[ Transcript of review for Fraghouse Invasion | Posted by Nemephosis on 2003-11-13 | Score: 8.5 ]
Invasion on the next level
Fraghouse Invasion is fundamentally the same as Epic’s Invasion game type. Kill as many waves of monsters as you can before you get killed. But Parser and the Fraghouse team have put a little spin on things which makes it that much more interesting. Note that if you do not have the Epic Bonus Pack for UT2K3 you will need that first.
Instead of spawning monsters at random spawn points all over the map (ie, Warlords right behind you when all you have ammo for is an Assault Rifle) Fraghouse Invasion maps have a central spawn location.Instead of a few monsters, you get 20, or even more! The picture over there shows the spawn point on FHINV-DustyDune, at the pyramid. So, knowing this, DON’T hang out at the pyramid. When you’ve killed enough monsters and you think you’re moving to the next wave... oops, another whole group of monsters spawn. This is all without warning so this is why you don’t hang around the spawn point. You don’t want to suddenly be encircled by 20 monsters!
In one of the maps (Underground) the monsters spawn in a hallway with an invisible blocking volume in the way. They can not pass this block, but neither can you. Weapons can, however. This is my favourite map because I prefer to play, not die and watch everyone else play.
Fortunately you get a lot of new weaponry to help you against these overwhelming odds. No pics except of the grenade, they use UT2K3 models with some recolouration. Still, we’ve all learned by now that new models aren’t necessary for a great weapon pack (but they do help.)
Very brief descriptions follow:
Turbo Laser: uses Shock Rifle model. Recoloured weapon effects and much faster, otherwise, it’s a shock rifle.
Rail Gun: primary spits out blue plasma at a high spoeed, secondary fires a rail grenade. Not your typical “railgun”.
BS69 Machine Gun: Never mind what it stands for, ask Parser about that. Primary is a dead-on, always-accurate rapid fire machine gun. Secondary is slower and explosive.
RazorBomb: Flak Cannon model that fires UT Ripper blades in primary, and 5 grenades in secondary. Ripper blades do NOT travel in a straight line after hitting the wall.
Volva Rifle: explosive bullet sniper rifle.
Hoover Minigun: very fast minigun with 800 max ammo (and it comes in very useful for this game type.)
Spore Rifle: Primary fires brown spores that have an erratic flight path. Secondary charges a large spore. It has an extreme range when it explodes so don’t get anywhere near it when it does!
Riot Shotgun: fires almost-hitscan flak particles (three pieces per shot.) Secondary fires 6 at a slower rate.
Rust Grenade: pictured to the left. Works like the Flak secondary but has a greater flight path.
Flare Launcher: rocket launcher that fires very large blue Link Gun shots at a rapid speed if helpd. Secondary charges three at once. The Flare Launcher can lock on to an enemy very quickly.
Mini-Rocket Launcher: primary fires rockets at a fast speed. Secondary fires much slower but fires 6 rockets at once. Locks on like the Flare Launcher.
Laser Rifle: recoloured Lightning Gun bolt that fires faster and does more damage.
There is also a “Fraghouse NALICOW Invasion” game type where you fight waves of cute but deadly Nali cows. Don’t get too close to them!
One personal gripe about Invasion: I wish there was a way to WIN the damn thing! If you complete X waves, if you last for X minutes, anything so that the game doesn’t always end in your violent, brutal death. I’m SO glad Epic thought of this.
There’s not much bad to say about this mod. It’s great fun. One thing of note: If you found the INI flag that says “bWeaponShouldViewShake=True” and set it to false so that your screen doesn’t shake when you fire, like I have, you’ll find your screen DOES shake when playing the Fraghouse Invasion game type. *By Parser’s own admission, this mod deserves a 0 but I don’t think it’s THAT bad.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
While the changes aren’t tremendous, they’re certainly a breath of fresh air. No more suprise attacks from Warlords who spawn behind you and shove their rockets up your ass before you can react. These changes to Invasion make it the most fun I’ve had since Overload came out.
Nemephosis
*There was a small tidbit in IRC where he told me he should get a 0 so he can improve it:
[17:07:23] <Parser> Final score?
[17:07:24] <Parser> 4!
[17:07:31] <Parser> Make it 0, so I can improve it!
[17:07:41] <Nemephosis> **** that, you get a -5
thought I’d just put that in there to mess around a little. I can’t wait till he reads it
