The /newstuff Chronicles #345

• Skypack 3 - Stian Skjondal (zsignal)
  n/a - n/a - 200805 bytes
  Reviewed by: Wills
  Five custom skies for use in Doom. They seem okay, if a bit CG-y. That's all there really is to say.
  
  
• Outpost - Jack the Ripper
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 68842 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  A short, boxy map for Doom 2. Has a tiny amount of monsters and near zero difficulty level. Detail and layout both below average. A few confusing design decisions. Overall it's not going to hurt if you pass on this one.
  
  
• Journey into the Bowels of Hell - David.Dweedle
  doom.exe - Solo Play - 96801 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  Three maps for Doom. Feels like an attempt to make a slaughter/HR map with the original Doom. The first map feels pretty standard. Maps 2 and 3 feature a number of fights in which you are placed in a large room/area with hundreds of monsters. Despite this, it's not particularly challenging, since there's no Doom 2 monsters and the author didn't use any Cyberdemons. Ammo and health are plentiful, to the point that 90% of it will remain lying around on the ground. All you really need to beat these maps is a lot of patience.
  
  
• Elizabeth - Aluqah
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 97638 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  A single map for Doom 2. It's laid out like a 1994 map, without anything really interesting going on. Lots of huge, square rooms and long hallways. There's a few points where you can get stuck, and if you don't take a certain route at the start you're pretty much screwed. Even when played correctly, it isn't much fun. Probably want to pass on this one.
  
  
• nostalgia - Josh Blake aka steelbread
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 31443 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Kirby
  I've never actually played any of the PSX Doom levels so I wasn't sure what I'd think of "nostalgia" when I read the text file. The author states that, while being his first ever map, that it is a tribute to the PSX Doom levels. It even requires the latest build of GZDoom to work which sounds interesting. So I went into it with an open mind.
  
  What the FUCK
  
  If PSX Doom is as dark as this map, I have hard time believing how many people like it so much. I managed to find my way through using the color-lighted sectors which only existed to show the map's extremely mundane structuring. The map is ever so slightly difficult, but it was so dark that I wanted to shoot myself every time a monster fired at me and I couldn't tell where the hell it was.
  
  The exit door didn't open for me either, so I clipped in and exited after searching back through the map for the switch. I decided to look at it in Doom Builder to see if it was bugged or if I had missed something.
  
  Needless to say, it didn't open. At all.
  
  XWE managed to open it but when using its built in map editor, it displayed nothing as well. In fact, this wad appears to be missing most of the general lump files included with a level (BLOCKMAP, etc.) Oddly enough, it doesn't work with previous versions of GZDoom, which boggles me to no end because the only feature this map appears to use is the colored lighting for half of the map's sectors.
  
  Do yourself a favor and avoid this one, lest you download it only to observe the XWE phenomenon.
  
  
• Skin roll para doom doom2 - LUISDooMER
  Multiplayer - n/a - 211717 bytes
  Reviewed by: Wills
  Judging from the bits of Spanish I could understand in the text file, I was led to believe this was a collection of skins for Marvel vs. Capcom characters; however, it's apparently for just a girl. There are no frames for forward, backwards, or quarter-direction motion. The sounds all seem to be empty. The numerous references to a "skin roll" are slightly disturbing. I'll go ahead and just give Luis a "WELL PUTTED 2009!!!".
  
  
• Hell Legacy - Unyx
  Skulltag - Solo Play - 2717309 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  2 maps for Doom 2, using Skulltag. Detail and layout are pretty good. Unfortunately, the gameplay suffers badly from ZDoom syndrome.
  
  There are a bunch of ZDoom monsters, mostly hitscanners, which are grossly overpowered. You really need the chaingun to take care of them. You do get a pretty powerful minigun, which also eats ammo like popcorn. Unfortunately, you get tons and tons of shells instead, with bullets being so scarce you're lucky to have any at all. The super shotgun replacement is garbage - it's slower and less powerful than the Doom 2 SSG. You don't get anything more powerful than it, either. On top of this, there are new versions of the Baron and Cacodemon which take even more ammo to kill, making a fight against them extremely boring and tedious.
  
  There are also a number of extremely annoying traps, including one where a door stealth opens behind you (no sound) and a ZDoom hitscanner comes out, who can pretty much rape you down to 0% without even trying. No, the ZDoom hitscanner does not grunt or have an alert sound, either. Also one where an arch-vile teleports into a maze full of hitscanners you previously killed, and your only chance is to save up bullets specifically for this fight (the minigun will save you, but that SSG ... useless).
  
  Overall this is just another map that suffers from ZDoom syndrome - too many custom monsters and new weapons that don't mesh together very well, combined with poor ammo balance, make for a frustrating experience.
  
  
• Commander Keen 2.5D: The Quest for Spot's Collar Alpha Test Release - William Elliott Waterman (VikingBoyBilly/PaganRaven)
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 11568950 bytes - (img) (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Wills
  PaganRaven has made an all-new Commander Keen adventure for Doom. As expected, gameplay is quite a bit different in this iteration of the series, as you have a whole new dimension (or half of one) to explore. Gameplay is slow to get started; the first level is a bridge across yellow water (eew) where you can collect floating mushrooms and sunglasses (when you pick them up, the hudmessages say "Yum!"...). The second level is a short tunnel into the next level, and that's it. Seriously. And you can go back and forth between levels, like a hub, except it's not done quite right - when you re-enter a level, all the powerups and enemies reappear, giving you an easy way to collect infinite mushrooms.
  
  Then you have the third level, which introduces monsters and starts frustrating you with Keen's one-hp health. It's hard to dodge monsters when you can't see them because everything is dripping with a rainbow, candy-coated palette. Moving around is pretty easy, though; the pogo stick works well, and the extra jumping height seldom gets in the way. The music is pretty dreadful; I'm not sure where it's from, but it's a dreadful mess of trumpets, bird chirps, and synths. This wad has its flaws but seems to be a good start.
  
  
• The last outpost of hell - Josh Blake aka steelbread
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 113404 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  A map for Doom 2 using GZDoom. This is an absolute embarrassment of a map. Every sector in the map has some color mode attached to it, with all the detail of a giant square room. I have not seen a map look this bad since .. well, this might actually be the worst I've ever seen outside of a jokewad. Your eyes will bleed.
  
  Gameplay is complete garbage. Despite being a slaughter map with 777 monsters, you have the SSG for most of the map, and you get a rocket launcher early on but there's no ammo to use with it. It's extremely tedious. Health throughout the map is almost non-existent. I am convinced the author tested the map with God mode on, as there are some traps which are just about impossible to survive without it. There's one where you're surrounded by 6 hell knights with no room to move at all, with a room full of chaingunners firing on you. And then in the same area, you get trapped by 10 imps surrounding with 2 barons of hell in the middle. Again, no room to move, you just get assraped. The author gives you 1-2 medkits to make up for these guaranteed death traps. Ammo is extremely haphazard. I don't think there's even enough ammo to kill all the monsters in the map, as there's a enormous platform full of barons you can't even reach, among other things.
  
  This map is a festering eyesore that plays as bad as it looks. Avoid, avoid, avoid!
  
  
• skin carlitox by LUISDooMER - LUISDooMER
  Multiplayer - n/a - 525623 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Lizardcommando
  This is a really weird looking, cartoony skin for use in ZDoom or Skulltag. Judging from what I can figure out in the text file, he's some cartoon character from MTV. The skin has some Spanish voices. Normally, I wouldn't mind seeing something cartoony in Doom, but only if the animations and graphics look good. That isn't the case here. The running animation looks awful and the death animation is ridiculously bad. The sprites don't even have full rotations.
  
  Don't bother downloading this skin.
  
  
• skin alejo by LUISDooMER - LUISDooMER
  Multiplayer - n/a - 538001 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Lizardcommando
  This is another really weird looking, cartoony skin for use in ZDoom or Skulltag. I'm assuming he's also a cartoon character from the same MTV show that "carlitox" is from. The skin has some Spanish voices. The running and death animations are just as awful as LuisDooMER's other skin, "carlitox".
  
  Don't bother downloading this skin.
  
  
• Insane Trip 1 - darkdave1985
  ZDoom Compatible - SP/Co-op - 55438 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Edward850
  Remember back in the days when you picked up your first Doom editor? One would be obsessed with making a big room and filling it with monsters, and it was awesome fun. This, however, has gotten old.
  
  I can understand the whole 'first map' syndrome, but uploading it is not necessarily a good idea. What we have here is a map (on map28) that's just one big room, filled with a lot of different monsters. Its impossible, to say the least, to complete, and it seems kinda pointless in existence. The detailing has at-least been attempted (height and texture variations), but it all clashes horribly, and its mostly copy'n'paste.
  
  Needless to say, these kinds of maps are best kept on your own hard disk.
  
  
• Close Fear - darkdave1985
  ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 105974 bytes
  Reviewed by: Super Jamie
  If you're looking for a good level, skip this review and go onto the next one now.
  
  Close Fear is a really bad MAP07 remake. Inconsistently designed with blatantly amateur mapping concepts, this will only interest people whose lifelong dream is to snipe a Cyberdemon with the rocket launcher, then be trapped in a featureless arena with multiple Spider Masterminds, before progressing to the ridiculously huge and dark maze which is populated with Spectres. And don't forget the overuse of switch textures which aren't actually switches!
  
  This is a great example of what not to do with your level editor. I'd post some screenshots but I've already deleted this terrible WAD.
  
  
• Insane Trip 2 - darkdave1985
  ZDoom Compatible - SP/Co-op - 123853 bytes - (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Edward850
  You know something is wrong with a map when the first thing that happens is:
  
  
• Hearing 3 Archviles wake up and start attacking you.
• Notice the distinct lack of cover (none at all), and start running.
• Upon running, waking up a bunch of Cyberdemons, and dying.
  This is precisely what you get with this wad, and that's not even the end of it.So apparently this is made for pro players? I mean, I could see someone getting lucky and avoiding all the Cyberdemons and Archviles, somehow, escaping though the small tunnel to the side, but that's merely luck. And that's not even the end of it.
  
  However, the author has attempted detail, but suffers once again from the awful clash of textures.
  
  Another thing I would like to note is that once again, this map is not map01, but rather this time, map07. This would be somewhat fine if it was a vanilla map, but a map where the author intends it to be played on ZDoom? That's not even trying.
  
  To end on a good note, I can see that darkdave1985 is at least trying. However, it would be nice if he stops with the random/pointless monster spamming and impossible gameplay.
  
  
• Lost Island - darkdave1985
  ZDoom Compatible - SP/Co-op - 131806 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Reviewed by: Kirby
  This is a medium-large sized map made for Plutonia that serves as darkdave's fifth ever map. It seems he was worried that people wouldn't figure out it was for Plutonia, as he mentions it several times strenuously in his text file. This didn't give me the best of impressions going into the wad, and my expectations were worsened by the abysmal reviews this was was given on the archives.
  
  Needless to say, I find this wad balances out its pros and cons pretty evenly.
  
  There are several areas where you will run into monster battles that provide a pretty good challenge for most Doomers. It almost even seems like this might be close to Plutonia's standard of difficulty. You will certainly have to consider how you fight your battles in some areas, making for a fairly playable map.
  
  Despite this, there are flaws that can easily turn you off this map. Namely, the author throws in several cut/paste areas as hallways that serve the purpose of nothing more than being....well, long hallways. There are a couple of "WTF?!" areas, namely one involving arachnotrons that I found exceptionally annoying because of the sound (get there and you will see what I mean). There are also a few bugs that appear in this map as well, such as a lava floor that kills you even if you have a rad suit.
  
  This seemed more difficulty-based than detail-based to me, and in that aspect I feel like it succeeded, even if only by a bit. It certainly looks like a map-making experiment, but I see some good ideas that the mapper has grasped in here and I feel that they can evolve from this with the proper criticism. It doesn't look terrible, and if you are one who can ignore the proclivities of a novice mapper, then check this out and see if it challenges you.
  
  
• Hall of Destruction - darkdave1985
  ZDoom Compatible - SP/Co-op - 253757 bytes
  Reviewed by: Craigs
  It's pretty ironic that I'm reviewing this wad right now. Just this morning I found myself wondering "What would happen if you took a retarded monkey that couldn't even tell the difference between chocolate and its own shit, and gave it a map editor and a copy of Doom?" I'm guessing this wad wouldn't look too different from what the monkey would come up with. Although the monkey's map would probably look a little better since it would have a bit more variety instead of being a total copy and paste job.
  
  You start off in a hallway. There's a BFG and a switch on the other side of the hallway. You walk to the end of the hallway and try to grab the BFG and maybe even hit the switch if you're feeling adventurous. You can't do either. Instead, you're just teleported to another hallway; this one lined with a bunch of copy and pasted alcoves filled with monsters, along with a keycard at one end. If you try to fight you're going to die, thanks to the cramped corridor and the huge monsters that completely clog them. If you try to grab the key card, you're probably going to die anyway but I guess probably is better than nothing. Next up is another shitty area that will probably cause your frame rate to drop a bit. To put it simply, it's nothing but a giant room with a bunch of weird trenches, platforms, and staircases copied and pasted all over the place with no real pattern or sense, with a bunch of switches scattered around the room. I have no idea what most of them do, thanks to the 376 enemies placed randomly around the room that mowed me down the second I opened the door. There are a few health items scattered around but a lot of them are in secrets that you wouldn't even be able to get to without God mode, such as the secret area in the first hallway, and even then they don't even make up for even half the abuse you usually end up taking.
  
  To sum it all up, this wad looks like shit and it plays like shit. The gameplay is horribly unbalanced and I can't help but wonder if the mapper just went ahead and play tested it with god mode and IDFA, or if he even play tested it at all. Unless you enjoy torturing yourself with shitty sub-par wads, you might as well just avoid this crap.
  
  
• Eye of the Storm - darkdave1985
  ZDoom Compatible - SP/Co-op - 673663 bytes
  Reviewed by: Super Jamie
  This actually starts out okay, you have a fun little SSG battle with a few Hell Knights, and it appears to be textured fairly well. Though the once-raise platforms need some jumping onto, they should have been repeatable lifts. Then some confusing architecture appears, then you are teleported right in front of a bunch of chaingunners and Arch Viles. No armor, no weapons, just your 100 health vs. about 1000 damage in 3 seconds.
  
  Walking around in God Mode shows a 1600-monster map with some massively-scaled unoriginal architecture including so many Cybers and Spiders I lost count, and my PC (capable of running Crysis fairly well) started to chug.
  
  This seems like the bored time wastings of a child who likes to iddqd and idclip, so they can watch the pretty colors as everything infights with a boss monster; something we all got over within a few days of our first map editor, and certainly didn't inflict on the world.
  
  Avoid at all costs.
  
  

Wow. This is probably one of the biggest shit parades I've seen in a while. :P

+1 on that.

So...anybody play any good maps lately?

Hmm, now that I think abou... nope.

I heard the Time Warp series was pretty good but I can't find a working hyperlink for it.

Wills said: (in his review of "Skin roll para doom doom2")
The sounds all seem to be empty.

They're in OGG format, however two are either very brief or empty.

esselfortium said:

So...anybody play any good maps lately?

Yep - the Time Warp trilogy quartet :D

The worst wad of the year award should probably just go to /Newstuff Chronicles #345

Bloodshedder said:

nostalgia - Josh Blake aka steelbread
GZDoom - Solo Play - 31443 bytes - (img) (img)
Reviewed by: Kirby
The exit door didn't open for me either, so I clipped in and exited after searching back through the map for the switch. I decided to look at it in Doom Builder to see if it was bugged or if I had missed something.

Needless to say, it didn't open. At all.

Not surprising, considering that several doors in this level are marked as walkover triggers. Incompetence rules... I'm surprised that parts of it were playable at all.

XWE managed to open it but when using its built in map editor, it displayed nothing as well. In fact, this wad appears to be missing most of the general lump files included with a level (BLOCKMAP, etc.) Oddly enough, it doesn't work with previous versions of GZDoom, which boggles me to no end because the only feature this map appears to use is the colored lighting for half of the map's sectors.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this one, lest you download it only to observe the XWE phenomenon.

There is no 'phenomenon'. This map is in UDMF format which XWE can't read. That's all.

Heh, darkdave has been posting some counter-reviews to his idgames entries.

"this should just be a speedrun level and nothing else. so, you don´t need much ammo. ok? and at the begining 700-800 monsters are killing each other, in 30 seconds or so. then there is enough room for the player to run by and go to the next room. this was my thought behind that all. everything just tactic. so, switch on your brain, if you have one, you retarded jerks. djd"

"i don´t know what you fucking jerks have, but please die and go to hell. this is a good map, you just must play with tactic in some areas. it´s not my fault, when you fucking punks, are too stupid to play with brain and tactic. the outside area with the 3 masterminds is easy. open the door, shoot and then hide in the room, where you start. all monsters are waking up, and then the masterminds start fighting with the other enemies. then normally 2 of 3 of them are dead without shooting them once by yourself."

"this level is really hard but it´s possible. just for pro players. and you´re all noobs, right? and i said, that this one just works right on zdoom and no other port. read the description asshole. on zdoom, there is absolutely no error. blind jerks! djd"

"i don´t know, how far everyone from you, have come in that level, but it doesn´t matter at all. you´re all so fucking jerks, that is really unbelievable. this map is so sensationell and you say it´s boring? can you make a better one, you fucking kid? ha? no, you´re all just hating, because you´re all to weak, to manage it. the design of this map is really good. you´re all so friendly, so i´m friendly back. cunts! fuck u all, little noobs. djd"

This kid cracks me up. It's like he played Deus Vult, AV and HR2 and then decided to make some OMG EXPERT LEVEL DOOM MAPS without a clue as to what he was doing.

Okay I have lost any respect I had for this guy, please ignore his wads and probably he will go away...

Edit: I like the skypack, a few of the skies is really to my taste. :P

Edward850 said:

This would be somewhat fine if it was a vanilla map, but a map where the author intends it to be played on ZDoom? That's not even trying.

To end on a good note, I can see that darkdave1985 is at least trying.

Is he, or is he not? :p

udderdude:

There are a bunch of ZDoom monsters, mostly hitscanners, which are grossly overpowered. You really need the chaingun to take care of them. You do get a pretty powerful minigun, which also eats ammo like popcorn. Unfortunately, you get tons and tons of shells instead, with bullets being so scarce you're lucky to have any at all. The super shotgun replacement is garbage - it's slower and less powerful than the Doom 2 SSG. You don't get anything more powerful than it, either. On top of this, there are new versions of the Baron and Cacodemon which take even more ammo to kill, making a fight against them extremely boring and tedious.

Yes, maybe the sawed-off (SSG replacement) is weaker but it has the second firing mode which is similar to Doom2 SSG firing, I hope you discovered it. And you can find more powerfull things than sawed-off, in first level there is rocket lauchner hidden in secret, in second level you can find plasma rifle. I know that i made it difficult but its not impossible to beat that wad( I tested it).

Gez said:

Is he, or is he not? :p

Unyx said:

Yes, maybe the sawed-off (SSG replacement) is weaker but it has the second firing mode which is similar to Doom2 SSG firing, I hope you discovered it. And you can find more powerfull things than sawed-off, in first level there is rocket lauchner hidden in secret, in second level you can find plasma rifle. I know that i made it difficult but its not impossible to beat that wad( I tested it).

^ This is how you tell if someone is trying or not. :P

Gez said:

Is he, or is he not? :p

That's what I get for writing the review at 1 in the morning.

Unyx said:

Yes, maybe the sawed-off (SSG replacement) is weaker but it has the second firing mode which is similar to Doom2 SSG firing, I hope you discovered it.

No, I did not. Looking back, there's no mention of it in the readme either.

Unyx said:

And you can find more powerfull things than sawed-off, in first level there is rocket lauchner hidden in secret, in second level you can find plasma rifle.

Requiring the player to find secrets to make the map tolerable is not a good idea ..

Unyx said:

I know that i made it difficult but its not impossible to beat that wad( I tested it).

I never said it was impossible, just frustrating and difficult for the wrong reasons.

I don't see how the fact of using custom monsters and weapons is bad in itself, it's the way they are used and implemented that should be judged.

Oh well, that's probably why maps and megawads with some custom monsters/weapons implemented successfully are still way underrated.

"ZDoom syndrome" sounds rather like a "please use the original Doom2 stuff because any custom content is obligatory crap" than anything else.


Well, I'm not saying the tested Skulltag maps are actually good, but I am under the impression that the common tester associates ZDoom map with crap too easily just because of the custom stuff.

Yeah I really try to keep an open mind with zdoom bestiary crap, but there's just something about them...

Why do you think I griped about the new Doom 2 monsters here? It's not a /nsC review if it doesn't disparage any new content. :P

To me "ZDoom syndrome" means let's stick some unneeded and overpowered new monsters and some unneeded new weapons, in my vanilla maps.

I'd say the wad that "Hell Legacy" is a perfect example of what I consider "ZDoom syndrome".

And to think I am the one who helped him upload his maps and make proper text files to get them on the archives. Now I am getting chewed out and wants those maps removed from the site because of bad reviews.

I am tempted to post his PM in quotes here but won't do so, as much as it's demanding as it's hilarious to think he thinks I can actually get his files off the site since I uploaded them for him.

darkdave1985: If you cannot take constructive criticism and complaints about your levels in an effort to improve your mapping skills, you shouldn't be making them in the first place. Can't take the heat? Get out of the kitchen.

udderdude said:

Heh, darkdave has been posting some counter-reviews to his idgames entries.



This kid cracks me up. It's like he played Deus Vult, AV and HR2 and then decided to make some OMG EXPERT LEVEL DOOM MAPS without a clue as to what he was doing.

heh I came onto this thread again just to see if that was going to happen, looks like it did.

@chris: do it do it

I am not biased against zDoom in general. I've done my fair share of wacky zDoom crap before (Hordes of Chaos and Resurrection of Chaos). There have been zDoom maps I've reviewed before that used custom monsters/weapons and were perfectly fine. If you'll notice, I gave a way worse review to a map that had no zDoom monsters/weapons at all. :P

At some point I guess I could go through the entire zDoom bestiary and pick out what I think are the best ones, but it would take awhile, and I'm too lazy :P

Graf Zahl said:

Not surprising, considering that several doors in this level are marked as walkover triggers. Incompetence rules... I'm surprised that parts of it were playable at all.

Hah, I guess I should've expected it from his first ever map anyways.

There is no 'phenomenon'. This map is in UDMF format which XWE can't read. That's all.

Ahhhh, now it makes sense. Never whould've realized that probably, but at the least it's not a mystery to me anymore o_O

Speaking of Dave, this struck me as kind of ironic.

Close Fear - darkdave1985
ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 105974 bytes
Reviewed by: Super Jamie
If you're looking for a good level, skip this review and go onto the next one now.

The next review is for another shit map by Dave.

Yup

Well... looks like things have just gotten more exciting.

BlackFish said:

@chris: do it do it

I'll only do it if the forum rules allow private messages to be posted in public (myk, Bloodshedder, etc..is it prohibited or not?). I already replied to him stating I have no permissions to delete stuff off the Archive and am waiting to see what he says to say now.

BlackFish said:

Yup

Bahahahaha

@Newstuff: Even some Ruba maps would have lightened up this plethora of wads, which is saying something.

Mr. Chris said:

I'll only do it if the forum rules allow private messages to be posted in public (myk, Bloodshedder, etc..is it prohibited or not?). I already replied to him stating I have no permissions to delete stuff off the Archive and am waiting to see what he says to say now.

Personally, I don't think you should post them. I understand that it's annoying that he's decided to chew you out after you were nice to him, but private messages are supposed to be private, no matter how annoying the kid is.

Of course, it's up to you. I just suggest thinking about it a bit more, maybe after this thing cools down you might change your mind.

And of course, if the harassment continues, there's always the ignore button :)