Cortex Command Mod Contest Reviews
Contest 5: Economy
Mod: The Red Legion
Author: Major
Average Score: 7.625
Graphics
Judge's Comment:
The sprites are nice and all at first sight, but then a few flaws become apparent. The biggest of these is pillow shading.
The next is the lack of proper wood texture on the wood, and how that looks like bronze instead.
The sounds are nice though, so is the cloth texturing.
A tad many weapons are too similar, and don't look all too different, making it a bit crowded.
I do not like the overuse of shades and the clean look of it makes it really look like shiny plastic.
Neither do I like the banding and the pillow shading which is present in some places, both of these are in my opinion big turnoffs on a great sprite.
The shells are oversized and the bullets are generally boring and not that pretty even though the effort is visible.
I would have given this mod a higher score, if it wasn't for the fact that it's flaws are very apparent.
Rating: 5/10
Mod Mechanics
First impressions were frankly wonderful; I'd definitely say this is my favourite mod of the contest.
The main flaws for me are the vast quantity of weapons; I like the variation, and being able to buy rubbish weapons when you're running low on funds, but I hate the bayoneted/scoped variants as they just add way too much clutter for too little interest.
Also, the actors are lul-tasticly weak and the weapons rape terrain in varying quantities. :P
Offsets were generally excellent, but the sharp stances were often lacklustre.
Some of the pistols didn't have sharp stances at all.
All of the actors, bombs, and weapons have descriptions. I'd like to highlight the quality of the descriptions; it is amazing how atmospheric they can be, you really get a sense of a real history, of place. They really are exceptional.
The only issues I can see with his ini is that a couple of things have AngularVel, and that he uses InstanceName rather than PresetName. Also, some of his magazines has gibs and such, despite being GetsHitByMOs = 0.
He doesn't seems to have referenced any vanilla .rtes, and he has no unnecessary comments. (The only comment I found was one for the ActiveSound on the gatling gun, which I assume he took out because it was annoying.)
He could probably have a slightly better organised file structure, but it might not actually help very much, and it is already organised reasonably, especially as none of his weapons use Lua.
He has custom sounds for just about everything, and many things have multiple samples.
Rating: 9/10
"Modder Hero"
Mod Mechanics (2)
Pros:
- Bayonets work
- Several upgardes for guns which are costlier but may turn the outcome of a shootout
- Walkpaths are damn near perfect, i don't think i've tripped over a grass blade with any of your actors.
- Effects and such are executed nicely using good emitter placement and the such.
- Lots of guns to choose from.
- Wounds are good
Cons:
- Having bayonets as the first equip for an actor can lead to the destruction of the delivery craft.
- Bayonets cut through anything.
- Dropship always lean to the left.
- The machine gun [Swarvoski] Is too accurate and too powerful for it's cost.
Comments: While this is a beautiful faction, there are some unoriginality.
I like bayonets but these ones kind of go overboard.
Just good work though major.
Rating: 8.5/10
Gameplay
This has become a very extensive mod that provides heaps of playability, plenty of actors, craft and weapons, and a style that just seems to fit CC. I especially enjoyed the fact that some craft and all actors come auto-equipped, which sped up the buying process and balanced the actors themselves. There were two minor drawbacks, one: the campaign-skirmish mission was too laggy in-game, though a good thing to have within a mod, and two: some of the actors are just too tall to fit through corridors, making the simple act of walking through your base a tedious task. Not a theme-fitter, but definitely a keeper in my books.
Rating: 8/10