I'm going to lead off this topic by laying out my bias for you: I don't like Tempus Irae. I find the scenario to be too easy, and while the levels are gorgeous, I find the design itself to be unnecessarily complex and tedious -- and, worst of all, repetitive. Levels rely far too much on repetitive switch-hunting to open faraway doors. But the scenario isn't all bad; it's got some enjoyable combat near the end, and it is certainly the most visually engaging scenario completed to date.
The entire concept behind Tempus seems to be one of those "wouldn't it be cool if..." things that Team Nardo came up with, so they did it. And I can't fault them for that. The idea itself is cool (what if aliens attacked Renaissance Italy?!) and the execution is pretty professional, even if the level design is a little lacking.
01. Ain't My Bitch
[attachment=3680:AintMyBitch_0000.png]
Making a good first level for a scenario is surprisingly difficult. Players tend to judge video games in general by their first couple levels, and this is certainly true for a Marathon scenario, so you have to establish a lot in your first level or two or players will lose interest quickly. This is one of the reasons why I think Rubicon X is worse than plain Rubicon: it has two exposition levels and a crappy level that has virtually nothing to do with the real plot. Basically, your first level should establish the plot, obviously, but it should also establish the tone of the gameplay itself. So, for a game like Marathon Infinity, you're going to have an exploration-based level. Evil puts you face-to-face with the Devlins. Rubicon has a level that goes on and on and on is expansive and has multiple objectives.
And in that regard, Ain't My Bitch is a pretty good level. According to their own website:
This is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the combat in the level is generally exciting and more difficult than most opening levels, and overall it's a pretty intense level to hook players in. On the other hand, the next several levels are boring and extremely easy in comparison. Now, the toughest part about a good first level is establishing the difficulty curve that you want. The first level of a game is (traditionally) the easiest, or close to it anyway; Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is a notable exception. It gives players a sense of progression, since, if you can beat a tougher level, you know you can beat all of the easier ones too. This is what hurts Tempus in the next couple levels. On the other hand, you don't want your first level to be too easy; Marathon in particular is bad because shooting Fighters and Drones with pistols is just plain boring and not engaging.We wanted the scenario to start with a bang, so we took the unusual approach of having the first level actually be more difficult than several of the levels that follow.
I'm rambling, but my point is, Ain't My Bitch is a great level to start the game but the next levels don't match up, even though they should. There's no reason why the next few levels aren't at least as difficult.
On to the level design itself. The Pfhor texture set in Tempus is good; it reminds me of Marathon 2, but it's much less garish. The twist here is that you're in the service of the S'pht, so Compilers are good guys and Pfhor are bad. This is okay, but let's not kid ourselves: Compilers are slow and stupid enemies, and they get easily bamboozled if even two Fighters attack them at the same time. To "offset" that, Compilers have substantially more health -- which just means that if when you get stuck behind a Compiler in a hallway, it takes several precious shotgun shells to kill it.
Overall, the level is basically linear, but it keeps looping back into the first area, with the 1x recharger and save. That's good design for a linear level; it successfully masks the fact that you're just going down a twisting mess of corridors for 20 solid minutes. So, despite the simple nature of the design, I like the level. The ending area with the coolant tanks is attractive, and the architecture is intricate. There are some completely auxiliary spaces in the level, which sort of stinks because it wastes time and ammo, but overall it's tolerable and it just gives the layout a bit more richness and authenticity.
The main weakness of the level, besides the aforementioned difficulty curve nonsense, is that I think it goes on a bit too long without changing the format of the level. It's just narrow corridor after narrow corridor. Your only weapons are dual pistols, a single shotgun (there's a second one in a secret, though), and any alien guns you find. Which is okay, but it gets old as you plow through Fighter after Fighter after Fighter in these narrow corridors. On Total Carnage, you basically have to fist enemies at the start of the level or risk running out of ammo, which is never good design. I wish this level were maybe shortened by a third, or if it opened up a little bit more to break the monotony.
In summary: Decent level, but I wish it were shorter. Good combat that overshadows the next several levels.
Level design: 3.5/5
Aesthetics: 4.5/5
Combat: 3/5
Annoying quirk:
See this trooper?
[attachment=3681:AintMyBitch_0002.png]
You can't shoot him from here. You have to run past him, but as you do, it will wake up and shoot you with its machine gun. This is avoidable, but only if you know he's there, and this is tough because there's a low ceiling that blocks your shot and your vision. Otherwise, you're due to lose at least half a life bar to a stupid, cheap trick.
Anyway, this area has a ton of locked doors, which is fine, except few of them open with switches. They seem to open of their own volition; in fact, what you have to do is try to approach a different door (which never opens), and in doing so, a distant door will open somewhere else. You have no reason to suspect that this will work, so after dicking around one particular dead-end courtyard, if you get frustrated and head back, you'll find two different doors are opened and you don't know how. It's like switch hunting, only the switches are invisible. Bad design. I'm sure the Nardo dorks thought this was a "puzzle" though, and left it in. Marathon's not really great at puzzles.