X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse / A Three-Month Turnaround

X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse / A Three-Month Turnaround is the title of the video in which Civvie reviews X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse, a commercially released Quake total conversion mod. It is the sixth and final episode of season zero, and the overall sixth episode of Civvie's Dungeon.
== Synopsis ==
== Video ==
== Transcript (auto-generated) ==
as a card-carrying member of the PC
master-race
I can't overstate how important quake is
from a technological standpoint it's one
of the most important games ever
released it was 1996 and FPS games
weren't really 3d yet
and then there was quake which was super
fast ultra violent smoothies butter
running a fully 3d engine created by
super genius alien in person soup John
Carmack so quake was kind of big
spawning three sequels for if he count
quake champions two of those being
exclusively multiplayer games which
would be just the worst if quake 3
wasn't the greatest deathmatch game ever
conceived and being on the PC quake had
mods you might have heard of a couple of
these there was this one called team
fortress which went on to be a half-life
mod and also an alien's mod that got
shut down by Fox but it's still all over
the Internet
but then you have something like today's
game x-men the ravages of apocalypse
it's a quake total conversion that was
commercially sold as in you needed quake
to play it on top of buying this thing
in a store I know what you're thinking
wouldn't it be awesome to play a game
where you get to be an x-man with the
superpowers and stuff
cutting [ __ ] up like Wolverine
being a weak [ __ ] like Cyclops it's an
interesting idea let's see how the story
goes apocalypse in an unknown ally or
making clones the world has already been
apocalypse but magneto is still around
and he's not going to let some ancient
Egyptian god take over the world
because that's his job so he creates a
cybernetic soldier go and stop this even
though you think magneto would be able
to do it so yeah this guy becomes a lot
of guns and it's his job to storm the
Citadel of Apocalypse and take out all
these x-men clones this is actually
pretty good the artwork the sound
effects it's a nice presentation eight
out of ten but I don't read comic books
down here I play video games and
occasionally watch movies so let's start
the thing up and you're brought into the
intro level which is a goddamn huge
recreation of the x-mansion pretty
impressive for quake one there's these
messages telling you what everything is
and where you are and also that ninety
nine out of a hundred of these doors
can't be opened
okay tell you what you see this this is
modoch this is the [ __ ] this is why the
PC is the best let's play the game jump
in on normal scale oh my god okay I need
to get into a little background because
this is important to know going in this
started as a non-commercial quake mod
and then Marvell calls up the
development team and says hey can you
guys make us one of those video games
we've been hearing so much about and
understandably they said yeah sure and
Marvel said yeah but we needed in three
months so we can get it out for
Christmas I'm going to say this right
now because I'm going to get very angry
at this game this is Marvel's fault
because everything in x-men ravages of
apocalypse almost approaches being
nearly done what does that mean let's
talk about how you dropped into the
first level holding every weapon but
also that you can make it through using
exactly three of them you get your
special power fist it's cool-looking
does decent enough damage for a
last-ditch weapon then your shotgun one
of the absolutely indispensable weapons
it does good damage but has this thing
where it fires twice and reloads
okay that's fine for a shotgun I'll put
up with that then the chain gun which is
just the worst it has all these barrels
fires nine times they need to stop and
then start firing again contrary to how
every machine gun in every game ever in
the history of games is operated in this
kind of game your machine gun is vital
to stun locking to crowd control
being a non stop spray of bullets well
this fires two shells at a time yes
shells eats up your entire ammo supply
and in no way does even remotely the
same kind of damage as the shotgun so if
you run out of ammo which you will and
want to rely on the shotgun which you
will you won't have any [ __ ] ammo for
it don't use it don't ever use it also
both these weapons are clearly belt-fed
so why do they need to reload at all
then you got your fire based weapons
decent enough little fireball launcher
that fires three times before having to
stop okay sure I just I guess we're just
going to do that for every weapon then
you get a flamethrower and the effect
and the way it works looks great you
know for something done in the quake
engine it's fantastic it's also
practically useless you can unload your
entire ammo supply and kill maybe two
enemies this being the same ammo
supplies the fireball launcher which is
infinitely more useful and effective
then you've got your grenade launcher
which is basically like quakes grenade
launcher except bouncier and with a
higher rate of fire
it's useless once you get the rocket
launcher which is double-barreled and
shoots two homing Rockets at a time one
rocket would be fine but okay we'll do
two seems a little wasteful this is your
other indispensable weapon even though
the homing Rockets will sometimes go
wherever the [ __ ] they want and then
there's the magic energy ball you summon
from your hand you can hold the fire key
down to charge it and it explodes and it
can launch other explosive projectiles
it's occasionally useful you get all
these weapons at the very start here's
one of the biggest problems of this game
there is no progression of your
character now in your modern games you
can have skill trees and such but in the
old days game designers would make it so
that you would gradually acquire new
weapons making the player stronger while
the battles became bigger and the more
powerful monster started showing up
later quake did it four times actually
there's a
based on this formula and it's what I
like to call valve pissing the players
off relentlessly until finally giving up
the goods and the half-life 1 chapter
surface tension you get chased across
multiple maps by this goddamn helicopter
then you get a rocket launcher to take
it down finally
same for having to go through half a
level of zombies without a shotgun Raven
home yeah brother
come closer you've stirred up hell man
after my own heart here I have a more
suitable gun for you you'll need it
cat corner yeah the gravity gun is great
but it's always going to be outmatched
by the simplicity of pulling the trigger
you're in a boom and watching The
Bachelor in front of you become dead
hearing that click click and making the
bastard next room feel stupid for trying
the same thing but when you get all
these weapons at once and for the most
part all the enemies at once there's no
real sense of progression you start here
and you stay here until the end now the
enemies you'll recognize some of them
wolverine beast Cyclops rogue Iceman
Bishop Archangel gambit storm Psylocke I
didn't know half of the character's
names to be honest but quake gives you
death messages to tell you and I saw
those a lot ravages of apocalypse is
hard brutally brutally hard mostly
because of the enemy design certain
quake monsters have attacks that were
carried over the mutants in pretty
fitting ways Cyclops has a weak little
pew pew laser like this guy from quake
Wolverine leaps a tree and slashes like
the fiend storm has lightning like the
Sham blur psylocke has a sword like the
knight Wolverine and Iceman die and get
back up kind of like the zombies
Wolverine because he's got healing
powers and Iceman because he's a pain in
my ass he's the only thing the
flamethrower is good for you can melt
him you can just blow them up with
rockets too but this doesn't scratch the
surface of the more sadistic aspects of
these enemies Iceman can freeze you in
place for a few seconds leaving you open
to attack a boy does he like to do it in
theory you could drop him into a lava
pit and t1000 his ass but not in the
game because it hates me he walks on
lava storm can toss you around with wind
but also make you immediately turn 180
degrees
and you'll and facing the opposite
direction Phoenix can trap you lift you
up and just start [ __ ] you any of
them alone or a problem but when you
have one or more at a time or even one
mixed in with any other type of monster
you are in deep [ __ ] you better learn to
quick save and you see just about all
these enemies on the first level
and every level after that they all take
insane amounts of punishment the weakest
of them can take six rockets to the face
and you're not going to have a ton of
rockets on hand at first so you'll be
using the shotgun get used to this
rhythm it's most of the game when you're
not having your ass handed to you the
ten or so levels are mostly huge
open-ended fairly cryptic and have way
too many fine three switches hidden all
around this map to do a thing that you
may or may not be aware as a thing I
spent upwards of 30 minutes wandering
around when the mutants aren't running a
train on me trying to find a switch
hidden somewhere for example a tiny
little button on the side of this
computer that's in a room that I had to
find three tiny buttons randomly
scattered across the level to open in
the first place on the third level I
spent forever looking for a gold key to
open a sarcophagus which I only found
out wasn't decoration was in fact a door
that required a key after looking
everywhere else and it turns out the
gold key can be seen at the start if
you're not playing using the source port
I was using there's also four weapon
pieces you have to collect drop levels
sometimes hidden sometimes not and these
are required to face the bosses you
actually have to collect them twice over
the course of these levels and I'll get
back to that [ __ ] in a few minutes the
weapon piece in level 3 also does not
spawn so I'm like okay let me just kill
myself and restart the level and see if
it magically appears it doesn't and also
it took away a weapon pieces I already
had so what now so I'm supposed to not
finish the game that's not an option
well okay it is an option but not for me
this is game see you I can't the game as
it going to let me
in testicular nose look it's not my
fault shocking testicular knows we're a
sharp roll award
off so I switched to another quake
source port and started the whole thing
again because even though this is a bad
game it's not as bad as internal ball
tasing so the weapon pieces finally
spawn and you better get them because
you won't make it past the halfway point
without them it's kind of like in
Castlevania Symphony of the Night where
you have to get the gold ring and the
silver ring and the holy glasses so you
can make your way into the inverted
castle except Symphony of the Night is
awesome and x-men ravages of apocalypse
is endlessly soul-crushing yeah another
thing about the enemies in this game is
that they're beautifully rendered I can
tell that very talented people worked on
this you're going to hear the phrase for
the quake engine to qualify a lot of
stuff here and there's a reason for that
quake models are primitive the
animations are vertex base instead of
skeletal meaning that the people making
it had to individually animate the
frames instead of using bones inside the
model to create the keyframes anyway
it's a [ __ ] to do and that's why nobody
did it after 1997 having all of the
x-men looked this good in this detail to
the point where you can tell them all
apart pretty easily and honestly it's
some of the best 3d modeling work I've
seen from the era I mean just look at
Wolverine primitive sure but you know
who that is also special mention goes to
cannonball an x-men I've never heard of
who Rockets around and that's a really
cool effect the way it flies around like
a homing missile but from a gameplay
perspective it's [ __ ] horrible this
[ __ ] is completely invincible
when he flies around and he pushes you
around and it's really good at getting
to you so he's docking you around while
you're trying to shoot it something else
that might be knocking you around so
you're dealing with all this [ __ ] so you
can get the pieces to the super weapon
which is the only thing that can destroy
apocalypse the villain from the game's
title but he's not the final boss
because it turns out that he has a
sinister ally and if you've seen
anything relating to x-men you know that
the sinister ally is actually mr.
sinister who is almost as big of a
threat as General Grievous dr. evil and
Professor chaos I don't even care if
people have been making fun of that name
for 30 years it's ridiculous
also can someone tell me why on
Wikipedia when I look some of this [ __ ]
up it says that apocalypse is a
fictional supervillain is there a page
for non fictional supervillains you know
what the bosses are better in this then
in quake but that's kind of a low bar to
set quakes bosses were kind of [ __ ] I
know a lot of you out there haven't
played quake so here's some spoilers for
you the first boss and quake gets killed
when you run around his arena and lower
conveniently-placed things that
electrocute him all you do is tell a
frag the second and last boss of the
game elder God shoved agura you know
one-and-done piece of cake you actually
have to fight the bosses in ravages of
pocalypse which puts them a cut above so
collecting the four weapon pieces sure
okay
I even accidentally found the secret
level exit in level 2 so that's cool
even though it just led to more death
halfway through you get to apocalypse
who is huge until you hit four switches
get a thing and use the super weapon
against him he shrinks you shoot him he
kill him there you go but there's still
mr. sinister so you go on to the second
episode which to its credit has prettier
levels you've seen most of this game
with the struggles with the butan until
last level where it throws in some
[ __ ] weird puzzles like this one with
the light path I don't understand how I
did it even with the walkthrough it just
kind of happened mr. sinister shows up a
few times to taunt you and try to kill
you if you don't immediately shoot him
they just teleports away
now that you've collected the weapon
pieces for the second time you have to
get this energy orb to power it again
and then shoot mr. sinister until you
run out of juice and only then can you
kill him he teleports around and you
shoot him with rockets and he dies the
boss battles are actually pretty easy so
now that I've completed x-men the
ravages of apocalypse and despite the
game looking great it's actually never
ending frustration I get that they
didn't have enough time to test it
I get that Marvel was being dicks and
that may be their decision-making in the
90s wasn't the best like hey guys we're
going to launch a commercially licensed
not standalone quake TC where you kill
all the x-men and we're going to have it
for Christmas so all those kids who
loved quite T C's can get it in their
stockings
what the [ __ ] were they thinking
== Trivia ==
== Behind the Scenes ==
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 0
Category:Quake