Posted by: Aurora
« on: 28. June 2016, 13:54:49 »
I finished Return to the UNN by Blaydes99. It has become my favourite fan mission - maybe a close tie with UNN Polaris by Christine.
RttUNN starts out by introducing you to some densely built streets, somewhere on Earth nearby a UNN facility, under a reddish dusk sky. Robots and hybrids chase you through alleyways filled with pipes and technological junk. The atmosphere is suspenseful.
Before I delve further, I must say the beginning was quite overwhelming with the endless enemy spam around every corner. You start out a weakling yet you are immediately greeted with protocol droids and shotgun hybrids. This actually put me off from playing the FM the first time around on my own, before returning to it half a year later. Fortunately it lets up once you get inside, where the hordes become more manageable.
The shopping mall was pretty cool, but it was more of the same old stuff seen in SS2 and other FMs, probably owing to recycling the same stock textures and objects in the same old fashion.
The Titus facility stands out with its architecture and atmosphere. Two areas worth mentioning are the dark and spacious main hall which you can oversee from a higher level, and the shuttle bay where you can see the city outside, now at night time. We actually found out how to climb on top of this area. It was very cool to be up there and it gave me some ninja-assassiney Mirror's Edgey vibes, even though there's nothing to do there. The garden in the facility is alright with a somewhat unique style in comparison to other gardens, but suffers from horrible enemy spam. On the other hand, excellent soundtrack choices compliment the atmosphere.
By far my favourite part of the entire FM is the second part of Earth, after the shuttle crashes. It is a rainy city that prominently features a TripOptimum office. The open spaces are a refreshing contrast to cramped hallways, both visually and gameplay-wise. Visually, large open spaces with skyscrapers and bright logos are much more impressive to view and adore than tight corridors. Gameplay-wise it averts the whole experience being a corridor shooter; I like having a plenty of space for maneuvering, dodging particles. Bonus points for hackable turrets in the big open yard area. The rain absolutely crowns the atmosphere audiovisually. As I stood under shelter where you start in the area, I could almost feel the cold from the rain and wanted to stay next to the burning shuttle wreckage for warmth.
The UNN Gallo, despite recycling base game resources in a standard manner, manages to be a quite interesting spaceship. The different decks are unique in style. Some of the areas are mazy and as such did not appeal to me as much in terms of gameplay or visuals, as it becomes too much of a corridor shooter. On the other hand, even in the mazey areas, everywhere is absolutely packed with detail, thanks to good texturing and a generous use of objects and decals. Every square metre has screens, cables, ducts, bolts, signs, equipment, and other stuff. I liked the view of the ship's exterior through some of the windows, and the high resolution space sky is worth every pixel. Overall I enjoyed exploring around the Gallo, apart from the frustration resulting from constantly getting lost on one of the decks.
The ending is a bit abrupt and anticlimatic. However I always felt the original game as well as most FMs I played also have poor endings, so no surprises nor disappointments here. Props for including cutscenes, which are quite close to the standards of the original game. I must admit that the story was a bit lost on me on the first playthrough, because the audio logs sound like quiet mumbling behind static, and often start playing right in the middle of music and action. The voice acting could have been better, if in no other aspects, then at least in recording quality and volume.
Overall RttUNN is an enjoyable experience. Weapons, items, upgrade stations, and medbeds are spread out evenly and placed appropriately to match a constant step up in difficulty, though again it bears mentioning that some areas have overwhelming spawning, like the beginning and the garden.
If I had to pick a few things that stand out in this FM overall, I would highlight the extremely good use of detail, lighting, and background music. There is virtually nowhere in the FM that looks plain or boring, and the soundtrack choices compliment the atmosphere perfectly. The author hit the nail on the head with music better than anything I've seen so far in SS2. The open space areas on Earth were the best thing in this FM. I wish there was more of that. By now we have already seen a million cramped spaceship corridors in the System Shock universe, so anything else for a switch is always refreshing.
Using open spaces, like the big yard in front of the TriOp office in this FM, one could unleash a lot of potential for more interesting gameplay and areas. You would have a lot of room to maneuver fighting AI NPCs, and you would see much more use for the grenade launcher and other powerful weapons that are practical to use over longer ranges. In a large arena with multiple strong enemies dwelling around, the stasis field generator would be a godsend. More of that, please.
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