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Hyena

The /newstuff Chronicles #119

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Welcome back from your February newstuff vacation, Hyena. Here's SEVENTEEN WADS to review.
I can't really blame any one person if everyone all decide to release things at once, but I don't really have anything else to put as an intro here so I might as well complain. So what really is the deal?
#117 - Deathz0r made special notice how only 4 of the 7 wads had levels, and voiced his disappointment.
#118 - 3 wads. Cyb didn't seem to mind.
#119 - 17 wads.
Here's a graph. As you can clearly see this graph provides significant scientific and mathematical evidence that I, Hyena, have been hosed.
Luckily a very generous man known to doomworld as deathz0r has graciously offered to carry a couple of these wads over to his week for reviews next week. In any case, if the reviews seem a little short, that's because I have a penizillion to go through.

  • Bridge over Bloody waters - Jason Sloan, AKA Face.uk
    (wad) (txt) - Legacy/Doom2 - Deathmatch (img)
    Face.uk. That's a name I haven't heard in quite some time. Is it a comeback? Or has he been making wads all this time and I just hadn't noticed? Yes, I admit it. I actually spend time thinking about dumb stuff like this.
    Okay, so the market for Legacy deathmatch is a little limited. So there wasn't much opportunity for me to test this against a human opponent, or against a bot. All I can say then, is that I like the style and that I think it would make a fun deathmatch wad, in somewhat of a non-conventional sense. Not too detailed, but there's enough architecture there to keep you from falling asleep. It gave me an opportunity to test out Legacy's split-screen feature, anyway. Well, enough about me.

  • DMC Deathmatch MapPack II Preview - Archon (Enrique Urra)
    (wad) (txt) - Zdoom/Doom2 - Deathmatch (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
    This wad OOZES atmosphere. Designed for deathmatch, but I walk through it in single player just to admire the scenery, the ambience, and the cool effects. There are two levels to this wad. The first one is the darker of the two, with a big eerie landscape and a graveyard. It has a nice realistic lightning effect, where the sky lights up a moment before the sound effect plays. I personally have planned to use this effect for a long time, but because I put it off for pretty much forever, I guess someone else got the idea as well. In any case, it's nice.
    The second level is more of a calm seaport level, with ambient seagull sounds and a big boat with a bfg on it. But it's pretty cool with an extra floor and gigantic mirrors and such.
    An interesting touch added to this level was that all of the item pickup messages and obituaries have been translated to spanish, in keeping with the theme. "Deathz0r se comio el escopetazo de Hyena" and "Cyb, heesa be shoota with gunsa". In retrospect I might have just confused the spanish language with Jar Jar Binks. Please forgive me.
    As far as DM goes, you'll want to play zdoom in low resolution or the detail will slow it down. People with dialup connections who want to play this on zdaemon should probably throw that thought out the window and move the house four blocks away. Otherwise, I would greatly recommend all of you put down that taco you're eating (don't think I don't see it) and start downloading this wad.

  • Circular Area - Jan "Hirogen2" Engelhardt
    (wad) (txt) - Zdoom/Doom2 - Deathmatch (img) (img)
    It's a another zdoom deathmatch wad with coloured lighting, one big square room, and some 1337 3d bridges with a BFG on them. It's not that great. A lot of the time you have to aim vertically in order to hit anything (which doom ports aren't too flexible about) and there isn't any running or hiding to be done as there are no pillars or corridors. In other words, one of the guys gets the BFG, puts his back against a corner and fires and no one can dodge.
    There's also way too much ammo lying around and no need for the chaingun, as the easily attainable weapons it contends with are the rocket launcher, super shotgun, plasma rifle, and BFG.
    It looks like it might have been going somewhere with the interesting island in the centre, and the deep water, but there isn't enough to really make it a challenging DM map.

  • The Hexagon Base - Jan "Hirogen2" Engelhardt
    (wad) (txt) - Legacy/Doom2 - Deathmatch (img) (img) (img)
    I like the basic design. It's a big circular area with extra floors with room to move around and hunt your enemies down. And I like how it doesn't follow the classic example of DM wads with the bright lighting, and instead chooses a more dark atmosphere for the inside. Unfortunately, it's a little too dark for an area that size. Vision already is obstructed by the room-over-room effect, and trying to shoot at someone directly above or below you is hard enough without it being too dark to see them. Darkness can work in a DM wad, but not here.
    It does have some potential for fun, however, so if you really want to up your legacy DM collection, maybe look this one up.

  • Club Doom (non-scripted version) - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img) (img) (img) (img)
    The author decided to do a remake of a level released on the PSX version of doom. I haven't played it so I don't know how close he came to the mark.
    It recommends using boom, but boom crashed, so I played it in zdoom.
    Anyway, it starts off nicely with a cool surreal dark area with a walkway of candles that leads to some raising stairs with corpses. Then you go inside to a not-badly-done club area full of revenants, where you battle them with a super shotgun and telefragging. It's pretty fun for a while. Then when they're gone, you pick up a megasphere and continue on your way to a horrible misaligned-texture maze that takes too long to figure out for such a small area, after which the action is completely finished with and you've found the exit. It's cool for about a minute, after which it's a waste of time.

  • Hell Gate - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img)
    This one is a remake of a short level from Jaguar Doom.
    It's really short. And easy.
    There's not much else to say about it. There's nothing that really stands out about it.

  • Hell Keep (Console Remix) - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img)
    This guy must have been working all day on all these wads. This one is a "remix" of the Jaguar/Saturn/PSX/GBA versions of Hell Keep.
    Well, it's a little longer than the other ones. And this one took the author 6 hours to make, as opposed to Hell Gate that took 3 hours, and Club Doom which has written in the text file, "Build time : If I said it, you won't believe me." Maybe it took him twenty minutes. Well, I'm getting a little off-topic.
    The detail isn't so great, but what are you going to do? It's fairly fun. Just remember that ammo in this level is really tight. I ran out of shells and had to fight a cacodemon with a pistol. Then two imps followed shortly after. Then a room full of imps and demons with another caco. Then I died. True story.
    So the bottom line is, conserve your shotgun ammo for this one.

  • The Mansion - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img) (img) (img) (img)
    !
    This one took me by surprise, as it's not only more detailed, but also more challenging, fun, and other things that allow me to use more commas. Again, this one is based on PSXdoom so I can't give the author many marks for innovation, but it is quite an interesting map. I'd recommend this one to people who like wads.

  • The Marshes (non-scripted version) - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img) (img)
    An interesting wad. What can be said about a wad such as this?
    Perhaps the best way to put it, would be a simple, "[/i]What in hell's rec room is this?[/i]"
    I'll sum it up real quickly. You're in a courtyard-like area with a shotgun, a chaingun, some imps and barons here and there, and just in case it actually starts to resemble a level, a cyberdemon.
    I don't know. I can't really have fun in an enclosed area fighting a cyberdemon with small arms, myself, so I can't say this is my favourite wad this week. Maybe one of you would like to try it just for the challenge. Whatever.

  • Redemption Denied - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img) (img) (img)
    You know, I was tempted to do a two word review of this wad and simply say "Redemption Denied" but the irony would probably be lost on everyone unless I actually explained why I didn't like it.
    Well, it's a big room full of weapons and ammo and barons and a spider mastermind (in Ultra-violence, there's two). Oh and there's a cool looking exit room that's impossible to get. The author attempted to use the e1m8 trigger that opens the door when all the barons are dead. He made a note in the text file asking how to get this to work.
    Well, Mr. Villarreal, if that's your real real name, there are two simple ways to accomplish this. The first is to use original or ultimate doom and make the map e1m8. The second is to use a port that allows you to manipulate things like this (like zdoom). Otherwise there's no way, so I wouldn't bother adding the tag. Since these aren't exact conversions of the levels (or so the text file says) you probably could get away with some sort of a switch that opens the door instead.

  • Threshold Of Pain - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img) (img) (img) (img)
    This one's a little more challenging than many of the other psx*.* with the exception of the lame ones with cybs and spiders.
    Some interesting statistics here. In "Hurt Me Plenty" there are 2 barons and 26 hellknights, and in "Ultra-violence" there are 8 barons and 35 hellknights. Despite this, I did find the level a little easy because of the various secrets that aren't very well hidden. (Especially when there's a computer area map to be stolen that pretty much holds your hand through the level).
    I myself do not like playing doom by keeping the automap on and wandering around looking for areas of the map that are incomplete, so I can't say this was the best wad I've ever played. But it was a good waste of time for about ten minutes.

  • Twilight Descends - Samuel Villarreal
    (wad) (txt) - Boom Port/Doom2 - Single-player (img) (img) (img) (img)
    Ooh. I like this one. It's got a little bit of puzzle to it, and not in the annoying hit-a-switch-then-run-across-the-whole-level-looking-for-something-that's-different way. I also like how it makes you work to find a shotgun. So for a while, you have to avoid fights. A little bit of sneaking around helps.
    Okay, Samuel Villarreal, you convinced me. I'll get Doom for PSX. Your weird probably-not-entirely-accurate conversions have made me too curious not to.
    Well, that's it for this week, everyone. And remember, never make maps while under the influence of three or more illegal substances, or on a laptop while driving. You might have a seizure, or crash, or hit a bump or something and end up with a map like "Empyre of Doom"

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Why did Samuel Villarreal redo all the console levels when he (I am assuming he is Kaiser) already release a bloody megawad with the console levels?

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Black Void said:

Im dissapointed... you missed a significant wad :-\

Hyena said:

Luckily a very generous man known to doomworld as deathz0r has graciously offered to carry a couple of these wads over to his week for reviews next week.

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i played that twilight descends psx map thingy, that wasn't bad at all. you got the shaft on teh newstuff circuit this weekend, that's for sure. good idea tossing enigma for next weekend, since you were one of the mappers in that anyway.

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BBG said:

Why did Samuel Villarreal redo all the console levels when he (I am assuming he is Kaiser) already release a bloody megawad with the console levels?



AFAIK he did them before he released the console megawad. Either he forgot to upload them, or some guy uploaded them instead

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BBG said:

Why did Samuel Villarreal redo all the console levels when he (I am assuming he is Kaiser) already release a bloody megawad with the console levels?



Consoledoom can't be uploaded to 3dgamers because of mp3 support.

so rather than uploading that, I went ahead and just uploaded the single wads.

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fraggle said:

fp! props to all logged in trolls


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I still can't figure out what you said.

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Lazer said:

So Hyena, what was your anal violation?


Oh, didn't you know? The Doomworld staff downloads the wads, burns each of them onto their own CD and crams them up the current reviewer's ass. But you didn't hear it from me.

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That's the DMC deathmatch mappack. Nice looking maps, fun too. I couldn't get the bfg on the first map.

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Hyena said:

Luckily a very generous man known to doomworld as deathz0r has graciously offered to carry a couple of these wads over to his week for reviews next week.

Wonder if Newstuff Chronicles of next week will include UDM2 in the list, and I suppose deathzor will be reviewing udm2 himself instead of me reviewing it for him on Doomcon

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Like UDM2 will be uploaded into /newstuff, I'd get into a huge flamewar about the Skulltag textures (even though me and Carn have already tried to sort out the problem personally).

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It'd a been nice if credit were given for the textures I made.

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Arioch said:

CDRs don't come THAT cheap and plenty I'll have you know.

We (re)use CDRWs.


Heh. Who gets the job of retrieving them for re-use?

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Dammit, me and Black Void's wad didn't get reviewed this time around. Oh well, that's what next week's for.

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DooMBoy said:

Dammit, me and Black Void's wad didn't get reviewed this time around. Oh well, that's what next week's for.

I know your pain brother, I know your pain...

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Hyena said:

Otherwise, I would greatly recommend all of you put down that taco you're eating (don't think I don't see it) and start downloading this wad.


I wish I did have a taco to put down.
then again I wish I had a computer to try these wads on. I hate seeing maps reviewed and I can't try them for myself.
*sigh*

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Russell_P said:

Heh. Who gets the job of retrieving them for re-use?

The reviewer. If they don't return the CDRWs in washed and squeaky clean condition we charge them for replacements.

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If you're going to leave a few for next week MAKE SURE THEY'RE STILL IN /NEWSTUFF or else change the links.

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Where have you been? None of the newstuff reviews link to the newstuff directory. They always link to the final destination.

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