Basic Details
- Title: Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor
- File Name: hl1-sp-mel-soaring-2-star-rancor.7z
- Original File Name: alk03.zip
- Size : 0.99Mb
- Author: Shaun ‘KONA’ Ross
- Date Released: 16 June 2000
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Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 26 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 20 Mins by Dmitry
Longest: 0 Hours, 31 Mins by monster_urby
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 51 Mins
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You are intergalactic villain Mel Soaring, in an asteroid fighting mostly Xen type enemies. Limited weapons. Difficult battles. Standard textures but well designed mod
Shotgun, shotgun, shotgun. .357. Xen_slave, xen_slave, xen_slave. Alien_grunt. Less furniture = more space to run. Resolution: not really. Ok, it is dusty but fun for about 20 Minutes. I felt like in Qake 2 – levels.
Continuation of “Mel Soaring – Hear Me Roar” for FPS game “Quake II”, but now in HL1 with a new threat, Xen aliens instead of Strogg.
I have to admit I didn’t play the first part, but I know the “Quake” series very well as I have played all titles and all official addon’s often, only except “Quake 4” due to my old PC’s weakness.
So what we have here is five-map pack with good flow, plenty of action and nice architecture.
The maps look cool, some new textures and nice lighting. The layouts are good too.
It indeed somehow feels like playing “Quake II”.
The sections are varied from entering the base on the asteroid, a tech section where you have to shut down the power, some cramped cliff with careful jump & shoot scenes and so on.
It all ends in a Xen-like looking area.
What’s missing is a better story, this could have been done easily as the mapping screams for a good one in my eyes. Also, there are absolutely no puzzles. BUT plenty of combat!
I never seen such a horde of alien slaves before!
Therefore balancing is very good, although way too much shotgun ammo imo.
Another bad thing is that sometimes even more alien slaves are being spawned and you can’t hear it, you’ll FEEL it first lol
All in all it’s a action-packed mappack within great leveldesign.
If alien slaves are your favorite HL monsters, you’ll love this!
The author of Mel Soaring was certainly quick with this sequal, but perhaps a little too quick and that shows in the final product.
I had the benefit of betatesting for Shaun, but unfortunately, only my most superficial advice was looked into. Nonetheless, that was enough to solve some major texture misalignments and the first thing you’ll notice with Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor is the colorful, unique and very neat design. Like me, you’ll probably feel out of place at the beginning with the funky lighting, but also like me, it’ll probably grow on you… or maybe it’s just the fact that Shaun picks up the eye-candy towards the end; either way is good.
The problem with Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor was that the story and the theme the author chose were not very compatible with the final product, as a result this felt awkward as in Mel Soaring for Quake2. The story is great and it attempts to link Quake2 to Half-Life, and I actually paid attention to the frequent text displays during the level that shows conversations between you and your iron-maiden girfriend back on Stroggos. Say whuh? Yeah, it’s all very interesting, but that just makes you wish that the levels themselves were better developed.
My main gripe was with the outdoor asteroid setting; I talked to Shaun about this, it’s just not convincing enough! It feels more like a space platform, ala Yuri Davidov’s Space Odyssey series (which we’re all hoping he continues for the sake of Quake2), only a lot more uninspired. Although Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor’s consistently great r_speeds might have been somewhat sacrificed, I still feel that would’ve been worth it if it meant more elaboration on the currently banal outdoor areas. It’s a shame cause the interior of the Xen temple is done so well.
Xen temple? That doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue as well as Strogg temple does it? As I’ve said, Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor scores high for originality. You are not in your typical Xen setting here, but it seems nobody these days would want many levels dedicated to your typical Xen world. The visuals used by Shaun, however, aren’t exactly unpresidented as many areas look vaguely familiar to Neil Manke’s USS Darkstar. Although the two standards are obviously very different, it’s still not a bad thing.
Also like in USS Darkstar, the only bad guys you get to fight here are Xenoids; although dead human grunts often make appearances to justify the item placement. I felt that there was somewhat of a alien slave overload when it comes to Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor and I think I’ve been zapped one too many times to consider this fact not annoying. Aside from your overzealous slaves, the alien grunt often pesters you with their many appearances. All in all, this is a fiendishly hard but well-balanced addon, but unforunately, the fights aren’t the best or the most varied.
Unlike the former Mel Soaring, this sequal was fairly linear as well. All in all you have a map that plays somewhat awkwardly and also feels a bit uninspired. But don’t let that stop you from downloading this, the visuals were great and the last fight was just brutal!
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Sunday, 24th October, 1999 by Jiang.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
Mel Soaring 2 is the sequel to a Quake 2 map of the same name. I’ve not played the original Quake 2 map, but I don’t think it’s particularly important.
What you have here is a selection of rooms and hallways containing Xen aliens and that’s about it. There is a very light story told through the readme file and a series of text messages that annoying appear right in the center of the screen throughout.
The maps aren’t terrible in terms of their appearance, but the combat in this mod is relentless. Health and ammo pickups are not common so you have to approach each fight cautiously. However, in doing that you will often find yourself being shot in the back, as the author derives great pleasure from having enemies spawn out of thin air, normally behind you.
A number of times, entire roomfuls of enemies will appear out of nowhere, but be warned. As soon as you think that you’re done with a room, continue on while keeping a watchful eye behind you. Something WILL spawn behind you.
Manually
Hard
31 Minutes
This mod is so hard that if you are not lucky you might even end up without ammunition.
It’s all about trial, I place here, shoot from this direction, change position, shoot from another direction. This mos is so milimetrical on Hard that I almost threw away my keyboard LOL!
This is what happens when they leave just with an useless shotgun against an army.
Manually
Hard
20 Minutes