larger or to move Gaia. Trigger "Get Bizant Mail", effect 1, objects not set (set Helious, Huskarl). Trigger "Get Gauntlets", effect 2, objects not set (set Majestic, Samurai). Trigger "Enter ToF II", effect 1, objects not set (set Daedalus, two-handed swordsman). Trigger "Sharpen Swords", add effect 4, activate trigger "ITEM - Swords Sharpened"; add effect 5 change AP player 1 by 4 set objects = Daedalus; add effect 6 change AP player 1 by 6 set objects = Helious; add effect 7 change AP player 1 by 5 set objects = Majestic. Trigger "Item - Swords Sharpened", change display as objective to yes and starting state to off. Below, trigger "Hit sea rocks with boat" the following triggers, __2 to __10, they have an effect, but no condition. Set the conditions for each trigger like in __1. Trigger __11 has no condition but seven effects. You have to separate the effects in six new triggers and to set the respective conditions. Save as "The Lost Race final version" and place the scenario in the renamed campaign file: The Underworld II v3.0.
OBSERVATIONS: Whenever you map copy a gate/sea gate, the gateposts multiply and gates become impassable. It occurred to me only with transport ships, not to all though, but still after I deleted the multiple posts. The in game fix is to send the transport as a convoy through the gate, for this I recommend to place a Gaia trade boat. The above is an edit of my original review posted on 2004-02-03.
IN CLOSING: I recommend playing ID 512 "The Underworld" first, and then "The Underworld II". Best, but not necessary to play the scenario with Mod ID 126 pre-Alpha Castle by Agamemnon, which replaces the church 4, and Mod ID 175 Stormy Dog to flying dragon, by ROR_Sir_William to replace the stormy dog with a dragon. You need Utility ID 147 MPS Lite 2.0, by JC Alsup, aka j_c_a to install the dragon. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.0 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 3.7 | Balance | 4.3 | Creativity | 4.3 | Map Design | 4.7 | Story/Instructions | 3.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 4,574 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 3.65 MB |
Added: | 02/04/03 |
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