four hundred babies (id: Lord_Fadawah) |
Posted on 10/10/04 @ 12:00 AM
Siege Onager Blood is a multiplayer similar to SMOSH, but no prizes for guessing what its distinctive feature is. Siege Onagers are the only units you get all game, and you must use them to destroy the enemy tower. Players are arranged in a circle with a tower behind walls, and get an unlimited supply of Siege Onagers which get replaced as they are killed. Each player has five villagers and some stone to repair any damage done to the tower. That about sums up the list of features in Siege Onager Blood, so let the slaughter begin. The sheer number of smashed onagers can make for some very interesting screenshots. ;)
PLAYABILITY
You could never say that Siege Onager Blood takes much skill to play. While this is in part due to the fact that you only ever get Siege Onagers, the design of the scenario also hampers strategy. In most bloods you get upgrades and bonuses for kills, but not here. Destroying the enemy tower is all you have to worry about.
Games can get long and rather boring. Destroying the enemy tower is almost impossible, as before you can start firing you have to put your Siege Onagers within range of the enemy artillery, where they will probably get destroyed before they can do much damage. Since there is no reason to get kills, you can just park your Siege Onagers in front of your tower and survive the entire game. There is no motivation to fight the other players, as they will usually do the same thing as you and be more or less invulnerable. On the brighter side, there are none of the bugs that plague many popular multiplayer scenarios and games are relatively lag-free. The computer can also play competitively as well. 4
BALANCE
All players start off in the dark age, so civ-specific bonuses won't unbalance the game (come on, having a post-imperial Mongol, Celt or Korean player as an enemy isn't much fun). And while starting locations are fine, the towers have different amounts of HP. Player 1, player 2, player 3 and player 5 have towers with 32,000 HP; player 7 has 2,100 HP; and player 4, player 6 and player 8 have 1,900 HP. I have no idea why this is, and I suggest the author correct it in a patch. It isn't as bad as it sounds, as destroying enemy towers is almost impossible anyway. 4
CREATIVITY
Other then only having Siege Onagers, this campaign is nothing new. Bonuses for kills are near-standard in multiplayer games, as they provide motivation for players to actually fight, but this one has none. The host has the option of booting certain players from the game, which is a nice feature, but by no means new. Overall the theme is second hand, many other multiplayer bloods have done the same, but better. I suggest adding ways for the player to improve his Siege Onagers (e.g. 100 kills gives +100 HP to all of his onagers, 200 kills gives the Siege Engineer technology, 300 kills gets him a trebuchet, etc). 3
MAP DESIGN
The map is functional and reasonably attractive, especially for a blood map. Flags mark out important places, and some eye-candy adds appeal to an otherwise flat map. While better then many multiplayer maps, there are still some problems. There is too much grass, and the masses of skeletons are unrealistic. The good and bad points of Siege Onager Blood even out to a random map score. 3
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS
No story to speak of, but that's standard for multiplayer bloods. A greater problem is that there are no hints, aside from an on-screen message explaining that the objective is to destroy the enemy tower. The instruction and hint fields are filled with the author's name copy/pasted one hundred times, which doesn't cut any ice in my opinion. :S Siege Onager Blood isn't a less enjoyable experience due to lack of hints, but a first-time player of the scenario should at least be told what to expect. 2
SUMMARY
Siege Onager Blood needs an update. Give the towers the same HP, and diminish use of the "camping" tactic by using a kill bonus system. Add some hints, and maybe even some extra features. As it stands now, Siege Onager Blood is a fun scenario, but one I would hate to have an eight-player with. |