The DWmegawad Club plays: 99 Ways to Die & Troopers' Playground & Talosian Incident

[tmorrow]

map18: Hi Honey, I'm Home, by John Bye
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

Oh, it's great to be back in the ship. WTF? Oh no! The ship has been infiltrated with bad beasties. It's Aliens all over again! The map layout is the same as map01 but several pathways have been blocked. You are steered into a fairly linear path through the ship but you need to look for switches, panels and computer consoles to trigger the way forward. Backtracking is required as well. The fights are fairly low key as long as you are alert. Don't accidentally shoot yourself in the face when you meet up with a green marine along the way! Note to the uvmaxers, there are a couple of well concealed enemies that might take a while to locate. The finale of course takes place where the saga began, at the bridge that has been infested with more enemies and their leader, an archvile.

Overall WAD Comments

The highlight of The Talosian Incident is its story, this is most apparent in the opening and closing maps involving the Transport. Our space marines adventures on the 3rd planet in the Talosian System are documented well, especially the subterranean adventures, in search for the artefact. The mapset is worth playing through at least once, with good atmosphere and lighting provided you aren't looking for high challenge. From a gameplay persective though, many of the maps are a little under detailed or a too large for the number of enemies added. As a result the replayability of the maps is limited and for this reason I feel that the mapset has not aged well. My favourite and probably the hardest map in the set is map12, it features some nasty traps and keeps you on your feet from start to finish and is the only map in the set that I would want to play again.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP18 Hi Honey, I'm Home

 

And I told you we'd see this again. Like in Tomb Raider 2, you go to your home to find it run by enemies. Unfortunately that revenant specimen escaped, and a (shootable) voodoo doll is there now. Not only that, but a whole lot of the level is locked, and there's some puzzle aspect again, much harder than I remembered. Those long corridors on the sides are the way to open the doors here, just touch the silver panels to open them and figure it out from there. Two useless pain elementals in the engine room, which by the way does still have danger zones UNDER the radiation blocks. The cockpit of the ship is the hard part of course, one arch-vile in the open, hitscanners to the sides. It would be wise to lure them closer. To exit, the panels by the windows are the ones to use. And that's it for Talosian Incident.

 

I look at the positives and the mediocres of each and every wad, and I still hold it true that each set is still worthwhile to play for me. MAP03 of Talosian was easily the worst of these maps.

[DavitW]

MAP16 - The Canyons

Not too much to say about this map, You have a big ugly valley area similar to MAP02 and then you go through some sort of building which is just a tedious blast through symmetrical hallways and rooms ending in a pointless Spidermastermind fight so you can open the exit. This map felt like it added nothing to the wad and they might have well just left it out.

 

MAP17 - The Great Outdoors

This map has those IOS spawn cube thing's but there's no actual Icon itself to destroy, Instead what we have is a long ass elevator ride, I have no idea how deep it is or how long it actually takes but let me tell you it's one long fucking elevator. If you jump on it before it gets all the way up few enemies can actually spawn on it and then it's just the waiting game. After that we find ourselves back at our ship surrounded by Cybers. Just lure them away, enter the elevator, hit the switch and we're done with the map.

 

MAP18 - Hi Honey, I'm Home

It looks like our ship has been invaded by demons while we were away. Hey, That's what you get for not locking the door. As far as confusing corridor crawls go I suppose this one isn't too bad. There were a bunch of doors that were arbitrarily locked for no reason and I honestly have no idea how to open them, I just smashed my face into the computer panels that seemed to do nothing and ran around hoping something opened. As far as final maps go this wasn't too hard, With the only really dangerous part being that room that hurts you for whatever reason when you're in it. The final room with the Archvile wasn't too challenging either.

 

Overall the wad has some positive points, Such as the the excellent atmosphere and the music which really helped the mood, But for the most part it wasn't terribly fun to play through and I found myself using words like tedious or boring to describe large parts of the wad. There were several maps I'd consider to be outright bad, With MAP03, MAP15 and MAP09 probably being the worst. The only maps here i'd consider to be good would probably only be MAP11 and MAP12. Despite all that there's still a part of me that would recommend playing this wad for yourself. It certainly was a rather interesting and unique experience.

[Salt-Man Z]

All right, three nights blitzing through the back half of this WAD, time to do the writeups and see if I remembered anything...

 

MAP12: Vulcan

18:36 | 100% Everything

Mostly (pretty darn) fun. That door had me stumped for the longest time, though. And I was sure I had already tried shooting it, as I had its switches and the other (secret) locked door. Spent waaay too much time just wandering around on account of that bizarre design choice. Also not a fan of the suddenly-there's-a-baron-right-next-to-you! traps, since they always feel like a "screw you" to the player, especially in such cramped quarters.

 

MAP13: Get The Hell Out

2:41 | 100% Everything

Not a whole lot here, huh? The first time I was caught unawares wandering out to the other side of the arena, and then was flanked and immeiaitely flash-fried by the two viles. A second attempt when I knew what was coming went a lot more smoothly. Pretty dull. I actually tried the insta-death trap on a whim, and survived! Apparently I had enough to health to survive the barrels or whatever.

 

MAP14: Beneath

9:13 | 100% Everything

A proper hell map! Fun, but not particularly memorable.

 

MAP15: Solvent

26:21 | 100% Everything

A big silver techbase with lots of little switches and backtracking. Other than that, I liked it quite a bit. I especially dug the (mean) initially-pitch-black staircase that lit up as you went, often revealing chaingunners. The secret exit stumped me for a little bit, especially upon noticing I had already maxxed out the secrets. So I found the regular exit, went back to search, and there it was just sitting there. Won't complain, though.

 

MAP31: Inferno Revisited

21:11 | 100% Everything

I will complain about this, though. Like @Magnusblitz @TheOrganGrinder, I tried avoiding the supercharge and shell boxes when I hit that switch (I was already close to 200% with like 90-some shells!) and so never triggered the vile teleporter. (And I still managed to run into the soulsphere and shell box.) And so then I spent 10-15 minutes hunting and pecking and then IDDTing and squinting at the automap before finally coming here and seeing I just had to get closer to that stupid switch. Hey mapmakers: don't do that garbage!

 

MAP32: Portals

7:48 | 100% Everything

Just a weird little two-spoke hub thing, with a third hub that sends you on your way (or back to the beginning with the original EXE, I hear?) and a fourth that opens up when you find the true exit. That imp mob was funny, but also tiresome to get rid of. In the second leg of the journey, I managed to get knocked down to like 13% and then had to deal with that mob of spiders, yikes. Thankfully, I had left behind a berserk and then nabbed the soulsphere before heading out. I did enjoy the visuals of the portals, just wish it tied in a little more with their destinations (or vice versa.)

 

MAP16: The Canyons

7:01 | 98% Kills | 100% Items | 0% Secrets

Upon seeing the title, I immediately figured I'd start with my chaingun, because canyon crawls and chainguns seem to go together for some reason. And so of course I was immediately confront with a wall of pinkies. But my initial instincts turned out to be mostly correct as this map was loaded with sergeants and chaingunners. I say "loaded" but that may mislead one into thinking that this is a large map, when in fact it is a stupidly-short one; so short, in fact, that I hit the exit thinking I still had at least half a map to go, and I hadn't even saved yet. (Hence my subpar stats for this one.)

 

MAP17: The Great Outdoors

4:36 | 63% Kills | 100% Items | 100% Secrets

What sorcery is this? A demon-spitter map that I actually kinda enjoyed? Not sure how I feel about having to jump down onto that ledge to trigger its rising, but otherwise I like the concept of having the arena fill up with baddies as you wait for the path to rise. And then the horde of cybers! If it had been like 4 of them, I'd have rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth and tried to take them out with what ammo I had left, but here there's like a dozen of them, so all I could do was just laugh and try to find the exit switch. I had to smile when I recognized my ship from MAP02. Got in the door and actually took a couple cyber blasts that knocked me away from the switch as I was trying to press it! Those jerks.

 

MAP18: Hi Honey, I'm Home

9:52 | 97% Kills | 100% Items | 100% Secrets

Aaaand, back on board my ship, and now it's a reversal of MAP01 except now I want to get to the bridge and half the doors and lifts don't work. Apparently those fiddly hallway panels that did nothing the first time around were responsible for opening stuff? I just opened them because I was getting bored wandering around trying to figure out where to go... Props to the GZDoom automap for showing me which of the otherwise-unmarked bridge panels doubled as exit switches. What a dumb thing to leave unmarked.

 

OVERALL

Overall I enjoyed it. I like how it tells a story, though much of that is done mainly through the first couple maps and then their reverse counterparts near the end. I wish some of the smaller maps had been more developed, and some of the progression could have been clearer at times. But it was more fun than not. Thanks for pushing this one, @Capellan!

Edited May 31, 2018 by Salt-Man Z

[Magnusblitz]

1 hour ago, Salt-Man Z said:

MAP31: Inferno Revisited

21:11 | 100% Everything

I will complain about this, though. Like @Magnusblitz, I tried avoiding the supercharge and shell boxes when I hit that switch (I was already close to 200% with like 90-some shells!) and so never triggered the vile teleporter.

 

I also still need to play the end half of this WAD, but when I do I'll be sure to try and avoid soul spheres ;)

[Salt-Man Z]

12 minutes ago, Magnusblitz said:

I also still need to play the end half of this WAD, but when I do I'll be sure to try and avoid soul spheres ;)

Whoops, somehow had it in my head that was your comment. (It was OrganGrinder.) Anyway, just make you sure you get in real close and cozy with that MAP31 switch. (If you can do so without grabbing the sphere, I tip my proverbial hat to you.)

[Catpho]

Hi, finally wrote an article for John Bye if anyone wants to read or add to it. At least there is some content to somewhat make up for the lack of reviews from me this month :P

[T-Rex]

Time to do the last three maps of The Talosian Incident. We're almost done.

 

Map16: The Canyons (John Bye)

100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets

Time: 06:53

 

This map is very linear and despite its seemingly massive size, the layout makes it short and quick. After you come out of the base, you'll see a fork in the canyon, and the first way to go is the north route as the yellow key is located within a small mansion. There is a spider mastermind among the enemies you'll face there, but she is really easy to dispose as she is confined in a small room and you can just take potshots at her with your super shotgun and take cover when she's about to open fire, rinse and repeat. With the yellow you can finally reach the end, which is guarded by pinkies, hell knights, and barons, including some chaingunners stationed on the ramparts. Easy stuff and goes by really fast. Anyone who has played The Darkening Episode 1 would recognise the music as it is the only track in this megawad composed by David "Tolwyn" Shaw while everything else (excluding Map14) is composed by John Bye.

 

Map17: The Great Outdoors (Malcolm Sailor)

466% kills, 100% items, 0% secrets

Time: 03:55

 

The penultimate map of The Talosian Incident, and honestly, this is my least favourite. You basically have rush outside, hit the switch which raises the bridge and try to survive the neverending onslaught of monsters for roughly 2 minutes until the bridge fully rises. Getting the monsters to infight is a must so that they won't be coming after you, but if some like arch-viles are spawned at the other end of the area, you are in trouble. Thankfully, you get a shitload of ammo that rises out of the tip, including a megasphere and finally the BFG9000. Grab the megasphere when you are dangerously low on health and use the BFG when you need to clear out some of the more troublesome monsters. There's a soul sphere on the bridge which can also be helpful, and when you reach the other side, a rock wall will lower to a tunnel with a megasphere and the end where you see your ship. Unfortunately, it's heavily guarded a platoon of pissed off cyberdemons, so your best bet is to lure them away, open the door, but do another run around to avoid their rockets and finally race in and hit the switch as fast as you can. Keeps you on your toes, but having to endure the onslaught of enemies for a period of time and trying to evade so many cyberdemons is just not fun for me at all.

 

Map18: Hi Honey, I'm Home (John Bye)

100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets

Time: 07:22

 

Final map, which is basically the reverse of Map01, but now it is swarmed with monsters, some doors are locked off, and the elevators to the bridge don't work anymore, requiring to explore all around the ship in order to head back up. It seems the monsters have also made a hole connecting the reactor room to the southeast room where you see a voodoo doll in place of the sleeping revenant. You'll be forced to explore a room with damaging floor without the radiation suit, so be quick eliminating the enemies inside and grab the soul sphere. The ending, once everything is opened up, is a fight against a mancubus, arch-vile and various baddies, which is thankfully rendered easy on continuous play, especially if you have the BFG. Press on one of the consoles at the front to end the level.

 

For my final thoughts on this megawad, the Talosian Incident is a pretty good set of maps. It tells a really good story, and I like how the beginning also serves as the end with you starting at the ship and the ending at the ship, The strong points is that the set has more emphasis on atmosphere than action, amplified by John Bye's evocative, ambient soundtrack. The theme is consistent as well since the maps mainly use earthy textures with some stone and marble mixed in, and also a few techbase maps in the mid to latter half of the wad. Weak points is that some of the maps, particularly those by John Bye with large open areas, feel almost empty with only a handful of monsters to slaughter. The smaller maps tend to have some dickish traps, forcing you to play slowly and cautiously. As for the authors, John Bye and Malcolm Sailor stand out as being mappers with their own distinct mapping style. John sticks with squarish, highly-detailed maps complete with connecting corridors while Malcolm favours tightly packed maps that pits you straight to the action. His offerings may not be as spiteful as his standalone wads like the Chord series, but occasionally he would whip up some nasty moments like in Map13 and Map17. My favourite maps would have to be 04, 06, 07, 08, 10, 16, 18 and 32.

 

Now to tally up the scores for the three wads we played. I give both 99 Ways to Die and The Talosian Incident a 7/10 while I give The Trooper's Playground an 8.5/10. All of them are great and are recommended for players looking for excellent maps to play. This was a great week of playing (if catching up) some good Doom wads. Hope you guys have fun playing the next megawad for June, and see you all again next time.

[tmorrow]

1 hour ago, Catpho said:

Hi, finally wrote an article for John Bye if anyone wants to read or add to it.

 

Good work @Catpho, the doom wiki keep getting better every day! I should learn how to contribute as I've got a bunch of secret descriptions for mapsets that aren't on the wiki yet but I don't know how to set up a skeleton megawad section.

[Catpho]

6 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

 

Good work @Catpho, the doom wiki keep getting better every day! I should learn how to contribute as I've got a bunch of secret descriptions for mapsets that aren't on the wiki yet but I don't know how to set up a skeleton megawad section.

You should ask @NuMetalManiak, as he also writes secrets for map articles. I heard there is a bot for this, not for sure though because i haven't edited a map article myself. The more the better :)

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP17: The Great Outdoors

 

I'll be honest, this one didn't do much for me, with its roughly-rendered outdoor spaces and predictable monster-spawner battle that you're only obliged to fight as a delaying action until the bridge spanning the central chasm rises to its full height, followed by a great stomping gaggle of Cyberdemons milling about the landing legs of your spacecraft that, given the brooding atmosphere and generally low-key, understated combat of the rest of the WAD, feels like such a reversal of expectations that it comes across as a joke or a parody.  "You can't be serious!"  And indeed, all that's necessary is to drag them away from the ship long enough to pop open the lift and scoot inside, as though the whole map is built to be not engaged with, just hurried past.  I think this suffers more than many of The Talosian Incident's levels by comparison to other, more recent executions of the "dont fight, just run," dynamic, but even for its era I don't know that this was a well-realised take on that particular mapping trope.

 

MAP18: Hi Honey, I'm Home

 

And so we end back where it all began, though I'm not sure if the implication here is that the monsters encountered here are the defiled and mutated remnants of other survivors, or if it's meant to be apparent that they're all local creatures from elsewhere on the planet that have snuck aboard; the heavy concentration of top-tier enemies at the conclusion of the preceding map suggested to me a siege, a barrier between the stranded marine and sanctuary or escape, a sense that the ship's defences hadn't yet been breached, but here you're scraping demonic entrails out of your own home turf, and by the time you get to the bridge it's clear that there's no sanctuary to be had here, that the ship itself has been subverted and warped.  When you mash the control panel to exit the level, are you launching the ship and making your escape, or are you turning off a distress signal, setting an auto-destruct sequence, condemning yourself to one death or another in order to deny the planet's denizens this opportunity to spread further through the cosmos?  Given the overall tone of the WAD, the latter feels like a more fitting conclusion; it's not a happy note to end on, nor a triumphant one, but I've been soaking up the WAD's dour atmosphere and gloomy environments for two weeks and change now, and so the more grim interpretation seems to be the natural one.

[NuMetalManiak]

3 hours ago, Catpho said:

You should ask @NuMetalManiak, as he also writes secrets for map articles. I heard there is a bot for this, not for sure though because i haven't edited a map article myself. The more the better :)

The bot is @Xymph's (XymphBot). If I recall this is what it does, which includes DMMPST and a whole slew of other utilities.

[Pirx]

Ok I guess boomed is 2 votes ahead.

 

+++ Dimension of the boomed 

 

Gladly heroe's tales next, but i'll be afk for some time anyway.

[gaspe]

MAP18: We returned to our ship, the one of MAP01, but now the place is infested by monsters and not all the doors function correctly so the way to the bridge isn't straightforward. It was pretty moody and the different things like our ibernated friends that were killed and the different appearance of the bridge was nice, some other horror touches would have been cool to see.

 

You can find other works that try to build a narrative and actually feel like they are telling a story, but this wad is very unique and you can't really compare it with many other wads. Despite having some flaws and not all the maps are endearing on the whole I think that this mapset is still unmatched in what it does, actually I think that the only wad that was able to do it better it was A.L.T, in some parts. The gameplay comes out as a second thought here but idk if I have to consider this really a flaw, it looks like it was molded for the atmosphere and it was able to deliver some engaging situations.

I already said on one map that I was getting some Unreal vibes and it was interesting to discover in the John Bye's interview that the concept of the wad was made by a guy that later went to work on Unreal for Epic. The fact that you start in a spaceship that lands on an unknown planet, then you travel through castles, temples and techbases felt all oddly similar to Unreal but I thought they were mostly coincidences but I guess that it all makes sense now.

[Alfonzo]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/268118360 (Talosian Incident)

 

At the thirteenth hour I bring you these Incidents.

 

I'll probably not wait too long before submitting highlights, this month. Between streaming this content and preparing the inbound DWIL thread I simply lose the will to write up a proper summary. Or maybe it's just the soul-crushing drudgery of this WAD that has left me feeling completely bereft?

 

On 6/1/2018 at 1:59 AM, gaspe said:

Despite having some flaws and not all the maps are endearing on the whole I think that this mapset is still unmatched in what it does, actually I think that the only wad that was able to do it better it was A.L.T, in some parts. The gameplay comes out as a second thought here but idk if I have to consider this really a flaw, it looks like it was molded for the atmosphere and it was able to deliver some engaging situations.

 

This is interesting, because although we appear to have near polar-opposite opinions on how well Talosian executes its narrative selling point, I have the utmost respect for your own ability in this area with works like Legacy of Heroes and your TNT levels. Perhaps I have missed some of the intended subtleties in this WAD while playing to an audience for laughs, then, or just lack that same power of imagination. In any case, if it's of value to someone with talents such as yours then I should be thankful that it exists... even if I can't bring myself agree on any of these points.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Alfonzo : gaspe's comments

[gaspe]

On 6/1/2018 at 5:29 PM, Alfonzo said:

This is interesting, because although we appear to have near polar-opposite opinions on how well Talosian executes its narrative selling point, I have the utmost respect for your own ability in this area with works like Legacy of Heroes and your TNT levels. Perhaps I have missed some of the intended subtleties in this WAD while playing to an audience for laughs, then, or just lack that same power of imagination. In any case, if it's of value to someone with talents such as yours then I should be thankful that it exists... even if I can't bring myself agree on any of these points.

 

I only watched the last minutes of the stream when you give your overall impressions on the wad, so I'm missing many specific things about the levels but I'll try to elaborate more what I think about the wad. I think that the oppressive feel created by the music and the very simple design was intended, and this is the strong point of the wad that puts the player into this hopeless(?) journey on an unknown planet. It's a very unique work and the oppressive mood done here is different from other wads that try to achieve a similar effect, not many other wads took this approach. Actually the hub of BTSX E1 does a very similar thing and I love it, I guess that this kind of things resonate better with me. I can understand why you (or any person) don't like this wad, I also found some things that I didn't like or that weren't done well but I think that it's worth to try at least to experience the Talosian Incident.

[Magnusblitz]

Month's past over but figured I'd still finish this up. At least old-school WADs are generally small and quick.

 

MAP12: Vulcan

99% kills, 1/1 secret

 

Quite liked this one, as it has a nice layout and a good mix of monsters. Even liked the last fight, making good use of The Focus-style windows and the sudden darkness. Needing to shoot the door to get the red key was stupidly arcane and I only figured it out after reading comments here. Also wasn't a fan of some of those nasty ambushes on the soulsphere or RL, teleporting a baron or revenants right on the player. Definitely glad I had been playing continuous and had the plasma gun for those. The last monster left didn't properly teleport out of his cubby hole. On the whole, might be the best map in the set, too bad Martin didn't contribute more to this.

 

MAP13: Get the Hell Out

100% kills, 1/1 "secret"

 

Basically just an arena fight, but simplicity of the map means more time can be spent making it look good I suppose (and it does look good!) It actually gave me a fair amount of trouble because I kept playing the two AVs rather stupidly, did much better once I ran straight at one to take it out and was able to finish the other off safely instead of having no cover.

 

MAP14: Beneath

100% kills, 0/1 secret

 

This one feels oddly out of step with the rest of the WAD, feeling much more like a Doom II map in design. I am tempted to say that might just be because of the music track... for some reason I got the default IWAD MAP14 music, even though the wiki says it should have a custom track? Eh, either way, I still got IWAD vibes, from the general architecture to the SMM/arachnatron fight at the end. Not bad but not great.

 

MAP15: Solvent

100% kills, no map secrets

 

I thought this was another John Bye map since it shares a lot of architectural similarities (long hallways, often staircases, connecting square rooms) but apparently it's another one-off. This map quickly became one of my most hated in the set... I agree with Capellan that slathering everything in silver looks ugly, especially here where it tiles poorly and gives a striped effect. The progression is also bordering on Eternal Doom levels, with tons of tiny-ass little switches that have fuck-all indicating what they do (often opening up something on the other side of the map). Took me a really long time to notice the little switch that lowered the lift up to the caco (and the little switch hiding behind his corpse). Even the secret exit is a pain, as you need to progress all the way to the regular exit and then decide to turn around and find what silently opened.

 

MAP31: Inferno Revisited

100% kills, 4/4 secrets

 

A decent-looking map, using the E3 theme (marble, blood, flame) but not evoking anything about the Inferno episode beyond that to be honest. Battles are kinda bland. FWIW, I didn't try to sneak past the soulsphere at all - I was leaving cybie alive to infight for me so I ran by it at warpspeed hitting the switch - but I still didn't trigger the walk-over because who actually steps into switch cubbies? Thankfully I managed to run over it inadvertently later, then some more pointless switch flipping.

 

MAP32: Portals

100% kills, 1/1 secret

 

Unlike last map, which doesn't really fit thematically with the rest, I think this one could've been a normal map... has the same sort of abstract feel to it. The 'portals' decorations are kinda cool, but that's about it. Most of the monster count is taken up by one giant imp horde for you to slowly chew through.

 

MAP16: The Canyons

100% kills, 1/1 secret

 

Ah yes, another John Bye map, with it's recognizable large empty outdoor spaces and hallway-and-door filled outposts. The SMM is pointless and the map is over before you know it... I actually would've been fine with having more than just the exit in the second 'castle'.

 

MAP17: The Great Outdoors

 

Eek, unexpected Icon of Sin map, featuring the slowest fucking bridge raise of all time. Because running around in circles with no point to shooting anything is such fun. After that, you get to run back to the ship, which is rather hilariously guarded by about ten cyberdemons (and no ammo to take them out). So get your running shoes on!

 

MAP18: Hi Honey, I'm Home

95% kills

 

Back on the ship, which is now infested with zombies, imps, and a couple higher-tier baddies. Lots of frustration in figuring out how to proceed, apparently all those panels on the side do something now? Ugh, whatever. Unmarked exit also means the end hits before ya know it. Eh, good riddance.

 

On the whole, can't say there's much to recommend about Talosian - there's a couple decent-to-good maps, a lot of mediocre and bad ones. I think the main selling point is how the music really does help create a grim atmosphere, but the levels don't live up to the music. There's an obvious attempt at a storyline in there somewhere, but it's too vague to be worth figuring out - you get off your ship, blow up some alien machine doohickey, then run around a bunch and get back to your ship and... leave? I guess? There's a reason even the IWADs had text intermissions. I agree with gaspe that it does sort of have an Unreal vibe, but Unreal did a much better job selling what was going on... having the advantage of being ahead tech-wise and custom-made for the story it wanted to tell of course. In a way I guess the map makers just didn't have what they needed (in terms of tools or skill) to really make their vision work.

 

[Crusader No Regret]

I'd decided to play through the Talosion Incident again back at the end of May but most of the playing happening in June and it took even longer to post thoughts.  Yes, again.  I'd gone through it long ago and all I remembered was the first map, getting lost in map 3, and the monster spawner and the multiple cyberdemons of 17.  I was already familiar with John Bye even then having already gone through Cygnus IV which in some ways could be seen as a spiritual precursor.  So I go in expecting desolation and minimalism.

 

  As a story driven set, I'll "review" multiple maps in a block as single maps feel more like parts to a whole.  Reading the included story actually does clear up a few things since it explains why some of the rooms on the ship are damaging and what you're blowing up at the end of map 5.  I'm more inclined to view monsters as actors filling a role rather than an important part of the experience and will rarely mention them.  Anyways...

 

Landing and the approach to the underground fortress (maps 1-4)

 

  Most of the ship is already revealed on the automap which makes sense.  The character would of course already be familiar with the layout.  There's a few unmapped areas, one of which has a specimen in a containment field.  Surely nothing bad will come of this (dripping sarcasm).  From here, I'll mostly be switching to the marine's POV.

 

Troopers log: After gearing up in the ship, I set out across some barren caves and plains.  Encountered hostile wildlife though fighting was sparse before a long elevator ride up to a cliff.  The installation there was more heavily guarded and security seemed quite important to the local population.  Security keycards to progress further were in hidden out of the way locations.  If that's not a signal someone's trying to hide something, I don't know what is.  Located a concealed passage leading underground where the planet's inhabitants had built something that resembled a chapel.  Moving on across a red river, the jamming signal seems stronger closer to the fort on the other side.  Some sentries gave a violent welcome with a shower of lead, furthering my suspicions they're guarding something.  So much for stealth; they know I'm here.  Guess I'd better expect more trouble within.

[Crusader No Regret]

The fortress arc (maps 5-9)

 

Trooper's log: So many doors (huff puff)  Who designed this crazy place?  Found the device emitting the jamming signal and smashed it.  Time to leave this madhouse, crap.  The entryway is locked tight.  Guess I got to find another way out.  Found some rappelling gear in an out of the way room.  There's a descent into who-knows-where but anywhere is better than this nightmarish fort.

 

A sign indicated I had descended into a church.  The locals definitely have some different ideas.  They don't seem to have facilities humans would expect such as seats, or bathrooms.  No musicians either unless you count the fatso belching on the pedestal in the center.  OK, asking him, or her, or it; I can't tell, for directions didn't work out well.  Got attacked by a whole pack.  Fishing through guts for an access card wasn't fun but being stranded doesn't appeal to me either.  Descending into another sublevel, I think the space is some kind of torture chamber.  Saw a bunch of zealots in awe of a skull idol.  The torture chambers were right next to a palace of some sort.  It was mostly bare and deserted and I guess it was built on the side of a cliff.  Some high up rooms actually had windows looking out at the sky; hadn't seen any sky for quite a while in these parts.  What was really strange was seeing a bunch of high tech gadgetry in what appeared to a some security monitoring station.  There were also some locals busy looking at the monitors which, no surprise, were hostile.  Seems out of place with the surroundings.  Breaking out the rappelling gear again, I braced myself for what other secrets were hidden away on this planet.

 

* I got hit the 667 tag bug in map 7.

 

Techbase arc (maps 10-13)

 

Troopers log: I guess the palace was intended to conceal a high tech facility.  Don't really know the reasoning process behind the inhabitants and don't really care.  Just want to find some way out that isn't blocked.  Rappelled down to what appears to be a storage facility.  There are signs of a rail system but the nearby tunnels have collapsed.  Damn, so much for that method.  There's a guarded lift that so it probably conceals something important.  Found the access card and went further into what appears to be a research station.  Intelligent life must have designed the place with the one way doors.  I guess conditioning the staff to always use the door on the right makes smoother travel through the place.  Found civilians here but they all ran off and called the guards and mechs on me.  Jerks.  Not worth the time to hunt them down either with escape being more important.  Yet another lift to a lower sublevel; just how deep does this base go?  Haven't seen outside light in ages; it's getting to me.

     Came out in some kind of powerstation.  I guess it's one due to the reactor down here.  As satisfying as it would be to blow the whole facility to shrapnel; would be a bad idea when I'm still stuck in it.  Broke into an armory on the way so stocked up on ammo.  The way out was blocked by a forcefield.  Knocking out power to the whole place is out of the question but I tracked down some explosives in an out of the way secure chamber and used them at key points to disrupt power to the forcefield.  It also took out power in the adjacent storage area unfortunate as the inhabitants sent an attack force in the darkness.  The path led to some bloodsport arena.  A voice over the loudspeakers taunted me that I would join the pile of corpses their mutant and mechanical creations claimed but I showed them.  Found yet another drop.  The rappelling gear is definitely getting a lot of use.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Crusader No Regret : next chapter added

[Crusader No Regret]

Final set of Talosion Incident.  Techbase arc is in previous post via silent edit.

 

Return to Ship (maps 14-18)

 

Trooper's log: The descent from the arena led to more drab caves.  I'm getting really sick of underground; it feels like forever since I last saw sky.  Followed a passage to a metallic base which to my relief, had outdoor light coming in from above in a few places.  Maybe I can finally get a sense of where I am; being in all that underground messed up my sense of direction.  There was an attached facility primarily built of stone which looked a bit odd next to the metal.  Lots of walking to open up passage to outdoors proper.  The trek by some cliffs is a relief after all the underground trekking, lost track of how much I descended.  A door by some guarded ramparts looked important so I decided to break through there.

     Seems like a whole army came out to greet me.  They were quite determined to gut me as I waited for a slow rising bridge.  A weakened rock wall on the other side of the deep ravine led to... the ship?  I don't remember parking it there, maybe this planet really is making me insane.  It was also patrolled by mobile weapons platforms; thankfully it was easy to draw away their pursuit so I could make it into the ship.  I didn't stop to think why they hadn't blown up the ship but wasn't fancying my odds outside with them.

    The ship has been overrun.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Someone in their forces was also smart enough to lock a lot of doors to seal off the cockpit.  Fortunately, the door lock override controls on the lower level had not been tampered with.  My allies in cryo have been reduced to meat, oh something/someone will pay for this.  Some lifts were clogged up with ... something at any rate and the walls in the cockpit had fleshy overgrowth on them.  Cleaned out hostile in a rage.  The walls and lifts I didn't have the tools to scrape off but none of it was sentient enough to pose a threat so that can wait for safer spaces.  I hope this thing will still start up; what I saw may not be the only tampering the aliens have done.

 

- End log

 

Afterthoughts: Use the automap, it helps a great deal when a switch opens a door on the other side of the map.  John Bye maps also share a few common threads.  They may be minimalist but a sizeable chunk of the opposition is hitscanners and there's no megaarmor or megaspheres to be found on his maps.  Very little armor too so his maps can be deceptively dangerous.