Gulag 5Gulag 5
Author(s): Randy CabaDescription
Your missions officer, Jan, has been captured by Imperial forces, and is being tortured within the prison outpost Gulag 5. To make matters worse, she was carrying the plans for the liberation of Rebel sympathizers. Your job is to infiltrate the facility, rescue Jan, find the plans, and then steal a shuttle to escape.
Review
If the plot above is enough to make you yawn, you're not the only one. The first blow to this level is the incredible mundane premise behind it. You can imagine the conversation:
"What should we make the level about?"
"I don't know. Hey, why don't we rescue Jan and find captured data tapes! We've only done that about 5 billion times before!"
"Yeah! And just to make it interesting we can have Kyle abandon the Crow in favor of a slower, ligther armed, and much less cool looking Imperial Shuttle!"
"This is going to be great! We can also fill the entire level with blocky rooms, poor texture placement, and lots of multiple logic enemies you can wipe out with all the weapons we make available........"
Unfortunately, as weird as this conversation might seem, it's really all that can be expected.
This level really hits rock bottom. Weapons are around every corner, so are the enemies, and while the plot might have been pulled off with interesting architecture and decent puzzles, alas, they aren't to be found here. I can't believe any decent architect would ever put something together like this, with Imperial standards being mixed in with Jabba's own personal preferences, and the Emperor's own designs. The worst is that it's all random. "Let's do this room in the Tatooine rugged design..." The place doesn't even begin to resemble an Imperial prison, with the doors little more than different textures in line with the wall. While it's always a good idea to stray a bit from the norm and introduce new ideas, I have to say that some designs might be better left untouched.
The texture placement is some of the most horrid I've seen for a level. Anything will work for a door, and everything else gets slapped in as a wall at some point in time. Why an entire wall should be devoted to code symbols, I have no idea, especially when they don't work and serve no useful purpose. I could insert another pseudo-conversation here, but I think you get the point.
Overall
Is there something positive to say about this level? It doesn't make your computer crash.... oh wait, yes it does. Every time but the last it crapped out on me, the last only because I ran through fast to avoid the torture much longer. Avoid this level like the Admiralcy on the Executor.