Liam
the Bard formerly known as the Bard
Posts: 3833
Registered: 08-00 |
Welcome to my review column! I kiss you! This week's measly two-map offering won't keep you in your seat much longer than an hour and a half, so crawl out from behind your computer screen, go outside, breathe in the fresh air, and try not to choke on a bug or melt or anything. Then you wouldn't be able to play the wads that show up in /newstuff next week... because you'd be dead. Not dead like dead in a tech base or Gothic ZDoom map, but dead in your front lawn, and you probably haven't seen that in Doom.
Blinded by Fear by Patrik Hoglund - - Grul's own 'teleport monsters only' palace for Doom 2 Map01. This one's a tech-y map sorta reminscent of a few of the early Doom 2 maps (Map04, Map06)... except with better architecture. Architecture I believe was the high point of Blinded even though gameplay was the author's focus. It's a golden example of beauty through simplicity and makes for a very convicing starbase map despite a few 'ugh' texture misalignments, while the 'stand in front of a teleport and shoot everything that comes out of it' thing got very tired very very fast. Aside from a pretty cool archvile battle and a hallway where monsters teleport in from BOTH SIDES (woo), Blinded gets no awards for fun from me. Of course it's one of two stinking wads this week so you should probably download it to prolong your inevitable death (by choking on a bug, the little flying bastards).
Sin by Inferno_45 - - Hey, swank dungeon. I'd want to live in this map if it wasn't for ZDoom. Inferno/Bardcat/whatever you're used to calling him shows off this intensely challenging Doom 2 Map01 replacement. Sin forces the player through an awesome looking Gothic castle, most credit for the 'awesome looking' to the atmospheric lighting. Think of all the stuff you could hide from your parents in the dark corners... yeah. Anyway, cool gameplay factor: you have to make good use of every last bullet and pick up every bit of ammo you can find. Missing a few shots can leave you having to tyson your way past a horde of baddies later for the ammobox across the room. This map isn't a pushover, and that leads us to one of the problems with sin, it only appeals to veteran doomers since difficulty settings are not implemented. The other problem is that 95% of the ZDoom features used are just fluff. A doom2.exe compatible map could've been made out of this and the gameplay would've been almost the exact same (death to particle fountains). Oh yeah, there's a soundtrack by Julian, rock on. Requires ZDoom.
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07-21-02 20:29 
