The Oldstuff Chronicles #2

[DooMer 4ever]

It's time for my quest trying to find good wads and torture myself with the bad wads in in-span.net! This time I have reviews of wads between zandor2 and windsor.

Zandor2 David Brachman 72%

This level would have been much better if it weren't so hard to find the way. Sometimes you have to walk through solid walls and open doors that are very hard to notice. And you can get trapped in rooms that have no way to exit without cheating, so you'd better save often! Altough it is a bit confusing map, it has good struckture and the monster, ammo and health placements are well tought, altough there are too many soulspheres in one room. I don't remember if it was a secret, but it wasn't very hard to find.

Zak1 Dale Maltby and Wayne Marland 70%

It's fairly small map with good ammo and health balancement. There could be a bit more monsters but it's ok this way too. Textures are quite well chosen. It's very hard to say anything about this map, because it has nothing really wrong, but there is nothing very good either.

Yourdead Richard J. Sham 45%

This map is simply boring. You just enter a giant clearing, clear it of baddies and enter next. The clearings are very flat and far too big. The only good thing i can say about this is that it's fairly challenging. But it's just boring to shoot monsters that are far away.

Yngve2_2 Jesper Andersson 68%

It's very small and simple, but i did enjoy it because it had good monster placement.

Yngve1_2 Jesper Andersson 80%

Hey, this was actually good! It has lots of action, intresting desingn, well balanced gameplay and it's well textured. It could have been a bit longer though.

Yikes2 Curtis I. Ensley 0%

Yikes! This level is awful. It's just a giant arena with different monsters tossed in. To give some points to this one i tried to imagine what could have been done worse, but I could not think of anything.

Yikes Joseph J. Pecoraro 30%

Not very good. I couldn't find the blue key, but that may be legacy too. The map is very underdetailed and the most annoying part is weapon selection. There is just too much pulse rifle ammo in it, and too many invulnerabilities. And guess what: i really got scared of one monster in the level: John Romero's head! Heh heh, maybe i should have posted that to be the scariest doom monster to a thread a time ago.

Yelowkey 50%

Well, you can't expect much from a map that has pulse rifle as the first gun. it's underdetailed and needs more enemies.

Yeahman Bert Elzinga 25%

This one needs more monsters even more than the previous one. It has two levels, but i couldn't find the way on the second level, and the readme file tells there's only one, so i guess the second one got there accidentally.

Yaotzin William Green 70%

A quite large map with good, though a little simple texturing. It's also a bit hard to find the way. A good map you would't want to go through a second time.

Yab Patrick Martin 40%

This wouldn't be that bad: textures have been used quite nicely and the map itself is quite good. But what makes it bad is the monster placements. There are too much of them! Its boring when every single room is filled with shotgun guys. And all the enemies in this level are human. The ending makes the points even worse, becouse it's nearly impossible, I couldn't beat it at all.

Xxxcity Terry Brooks 41%

"Three levels" in this one. Or in practice just two, because you have to go the first level again in map 03 starting from different location. Not good because i usually don't like playing levels twice, especially not if they are bad. I didn't like the ammo placement in first map, it should have more, the monster placement is quite good though, but there are wolfenstein ss again.

Xmas2 Yukio Ide 10%

Hmm, intresting, a Japanise author. Unfortunately that's just about the only interesting part in this wad. I especially hated the sound replacements: shotgun and maschinegun sounds are awful! The level itself is small, easy and boring and the texturing sucks. The only good part I could found was the music replacement which wasn't that bad. By the way, I have no idea what it has to do with christmas?

X-dove Michael "migru" Grube 50%

Well, it's not bad, but it has too many problems mainly in mapdesign. The texturing is in some parts bad (multiple door textures on each other) and triggers are often in strange places or you have to go back to find out that a wall has opened. And sometimes you have to walk through walls. I don't thing it's very fun to kill demons and pistol guys with chainsaw half of the level.

Xaos John Bly 60%

Hmm, difficult to give points to this wad because some of the levels, especially the first ones are quite bad with wolfenstein ss and wolfenstein textures. It's good to see some people learn from their mistakes. The last levels are actually quite good, I would give 40 % to some of the first levels and 70 % to the last. The details get better along the wad but there is too much health and pulse rifle ammo in all of the levels.

Wytch Richard Jacques 85%

Six very good levels in this one. They're quite easy and there is ofter a little too much ammo, but what makes it great is the monster placement. The maps aren't very higly detailed but they are very well designed and the fights are very well tought. And it even has intresting ending level. Definitely worth downloading.

Wyb2 Elroy Blom 50%

A small labyrinth map, that is underdetailed, as you can expect from a labyrinth map. It has too much health, but the ammo is well balanced and the monster placement is good.

Wwcc Brent Hedden 0%

Yack, this is just afwul! I really tried to think, what is good in the map or could have been done even worse so that i could give it even some points, but i failed miserably. It is just so BAD! For example: crates have been used as wall-texture, there is only one enemy in one room and the rooms have no details at all. Wouldn't wanna study or work in a college like that.

Wudda Thomas Bringle 30%

The area you have to fight monsters in this map is WAAAYY too big and underdetailed. It does give you some nice challenge and ammo and healt are well balanced. But it's just too boring to kill massive hoards of monsters with pulse rifle.

Wtrfront Scott F. Crank 82%

Wow, a good level for a change. Difficulty settings are good, texturing is good and it has a few funny ne w graphics too. I didn't get the idea of those marines though, and i didn't see the archvile bug either, which should have happened according to the text-file.

Wstower2 Walter D. Sanz 35%

You certainly feel joy of accomplishment when you finish a level like this, because you'll never again need to play it! There is too much health, too much pulse rifle ammo, too many monsters and too big halls. And its too complex.

Wsrun Walter D. Sanz 36%

I was hoping some improvement from Walter's previous level but sadly there isn't much. This level is just harder than the previous, but annoyingly hard: you have to load game often because you cannot know what to do next. Oh no, I just noticed there are to more of Walter's wads remaining! They's better be better!

Wsprisn2 Walter D. Sanz 50%

Hey, this actually is better. There are less monsters, the rooms are smaller and you have to use primarily the shotgun. Altough there is plenty of pulse rifle ammo, but i never found the weapon.

Wrpwrld6 ? 50%

I hate it when warps are used to send player to whole new areas that you haven't seen before. In this map it works quite well though, because it has an idea, that you get warped to different kind of "worlds" through different kind of walls. The bad parts are, that this map is far to easy and it has oddities like light that hurts you and wall working as a switch.

Wrongkey Henk Gierveld 70%

Very small map with tight tunnels. A bit easy but nice looking and wuite well detailed too. The author says something about keys being in special position in the map, but I couldn't figure out how. You have to go back a couple of times after finding a door that needs a key, but isn't that normal?

Wretched Loge Darkwood ?

I couldn't get it work at all.

Wplant Jon Janssen 75%

Large unlinear map. Textures have been used quite nicely and it even has a ventilation system that really looks like one. At some parts you would need more ammo, but health is well balanced. Good map, but I just like the maps that have more action more. I don't like spending time searching the way.

Wophom BALUK/Wop 20 %

One word explains it all: easy. There are so many megaspheres that I didn't bother to count anymore. The level itself doesn't look that bad but it's really small.

Woola Nick Giles 10 %

Heh, this is fun but NOT in positive way. The wad includes the worst emnemy replacement i've seen. If there is one even worse than that, I don't wanna see it. The level itself is so easy that you could easily complete it with fists only. I was about to give it 0 % but I decided to give it 10 because the architecture could be even worse.

Woof Lester John 0 %

Argh, I hate maze levels and especially teleport maze levels. This level has both type of mazes. There is too musch healt, too little moonsters and mostly textured with ashwall2. I hate tekeport mazes so much that I was about to give it negative percents but if you have nothing against this type of levels go ahead, give it a try.

Woody3 ? 20 %

No text file included in the zip. The level is small, ugly looking and there are many crushing ceiling traps and it's too easy.

Woodburn Sam Ketner 40 %

Well, this map isn't too easy like the four maps before this but it has one problem: it's not fun. There are dozens of imps firing you from all sides and not much ammo to waste. I had to kill the last revenants with chainsaw, which was not fun at all. The architecture and texturing are ok.

Wlkabot2 Jens Nielsen 80 %

It was about time for a good level! This map is well detailed, textures are well chosen and even lightning effects have been added. It's pretty hard even on HMP but not too hard. Not the best level for archvile haters though because there are many of them in quite hard places in which they can revive even some big mosters like baron of hells. There is plenty ammo so it's not that bad though. I liked the monster placement because many different monster has been placed creatively. The only minus goes for not always knowing where to go next after pressing a switch.

Oops, looks like I accidentally played it with UV :)

Windsor Angel Leblanc 50 %

A newbie city level. Doesn't sound promising but it's actually not that bad. Everything is too big and the pulse rifle is completely unnecessary but other than that it was quite good level for a newbie.

[Grazza]

This is interesting and useful stuff. However, it looks like you might be unaware that there used to be "Oldstuff Chronicles" on a moderately regular basis, so calling this "#2" is a bit odd. Here is one example.

The idea back then seemed to be to focus on good oldstuff that people might actually want to play. Perhaps your reviews would be more appropriately called "Reviews of the Archives" or something like that.

[ReX]

DooMer 4ever said:

It's time for my quest trying to find good wads and torture myself with the bad wads in in-span.net!

Does someone perhaps have a little bit too much time on his hands? ;)

[myk]

Eh... don't discourage him, what if he finds something special?

[DooMer 4ever]

Grazza said:

This is interesting and useful stuff. However, it looks like you might be unaware that there used to be "Oldstuff Chronicles" on a moderately regular basis, so calling this "#2" is a bit odd. Here is one example.

The idea back then seemed to be to focus on good oldstuff that people might actually want to play. Perhaps your reviews would be more appropriately called "Reviews of the Archives" or something like that.

Hmm, I had no idea that there really existed a thing like oldstuff chronicles already. This is number 2 because I made one before this, look here:

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10243

And no, I don't have too much time, I have too little. Ten hours of my day goes to school and the extra time I have I spend playing Doom and making my own wad (and being on these forums). And because I've played nearly all the megawads and all the reviewed small wads I decided to download wads from in-span.net and to share the knowledge with you guys.

I'll try to come up with a better name if someone has something against this one :)

[Kid Airbag]

Nice to see good ol' Jens Nielsen with a good score.

[magikal]

Great idea. It would be nice to be able to look at an archive of reviews with a good scoring system. I often look at Doom Underground and Sir Robin's amongst others to select a wad to play for example.

[DooMer 4ever]

Wow, I got positive comments :) Btw, whose Jens Nielsen? I mean, what other wads there are by him?

[The Ultimate DooMer]

myk said:

Eh... don't discourage him, what if he finds something special?

He did. Wtrfront rules!!! - possibly my fave DooM 2 map of all time! I'd give it 98%, as there is a little bit too much ammo at the end.

[DooMer 4ever]

Ultimate DooMer said:

He did. Wtrfront rules!!! - possibly my fave DooM 2 map of all time! I'd give it 98%, as there is a little bit too much ammo at the end.

Well, it was good, but i'm suprised you liked it that much. There are many maps I have liked better. But its nice to see someone really downloads the levels i've reviewed :) I really wish to get more of your opinions about my reviews and if they are good or not (and of course your own opinions on the wads).

[Grazza]

To get the AV-bug exploitation to work, you need to be using a port that doesn't "correct" this "bug" (or Doom2.exe, of course).

The AV bug is intact in PrBoom (but only if you choose the appropriate compatibility setting) and jDoom. The AV bug is "fixed" in Zdoom and Legacy (so Wtrfront won't play properly in them). I don't know/recall about other ports. Remember that in jDoom, it isn't really legitimate to kill the ghosts by using mlook to aim rockets at the ground.

BTW, Wtrfront is an old favourite of mine from years ago - I understand the same goes for UD too.

[myk]

Grazza said:

Remember that in jDoom, it isn't really legitimate to kill the ghosts by using mlook to aim rockets at the ground.

Nothing wrong with that if you want to use mouselook. To experience it as it was planned it's better to disable it. I'm asuming in jdoom it can be disabled.

[Grazza]

myk said:

Nothing wrong with that if you want to use mouselook.

It just makes it very easy to kill monsters that were meant to be very difficult to kill, using something that didn't exist at the time the map was created.

I generally play with mlook on and autoaim off (so if I hit something, it's because I really was aiming at it in 3D!), but never use mlook to shoot switches from places where you're not meant to be able to shoot them from (I dutifully climb up the crates, pillars, whatever...). For icon levels (ones where it would be trivial to hit the boss brain using mlook) I turn off the mlook aiming entirely.

[myk]

Of course it does that. Still, I'd feel odd playing a game and not doing certain things that I can do in order to try to play it as if I were using a different setup. Those maps were also meant to be played with autoaim on, anyway.

[DooMer 4ever]

Grazza said:

It just makes it very easy to kill monsters that were meant to be very difficult to kill, using something that didn't exist at the time the map was created.

I generally play with mlook on and autoaim off (so if I hit something, it's because I really was aiming at it in 3D!), but never use mlook to shoot switches from places where you're not meant to be able to shoot them from (I dutifully climb up the crates, pillars, whatever...). For icon levels (ones where it would be trivial to hit the boss brain using mlook) I turn off the mlook aiming entirely.

I tried once playing with autoaim turned off, but I didn't like it very much because then I would need to use a bigger crosshair than a dot in legacy, and I think the other crosshairs look ugly.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

DooMer 4ever said:

Well, it was good, but i'm suprised you liked it that much. There are many maps I have liked better. But its nice to see someone really downloads the levels i've reviewed :) I really wish to get more of your opinions about my reviews and if they are good or not (and of course your own opinions on the wads).

I've had that wad for 5 years now - one of the first custom DooM 2 maps I ever played. (it's just everything about it that makes it so good, it has possibly the best atmosphere on a single map that I've played. That's one reason why I like the old SB tunes - they can create a great atmosphere, like on this map)

[Kid Airbag]

DooMer 4ever said:

Wow, I got positive comments :) Btw, whose Jens Nielsen? I mean, what other wads there are by him?

I mainly know him from his great levels in Memento Mori. I know he's done a few other single wads too, though.