The /newstuff Chronicles #310

Hello my dear fans! Yet another late edition of /newstuff, and now I've officially decided to take a break from this until mid-December as real life priorities are starting to pile up and I won't have as much time to write up half-assed reviews! Hopefully Bloodshedder finds someone to fill in for me (unlikely because you're all lazy and unappreciative assholes) so that you crazy T/nC addicts who constantly ask for updates on when the next one arrives will have something to sliver over. Sure it won't be the same without me (until mid-December) but hey, we can pull through these tough times. We're in this together, you and I.

This week seems to be rather interesting, ads there's a rather severe split between high-quality releases and worthless shit without many average WADs inbetween. What's in store for our readers in the /newstuff Chronicles #310? I'm curious too, let's find out!

• 1024-4: Final mission - Alter (with assistance of zalewa and testers)
  Boom - SP - 622kb - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  I beta tested this WAD and I was quite satisfied with what I had played. Some of the anonymous comments in the /idgames listing mention that these maps were made with OBLIGE. To whoever the pathetic asshole was who didn't have the balls to reveal themselves, you're a goddamn moron. These maps do not even display anything remotely resembling OBLIGE characteristics, and they're quite awesome for co-op as well without item respawn. I never beta tested the last map, and when I finally played it I was a bit disappointed compared to the other maps. Seemed like a half-assed rush job to me.
  
  
• 32 in 24 5 - The 32in24 team!
  Boom - CTF - 3.7mb - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Finally, I get the chance to review a 32in24 WAD! This edition of the hit sensation breaks new grounds by having two separate teams, one dedicated to making FFA layouts and another dedicated to detailing those layouts! Just like previous 32in24s, the quality is excellent considering the time restrictions, but this one shines even more than previous 32in24s because of the concept of two teams working together to produce one hell of an amazing WAD. Even then, there a few stinkers that I would never accept (MAP04, MAP25 for example) if I was the maintainer, but fortunately the rest of the maps excel in quality and I would be shocked if there wasn't dedicated servers for these on Odamex, Skulltag and ZDaemon; and on that note, 32 in 24 5 receives the WAD of the Week.
  
  
• Another Bloody Chapter - Paul Corfiatis
  Enhanced Port - SP - 262kb - (img)
  Honestly, this is the kind of stuff that Paul should be working on. I've enjoyed most of his previous serious work and this is no exception, as this is one hell of a solid map that replaces MAP28. It's a challenging level with beautiful scenery, go check it out!
  
  
• Bold As War - Kenny Coughlan - aka 'KennyJC'
  doom2.exe - SP - 104kb - (img) (img)
  I'm not going to lie here, I don't like people who bitch and moan because I had accidentally forgotten to review their WAD. I'll point this out for any other egotistical WAD author tries to do this kind of shit to me and other Doomworld staff again:
  
  Don't do something as utterly retarded as boycotting a service we have no control over (/idgames in case you're wondering) because your WAD was accidentally skipped, or maybe I might deliberately forget about reviewing it, and you can continue preaching the boycott to deaf ears while nobody else gives a shit.
  
  Capisce? Good. I hate to spout unnecessary bullshit like this in reviews but sometimes people can become really whiny prima donnas (over a simple mistake) who I don't want to deal with. Anyway, this is a somewhat short marble-themed level which isn't terribly difficult to finish on the first run and looks quite nice too, but it feels like it would be better placed in a megawad as an early level.
  
  
• Bucket DM - Bucket
  doom2.exe - DM - 257kb - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
  I liked MAP29 of 32in24-4 a lot, so when I saw this in the list of WADs to review I was in glee with anticipation. The first half of this WAD is filled with solid FFA layouts that work great, but what the hell happened with the second half?! There's an extremely sharp decline in quality after MAP10 and some of the maps from MAP11-16 are utter shit with absolutely no effort put into them. Don't believe me? Compare the third and last screenshots, what's up with that? I'm disappointed in you Bucket.
  
  
• catacomb rmx - Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri
  ZDoom - SP - 1,292kb - (img)
  A map that came from some failed project I don't know about. It's nothing special, but I guess it's worth checking out. I have no clue of where I was meant to go after the first key was stolen.
  
  
• Didac's Revenge - Paul Corfiatis
  ZDoom - SP - 20kb - (img)
  Seems like an interesting idea, but the execution is quite poor and I have no idea why the Cyberdemon was getting attacked by the chaingunners.
  
  
• Dione Attack Pt. 1 - Impboy4, Adam3
  Boom - SP - 326kb - (img) (img)
  This was a fairly average WAD that uses Dark Forces textures, except that the sky is horribly broken in the port they mention as being compatible with. Way to go in properly testing the WAD!
  
  
• Dw29 - Jason Root, aka Grotug aka Hellbent
  doom2.exe - DM - 22kb - (img) (img)
  It's a Hellbent DM map, do I need to say any more? What, you've never played greenwar.wad before? Get out of my face and don't come back until you appreciate awesome FFA layouts with minimal detail. Kinda amusing to review this in contrast to 32in24-5, but just sticking to the KISS principle works just as well for DM maps, and this is certainly no exception.
  
  
• Eden Loss - Aluqah
  ZDoom - SP - 1,990kb - (img) (img)
  This eight map WAD by Aluqah turned out to be a lot more better than I had anticipated. Like every other ZDoom WAD it features a plethora of stolen and modified graphics, but the maps themselves display excellent usage of requiring to jump and swim, and Aluqah does a damn good job at doing cave, hell and village themes. Half of the WAD is a single hub too!
  
  
• EPIC - Alexander "Eternal" S. (aka Deadall)
  Boom - SP - 3.2mb - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  A WAD that lives up to its name, good golly! Unfortunately it has some rather stiff competition for WAD of the Week such as the amazing 32in24-5 and Wonderfull Doom, but that doesn't mean that this WAD is not a recommended pick for this week, no siree. There may only be five maps this time around, but man Eternal delivers quality in spades just like with his last WAD, Remain 1. Those who have played his other stuff should know exactly what to expect, but for those who haven't you're in for a ride. He pulls off the Egyptian/desert/ancient building theme extremely well under Boom's limits, and the last map is truly epic in size. Could he possibly be the best newcomer of this year? Scuba, you better be noting this down you asshole.
  
  
• Fear Of The Dark - Robby DeCandia AKA: r_rr
  ZDoom - SP - 70kb
  The last map I reviewed from this guy I simply said "Shit" and some useful advice, and I'll repeat myself for this WAD:
  
  Shit.
  
  
• Fierce Vigilant Retribution - Eugene Sloupsky a.k.a. DarkJedi188
  JHeretic - SP - 1,222kb - (img) (img)
  Oh jeez, I knew I was in for a fun ride when I saw the retarded titlepic, and boy did it deliver. Knuckles replacing the Heretic mummy and shouting out stupid lines? Several other pointless monster replacements that made me laugh out loud? This was the funniest WAD released this week and I don't think it was even trying to be a jokewad!
  
  Oh yeah, the first map is nothing significant. Unfortunately I was forced (according to the text file) to use JHeretic and I don't remember the Heretic cheats, so I never bothered to check out the other level. It probably wasn't worth it anyway.
  
  
• Fray - Trevor "Spartan" Uruski
  doom2.exe - DM - 150kb - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  I had ignored this last time due to it being maps from 1996, but I received a plea to review it. I was touched by the message and decided to check this out.
  
  There are nine DM maps that vary in quality vastly, as the text file states they were created between 1994 and 1996. Some maps like MAP07 are real stinkers, while the earlier maps work quite well for 1996 quality. However, they also suffer from "throw random monsters in with no coherent purpose" syndrome that early DM maps also contained. I don't think I'll ever understand why DM maps from 1994-1996 did this.
  
  
• Full Options - Morbid DooMer
  doom2.exe - SP - 542kb
  DOES NOT WORK IN INTENDED SOURCE PORT
  
  
• Gamarra's soul story: Mission 5 "Hack into ZDoom.org!" - Giulio Galassi aka Glassyman
  ZDoom - SP - 603kb
  More Glassyman goodness, take that as you will. Hopefully it'll end soon and I can live on the rest of my life not having to review these any more, but hope is for the foolish.
  
  
• GBA Deathmatch Levels - MP2E
  doom2.exe - DM - 209kb
  These are the deathmatch levels from GBA Doom? Man they are really ugly, I guess they're better off suited for the small screen. Some of the layouts are annoying as hell, while others work fine.
  
  
• Giulio Galassi Is Dead II - Anonymous
  ZDoom - SP - 51kb
  About as useful as a disposable camera. Play it once, throw it away afterwards. I did laugh at it though.
  
  
• Porno Doom (The Ultimate Fucking Hardcore Porn Doom Wad) - Deeforce
  ZDoom - SP - 12mb - (img)
  No. WADs with porn images that have been brutally raped by the Doom palette became unfashionable in 1996. Don't bring those awful memories back ever again, I beg of you.
  
  
• Sine Die - Didy
  Boom - SP - 2.4mb - (img) (img)
  I'm divided about this WAD. MAP01 suffers from Hellcore 2.0 MAP01 disease (as in WHERE THE HELL IS AMMO AND SOME DECENT WEAPONS) but MAP02 was a fun romp. Generally speaking there's some excellent usage of Boom features here and the detail is great, but I can't bear myself to play through MAP01 without quitting half-way through the map.
  
  
• TechBase 1 - Przemys³aw "Belial" Woda
  Enhanced Port - SP - 165kb - (img) (img)
  *gasp*
  
  Can you believe this Doomworld?! Everyone's favourite map critic is reviewing a map by everyone's second favourite map critic! ALERT THE PRESSES
  
  Wee ooh wee ooh wee ooh
  
  Actually, that resembles ambulance sirens more and not the siren I had in mind. My bad! Just imagine those sirens from Strife and we'll be talking on the same level. This "first map effort" from Belial is definitely one of the better first maps I've ever had to review. It has a very strong AV or HR-style level difficulty and it surprisingly has some good detail to boot. I'm a bit ashamed that Belial won't be making any more maps, because I believe he would have a very good future in making excellent maps like TechBase 1. From everyone's favourite map critic to everyone's second favourite map critic, I beg of you to try making some more maps before burning out so quickly!
  
  
• The disparil's labs - Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri
  Enhanced Heretic Port - SP - 198kb - (img) (img)
  I have no idea what the hell is going on in this WAD. It is for Heretic, it has Heretic monsters, but it has Doom textures in it and it's tech/base themed? Crazy I tells ya! The map is quite a challenge to beat however, and that gains points in my book.
  
  
• The Hazard Variation - Karthik Abhiram
  Enhanced Port - SP - 238kb - (img) (img)
  I had forgotten to review this last time but unlike that prima donna who kicked up a stink in the comments, Karthik did the humble thing by actually posting the URL to the WAD I had forgotten about along with The Outer Darkness and not complain for my stupid error. Thanks champ!
  
  Where was I? Oh yeah, The Hazard Variation. I've always liked Karthik's maps as he has proven himself to be a consistently good mapper, and The Hazard Variation further boosts my belief in Karthik's abilities as a mapper. It's a very short E4 map that can be finished in under five minutes, but it's a tough one and it simply looks beautiful. There's some interesting doom.exe features used like monsters and items that appear from nowhere! I love that trick.
  
  
• The last joke! - Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri
  ZDoom - SP - 2.3mb
  I hope this is the last jokewad from Daimon. Normally I'm quite tolerant when it comes to jokewads, but I gave up at MAP14. Yes, you heard it here folks, I, creator of deathz0r Online: The Internet Made Stupid and several other annoying jokewads, could not bear myself to play through all of another jokewad. While I do have a strong mental fortitude, I could not fathom how it would be humanly possible to endure this WAD.
  
  
• T h e O u t e r D a r k n e s s - Varun Abhirama Krishna
  Enhanced Port - SP - 380kb - (img)
  I also forgot to review this last time, but that's ok as it's better being reviewed late than never, I say! This E4 map is a lot more larger than The Hazard Variation which was done by Varun's brother Karthik, but The Outer Darkness definitely holds a candle to it. Due to the larger size it involves more backtracking, but it's not too excessive and it's just as action packed as The Hazard Variation. Download these two WADs now, you won't be disappointed in either.
  
  
• True Action : Personal Edition v2.02 - Guest, Post
  GZDoom - N/A - 3.1mb - (img)
  A boring and uninspiring weapons/monsters mod. Has anyone noticed how weird the underground section of Doom 2 MAP02 looks like with dynamic lights and coronas and all of those other purdy features? The somehow broken screenshot doesn't reflect it that well, but when there's no monsters shooting projectiles it's like almost completely dark and there's really, really bright water right in the middle of it. If that's not realistic and game-enhancing then I don't know what is anymore.
  
  
• Wonderfull Doom - Wraith
  doom.exe - SP - 1,652kb - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Man did this WAD inject a heavy sense of nostalgia into this T/nC! It's a entire Ultimate Doom megawad that re-imagines all of the original Doom levels in Wraith's eyes. His intention was to relive the original experience of playing Doom and I believe he did an incredibly good job from that. The WAD took him three years and you can see the difference in skill between the E1 maps and the E3 maps for instance. There's even a bug in E1M2 with a gun-activated wall that closes the entire level if you shoot it enough times! It's not a smart idea to set a gun-activated linedef to be repeatable, keep this in mind new mappers.
  
  Regardless, I had a blast playing through my favourite episode, E3! I was a bit personally disappointed in the lack of a BFG in E3M3, which was one of my most fond memories when I first played Doom way back when I was a little kid, but the rest of E3 was extremely solid. Just for the excellent remake of E3 I almost feel inclined to give this WAD of the Week, but 32in24-5 marginally pulls through just for being more consistent in quality.
  
  
• Zombi Outbreak - Cutmanmike
  GZDoom - SP - 3mb - (img)
  I'm quite reserved about using models in Doom (mostly because the ones I've seen are very unimpressive in keepin' it reeeal) but seeing as the premise of this WAD is rather unique in that you have to survive a zombie outbreak for less than five minutes, I'll let my suspicions of models slide for now.
  
  Zombi Outbreak imitates those good ol' B-movies that I love to watch in that you have to survive until help arrives, which in this case comes in the form of a helicopter you escape with. Instead of using a ripped sprite stolen from another game, Cutmanmike swipes a zombie model from who knows where, most likely an aborted zombie mod for Q3A or HL1. There's about twenty million of those mods so guessing what the name of said mod it most likely came from is too much effort on my behalf. Did I mention that you only have to survive this level for less than five minutes? Hardly any effort compared to the likes of those huge-ass levels and it would have been nice if the amount of zombies had increased over time.
  
  That said, you come across two types of zombies, those that smash your face in really hard and those that poison you and you gradually lose health. I have no idea what agenda those zombies have since there's no backstory to this WAD, (which isn't a fair thing to point out considering it is influenced by B-movies) but man do they have to be annoying assholes! They tear down the front door and smash open the wooden barricades that prevent them from performing bukkake trampling all over the poor innocent player who is equipped with an Uzi stolen from Shadow Warrior, a shotgun with infinite ammo (excellent bug testing!) and a rocket launcher stolen from somewhere else. Man have I crapped on too much, it's still a fun WAD regardless of all the stolen material!

There's an update to the excellent Project: Doom and fraggle finally put that elusive -statcopy command in doom2.exe to good use!

Oh man, there were a lot of really good wads this week. Another Bloody Chapter and Epic were my favorites. Edenloss was pretty cool too, but I got stuck some place and I couldn't figure out what to do.

BTW, the Bold As War link leads to a different wad.

Yet another quality review from deathz0r, you rock! :)

Wonderfull Doom has been one of the best wads I have played in a long time.

Whoops I forgot to mention in the text file that Full Options needs an limit removing port, I don't care about not having an review its good shit anyway.

heh, another \newstuff coolness! and LOL.!

BTW:

map that came from some failed project I don't know about.

it comes from doom 2 remake (yes, zdoom2: HOE...)

I have no idea what the hell is going on in this WAD. It is for Heretic, it has Heretic monsters, but it has Doom textures in it and it's tech/base themed? Crazy I tells ya! The map is quite a challenge to beat however, and that gains points in my book.

is a heretic screwd into a future place. Hell yeah, Deathzor, is crazy!

I hope this is the last jokewad from Daimon.

Yes, is the last one. And, yes is horrible, boring and stupid.

Wonderfull Doom, Sine Die, Epic, DW29, Another Bloody Chapter and 32 in 24 5 is the best maps for this week.

Belial map is cute but have very less ammo in it.

rr_r map is a crap remake of "Face your fears"

Bucket DM isn't really bad. Good worth downloading.

Glassyman rocks.

BTW the next will be "1monster" cronichles (how exagerate ^0^!) bye!

Yes Belial. Listen to the OP. Make moar maps.

You're only saying that because you know as well as I do that I won't :P

Also a limit removing port is enough to play my map, no ZDoom features are included.

daimonreloaded said:
Wonderfull Doom, Sine Die, Epic, DW29, Another Bloody Chapter and 32 in 24 5 is the best maps for this week.

"Full Options" by DD is a very good set of maps too. I'm very pleased to see it (finally) uploaded to the archives.

Belial: he's saying that because he, like myself, wants more quality stuff to play! :-)

Belial said:

You're only saying that because you know as well as I do that I won't :P

=[ I bet you could if you tried =[

Also heh @ ZDoom requirement.

John Smith said:

Yes Belial. Listen to the OP. Make moar maps.

I'd agree, but I fear being accused of being a hypocrite. :P

Some great stuff here... 1024 was good, Epic was awesome, Wonderful Doom looks interesting (I like the re-imagined e2m8) and Zombi Outbreak was a promising experiment. That ice cannon in True Action was fun to mess with, as well.

The only (okay, most) important thing in this newstuff is fraggle's external statistics driver. 'Nuff said.

Kristian Ronge said:

I'm very pleased to see it (finally) uploaded to the archives.

I guess I have to re-upload it again cause of some missing info in the textfile, I'll probably do that in an couple of months or so :p

That 1024 mapset was pretty cool the last map felt like an bit lika an rush job the rest was really nice imo he used the limited space very well.

Belail map was very good for an first map I hope he will continue to create maps for doom.

That map from Paul Corfiatis looks damm sexy I agree with the reviewer make more of these maps.

Belial said:

Also a limit removing port is enough to play my map, no ZDoom features are included.

Oops, I made a mistake there! Hopefully BS will change it to "Enhanced Port" and fix that Bold As War link which I'm fairly sure I did update.

Fixed

Some pretty decent offerings here, I've enjoyed what I've played of this week so far.

Whoo, 32in24-5! :)

deathz0r said:

Oh jeez, I knew I was in for a fun ride when I saw the retarded titlepic, and boy did it deliver. Knuckles replacing the Heretic mummy and shouting out stupid lines? Several other pointless monster replacements that made me laugh out loud? This was the funniest WAD released this week and I don't think it was even trying to be a jokewad!

On the contrary, I was actually trying my best to be as funny as possible, because I got bored of releasing serious and anti-funny WADs.
And thank you for the compliment, because I wanted to win the MOST FUNNIEST WAD OF THE MONTH award :D

deathz0r said:

Unfortunately I was forced (according to the text file) to use JHeretic

If you were to run it with ZDOOM instead of JHERETIC then you would've seen glithces such as slimetrails/textures not drawing properly. I've tested my map in both ports, so I know exactly which one supports it correctly and which one doesn't.
And I provided you with a DED file for showing correct level names and correct item-pick-up messages, but you obviously forgot to use that for the screenshots.

deathz0r said:

I never bothered to check out the other level. It probably wasn't worth it anyway.

Just because you don't have the spare time to look at everything doesn't mean that something isn't quality.
I've received better reviews for my other WADs in the past.
And people improve as they maintain persistance instead of becoming worse.
I've never had any missing textures anywhere. And I've never ever done those crazy "one room with a Cyberdemon, LOLz" maps.
So don't take me for someone that I'm not.

Darkjedi188, thank you for defending my wad.
Another Bloody Chapter: very good the only gripe is that as soon I found that secret weapon I finished the map. And I didn't mind getting my ass kicked, so pity (edit:for me).
Full Options is outstanding. Didn't know about Morbid Doomer, guess the maps are less detailed and have a better flow then your Dutch Devils ones.
Epic is great too, but not as good as eleven.
I liked sine die and searched for other Didy levels, turned out that I played most of them.
More open and in my eyes better gameplay then his previous ones, but I'm always been a fan of maps that force you to find weapons.
Btw pcorf since you're running out of ideas, I go my chance: a dem map15 lookalike please..

DarkJedi188 said:

And I provided you with a DED file for showing correct level names and correct item-pick-up messages, but you obviously forgot to use that for the screenshots.

I don't use the Doomsday Engine ever so I have no clue how to use DED files.

Just because you don't have the spare time to look at everything doesn't mean that something isn't quality.

You must have missed the part where I said I don't know the Heretic cheat codes, not to mention that I had to get this done by a reasonable time (turned out I finished this at 1am on Sunday night, fun!) so I wasn't going to mess around with this shitty connection just to find out cheat codes for Heretic.

You certainly have plenty of time to check this forum though.

iddqd = quicken
idfa = rambo.

Now review.

Full Options by Morbid Doomer requires a Source Port.

It says "Advanced engine needed : No" at the top, then it says "Other files required : DooM2 and any port you like". Hooray for ambiguity.

Bloodshedder said:
Hooray for ambiguity.

Heh, more like erroneous redundancy, as any wad for DOOM II requires the IWAD, and "any port" is the same as "advanced port: no".

pcorf said:
Full Options by Morbid Doomer requires a Source Port.

Ah, so it'll work with Chocolate Doom but not Doom2, then?

myk said:

Heh, more like erroneous redundancy, as any wad for DOOM II requires the IWAD, and "any port" is the same as "advanced port: no".

I can make a wad for doom 2 that doesn't requires the iwad. It wouldn't have been made without the existence of the iwad but it doesn't require it.
I consider Chocolate Doom an advanced port because it wouldn't exist if everybody still uses win9x. Or to put it more strict it exists due to a more sophisticated OS.

pcorf said:
Full Options by Morbid Doomer requires a Source Port.

myk said:
Ah, so it'll work with Chocolate Doom but not Doom2, then?

That would be a emulation bug of chocolate doom.

Coldfusio said:
I can make a wad for doom 2 that doesn't requires the iwad.

DOOM II is the IWAD and an engine (by default the standard one). You can make a DOOM II patch wad that doesn't necessarily require the internal wad only if it's also a wad that's for other games, such as a graphics or palette wad that works either with DOOM or DOOM II, to name an example. It is totally unnecessary to specify that you need DOOM2.WAD for a wad with a text file that says "Game: DOOM II", in any case.

I consider Chocolate Doom an advanced port because it wouldn't exist if everybody still uses win9x.

This is not what "advanced engine" in the template refers to. It means an engine that has "editing" features that aren't present in the game out of the box, that pertain to the patch wad described.

That would be a emulation bug of chocolate doom.

You'll like some of these.

Aw crap, I thought I got rid of that shotgun bug. Oh well! It wasn't meant to be a serious thing anyway so I don't mind all the stolen stuff comments. I'll give proper credits next time! <3

deathz0r said:

I don't use the Doomsday Engine ever so I have no clue how to use DED files.
You must have missed the part where I said I don't know the Heretic cheat codes, not to mention that I had to get this done by a reasonable time (turned out I finished this at 1am on Sunday night, fun!) so I wasn't going to mess around with this shitty connection just to find out cheat codes for Heretic.

I never meant to sound insulting, sorry.

But this incident certainly proves that we need at least 2 reviewers for every issue of /Newstuff. Since apparently a single person can not sufficiently accomodate every type of WAD for every type of port.

Just a friendly suggestion on my part.

Maybe I should start playing DM again.