Rating Curve

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Before stumbling upon this level yesterday as I was perusing this site's lowest-rated levels, I did not believe in the concept of "so bad it's good". It seems like every time gd community members throw that description out it's more because they can't apply generic labels to describe why something is good (and this certainly could be true of me and this review). This level is different to me from the handful of levels I've given bonus points to because of the absurdity of their terribleness - I don't consciously find Gunslinga Corridor that funny or unbelievable, there's just a certain purity to having every single facet of its composition be completely and utterly unbearable. It's a bit like seeing a really good ragebait post on the internet, it might not be funny or even personally provocative, but the exercise is in itself admirable in some perverse way. There's something monolithic about the way every one of gd's most tasteless, displeasing tropes is rolled into the end product here, complete with an idiotic name, unlistenable song, and status as a remake that does everything worse than the original (not that Death Corridor is some triumph of level design itself). It's almost like a deranged celebration of GD culture. Almost.

One point for every minute this level commits to the exercise, an admirable effort even if I wish this level were about ten times longer. It simply demands far too little from the player to be a worthwhile piece of shock art. If I hadn't been as young and foolish as I was during the era of gd culture in which this level was originally released, it probably would have been more impactful. Alas, sometimes the cards just don't fall that way.

While Rob succeeded at utilizing the pitch of Electroman Adventures' soundtrack with colorful pulses and an abundance of translucent objects, he failed at capturing its tone in the level as a whole. The song's naivety just gets really fatiguing in a level as dark and structurally sharp as this one.

It's probably useful from a developer perspective to ease new players in to new mechanics at a more gradual rate than one per level, but Base after Base plays it so safe gameplay-wide despite the upbeat, arrogant tone of its structuring that it fails to impress as a whole. The player movements are just so limp in 80% of the level.

Of the original 7, it's always been Back on Track that's the least memorable to me. That can be partly attributed to being flanked on either side by some of the most iconic and well-constructed levels in the game's history, but it's mostly the fault of the level failing to make the most of the song's most distinct and important moments - the whole level just feels kind of indifferent to its own difficulty and scale, and the introduction of jump pads was never particularly impressive itself. There's still some interesting weight to the ship and ending cube, at least.

I would be able to overlook the playing experience being pretty tedious if the way the album covers were used felt novel or interesting, but that most of the creators didn't go any further than using album iconography as block design feels pretty unsatisfying. Not that every single one had to be some super clever implementation into GD - Promises, Kid A, and Selected Ambient Works lend themselves well to being used as structuring with how sharp and iconic they are, but plenty of other parts don't seem to have anything to offer past mild amusement or satisfaction at their inclusion. And there were some total gimmes here that would have been pretty fun. What do you mean the player doesn't flip and take Carti's place on Die Lit? What do you mean I don't jump on the radio waves of Unknown Pleasures until they assume the correct orientation? We couldn't figure anything out with The Dark Side of the Moon? A lot of this level just feels cheap at the end of the day, like Nantendo for a slightly older audience.

The visuals being as captivating as they are only adds to the frustration I feel as a result of Out of Place's incredibly disengaging gameplay. Not unengaging, disengaging - if it was merely some 2.0-style on-rails ship gameplay that was extremely easy it would be a 6/10ish, but this layout manages to be tactilely boring while simultaneously requiring enough engagement that you can't widen your lens to soak in the elaborate visual sequences. Funnily enough, the tedious "ship in the middle of the screen" parts are the most inoffensive, it's the segments with unclear obstacles or awful slow-mo that really kill this level. I'll still give it this score because the viewing experience is worth something on its own, but this level is in no way a rebuttal of the wider space gauntlet's gameplay being careless in service of the YouTube audience - it just happens to actually look great for once.

Place a start pos at any given point in H B F S and you'll invariably be transported to a pretty-looking part with tight gameplay, but Daft Punk's glossy aesthetics aren't nearly compelling enough to make me want to play this for 4 minutes, especially given the time I'll need to spend practicing at this difficulty.

Actually looks quite nice most of the time, but is held back significantly by obnoxious, seemingly accidentally obscured difficulty plaguing an already middling layout. Also I didn't download the song after seeing it was by Teminite; I listened to Polygondwanaland instead and that was probably for the best. And get Danzmen's cube off of my damn screen.