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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Interception (mmm, vanilla compatible!)

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Map 9:
Fairly small level where you bounce back and forth for keys. Looks bit rugged, but it's okay nonetheless.
The level is packed with enemies, but sometimes enemy placement is not that great. Grab blue key, four imps from both sides. Nothing what player can't take, but probably meant for keeping player on toes.
There is some devilish tricks I like though. The teleport trap would've done great havoc if I wouldn't first take out that mancubus. Or before that, going back with red key is greeted with archie. And that certain arch-vile gave me quite big amount of trouble they are normally worth for. (To be more precise of their crime, it kept resurrecting those spectres as its personal meatshield, and resurrected sergeants to do number on my armor and health.)

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just played some maps randomly....and glad to find something to spend this weekend on:) it is impressive bunch of work....though dont like some dark,eye aching places....

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MAP09
-The dark staircase baron fight was fun.
-Yellow key trap can be a pain when playing with a damage modified skill setting, even at 100 health.
-Better music than MAP08.
-Fun moment: The archvile in the monster closet resurrects a hellknight, but right after the hellknight kills the archvile off.

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MAP09 - CHEMICAL LABORATORY

This one is making me rethink my comments that MAP08 would've been better by downsizing it. This map is very tight, lots of small corridors, and plays pretty fast... but is pretty forgettable. None of the fights are that challenging (except for the somewhat unfair yellow key teleport, which can be impossible on the first runthrough since the mancubus can block the teleporter and you need to kill him while running from afar). Bad enemy placement, too - the first two Arch-Viles are in completely wasted locations (empty hallway with nothing else). At least the third one pops out of an area with some corpses in it. If the Baron goes into the hallway, you're going to take some damage since the hallway makes his fireballs undodgeable. Didn't like having the key that lowers the blue key being marked with the blue parts since that often signifies that the switch requires the blue key rather than lowering it.

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MAP08
the teleporters in this map were weird. you cleaned an area of enemies, you come back.. whoa suprise chaingunner **. the supercharge secret was at first a suprise with the archvile/revenant trap, but no reason to fight them. you can just run away.

MAP09
archviles were pretty laughable in these narrow corridors. otherwise just a nice little map. memorable moment was for sure the teleport into the dark room were you have to run up to the teleporter with the mancubus.

so far, an entertaining megawad. can't say that there were design decisions which annoyed me.

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Map10

Lots and lots of 64-wide corridors, which got pretty old (and would be horrible in co-op, if you tried to play that way). Several occasions where you encountered enemies that were difficult to see without mouselook.

Other than those couple of awkward fights, this was pretty straightforward. I lost a lot of health in the Baron/HK fight, but I had a lot to lose, thanks to a megasphere secret, and was able to exit with 100/200.

This was mostly pretty meh.

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Map 10 -- Iron Jungle - 99% kills / 66% secrets
Interesting concept (and very nice music track, typical for Stewboy), but I'm not so sure about the execution. Stepping outside of gameplay considerations for a moment, I again felt the lighting was well-handled, and this twisted iron maze half-flooded with water and a bit of blood is an interesting place to be, and interesting to think about what it might represent (other than another abstract Doom setting in which to kill things, I mean)--since we're approaching the buried ruins of the ancient city of Romero in the Interception story, maybe it was an industrial complex on the edge of the city that burned down or fell into disrepair and was eventually later largely reclaimed by nature (e.g. those caco nests) before becoming a nest for hellspawn, I dunno. Now, in the context of gameplay, since everything is all tight corridors with a lot of monsters immobilized in alcoves, it's very simplistic and not particularly thrilling, apart from the jumpstart involving hell nobles at the outset and the similar fight right before the exit. There were many instances in the map, particularly on the second half of the approach to the yellow card, where it was easy to simply shoot the enemies' legs out from under them (with or without mouselook), while the hanging metal protrusions obstructing the rest of their bodies protect the player from return fire almost completely. I admit I was slightly surprised at the sheer number of cacos and lost souls in that first nest, but the plasma rifle easily takes care of this (and pretty much any other problem you might have in the map).

On a technical note, there seem to be a couple of problems. One of the 3 secrets appears to be effectively inaccessible unless the player happens to be using a port that allows crouching--the untraversable recessed detail sector at the back/edges of the alcove containing the early soulsphere secret is apparently also tagged as a secret. Also, I played the map a couple of times, and on both occasions a hell knight failed to teleport into the play area.

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Map10 - Iron Jungle by Razen
Looks nice and an interesting concept, but the gameplay is pretty much killing everything in front of you and then move on. The architecture doesn't really bode well to solid gameplay as you either end up with a load of pointless battles which can been made completely safe to the player or produce some dick move which kills the player 9 times out of 10. This map goes with the former. In the end the map passes without too much irritation though one of the poorer maps just on the gameplay aspect. The hell knight/baron fight at the end was probably the highlight.
Note yep the soulsphere secret has two sectors tagged as secret, the border sector (unreachable one) should not be flagged secret, also I missed two kills which would probably be the hellknights as mentioned above.

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MAP06:
Well that was a long, massively convoluted switch-hunting affair. Going to concur with the previous posts that if you need to start marking the path with big arrows, then you're probably doing something wrong with the level flow. Finding all five secrets was a pain in the ass too, but worth it.

This map's not without charm; aesthetics are very clean, fighting is fun (although the constant Chaingunner closets were tiring), and despite it being easy to lose yourself amidst the winding and interconnecting halls, you'll never find yourself caught up in a cheap moment here.


MAP07:
Short, sharp and shit.

Just kidding about that last one. It's pretty good to blast through, but there's nothing particularly memorable overall. A fresh use of the '666' trigger though; makes a change from killing Mancubi for the sole purpose of level progression.


MAP08:
Pros:
Clean design.
Generally well-executed.
Well-balanced enough to be reasonably tough but fair.
Cons:
That fucking music.
Linedef 849. Really? This is so far beyond obscure (regardless of blink effect) that it's not even funny.

Also, linedef 774 can be activated from the 'outside' of the two bars. Splitting the linedef will fix this.

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10 - Iron Jungle by Razen

A very claustrophobic shuffle through a narrow metal maze. I can imagine his map getting on some people's nerves, its very awkward to fight when there isn't room to dodge stuff, or monsters are out of visual range without mouselook. To its credit, it picked a stylistic theme and stuck to it regardless, I can respect that. But it did get a bit repetitive here and there, with identical corridors and rooms and imps in their alcoves. Difficulty-wise there was a bit of learning needed to survive some of the encounters. The first switch I pressed summoned a cacodemon which completely blocked me in and ate a whole load of health, which I found a bit shitty. The room with the caco swarm and the crescent of lost souls was quite exciting though, and circle strafing a bunch of barons with a plasma rifle at the end was a laugh. My main beef with this map is the narrow corridors which gives me a bit of motion sickness - not helped by constantly moving backwards and forwards to try and dodge enemy bullets.

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Map 10 -- Iron Jungle
A mostly dark(ish) metal map with some cramped fighting. It's a bit linear but doesn't shove that fact in your face. Some parts look quite alright and use the textures well to give off the impression that you're being lead through a complex, surreal installation. The Caco/PE/lost soul trap was great fun, as was the initial hectic fight with the Barons and HKs. It will certainly remind players to stay on their toes right from the get-go. I didn't understand the purpose of the fake switch at the start though. If the player chooses the correct switch the first time and lowers the platform, does the Caco still teleport? If not, how is the player to surmise that he/she must press the (now not visible) other switch, far up above, to get 100% kills? The penultimate Baron/HK fight was remarkably difficult the first time around... I was mentally prepared for tougher opposition but still lost quite a bit of health.The gameplay in between these showdowns are okay, but not super exciting. As has been pointed out, 2/3 secrets is the maximum (both are very well done). One HK didn't teleport either time I played the map, I suppose it's a mapping error (changing the W1 linedef to a WR would perhaps help). I found the dark imp room with the burning barrels to be out of place. --3/5

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Haha, I might be totally weird but I actually like the music for map08! So much that I idmused to it in maps that didn't play any music at all. It might be repetitive but it's still very catchy, sort of reminds me of "Gazz" from ROTT/Hell Revealed.

So far, I've gotten to map24. I'd post my comments on the first couple of maps, but I don't remember them too well. I do however remember I enjoyed map06, map08, map11 and map12.

Spoiler

Beware of map14!

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MAP09:
Eeehhhh... this one was 'okay'. The generally uncomfortable space to fight the horrors within combined with some bafflingly over-symmetrical floorplans made this feel worse than it probably is.

The YKcard trap is utter horseshit in just how completely unfair it is though. If you don't have your Plasma Rifle ready here, I imagine that these two Arch-Viles will send you to the great beyond as a flamegrilled lump of shit (I was 'lucky' enough to only get horribly torched and sent flying once the Mancubus was dead; I made a hasty and narrow escape before the Chaingunners or anything else could finish me off).

Bugs:
The door texturing on linedefs 374 & 375 doesn't appear to look right:




MAP10:
Please stop doing this with any sort of valuable item, it's fucking infuriating to have to pick them up when I (and no doubt many others) don't need/want them:


Holy shit, did I call MAP09 uncomfortable? I take that back; compared to most of this place it's like being in an open field. This place is simply more irritating than anything else; most of the map consists of tight spaces with barely any room to effectively move around the opposition (if at all), resulting in what feels like a very linear, 'forced' series of confrontations. It looks fine, there's no arguing about that, but 'fun' seems to take a backseat here.

Bugs:
Soulsphere secret consists of two secrect sectors, one of which is too low to be entered.
A Hellknight (on UV) is supposed to teleport to a sector tagged 21. There is no such tag.

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BaronOfStuff said:

The door texturing on linedefs 374 & 375 doesn't appear to look right

This is some problem with ZDoom I think, similar thing happens on map05 from my kuchitsu.wad.

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MAP10 - Iron Jungle
again a very narrow map. fights were kinda boring, since in those tight corridors monsters have not much to actually surround you. so you just move forward and backward and take a shot until the path is clear.
great moments werde definitely the start section with all the barons and the moving platform with the mancubi and barons.
the section with the cacos, lost souls on the other hand was very easy you could just run past all the monsters to the rescuing teleporter.

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Map 11 -- The Ocean Outpost
Very cool stone/brick structure set by the sea. I had a blast running around in this one. The first, symmetrical part looks a little like something from Tim Willits (ATTACK.WAD anyone?), then the map sort of sprawls out, but still sticks to the overall theme. It looks nice, bright, almost cheerful at times. You have the option of playing this one almost any way you like, but it is never confusing since areas are unique in appearance, and once you get the computer map it's easy to keep track of where you've been and where to go look for keys. Once you have collected them, it's on to the finale, which was kind of a letdown, as it is much too easy since you are so juiced up by then and the layout is very much in your favour. The way there, though, is, apart from one too many chaingunner setups perhaps, enjoyable. The fights aren't at all difficult if you pace yourself and pick off the monsters one by one. I liked the soulsphere secret. All in all, one of the best maps so far. --4/5

BaronOfStuff said:
Please stop doing this with any sort of valuable item, it's fucking infuriating to have to pick them up when I (and no doubt many others) don't need/want them

When playing the map from scratch that armour is very helpful. I agree that it would be better if it were placed to the side (as with another green armour later on, by the double-lift).

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MAP10
-Lots of tight fights, especially the beginning Baron encounter.
-This is the first time I wholly agreed with the music, despite it being short.
-The usage of textures was good.
-Cacodemon party! Watch your step!
-After that though, the map got a bit easier.

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MAP10 - IRON JUNGLE

I feel this map is a good example of form over function. Visually and design-wise, it definitely stands out - the cramped corridors with water and blood floors, the extremely blocky architecture, lots of ankle-high alcove runner tunnels, etc. But gameplay-wise, there's not much here. I liked the hell knight fight at the start but that was about it. The rest of the map is just gunning down the small groups of hitscanners/imps/spectres with a few "let's see how many enemies I can cram into this room" fights in-between. Both of the Cacodemon rooms were very annoying with all the fire barrels in the way, and none of the manucbi were used well.

Interesting aesthetic, blah gameplay.

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Kristian Ronge said:
When playing the map from scratch that armour is very helpful.


The complaint isn't that the armor exists, it's that you can't choose *not* to pick it up.


Map11
Feels very like a Jens Nielsen map, with the brick textures, switch-hunting, and use of height. Jens often did maps where you could explore an area on two or more different vertical levels, and we see a lot of that here.

Nice architecture here, and a fun level to run through. I got stuck in terms of 'what to do next' a couple of times, but that was generally because I hadn't noticed a passage or doorway. The one exception was after picking up the rocket launcher - there didn't seem to be any good temptation to advance to the far side of that room, and until you do, the way onward doesn't open.

Difficulty is pretty easy, at least when carrying over from the previous level. I was able to leave with 186/200, and plenty of ammunition for all weapons (more than I started with).

I think this is in the wrong slot, in terms of level progression, as it seems like the difficulty would have better fit an earlier map.

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Capellan said:
The complaint isn't that the armor exists, it's that you can't choose *not* to pick it up.

Absolutely, which is why I agreed that it could have been placed to the side.

Oh and I agree that there should be some incentive to move to the end of the room after having picked up the RL in map 11. There were some such moments in map 6, too.

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Kristian Ronge said:
I agree that there should be some incentive to move to the end of the room after having picked up the RL in map 11.


Yeah. My recommendation would be to add a box of rockets (or a few single rockets) on the far side. That way the player has a reason to run over there and pick them up, and they won't do much to change the balance of the level.

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Map 11 -- The Ocean Outpost - 100% kills / 100% secrets
Something about this felt a little off to me at first--maybe the very symmetrical monster placement early in the map--but I was having fun by the end. It didn't seem quite as redolent of certain renowned mappers of yesteryear as "Dangerous Curves" did while it was happening, though now that Capellan points it out, I do see the Nielsenesque aspect of wringing more mileage out of a relatively simple/compact space via featuring a bit of action and a bit of traversal at 2-3 different levels at once (in retrospect I guess it's also dimly reminiscent of some of the Keränen maps from Requiem in that regard). I didn't find it as visually interesting as some of the previous maps in the set, apart from the simple arches of riveted metal and iron over the narrow floating walkway in the final area--very beige and pretty bright, though there were no specific faults that I can remember. Again, it was quite easy, with far fewer traps than "Curves", and armaments placed to remove any real equipment-related stress from taking any one of the number of possible routes through the outpost. Indeed, it is fairly nonlinear, and a lot of the map is technically optional. Near as I can tell, the central section (the multi-leveled area with the wooden and iron columns rising from a small water pit) is entirely optional, and the exit area is blocked by a tricolor barricade setup similar to the one from "The Citadel", though even more lenient, as it will allow passage with any combination of two of the three available keys, meaning one could skip any one of the three key sections too, if so desired. I found the secrets with little trouble, though I did have a certain gut feeling vis-a-vis the soulsphere secret, which some may find a bit obtuse. I played sloppily and was hit several times in the final area, but was so loaded with health and armor by that point that I was in no real danger of death. Despite the general lack of challenge, it was a worthwhile outing nonetheless, if for no other reason than to see how neatly it all fit together. My favorite part was probably berserk-punching my way up the small, freestanding recursive staircase leading to the yellow card, hurling gibbed commandos off of the little spire at every bend....that kind of thing just never gets old.

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Need to catch up a bit here. I've just finished:

09 - Chemical Laboratory by C30N9

This seemed like the least visually attractive map so far. I didn't spot much wrong with the texturing it just lacked atmosphere or interesting architecture. The layout was OK, but the dark winding tunnel seem unnecessary and uninspired to me.

The gameplay was pretty good. The AV encounters were a little frequent but admittedly good fun at each turn, PE were placed quite well also. My favourite area stylistically was the subterranean water area with the lift-lowering columns but for some odd reason the monsters down there weren't very interested at attacking me!

Not a bad map at all, I had a bit of fun with this one, didn't find any secrets and the music stays good.

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Map11 - The Ocean Outpost by valkiriforce
I was expecting a bit more of a challenge. Non linear map where you can collect the keys in any order. It looks nice and has the usual abundance of chaingunners but not used in ways that would make the player want to physically murder the map author. To be honest when I reached the final room I was expecting something a bit more exciting than just clearing some mancubi and imps in a very symmetrical area. Oh well the music is nice.

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Map 10:
A metal themed map. This is nicely done, but oh god how cramped. Suffers from linearity. But music is rather nice.
Nice start... Group of hell knights and two barons came to visit when I lowered that platform. First death, by group of cacodemons and a pain elemental. It is lethal only if you do like me and go to right, when the passage is on the left. And that second final battle, again, same as in the start, group of hell knights and two barons, same size except no cover.

Liked map visually, but suffers from cramped conditions and linearity. Two decent fights, fights here and there... meh.

Map 11:
Map design invests in exploration. And does so nicely. You can go anywhere you want, pick up any key you want, and no stupid switch hunt.
In challenge, map feels boring, but still doesn't mean you should lower your guard at all. I paid that price by getting few potshots from revenants.

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10 - Iron Jungle by Razen

Cramped and linear, I can see this one testing the patience of my fellow Clubbers. I found however, that it was not without it's charms.

The cramped areas do not at least snag and Razen has the good manners to make encounters in tight places fairly straight-forward and punctuates them with cool caco nests or ambushes from the Bovine Royalty. Apart from these ambushes that will test your readiness most of the fighting puts you firmly at the advantage.

It's ace card is it's atmosphere which is built on moody lighting, clunky abstract detail and eerie clearings.

Probably not one with a great deal of re-playability but OK for a quick run through and no black marks from me.

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11 - The Ocean Outpost by valkiriforce

A sprawling complicated map, the kind of map that has so many options you just have to pick a route and hope it leads somewhere nice. Great fun to play, I am glad there was a computer map available though, I was so busy diving down random corridors I had no idea where I was or what I was meant to be doing. The layout was so busy its impossible to even remember half of it, let alone give it a critique, but it all looked very nice and the fighting was generally simple - this was more about the exploration than the missile dodging really. The arena fight at the end was a great finish to an excellent little adventure.

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MAP11 - OCEAN OUTPOST

Decent map, and I liked the layout (though I was definitely glad to get the computer map, as I would've completely missed the red key otherwise). Looks nice, though the brown gets a little boring after awhile. Didn't really like the monster placement, as it was pretty much spread out - only ever fighting one monster at a time since they're spread out down hallways or what not (except for the end). The end fight actually gave me some trouble, just didn't find a good spot to pump rockets from (and the height differential makes it a challenge) which was nice given the ease of the rest of the encounters in the level.

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Memfis said:

This is some problem with ZDoom I think, similar thing happens on map05 from my kuchitsu.wad.


That door texture is 72 units tall, the vanilla renderer doesn't deal well with it when it has to tile them vertically. The ceiling height around the door should therefore be no larger than 72 units.

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Map 12 -- Alpha Tower
A vast map, reminding me somewhat of MM2 map 28 "Corporate Hell" in some ways, covering several large towers, some caverns, marble palaces, brick arenas, and more. Several bits are sparsely populated and the monster count is still 330 on UV (although, a lot of them are released in two set-pieces). The progression is fairly simple: you first make your way to the yellow key which gains access to the central hub whence you can access the red key area and blue key area separately. I believe only one of the keys is needed to get to the exit from there.

Difficulty is hard, especially if playing 100/100 (like I am), if playing from scratch (as I am), if playing without savegames (as I am), and if choosing -- or rather, randomly selecting -- to play the blue key area before the red key area (as I did). I did manage to get through it all in my second attempt, but there were some close calls along the way. The bulk of the opposition is made up of smaller monsters (imps, zombiemen, chaingunners), however droves of the larger monsters make guest appearances throughout, so you're in for a rough time. The ammo balance is fair, but there are ways to play though the map, especially the first half, which could cause you to run out, or almost so, and this adds greatly to the difficulty. There are two set-ups with teleporting monsters; the first, a swarm of imps released in a darkened corridor area was pretty fun, although I was sort of expecting it and ran away to fight all of them from one side, which made things easy. The second, a grab bag of beasts released on a descending platform á la HR map 31, with a couple of Arch-Viles sent in at the end to try to revive what you spent a lot of time killing, was surprisingly unchallenging, given the vast amounts of plasma ammo given, and that the monsters have a single entry point. I basically stood still and fired continuously at one spot, and not until the very end did I have to seek some cover, when the Barons started teleporting in. Then I just grabbed the BFG and mopped up. No, the challenge was instead surviving early on, when you're ill-equipped and lacking both health and armour, and getting through the marble section, with its gnarly chaingunners and Revenant trap (I was totally expecting some kind of trap there and managed to use the curvature of the corridors to pick the monsters off basically one by one).

There are two secrets: the berserk is useless because I'm not punching through a horde of HKs/Cacos/Revenants when I have the RL, and the computer map is found behind a random piece of unmarked wall. I have no idea why I thought that might be a good place to wallhump but I did find it on my first playthrough by chance. I expect the vast majority of players will not. It all ends with a super cheap Cyber finale, which, had it killed me would have pissed me off to no end after spending almost half an hour playing the map. However, I had the BFG with plenty of ammo and went in 180/180 so I survived. Blowing up the towers to exit the map was, by then, extremely satisfying. This map represents a HUGE step up in difficulty to the first 11 and some players will like its gameplay, some players won't. Overall I thought it was rather fun, minor complaints aside, but I understand why some won't. --4/5

By the way, I noticed that this map has three authors... I wonder what author did what part of the map. Perhaps two people designed the red and blue key areas, respectively, and the third did the rest?

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