Necrobrood, a now semi-new
release from Kona, takes the metal theme to
somewhere new. Necrobrood's a 2.5 map unit which
features some new stuff and follows, thematically,
from Kona's Permutations of the Rotten. The
story is this: you've gone through a slipgate,
been captured, and now you're stuck in a cage
waiting to rot. Or not. Happily you grab your
trusty shotgun, axe, and 25 shells and into
the world of Necrobrood you go.
Stylistically, I noticed the
theme, in terms of architecture, textures and
in some cases lighting, to be highly original.
This doesn't nessecarily mean good (I'll get
into that later), but it's safe to say you've
never seen metal quite done like this before.
Kona has taken a bunch of id Metal and Abyss
of Pandemonium Metal textures, modified them
and completemented them from various other sources.
The result is that instead of the usual underground
gray-metal complex, you're getting a sort of
turqoise-brown-green-white combination. It really
is quite colourful, yet manages to stay gloomy
in most spots. The green grass might initially
seem out of place, but somehow it fits. Architecturally,
this is your "typical Kona" stuff
here, only much bigger and more complicated.
There isn't the same sense of place as found
in, say, "Brumal Quest" or "A
Cross To Bear," however the layouts and
architecture are very complex. Despite the fact
that angles are everywhere (making for some
excellent lighting, especially coming from sky-grates),
and damn should you see the wall detailing (layers
upon layers of different textures), it really
doesn't look outstanding. I'm not sure why;
it's got a basically new texture set, lots of
complexity in terms of both layout and architecture,
but somehow it seems like if you really take
a step back from all the texturing and look
at the actual play space, it's pretty simple.
This isn't really bad, just not outstanding.
The interesting thing, though, is that there
is a lot of texture variance within each map
- there are the trademark turqoise / metal areas,
but some might be gray, mostly turqoise, green,
whatever. My favourite were the copper areas.
The first map, Escaping Bastille,
starts off quietly, and then the enemies begin
to come. Most have been reskinned and some other
stuff has been added - additional attacks and
sounds, I really liked the Hexen II sound for
picking up armour. All of this adds a nice new
feel to the pack. After you make it through
the first map, which shouldn't be that hard,
things start to pick up. The second map is definately
harder than the first, and the third is most
certainly harder than the second. Basic gameplay
consists of grunts, knights, enforcers and hellknights
on level with you; perhaps the odd fiend or
vore, and of course, scrag ambushes and ogre
snipers. Not bad, but gets tedious in large
levels with the same gameplay continually. Some
spots were good, like the outdoor ambushes featured
in the end of the second map and the third.
In the end, you take down Mr.
Chthon, who has made yet another nasty reappearance.
In this case though you have to fight other
monsters at the same time as him - a nice change
though I did see this in another pack I beta
tested a long time ago (ahem ahem), which has
since failed to come out. In any case, the finale
is pretty good and some of the areas there -
the skull-ring beneath the runic panelling for
instance - do look good.
Over all, Necrobrood really
didn't inspire me too much, which is I suppose
the reason I took so damn long (sorry Kona!)
to do this review. It's certain that Kona put
a lot of work into it what with the new theme
and all the detailed architecture and layouts,
but the gameplay was only challenging and interesting
in the odd spot, and most areas, despite the
noticable differences in texture schemes, looked
pretty much the same. A good unit for a fan
of Kona's work or the Q1SP enthusiast, but not
a classic.
