Custom / Concept, by 
Ground Force levels are few and far between, especially because custom dictates that they must always come in packs. The main Ground Force pack is, of course, Survivor, which was conincidentally re-rereleased recently. Let’s see how Satan’s pack, which has been rated once before, stacks up against the standards.
The first thing you notice upon running the SGF (Satan’s Ground Force?) pack is that Satan basically copied blur’s level-start system and made it bigger and wider, removing layer 3 and making most parts visible. The room where the host collects blue gems to end the level is now visible, as is everything else. And the rooms are a lot larger. This can look nice, but it loses the “everything fits into one 20×15 screen!!!” effect, so I’m torn. It also uses blur’s anti-jazz system with the bridges, and moves the gold host coin out of the host’s way so it’s easy to not collect it and seriously break the level.
While we’re talking about matters not specific to the individual levels, I’d just like to briefly complain about the text. It’s really bad. There are approximately two text strings in each level – “DO A SIDEKICK WITH SPAZZ” is one of them. It appears six times, and Satan never bothered to look up Spaz’s name. The pack was also bigger, so the levels are described as being Level # of 10, except for #6, which is honest and actually says it’s out of 6. This would have taken, what, a minute to fix? Sloppy presentation.
One small bug – the host can sidekick the crate, and re-enter the passage between host room and main waiting room, thus not entering the arena at the appointed time.
Magical jungle
The first level is in charge of the first impression, and Magical jungle handles that nicely, offering some nice eyecandy at the start, which is something blur could occasionally be lax in. It’s all standard Jungle use, but it looks good.
Unfortunately, the arena itself is not so appealing to the eye. There’s a fairly sparse background, with some tall things (trees and the like), and then it attempts to get more eyecandied down at the bottom. But it messes up. Most of the little background details are ok, although the strict adherence to speeds 1/1 is a little annoying. The tree would be fine too, except it sprouts from the ground. A big ground. An enormous floating ordinary looking Jungle style platform – which is COMPLETELY UNSOLID. So annoying!
Anyway, the rest of the graphics are fairly boring, as the author chose to use the standard destruct blocks. The ones which look good in a small clumb but not when they’re composing the entire screen. As a result, Magical jungle ends up looking ugly as soon as you enter, and the effect only lessens once a lot of the blocks are destroyed.
The blocks are destroyed quite quickly, though. Magical jungle has a very strict setup – enormous amounts of TNT crates are placed in chains through the level, meaning that only a few pre-chosen parts of the level will remain when everything has blown up. Once that’s all taken care of, hit the remaining crates and what’s left of the level will be destroyed, leaving everyone to claim winnership depending on how long it took them to fall in or unfreeze. (Yeah, the freeze enemies are back too. This really feels like a copy of Survivor.) Technically a few platforms are left over, but I don’t like them.
So, I’m not too thrilled with Magical jungle. It’s kind of ugly and way too prescripted. The chain is an interesting idea, though, and it has a few sparks of fun, so I’ll not go too harshly on it.
BOOM base
BOOM base is much better than its predecessor, but it seems I’ve written a lot already so I may not have as much to say. Possibly breaking the author’s claim that the pack only uses standard sets, BOOM base uses a Mez tileset, you know, the brown one that got used by Shadow. It’s used well. There are ladders, tubes, glowing holes, lots of interesting looking stuff. The walls of the level are green and gray blocks – not as interesting looking as blur’s level of the same tileset, but a whole lot better than Magical jungle.
The design isn’t too remarkable and is actually somewhat boring, but I like the idea behind the level. Once you hit a bunch of crates (as usual), the true level design is revealed, which appears to be a bunch of tiny platforms above a long line of Collapse Scenery blocks. It’s actually kind of fun, and there’s lots of hourglasses floating around.
So, BOOM base ends up being interesting, but the majority of the level is useless and uninteresting and way too flat. Decent eyecandy, decent idea, not the best execution but fun anyway.
Electric Shock
Electric Shock feels more like one of blur’s levels, specifically his first. There’s a random level, you go to the top, hit a crate, and most of the level is destroyed. blur used lasers, Satan uses DNA strings composed of TNT crates. Whatever. In any case, I guess it’s an ok idea. Not so ok is the level design itself, which relies heavily on players somehow being able to run up 32 pixel slopes – I.E. solid blocks. It’s like Polar Chill or something, but without the slopes.
Another strange aspect of Electric Shock are the RF crates – which appear in such abundance that the level would make more sense if it was called BOOM base. If you shoot the crates, they’ll explode and not do much. Take the ground out from under, they’ll fall down and maybe (but maybe not) destroy the block they land on. They’re essentially useless, just like in Overlord’s RHG level. Interesting, but I’d like to see an actual use for the little things.
Eyecandy in the level is about what you’d aspect. For the most part, Satan uses Tubelectric quite well. The only exception is, again, the arena itself, which is mainly composed out of ordinary destruct blocks, which take up far too much of the screen. Ouch. Electric Shock gets kudos for including two blue gems instead of one.
HOT ground
Ok, first, no. This isn’t hot ground. All the blocks are blue destruct blocks (…arrgh!!!). The background is reddish, but certainly not hot looking, just kind of mournful. The only part that even suggests hot is the fire at the bottom, and I wouldn’t quite count that as ground. HOT ground is an extremely misleading name for a level which mostly feels like it’s supposed to be frozen over.
Anyway, the eyecandy is, as usual, very good but disappointly standard. As is often the case with the level design, Satan takes no chances, instead going completely by the book of CliffyB. Everything is what it’s supposed to be used for, although the bones are in the background and that’s not normal and actually looks kind of cool.
As for the level design, there kind of isn’t any. At the bottom of the level is a long horizontal plane of ordinary destruct blocks (again argh) with a crate on it. Hit the crate and a few TNT crates fall here and there on the rest of the level – or the lack of such. You see, other than the thing at the bottom, Satan just went wild with the “press tile” tool and placed destruct blocks randomly all over the arena. Then some random ammo, and voila, the level was done. Blah. Uninteresting.
Hurting Grounds
Hurting Grounds has a good concept – make the blocks look interesting, add slopes, have floor tiles be destroyed if you stand on top of them and shoot. Execution is somewhat flaky, as the level design ends up being again way too flat, and the level is practically destroyed when you hit the crate. There are turtle shells and stuff, but who cares? It all gets destroyed almost instantly.
Eyecandy’s good and nothing to say about. But the third frame for the destruct scenery blocks is badly chosen.
Old Grounds
As I mentioned earlier, Old Grounds is notable for being the only level to notice that the pack is six levels long. It’s also notable for having a really weird level design.
In most Ground Force levels, you have to try to stay in. In Old Grounds, you have to work to fall out. It’s divided into three floors of basic destruct blocks (kill), one on top of the other, and you can only get to the next floor by finding and hitting a crate. How long it’ll take before someone is bored enough to hit the crate is sort of going to depend. Anyway, the floors have a huge number of blocks in them, and most of the level probably doesn’t get destroyed.
The final floor has an interesting bottom. It has a row of Switch Blocks, ready to be destroyed when you hit the final crate. Above that are several little platforms made out of Butt-stomp blocks. These come in handy when the switch blocks are gone, as they can only be destroyed by TNT, or some rascal going around and sidekicking the platforms before the crate is hit. It’s pretty fun and requires some interesting thinking.
So, cut out the top two floors, and I’d enjoy Old Grounds a little more. It’s got decent eyecandy, not the best at all, but not bad, and the thing with the knights at the start is fun (if somewhat ignorant of physics). Bla, bla, bla, I’m done with this review.
