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Various said:

'deserves better than some noobie reviewer..'
'published..'
'WADs one wants to review are already taken..'

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gggmork said:
Its all just text on the internet that'll be buried by more text.

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Multi-level mod reviews must review all of it, and not stop after the third level or so. Doing this and claiming to write something objective is an insult to the mapper(s)

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Patrick said:
Scythe X. Episodes 1-2 - Erik Alm
Limit Removing - Solo Play - 6904537 bytes - (img) - (img) - (img) - (img)

This is the third installment in Erik's Scythe series. Unlike it's predecessors, this set of maps focuses mainly on fast paced linear gamplay. Also, the Gothic themes that define the original scythe series have been replaced by techbase/starbase themes.

The architecture is solid, well done and has consistent themes. There is nothing special or new in this style, but there's nothing wrong with it either. There is a good sense of progression created by these levels, as they smoothly transition from techbase to starbase to skybase.

Gameplay is very fast paced and linear, there are very few switch hunts or keycard puzzles. The action is an absolute blast, as each fight is not painfully difficult, nor is it too easy. I'm generally pretty bad at playing Doom, and I fared pretty well against this map, I only died once.

In all, Scythe X is a well designed and solid map set, it just isn't too original or innovative. Which isn't to say its bad, the solid looks and gameplay are superb. Comes highly recommended, and would be a worthy contender for a Cacoward. My only real gripe with this is how short it is, but I imagine we'll be in for some more Scythe X goodness with the release of the next episode.

...


now everyone stop bitching, here's a good review :P

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Craigs said:
This review is clearly biased.

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Graf Zahl said:
- reviews that clearly indicate that the reviewer did not play a map (e.g. obvious cheating) are rejected unless the review states a valid reason for the cheating (e.g. bad monster use.)

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Gez said:

Of course it is. It's impossible to be unbiased. Even the driest, most objective reporting (like stats, maybe: "the first map has 13745 linedefs, 20563 vertices..." etc.) would be subjective just by the choice of what is said, in which order, and what isn't said.

What matters is that it's fair and accurate, which it can be despite being biased. Sycophantic fawning or flaming vitriol are both useless. If it says it's very good, it fine as long as it explains why it's good; and likewise if it says it's very bad it should explain why. A review that'd say something like "the levels are beautiful and cleverly designed, but insanely hard, there are far too many monsters" show a bias against slaughter maps with a ton of monsters. If you like such kind of maps, though, the review does reveal to you that you'll probably like this mod. Which is how it's fair: there's a clear bias but it doesn't prevent you from seeing past it. (And if it turns out that there's just ten zombiemen and an imp on the map, then the review failed the accuracy test. That's another issue, and that's where screenshots are needed.)

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Craigs said:
you do realize I was joking right?

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Graf Zahl said:

- Multi-level mod reviews must review all of it, and not stop after the third level or so. Doing this and claiming to write something objective is an insult to the mapper(s).

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The only problem I had with the wad itself is that there is a distinct lack of impassable linedefs. It was all too easy to escape some levels and break the illusion when Erik could have simply added a impassable flag or disabled jumping. Small complaint, but I feel it bears mentioning.

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I made this wad for Mr. Freeze.

http://www.zshare.net/download/67345341fc1f9188/

The Computer Area Map at the end is there for a reason.

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Bloodshedder said:
Mr. Freeze on "The Plasticine Cacodemon" is the first guinea pig.

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Bloodshedder said:
Does this /newstuff Chronicles suck? Does your wise ass think you can write better reviews than these jerkoffs? Then get over to the /newstuff Review Center and help out. I know you must have a Doomworld Forums account because you like griping about this edition in the comment thread, but if you don't, you need to get one to submit reviews.

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Craigs said:
Unless Bloodshedder extends the length of claims to more then just 2 days, this might be a bit of a problem. Maybe I'm just slow, but it usually takes me about a week to play through a megawad, and that combined with writing a detailed review of each individual level of said megawad would create a bit of a problem.

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Maes said:
I was actually wondering about that. Not the least because while I got quite encouraging feedback on the forums (to the point of making me enhance my first attempt and complete the project, at least for vanilla-red), the idgames reviews were obviously trolled/spammed.

I know that much better things can be done with plasticine, but I can't make out head or tails between people telling me "Cool!" and others saying "YOU'RE SHIT SUCKS!".

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kristus said:

Hate to break your bubble, but it's not "cool!" and "you're shit sucks!"

...

However. I care, and I wish that you will get better. But first you must see it yourself. And at the time, I don't think you do.

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Creaphis said:
Kristus: I like Maes' plasticine sprites, not because they're "good," but because they're lumps of plasticine - they're cute, simple, fun, childish, etc. I kind of thought that was the point of them. If it really was the point of them to be "good models" then I'll back you up on this.

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DuckReconMajor said:
Yeah, I looked at it this way, and I really couldn't find anything wrong with it, except that the dead caco sprite is too dark.

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Phil1984 said:
Heh, bitching about newstuff reviews is nothing new guys. People were doing it during the AndrewB years, the Deathzor years and now the user submitted years.

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I think the fundamental problem is that we all have different tastes and when there is only one opinion some people are inevitably going to think that that opinion is wrong.

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