Laboratory Vol. 1
The Massassi Temple » Levels/Mods » Jedi Knight Single Player Level » Laboratory Vol. 1
Description
The first of two installments of a Single Player level set in a corp. Laboratory, in which their experiments have gone horribly wrong.
The program 'Patch Commander' is needed to play Laboratory vol. 1. Once unzipped, place the "labxtras.gob" into patch commander, and "laboratory.gob" into your episode folder. Run the level through Patch Commander.
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3D Preview
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3D Preview developed by Stephan Reiter
Wow! I have to say the atmosphere and suspense in this level are amazing! I especially love the moving enviroments. Top notch! I've seen nothing like it in JK! HOWEVER, I do have one serious gripe. I didn't get to fight one friggin alien :P All that suspense, all that hiding and I didn't get to shoot one damn thing. I thought "Finally! A gun! Now I get to roast something!" and a minute or two later the credits are rolling. I was like "WTH?!?!" I felt like I just watched a episode of Dragon Ball Z. You know, where they hype you up cause you think a big fight is coming, and they milk the whole friggin 20 minutes out on crappy side dialog and people sweating and moaning for no reason, and before you know it it's over! And your pissed off! You just wasted 20 minutes. ARGH! Man, you better be busting out with the next installment soon! And have something actually chasing me this time, so I don't feel stupid when it's over. Jesus, I could have finished this 4x as fast if I knew there wasn't a fight. [/end rant] haha, as I stated initially. Awesome awesome project, atmosphere, architecture, astestics, story, etc. No complaints there, just gimme the next installment already =P [mumble grumble]
SPOILER-------------
As for the enimies, the reason I didn't put any in is because there wasn't any room to yet.. I felt that it needed to be like Doom 3, or Half Life.. where there is really no fighting till the story is set up and the S*** hits the fan. Also, there is a few things that need to happen before u can fight someone...
1. Get lost (or else u'll just go back out he front door when u find out ur in danger)
2. Get into some danger
3. Find a gun
4. kill stuff...
and sadly the first installment ends with you finding the gun, heh.
Volume 1 was more to set up the story and tell you a LITTLE bit, but not a whole lot. Then when Volume 2 comes out, there is running and shooting, and the large piece of the story that is missing out of Volume 1.
END SPOILER-------------
I was intending on releasing this thing as 1 big TC, but i figured I'd give you guys the first half, just so u know that I'm not giving up.
and when i fell into the lair bit, i was just running away as fast as i possibly could screaming.. i must have fallen into the same pit three times i was so scared.
but when i got the gun and opened the door to find... the bad stuff... and then the screaming blackness of doom, OMG i think i had a heart attack..
i compliment you on a job well done, allthough the first part was a bit boring, when the fear factor kicked it it owned. and useing shots from JED in the loading background images like floor plans was inspired!
i give you 9/10 because i dident get to kill anything, and there was only one gun evan in multiplayer.. but still, by far teh best level i've yet seen!
VOL2! NOW! Before Mentallity disappears!
/Edward
The scare factor was awesome. Holy! The feel of the level was excellent!!!
However, I have a few ideas that would have improved Volume 1. Maybe you could have a Special Edition. ;)
1. Puzzles aspects! The size of the level was perfect, but there should have been challenging puzzles to get the brain thinking. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the level, but the completion time was too short. Puzzles would definitely have increased the completion time to finish this level.
2. Realism is important. Why are the access card & data disk on a floor? These items should have been near a dead body, or perhaps on a desk/table. That would have made more sense. Argh, this is just a minor thing though. =)
And what about the red lights? Where are those lights coming from? You should have had the IR Goggles instead.
3. Aliens!!! C'mon! You should have put in aliens that chased you (If you were too slow, they would have killed you). It would have brought a much darker environment in the level. After all, that's how the alien movies were - People ran away from the aliens, then they found some way to utilize something that battled back the aliens. You should have made the aliens a -DANGEROUS- threat in Volume 1 by showing us that they are superior when you're helpless against them.
Anyway, I'd rate your level as a 97/100! Awesome job Spiral! Once again, your work amazes me!
I love the music, the creatures, the plot, the architecture, the ending; just about everything is perfect!
Oh, and the reason you saw no bodies, Shockaz, is because the creatures got them. Didn't you ever look at the MP versions of this? One says right on the Level Desc why the only bodies you see are the ones who committed suicide.
Yeah, the ladder was difficult for me, too, Laguna. Eventually I just used eriamjh and flew to it.
Overall, the best thing ever made for JK, period. Only three minor things wrong with it. One, it's only part one, two, there was a dflt.mat at the bottom of a pitfall, and three, the Saint needs fire rate, projectile speed, and sounds to be modified, they are same as Bryar.
Oh, and the music is the best, ended up using ConMan to extract it and make them mp3 so I can listen to them all day :)
There were a few things that needed fixing, the saint in my opinion should do more, like sounds and fire speed. Also I noticed you need to fix the offset on the K_RHAND on the player model.
Also I was under the impression you did not climb the ladders? At least I didnt have to to win. Anyway great level 9/10.
I don't think I have any serious gripes, and most of the good stuff has already been said. However, I saw mentioned about the finding of a security key/card. I found the door for that, but never the key, and completed the level anyway. A glich? I'll go run through it again later.
There were a few rooms I walked in and they just totally creeped me out beyond believe. Then the music, level design and concept. The part I like best is the opening title, that was damm neat. Everything else was just wonderful.
Can't wait for part 2! :)
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Issues:
- Found a floor not flagged as floor... it wasn't hard to reach or anything.
- There's a door you can't reach, you don't have to reach it but it's at the end of a hallway but you just can't get by... IRL there's no way that would happen lol.
- The guy seems to have good running muscles ROFL.
- No custom icons/descriptions for keys / no inventory scroll deactivation (I think it's possible).
- Where the hell do you find the [SPOILER]sampleanddatadisk[/SPOILER], one of which you drop in a cutscene (which rocked btw).
- You can skip the aforementioned cutscene easily by jumping over it, thus avoiding losing the aforementioned thing. This should not be possible. :P
- I know we discussed it extensively in chat...but that ladder should've been broken or climbable... or something. It would've added to the realism.
- I noticed alot of doors that didn't open on the way to the "exit" in the part [spoiler]beforethealienplace[/spoiler]. The trick is not to try to force the player to go somewhere... or to try to think about what the player is gonna do... but to try to accommidate the player's choices reguardless of what they do or where they want to go.
Well that's it... I'm looking forward to #2, and glad you changed your mind about that movie c***, whatever the heck that was about. :confused:
Anyways I only got scared and "jumped" once, in the [SPOILER]alien place[/SPOILER] when I heard a loud growl ambience noise. :'( Waaaah mommy Spiral's aliens are gonna eat meeee...
Laboratory Theme - http://www.sorrowind.net/laboratory/Spiral%20-%20Laboratory%20Theme.mp3
Laboratory End Title - http://www.sorrowind.net/laboratory/Spiral%20-%20Laboratory%20End%20Title.mp3
Misc Laboratory Music
http://www.sorrowind.net/laboratory/9%20SiC%20-%20Nine.mp3
http://www.sorrowind.net/laboratory/Spiral%20-%20Laboratory%20(Mix).mp3
http://www.sorrowind.net/laboratory/Spiral%20-%20Laboratory%20Trailer.mp3
I also didn't think that it was dark and moody enough. A lot of the surfaces were so big that they would either be fully lit or not lit at all, and would switch between when they were on the edge of the screen.
I have full faith, however, that Vol. 2 will OWN.
Archi: I was very impressed by your style which gave it a good spooky atmosphere.
Gameplay: I want to say it was good.... IT WAS GOOD... but their were a few problems that easily could've been fixed:
SPOILER WARNING!!!
1. In the broken grate floor jumping puzzle, if you fell, you weren't killed when you hit the floor, you were killed by the dflt.mat when you met face to face on the floor(/sarcasm).
2. TOO MUCH DETAIL!!! I know you wanted to make this a very detailed map but floors and walls would disappear temporarily(although you could still walk on the surface) and allow you to see through them *cough*another dflt.mat.
3. Alright a lot of you I will agree about, we should've at least got to fight an enemy, but a couple things I wanted to mention: 1. NO soldier goes to a facility where something has gone wrong without some sort of weapon. 2. I'm glad Spiral did what he did and didn't give us a chance to fight the meance, giving us a bigger sense of suspense. But another type of enemy to fight would've been appreciative.
Modifications: The enemies look pretty good(gives me the xenomorph feeling) and the new weapon looks cool but I haven't tested it out yet(and you can guess why).
Conclusion: Congratulations on releasing the first volume, just hopefully we won't see the dreaded dflt.mat anymore.
Final Score: 8/10
Cons:
• While there was some pretty nice, complex architecture, many areas had a dull 'default' feeling in terms of design and texturing. There were hallways and places in the vents that lead nowhere, which was frustrating. And that random fatal fall in the vents - needless and annoying.
• Red tint in the beginning was irritating.
• Lab exterior in beginning was needlessly messy and over-complex. Not a good first impression.
• Puzzles would have been a nice replacement for enemies.
• It's painfully obvious that the player is using the Creatures' running and jump animations. How could something so obvious be overlooked? [EDIT: My B. I ran the mod wrong, and the anims are correct now. Sorry.]
• Cutscenes don't work if you're in 3rd person camera mode.
Pros:
• Fabulously scary atmosphere. Things you think you saw, and probably did. Excellent use of Creatures.
• Great new player model.
• Strong story, great storytelling - gradually finding out things as you go along.
• 3rd level blew me away. Great new use of animations made the environment feel alive.
• Wonderfully executed pipe 'architecture' in that corridor near the end.
• Nice fog!
9/10
Positive:
The mip-map fog was brilliantly done. You can tell that there was much work put into the exact tint and mip-distance.
The cutscenes were fluid, and to the point.
The lighting and the way the level was made let the field light really work well. The user-made light was realistic, and very smooth. More on the level's lighting in a bit.
A lack in bugs really makes a game shine.
The levels were large and elaborate.
The alien place was simply amazing and sexual. The moving creatures on the walls, the whole kit-n-caboodle.
Negatives:
The music at times was painful on the ears. While there may have been some good music somewhere in there, I lost it in it's high pitches, and odd random screeches.
The lighting, although smooth, was inconsistent and didn't seem realistic. Where light should have been, it wasn't, and where light shouldn't have been, it was.
The lighting needed to all be one value higher. I know dark rooms are entertaining, but my eyes hurt playing the levels.
The level designs were sprawling, unrealistic, inconsistent, didn't look like humans had lived day to day or functioned there EVER.
The level objectives were tedious, vague, and confusing. As well as the linear ness in a very [physically] NON-linear level.
You can only get by without any gunplay for the first half of the first level, MAYBE the entire first level, but when the only thing I do for 4 levels is run through oddly lit, and overly elaborate hallways, looking for vaguely mentioned and slightly referenced objectives, I'd better be able to at least have a reason to pull out and use a gun, or maybe a reason to run. The darkness and random sounds wasn't enough to convince me.
The objectives screen didn't tell me what I was supposed to do over the long run, just my character constantly telling me stupid things I obviously already knew.
Having random pits does NOT make for good game play, and should NOT replace shooting things.
End:
I never was really afraid in these levels. I also wish that you'd have added more 'Humans torturing things with virus'" areas, such as that chair in the one room. The light beams were also very well used in very few places. More dead bodies and blood would have been a bit more scary, and would have made up for the lack of shooting things at all. I saw NO laboratory in any of this, which made me very sad. No testing rooms. No chemical labs. No animal holding areas, no living quarters., No containment units, Few computers, just a lack of 'lived in' every where.
Overall: 8.
JediKirby
Some of the negative comments here were warranted - i found areas that were unmatted or improperly flagged that could be reached without cheating (eg if u don't jump straight down into the water but deliberately hit the ledge halfway) but i think we should concentrate on the positives: i mean i found errors like that in JA, and think of the huge teams of dudes they hade working on it. I guess levels of this quality just raise the bar so high, some people expect nothing short of perfection ;-)
Anyways, other than the similarly brilliant "terror on Sigma Alpha Kai" or whatever it was called, this is the first time I have actually got a scare from a computer game since Ultima III (hey, i was a little kid when i played that!!!)
Pros:
The main intro. I loved it.
The alien place. Not only did it look amazing, but it *felt* amazing. It really made you feel- no, it made you *know* you were somewhere you didn't want to be.
The various little cutscenes. Especially the one where the walkway collapses and you loose the sample. Very nice animation work.
Cons:
Some odd, and sometimes painful lighting.
Odd level architecture. It's a lab, right?
It's all good and well to try and create the illusion of there being something else there with you, but sometimes you just flat out need to throw an alien in their face. This could have certainly used that.
The occasional dead body or blood splatter would have gone a long way, not just one room. I'm not saying a body in every second room, but just the occasional smear of blood across a wall would have done nicely to add to the feeling of "God I hope something doesn't pop around that corner..."
I give it a 7. I enjoyed playing it, but I could have enjoyed it more. Definately looking forward to Vol 2.
[EDIT] When's the Sorrowind site going to be up, by the way?
As well, I wonder if you could let us into the secret of how a soldier enters a base which is obviously dangerous (If he isn't a soldier, why and how does he know how to use firearms, as we assume in the next instalation of the game) "Laboratory?" Or how a keycard gets left in a completelly random sewage-area room? Or maybe what in the world half of the room's served as when not infested with aliens? I mean, none of the rooms really actually made any sense.
I'd also like to mention something I said in the chat:
Running around in completelly confusing and overly elaborate non-linear levels in search for linear and nonsensical objectives without shooting a single thing, or even feeling the need to have to shoot a single thing in a First Person shooter, all the while squinting in low lit rooms that serve no purpose to anything but the showcase of archi is a horrible way to mark the most overhyped JK project in the history of massassi.
Yes, it needed things to bite you.. and to die.. but if you consider that spiral did practicaly the entire thing himself.. i challange anyone here to do better on there own.
the main char, a black guy, a girl, and a nerd guy.
Main char has what he's got now
Black guy has a bigger gun
Girl has the creeps ;)
Nerd has all the techno code breaking stuffz
----------IGNORE ALL BELOW, THEY ARE RAMBLINGS OF A GUY WITH TOO MUCH FREE TIME---------
[EDIT] Was going through the music files to see what the sounds it was made up from were... (I'm a sound editor) I found some interesting things (Correct me if I'm wrong):
1. Laboratory End Title has "shhh..." as the rythmic sound, at half speed
2. Laboratory (Mix) has "I still love you." backwards at a slow speed on the right side.
3. Well, this was the obvious one: 9 SIC - Nine had another song imbedded in it. And, I know this sounds crazy, but at 4x speed somewhere around the 3:00 mark it sounds like the Chocobo song from FF7 does at 4x speed... must be imagining things...
4. Laboratory Trailer had some speech at an extremely low speed in it, but I can't speed it up enough to understand without the music itself becoming a constant squeak that drowns out the words.
5. Laboratory Theme has speech through the entire first third, not reversed, at maybe 1/6 speed, but can't understand it.
Sorry to waste space with this, I know this isn't the place for it, but it's not the point of the comment, just a footnote.
Oh, and Laboratory Trailer sounds much better at .70 speed (try it!)
No offense or anything.
Great level I personally loved it. 10.
8/10
The only thing that really bothered me was the offset problem with (I think this is the correct name) Trent's right hand. It was detached and lowered a bit from where it should be, but that was minor and hardly noticable.
The way you have utilised JK's not so up to date engine to produce amazing atmosphere and graphics is just incredible.
I found this game a lot like Half Life, but actually I found it more tense (everywhere is so dark :0 )
The bit where there seems to be a curled up creature hanging from a dark hole in the ceiling, and then it moves back into the hole is going to give me nightmares I swear.
No words can express my facination with this level. I am extremely impressed with this unique storyline and unique cogwork. You made the level come alive. Truely spectacular. Very nice and sharp textures. The new HUD gave the level a special touch. If the next level is going to be as amazing as this one, take your time. Most levels here at Massassi are just star wars levels with pretty standard plots. Spiral, I applaud you for giving us something new and exciting. Great job in making it unique and a fresh change with new cogwork and 3dos. I thank you and all who aided you in your work. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you rock my socks off. (formerly Kamikazeman, until I lost my password)
by the way the ending scared the SHLT out of me
GJ Spiral
The level's were really complex, but really nice!
*SPOILER*
I also liked the intro. That was made brilliantly. My heart was pounding alot during this just because of the music! But still. it's full of suspense and on level 3 when you hear that shreak, i shivered. =)
*END OF SPOILER*
I can't go on about how well this was made.
yet again, good job and keep at it.
Improperly flagged floors, mainly in the sewer/pipey area.
DFLT.Mat textures. Ruins it when you turn a corner and BAM default.
The music earned you a good numbe rof points. I played it in the middle of the night with the sound down (the shreiks gave my roomy nightmares ;-). I mean really awesome.
Im making a similar level. Spiral i had a few questions for ya, so if you could e-mail me. Mewvttd@hotmail.com