Sluggs on 16/9/2003 at 00:05

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:laff: What alot of spelling errors in this thread!

Sluggs :thumb:

PS. Dus nobodey no howe too spel? :eww: :laff:

The Mike on 16/9/2003 at 05:22

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It's late. I'm bored, and I'm not tired enough to go to sleep- so therefore I will write a episode by episode review for the recently released Night Falcon. Makes sense to me...Anyway, Night Falcon is a pretty huge campaign and there are probably a lot of people out there who want to know if it's worth the download, hopefully this review will help them out. :thumb: I don't write many reviews (in fact I don't write much in general), so hopefully this won't be *too* bad. Note: This review will not be completely "glowing", as I'm going to mention some of the problems I had with the campaign also, so no offence to the author, I enjoyed Night Falcon very much overall (just, nothing's perfect).

Anyway- ONWARD:

Mission 1- A shopping Walk
What better way to kick off an epic campaign like this then with a huge town level? The first mission is just basically Garett gathering his equipment, and enjoying some good thieving in town before he heads off to raid Lord Wellhofer's mansion. This mission is where we see for the first time the major problem I had with the earlier levels of this pack, those damn hidden switches!! I don't mind the occasional hidden swith in an FM, but I prefer for them to be big enough to easily see and for there to be a good clue nearby that there is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in fact a hidden switch in the room your searching. The hidden switch puzzle right at the beginning of this level has you combing Garrett's house for a hidden lever roughly the size of a speck of dust- that also happens to be obscurely hidden. But enough about mental anguish I suffered from that evil little switch, overall this level was pretty enjoyable. It won't blow you away like some of the later levels, but it is an enjoyable town mission- and hey, who doesn't like a good town with plenty of citizens to rob blind?? It's not the most incredible town mission out there, but it's a good start.
[SPOILER]I was expecting some really freaky crap to start happening when I walked into the weaponsmith's (due to the ambient sounds playing) but was kinda dissapointed when nothing happened....guess it's the old "Blair Witch Project" theory, the scariest things are what you don't see...[/SPOILER]
Mission 2- Lord Wellhofer
Quality-wise, this is about on par with the first mission. Mission 1 was pretty much your average town level, and this is pretty much your average mansion raid. Not much out of the ordinary here (besides a freaky "children's room", straight out of poultregeist [sp??]) You hop from carpet to carpet over gaps of tile floor, discover a noble's dark secret, stare at the big library, yadda yadda yadda. You've played this a hundred times before, but that doesn't mean it isn't still well made and fun. It'll keep your interest and it develops the story nicely, and that's good enough for me. Note: Has another one of those damn "hidden switches", pay CLOSE ATTENTION to your surroundings- and bring some tylenol....
Mission 3- The Hammerite Monastary
Now for me, this is where it gets good. This mission starts with cool (and extremely fun to ghost) town and forest sections, and continues in a huge hammerite monastary-hence the title. Something about this mission just really did it for me, the whole thing was just so interesting- sneaking past cops in the shadows, creeping by angry raptor-style burricks in the wilderness, and unearthing a dark and thoroughly creepy secret in the monastary. Speaking of which, the monastary REALLY freaked me out. Not so much the monatary itself (although it was well made...) but the place *below* the monastary. The sense of dread and the dark freaky atmosphere really were done extremely well- so much so that I found myself literally shaking at one point:eek:. But then again, when it comes to anything scary, I'm a complete pansy...I mean, I still shiver whenever I pass by "Rowena's Curse" in the darkloader menu...There is one drawback to this level though. The hidden switches are back, WITH A VENGEANCE! There's only one here, but this one is real nasty. You know that annoying switch from the first level? This one would qualify as being the sinister evil twin of that switch. Not only is it uber tiny, but your hint is along the lines of "It's somewhere in the monastary".....okay.....
Mission 4- The Cathedral
Here's the point where the missions become completely bliss....well....almost. Okay, the plus side, THE HIDDEN SWITCHES ARE GONE!! W00T! RAISE DAH' ROOF! The down side? There is a major bug that I experienced that prevented me from finishing the mission. For some reason, the final objective (the one telling you to "escape to town") didn't tick off and I had to ctrl+alt+shift+end out of the mission. I hate doing that, I like to be greeted by a full row of green check marks after I complete a mission, seeing an empty square next to an objective has a way of making me feel deprived...Anyway, besides that this mission is great. Really, REALLY well done town section starts it off, and the Cathedral is extremely well made, as are the crypts which are creepy as hell. By the way, get used to crypts and undead, starting at mission 3 you see them A LOT. But it's alright, in my opinion, undead have a way of spicing up a thief FM. I really liked the layout of the Cathedral, it's a lot less "formulaic" then that of the monastary. Everything looks good all around, extremely well done. Just make sure you have all of your objectives you can possibly do ticked off before you ctrl+alt+shift+end out of it, you sly devil you. :ebil:
Mission 5: The Mysterious Tower
My feelings on this mission are kinda mixed, first of all it's a very well done mission, and the Tower itself is very dark and foreboading, but to me this feels like "The Cathedral: Lite". I mean, we see a town again, and again we see a cathedral...only it's smaller- much, MUCH smaller. And again we see a crypt...only it's a smaller crypt, that is not quite as well made as the ones in the previous levels in my opinion (or maybe I was just getting sick of crypts at this point??). The tower itself isn't much, from what I remember it took 1 rope arrow to get to the top of it. In all honesty I'm being too hard on this mission, I enjoyed it a lot, and I still very much appreciate the lack of hidden switches- I just prefer the previous mission.
Mission 6: Christmas Presents
Now here is an excellent mission. Not only does it have that cool wintery feel to it that I love so much, but it also happens to be extremely well made, and feature some great thieving and interesting ideas. [SPOILER]I loved the sled ride!!![/SPOILER] This mission is just good fun. It also is a nice change of pace, nice to FINALLY get away from hammerite churches and dingy zombie-filled crypts. This level is almost like a relaxing vacation before the next greuling trek into undead territory. This would be a great level to play around Christmas time, excellent "holiday season" atmosphere going on. And you gotta love the new Burricks. :)
Mission 7: The Brotherhood of the Falcon
Here it is, the final mission of the pack. In many ways, this mission is the deciding factor as to whether or not this pack is worth the download. I mean, what's a good campaign without a solid ending? Luckily, this mission manages to both tie up the storyline, AND become quite possibly the best mission in the pack. Really great architecture here, and I love all of the new creatures! Everything just has a great "run-down, unexplored, no-humans-allowed" feel to it. If you've ever played the FM "Crom's Blade" you know what I'm talking about- only here it's even more well done IMHO. Man, what else is there to say? It looks great, it's scary (understatement of the year award- here I come!!), and it's chock full of new stuff! An excellent ending to a great campaign. {edit} almost forgot to mention! This mission has one small flaw, there is a bug that will quit you to the desktop, I fixed it simply by saving before I entered the castle, and re-loading to that save after (and if) I experienced the bug....

And with that, I'm now tired enough to go to sleep. Yes, for those of you that skipped straight to the end of this post, my final opinion IS in fact, that you should download it, and yes, my knuckles ARE killing me from typing so much.
So go leave your opinions on this FM or my review on it here if you feel like it, or just skim over my review and get downloadin', whatever. For those of you wondering why I didn't just post this in the Night Falcon thread- simple, I knew it would get overlooked due to the fact that as soon as I posted it people would skip right past it and get back to asking questions about "where that damn hidden switch" is...So yeah, hopefully it wasn't too painful of a read for those of you who actually went through the whole thing. So, I'm going to collapse now, g'night!

krogger on 16/9/2003 at 23:43

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[SPOILER]Take a look at the torches in the area[/SPOILER] I think I'm thinking of the right mission, there should be[SPOILER]one to frob on each side of the inaccessible area[/SPOILER]

[BBR]_M1Tanker on 17/9/2003 at 03:45

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Have you frobed EVERYTHING possible at the TOP ^^^ of those stairs???

[spoiler] LOOK UP AT EVERYTHING!!!![/spoiler]:cheeky:

Griffin on 17/9/2003 at 03:49

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Krogger,

Thanks for the assist. Actually I was out of the crypts and had just missed a carried key. Done now and on to mission 4 :cheeky: