The /newstuff Chronicles #275

Hey everybody, it's Weasel again. Considering I did so well with the last couple /newstuffs I did, I figured I'd start doing things full time as an Official /newstuff Reviewer. All you people that think deathz0r's reviews aren't that great can try mine on for size! HERE GOES!

• Power Hand Imp - Sausage
  doom.exe - Solo Play - 44 KB - (img)
  A sprite edit by Sausage of the Doom Imp. It's all grey and its hands are all purple. It also throws purple fireballs at you. In its present form, it replaces the default imp, so behavior wise, it's no different. It would make a good resource for those of you wanting to make new monsters in Decorate or something though. I think it looks pretty nice, personally, but I'd rather not see so many Imp edits. Why not edit something like the Mancubus or Revenant, since those have barely been touched?
  
  
• Dystopia3: Re-Birth of Anarchy - Anthony Czerwonka
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 34 KB - (img) (img) (img)
  Anthony presents us an add-on level for Dystopia 3 - rather, it's a new map that uses Dystopia 3's textures. While the text file claims that the wad is geared to all kinds of Doomers and has "well balanced game play", I beg to differ somewhat - playing the usual way (pistol start on HMP), the first room killed me at least five times because of the tight space and the number of Revenants coming at me. I eventually had to switch down to ITYTD to have enough ammo to fight them, and from there it just got too easy. The first room is just too hard when playing at a reasonable difficulty. The rest is just fine. I didn't have any problems finding health or ammo, and the texture usage makes this a very colorful map. I kinda liked it.
  
  
• HERETIC: Dystopia level - ANTHONY CZREWONKA
  Heretic Support - Solo Play - 61 KB - (img) (img) (img)
  Anthony's second offering this week is another level with "Dystopia" in the name - except it's a Heretic level and has nothing to do with Iikka Keranen's megawad. He claims it's his first level, and it's somewhat well put together (outside of the lackluster layout and occasionally confusing map structure). The map is brought to a frustrating halt by the last area, which contains all three bosses - the Iron Lich, the Maulotaur, and D'sparil, who killed me every time.It's pretty decent as far as Heretic maps go, outside of the ending and some occasionally confusing texture choices (but then, you can't really do much better with Heretic's default texture set).
  
  
• Dystopia Level - ANTHONY CZREWONKA
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 79 KB - (img) (img) (img)
  This is mostly the same map in terms of basic layout, except it's converted to Doom 2 from Heretic. Anthony has modified several parts of the level though, adding more detail and a few extra places to take cover (since there's more hitscan enemies than before). Quite a bit better than the Heretic version, though it still takes a bit to figure out that the demon-head walls are supposed to be doors (especially in the green marble room that you start out in).
  
  
• Fetals Asylum - ANTHONY CZERWONKA
  Heretic Support - Solo Play - 89 KB - (img) (img) (img)
  Another Anthony wad, this time not even placing Dystopia in its name. It's for Heretic, which immediately brings the lack of usable textures to the forefront. Once again Anthony has placed all three bosses in the map on harder difficulties. The first map is not much good, but the second map is far better than anything else by him that I've reviewed (so far, anyway).
  
  
• ZSuper Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 - Isle
  ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 154 KB
  I was wondering when somebody would do this! The cult favorite Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3, from Doom 3 has been ported to classic Doom. This version is almost 100% accurate to the original, and it's an amusing way to kill a few minutes.
  
  
• DOOM2: Recylced DeathMatchs - ANTHONY CZERWONKA, Adelusion, PCC TonyC, w/addtional (Original) Authors
  doom2.exe - SP/DM - 187 KB - (img) (img)
  This is a decent series of eight old deathmatch maps. Fast, furious, and full of BFGs. Seriously - if you don't like people using BFG's in deathmatch games, avoid this one. Otherwise, be my guest. The levels themselves look pretty decent, and have no serious errors (deathtraps, dead-ends, etc.) that I could find.
  
  
• The Panels of Peril - Martin Howe (a.k.a. The Crazy Cat)
  doom2.exe - n/a - 1350 KB
  From Martin Howe comes a pack of textures - all of them based on Doom's olive-green panelling. This showcases a surprising amount of variety, especially if you're trying to make a convincing tech-base environment with a consistent style. Probably best in combination with some of Nightmare's texture packs.
  
  
• Duke Nukem Texture Pack - Daniel "Tormentor667" Gimmer
  doom2.exe - n/a - 2284 KB
  Just about all the textures from Duke Nukem 3D. Just in case you wanted to make a Duke Nukem style map but couldn't be bothered to acquire a copy and convert them all to Doom format yourself. There's no demo wad either, but the text file promises one in Tormentor's upcoming project "Stronghold." Wait and see, I say.
  
  
• Hitler's Bunker - Bowen
  ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 900 KB - (img) (img)
  It starts out like any other Wolfenstein-themed map - blocky, gigantic, and filled to the brim with nazis. Then it starts turning into a boss-fest, with all kinds of armored nazis launching fireballs at you. Then you kill Hitler, and get sent down a few seemingly endless shafts until you reach Hell itself to do battle with Robot Hitler. And then you escape and the level's over. Architecturally not too good, and gameplay leaves much to be desired with so many hitscan-based enemies. I don't understand what the deal is with all the female Nazis either (they have male voices still for some reason). It's probably best to just avoid this one.
  
  
• < Toms Road > - Toms Gailitis
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 2396 KB - (img) (img) (img)
  In our final wad of the week, Toms puts up an interesting map taking place on some kind of military installation. Running on Map11, this map also contains some new textures and weapon graphics (including what I believe is one of the best AKs seen in a Doom wad to date). The sound replacements are a bit strange though - including a loud farting sound that replaces DSSLOP. It's also a bit difficult to tell where to go at times, since the keycards are pretty well hidden.
  
  

FP!

Wait, you reviewed Adelusion's maps? Wasn't that meant for the next oldstuff /newstuff?

wow, that turbo turkey puncher wad looks just like heretic

Kristian Ronge said:

Wait, you reviewed Adelusion's maps? Wasn't that meant for the next oldstuff /newstuff?

They aren't really that old, plus they were stuck in /newstuff just like the newer uploads. I think if they were meant for oldstuff, they would have been held back.

I fixed the screenshot on zsttp3 - since I never actually took a screenshot, I really shouldn't have had a link there.

Don't do that. Any changes to the article should be done by someone who has access to the front page, not by editing the forum post.

Yehaa! Newstuff 275. <<In time!>>

except it's a Heretic level and has nothing to do with Iikka Keranen's megawad.

Actually, Dystopia 1 and 2 were made by Adelusion. And he asked Iikka if he wanted to join him in making Dystopia 3 after he played Iikka's first map "Mine". So yes, this has something to do with Dystopia 3.

Also, the ending is fine in Dystopia. It had been too easy if you just fought d'sparil or the malotaur.

Considering these maps are from 1994/95, I don't see why they aren't considered "Oldstuff".

GZdoom cannot play STTP3. It crashes with a Runtime Error. Funny.

kristus said:

I don't see why they aren't considered "Oldstuff".

They are. Ty just put them in the standard place without realizing that they should have been moved to the old stuff area (which he did soon thereafter). You'll notice that they are not in /newstuff any more.

Well then, "oops/oh well/d'oh/etc." Less work for myk/Grazza/Kristian/et al to do, then.

WildWeasel said:

the first room killed me at least five times because of the tight space and the number of Revenants coming at me.

You can release them one at a time instead of all at once.

Very nice map; probably interesting to speedrun.

I had uploaded Adel's old WADs from 1995 to complete the links for his entry in the Doom wiki. They could also be found on his web site except for the Dystopia 3 add-on level which is a real rarity that I got from Matt Dixon.

Well I'd say. I've never even knew it existed.

Bloodshedder said:

Well then, "oops/oh well/d'oh/etc." Less work for myk/Grazza/Kristian/et al to do, then.

I'll make a post in the /newstuff forum in future whenever this happens (i.e. something initially moved to /newstuff and then moved to the old stuff area) in future.

Fredrik said:

Very nice map; probably interesting to speedrun.

Funny you should say that, because there is already a demo (from some years ago, obviously).

Looks like I made more mistakes on this than I thought =P I knew the Dystopia maps were pretty old, but I wasn't aware that I wasn't supposed to do them.

And Bloodshedder, sorry about the whole post-editing thing.

Looking on the bright side though...if it wasn't for Adelusion's maps this week, I wouldn't have had that much to play. It inspired me to download Dystopia 3, anyway, and I'm glad I did.

WildWeasel said
don't understand what the deal is with all the female Nazis either (they have male voices still for some reason)

Well they are obviously she-males

Cross dressing Nazis and inane level design? I'd definitely say that Hitler's Bunker is the campiest wad of the week.

WildWeasel said:
Looks like I made more mistakes on this than I thought =P I knew the Dystopia maps were pretty old, but I wasn't aware that I wasn't supposed to do them.

No problem here; those were assigned to me and I'm a bit reluctant to review Heretic levels (even though I do like Heretic and admire Adelusion's mapping skills.)

Isn't this discussion a little pointless? I think it's good that these maps did not get buried in an oldstuff review. In terms of quality they are much better than the regular oldstuff and I'm sure that I am not the only one who doesn't read those reviews anymore. This way they got the exposure they deserve.

Graf Zahl said:
Isn't this discussion a little pointless? I think it's good that these maps did not get buried in an oldstuff review. In terms of quality they are much better than the regular oldstuff and I'm sure that I am not the only one who doesn't read those reviews anymore. This way they got the exposure they deserve.

What the fuck are you on about? Does that mean that some people are stupid enough to not browse through the "old stuff" reviews for things they might like? And what if someone who likes older stuff misses it here (though they'd be equally dumb)?

It's not a discussion anyway; one of the old stuff reviewers informed BS/WW that the wad had been sceduled for OS, they replied they weren't aware, and I told WW it was cool anyway.

myk said:

What the fuck are you on about? Does that mean that some people are stupid enough to not browse through the "old stuff" reviews for things they might like? And what if someone who likes older stuff misses it here (though they'd be equally dumb)?

Exactly that. But I don't call it 'stupid'. Not everyone cares for old WADs (especially considering that most of the new oldstuff is not particularly good) so I'm quite sure there's a lot of people who skip the oldstuff reviews.


1994 WADs weren't 'honored' with a worst WAD of the year Cacoward for no reason.

Graf Zahl said:
But I don't call it 'stupid'.

I mean it's dumb because by not browsing a list of descriptions they'll miss the good ones. There's crappy ones, sure, but others are pretty good or excellent, like these that slipped through to the "new" T/nC.

1994 WADs weren't 'honored' with a worst WAD of the year Cacoward for no reason.

I hadn't really paid attention to the Cacowards, but now that you mentioned it, I went over to that entry and read it; it's a Scuba Steve (TM) production. Heh, what do you expect?

You might be making some sense about one thing, though; a few not too knowledgeable people who're more or less new to DOOM could take such an opinion as a guide, avoiding the old stuff section completely, drawing the conclusion that all old wads have to be crap. I guess those few would make up a portion of the not too bright ones I mentioned above.

Some of the best wads this year come from Grazza's section in /oldstuff.

myk said:

it's a Scuba Steve (TM) production. Heh, what do you expect?

:D

Afterglow said:

Something

Feel free to add the Duke Nukem texture pack to your Texture Source Page ;)

Added, although what's with the asshat review saying "Why not just play duke nukem 3d?" Uh, because this is only environmental textures? Not the physics, sprites, weapons, sounds, music, gameplay, story, etc. of the original game?

Afterglow said:
Not the physics, sprites, weapons, sounds, music, gameplay, story, etc. of the original game?

And not remotely legal, as well.

Since when has that ever stopped us? :P

myk said:

And not remotely legal, as well.

And as Kdizd has shown us, using doom2 textures (and sprites) in ultimate doom mods is also illegal.

rf` said:
And as Kdizd has shown us, using doom2 textures (and sprites) in ultimate doom mods is also illegal.

I know that. While this is extreme as it involves other companies, the "DOOM textures for DOOM II wad" is quite off track. A couple of ripped resources here or there is sloppy enough but rather innocuous, but ripping whole games is on another level. We'll see if Apogee cares. But even if not, I don't see how it's any different from ripping another amateur author's work, unless we want to openly declare a rift between commercial and amateur products (where the rules of one don't apply for the other.)