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CasualScrub

So why is Alien Vendetta in particular so well liked?

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It's a reference to Doom2 map22. I didn't particularly like the idea at the time either, but it isn't just random.

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2 hours ago, Martin said:

It would probably never happen, but it would be great fun if Anders some day could cope with his embarrassment and release the first version of AV from the juvenile years of 1996/97 when it was called Alien Vindicta. About 20 of these maps were scrapped, and they manifest how the quality bar was raised.

 

This sounds interesting to me but I love doing deep dives of author materials.

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On 11/26/2018 at 1:22 AM, Edward850 said:

You are asking a question about why your subjective opinion doesn't line up with other subjective opinions, and people can only give you subjective answers. This isn't exactly a great premises for a thread and doesn't exactly lead to thrilling conversation.

 

This is the end of the thread.

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i played through the wad in summer

 

But being honest I only liked the maps after 19. (And map 03) 

I can agree it influenced others but now it's just got a bit outdated

Edited by HUNdebLeonidasX : Grammar

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what I liked about AV

 

-The lighting and detail is fantastic (and I usually care less about those, this is the first wad I played that wowed me with its lighting)

-The gameplay progresses from Doom II difficulty to Plutonia difficulty, then harder than Plutonia difficulty while still remaining quite fun.

-None of the levels are confusing at all

-it's very replayable on all settings and gameplay modes

 

Very nice to see Anders and Martin are posting here. The megawad may be 17 years old but even something that old is still replayable.

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I played AV some time this year for the first time and the gameplay still felt fresh and entertaining for the most part. Honestly I think the difficulty balancing and encounters were more well-tuned than even a lot of modern wads and the level design was unique enough that I didn't mind some of the less visually astounding maps; although it should be noted that the maps still look fairly decent anyway.

 

On top of all of this, I started mapping with Doomcad, so I can appreciate how much work must have gone into testing the larger maps in the wad. Even without nostalgia, AV is still a great wad. 

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I particularly like Alien Vendetta for its adventurous aspect instead of the gameplay. I played Alien Vendetta a year ago and I think that some maps aged pretty well. Some maps are still impressive on vanilla , even for today.

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I've just finished my first playthrough of AV, and IMO for a vanilla WAD it looks decent even today. Gameplay wise, well... I didn't play any PWADs back when it was released (I didn't even know they were a thing at that point), so I don't know what it felt like when it was just released, but today it left me mostly unimpressed. The maps are mostly just okay, with 2 or 3 maps that I hated (long, tedious, and repetitive grey mountain climb, egyptian map, and one other that I can't remember), but no maps that were memorable enough to say I really liked them. So my guess would be that it's mostly loved for what it was back then, rather than for what it is now, because considering its popularity, it probably just hasn't aged too well.

 

Also, I'm surprised there's so much debate over the green torch on Map 01 (which I haven't even noticed in my playthrough, tbh), but no mention of having to SR50 to beat Map 30 - which is complete BS for a mandatory progression thing, way more than a green torch thing (I was wrong). Anyway, don't all doomers automatically press Space and/or shoot at everything that stands out in the level? :P

Edited by Rathori

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1 hour ago, Rathori said:

Also, I'm surprised there's so much debate over the green torch on Map 01 (which I haven't even noticed in my playthrough, tbh), but no mention of having to SR50 to beat Map 30 - which is complete BS for a mandatory progression thing, way more than a green torch thing.


Would agree, if it was correct. Run the map again with normal strafe from a save load spot at the bottom switch, it's just a regular straferun, with precision required. :) I agree that it's not a very exciting twist on what is (especially nowadays) your standard Icon fight. 

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1 hour ago, Rathori said:

I've just finished my first playthrough of AV, and IMO for a vanilla WAD it looks decent even today. Gameplay wise, well... I didn't play any PWADs back when it was released (I didn't even know they were a thing at that point), so I don't know what it felt like when it was just released, but today it left me mostly unimpressed. The maps are mostly just okay, with 2 or 3 maps that I hated (long, tedious, and repetitive grey mountain climb, egyptian map, and one other that I can't remember), but no maps that were memorable enough to say I really liked them. So my guess would be that it's mostly loved for what it was back then, rather than for what it is now, because considering its popularity, it probably just hasn't aged too well.

 

Also, I'm surprised there's so much debate over the green torch on Map 01 (which I haven't even noticed in my playthrough, tbh), but no mention of having to SR50 to beat Map 30 - which is complete BS for a mandatory progression thing, way more than a green torch thing. Anyway, don't all doomers automatically press Space and/or shoot at everything that stands out in the level? :P

I hadn't originally intended to cause such a debate on the green torch, I admittedly made it a bit deeper than it really is haha.

 

First of all, as someone who can't SR50 for my life, I do not remember needing that for Alien Vendetta. Second, I'd have to respectfully disagree with you on the "no memorable maps" part- Nemesis, Overwhelming Odds, Beast Island, Misri Halek, Dark Dome, and Fire Walk With Me all come to mind. I see you don't like the long maps, but that's actually my favorite part of the wad, because it actually feels like you're exploring a place instead of going from point A to point B, even if that's still the objective at the end of the day. I guess it's a difference of personal taste- you hated the Egyptian map but as I said last page it's actually my favorite.

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11 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:


Would agree, if it was correct. Run the map again with normal strafe from a save load spot at the bottom switch, it's just a regular straferun, with precision required. :) I agree that it's not a very exciting twist on what is (especially nowadays) your standard Icon fight. 

 

I admit, I was wrong about this. I just tried it and was able to make it literally 9 times out of 10, bar 3 times when I was blocked by monsters. I guess I was just too tired or something on my first run, because I only managed to make it once with SR50 (which I can barely do at all), and the second time on the elevator I just save-scummed until I got two rockets in in one go (one on my way up and another on my way down), because I just couldn't make that run no matter what, and believe me, I tried.

 

I also don't normally use SR50, and can barely do it. Literally the only other time I used it was when I saved my game badly on Nilla Doom map 07 and didn't have enough health to get out of lava without SR50. Took me a lot of tries to do that.

 

10 hours ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

I'd have to respectfully disagree with you on the "no memorable maps" part- Nemesis, Overwhelming Odds, Beast Island, Misri Halek, Dark Dome, and Fire Walk With Me

 

I agree with you on that these are good maps (except for MH), but for me there wasn't really anything special about them. Well, maybe the music on Beast Islands - it really makes the atmosphere on this one. I guess this is because I played it after many modern WADs: I'm used to slaughter, so maps 26 and 29 don't seem like anything special to be memorable, they're both "just another decent slaughter map" to me, and the rest are just good, but once again, nothing special.

 

Also, I don't really have anything against long maps, but in my opinion MH has terrible progression - it took me almost an hour to beat it with 99% kills and 100% secrets even though I wasn't even going for the secrets in the first place. It's always a bad sign for me when it's easier to find 100% secrets on a map than the exit, and by the time I found it I hated the guts of that map. And about that mountain climb I mentioned (can't remember which map it was): IMO that segment could have been like three times shorter and still deliver the same sense of exploration, but being as long as it is it's just "kill some imps, kill some HKs, kill some revenants, repeat 50 times, all in the same grey corridor" - its length is unnecessary and it gets too tedious too soon.

 

BTW, I'd also add map 21 to the list of the good maps, which, despite being linear and somewhat cramped, has pretty good gameplay, nice visuals, and most importantly, felt like a breath of fresh air after spending almost on hour lost in MH :P

Edited by Rathori

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21 hours ago, riderr3 said:

Because it's the last "old-school" megawad.

 

I largely agree with this. Alien Vendetta was the last of the "classic" megawads that had their roots traced back to 90s Doom culture. At the time it was released in 2001 / 2002, Doom's fanbase was on the decline and we had no reason to believe that the community would continue to thrive, and most of the remaining activity in Doom mapping was in experimenting with ZDoom effects, so Alien Vendetta was sort of the last straggler to be finished before everything went quiet in the vanilla department. Then, of course, in 2003 we had Scythe, which seems to be generally considered the first "modern" vanilla megawad, and then in 2004 we had Deus Vult, and mapping went off in new directions.

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AV benefits from repeated recommendations to new players, so for many It's their first real introduction to Doom outside the Iwads. I've always felt AV's difficulty progression is very good whether you're playing on HMP or UV, I don't feel it's reached 'famous for being famous' levels yet. Of course difficulty, visual and gameplay design/trends are constantly evolving and I expect a younger generation to be less impressed; my influences were fava beans, HR, Kboom and quake2 and I imagine they haven't aged well either.

Edited by Szymanski : Iwad not pwad

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It's not only the last of the classic megawads, it's also in some ways the first of the modern megawads. It introduces some "modern" tropes like 100% pistol start compatibility, natural "earh" atmosphere (rocks, water...) in the second half of the first episode, episode 3 as the hell episode with slaughter maps in the latter half, map 31 as a concept map versus map 32 as a pure slaughter map (granted, this was already done in Plutonia) etc.

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