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The Ultimate DooMer

The /newstuff Chronicles #125

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Cyb says: Okay, ignore the previous message here. Yay newstuff!

Somewhere in between filling my new mod with new monsters and promising to get to work on the maps again, I bring you another week's worth of wads to play through. This week it's an old skool special, as no source ports are required to play any of the wads here. Unfortunately there's only 7 of them, containing 12 maps, and you may have played half of these before. Quite a weak week then, and a Doom 1/Doom 2 mixture, including another blind alley to go up...

  • Tower of WAR Demo v2.0 by The Net Nomad
    291kb - doom2.exe - SP -
    This appeared a few months ago, and for those who don't know, it's a 6-map demo wad for a megawad called Tower of WAR. This version has the new sprites - the green key, overhead lamps, office lamps and computer screens. A dehacked patch has also been added. If you've played the original demo, you won't need to play it again unless to want to see it with the new sprites etc. but if you haven't played it, here's my original review from newstuff 114.

  • Blind Alley U: Deja Vu by Gene Bird
    137kb - doom2.exe - SP - (img)
    The 10th map in the series (and the 4th one I've reviewed) and it's business as usual, as you blast through nearly 300 monsters in the usual fast-paced manner. This time it's a primarily gothic setting, with a handful of more modern-looking areas as well. The detail comes mostly from linedef structure, pillars and scenery things rather than from sectors, leading to some bare-looking areas but it's not extremely bad. But, as with all maps in this series you'll be too busy to worry about it. Gameplay is up to the usual tough standard, with plenty of ammo and there's more health this time around. It's a bit easier than some of the maps in this series, but it's still tough enough (and good enough) to be affiliated with the Blind Alley title.

  • Bahdko 1 for Doom II by BahdKo
    19kb - doom2.exe - DM - (img)
    A fairly open deathmatch wad, set in some kind of techbase. Detail is low, but that doesn't really matter in a deathmatch map. Bits of health are scattered around, and you'd better like Mr. Buckshot, as it's mostly an all-shotgun affair. (if you want a plasma weapon, you'll have to work a bit harder to get them). Finally, the lack of doors/lifts (save for the exit door) means it should flow pretty quickly, and the high-shelling battles should be a good measure of player accuracy.

  • 2 lost levels by Christoph Oelckers (Graf Zahl)
    101kb - doom.exe - SP - (img) (img)
    A 2-map wad for Doom 1, replacing E3M6 and 9. These maps were made in 1994, and it shows. The layouts are pretty much random, the texturing follows suit and the rooms/corridors are very bare (except for scenery things). The gameplay is quite tough at the start of both maps but isn't too tough after then, except for the odd ammo shortage here and there (keep that chainsaw handy). Ammo and health are in reasonable supply but on the second map there are quite a lot of cells, soulspheres and blue armour - perhaps a bit too much, although the map's enemies might have something to say about that. Some players are likely to get annoyed by the find-a-switch-and-don't-know-what-it-does layout, and there's no texture alignments either. The maps do have that early-Doom-era feel to them, which will please the nostalgia hunters, but apart from that it's one to miss.

  • Enigmatic Complex by Grimm
    194kb - doom.exe - SP - (img)
    Another Doom 1 wad, this time a tech map set in a computer lab. Not surprisingly then, there's a fair number of computer rooms of various kinds. Detail is fairly basic and, together with the unusual design in some areas, the map does have a 1994 feel to it. There are also some neat touches and a really good tune to listen to. Unfortunately, the gameplay has some fatal flaws - you need to find a secret chaingun (started by pressing non-obvious switches a fair bit away) in order to survive the yellow key trap, nearly all the health is holed up in a couple of rooms (after you need it) and there's a huge secret room where you face a huge teleport trap in the dark (not a good idea). Monster wise, it's nearly all zombies, except in one or two areas (so get those reflexes sharpened). There's also a Doom 2 version, which is identical but for a few chaingunners and some altered textures/flats. Some of you will like this for it's nostalgic feel (including myself) and it's all-zombie challenge (not many maps like that around), but I don't know about the rest of you.

  • Grafix Project - Alt Death by Job
    287kb - doom2.exe - n/a -
    A graphics wad which replaces all the death frames of the monsters with, err...the death frames of all the monsters. They've all been altered in some way, but in most cases you'll need a microscope to spot the difference between the modified one and the original one. The exception to this is the cyberdemon, who now crackles with electricity as he dies. Comes with files for vanilla use (no flames, now), but source port users will know what to do.

  • City in Chaos by Alex Busby
    149kb - doom2.exe - SP - (img)
    A rather large Doom 2 map, set in a city. The title is appropriate, as some of the buildings are ablaze (see screenie) and there's plenty of monsters to blast at. Everything is pretty large scale and the low detail level leads to a mostly bare look about the map. However, the buildings vary in design/content, and in one of them the flames are everywhere, which doesn't look bad. Ammo is plentiful, health is too, and the difficulty is average - most Doomers should be able to handle UV, while the Doom gods will want to turn on fast monsters. The map does have that old skool feel to it (which it should do, given it was actually made in 1995) and it's not often you see a map with so much open space (and so much distance for those never-tiring legs to cover). Nothing special, but not bad, and worth checking out for it's uncommon features. And definitely worth playing if you love those mid-90's style maps.

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Ultimate DooMer said:

City in Chaos ... most Doomers should be able to handle UV, while the Doom gods will want to turn on fast monsters.

I think you'd need to be quite familiar with the layout before turning on fast monsters. I'd certainly be very interested to see a -fast demo. :)

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SP!!!
I think I'll play Blind Alley, and that's it. yeah, that's it.

Know something funny? I mapped yesterday! I haven't mapped in months! I got like 8 sectors, man I gotta show someone.

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Blind Alley U

Lots of fun and great gameplay!

Gene did a nice demo (included in the zip) and I sent one off to Opulent's DSDA.

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Tormentor667 said:

Today's /newstuff is a real sad disapointment :(


Certainly was. I tried to get Dawn: A Prelude in there, but I couldn't access the main archives at the time.

(btw, Enigmatic Complex links are now fixed, too)

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we were considering putting up the ZooM demo for this week, but decided later we're going to hold it off a bit more. kind of a poor week for /newstuff, maybe we should have gone with it after all :P

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Of course I may be just a little more than biased towards the Blind Alley maps, but slow weeks in new stuff means that everyone can try every map if they care to.

UD nice job on the Reviews.

CIC on skill 3 plays as hard as the Blind Alley maps on UV. It is a tough map to finish fairly. The fire graphics are pretty cool. You would be quite a stud if you can do it on UV -fast AND produce a demo of it.

I got to get busy and try some others. ;)

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THere was a zdaemon server hosted for Badhko1 for a while. Why put this wad NOW? Is there something in it now that I haven't seeen?

I'll test all the other wads..i guess -_-'

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Tai said:

THere was a zdaemon server hosted for Badhko1 for a while. Why put this wad NOW? Is there something in it now that I haven't seeen?

The reason it is reviewed here is that it has now been placed in the Doom community archives, a public and (hopefully) permanent archive for Doom-related files. It makes sense for any worthwhile Doom files to be sent there, even if they have previously been available elsewhere.

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Hey, I designed this level to be a challenge. It's called Ultra-Violence for a reason. :) S'all good, though. Yeah, this week was kinda dry. That's okay, though, 'cause I still have to get past all da Doom II megawads.

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Good point. I'm still playing Scythe on my laptop (which I use most often) and TVR on this comp (which I don't use as often, which is obvious since I'm still on TVR, heh heh...).

But speaking of megawads: if anyone cares, I'm almost half done with mine. At this rate it'll be another month or two before I finish it. Maybe more, maybe less. But ya know, that electrified cybie death sounds like a good addition...

CiC doesn't sound bad. I'm gonna get that one now.

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Well... I stopped playing Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker to check this out and it seems Ultimate Doomer is doing a job well done as usual. Thanks Doomer...

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Just played Bndalyu. Nice; fun and not too tough, though my health hit 6% at one point. Personally, I prefer to have to work a bit harder to get ammo though.

Ultimate DooMer said:

Certainly was. I tried to get Dawn: A Prelude in there, but I couldn't access the main archives at the time.

I couldn't get on last night either - I was trying to upload another golden oldie that I found on an ancient back-up. Heh, you'd have loved that - 8 maps (with hundreds of new graphics) appearing half an hour before your TnC deadline. :)

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sargebaldy said:

we were considering putting up the ZooM demo for this week, but decided later we're going to hold it off a bit more. kind of a poor week for /newstuff, maybe we should have gone with it after all :P


droooooooooooooooool!

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Tai said:

THere was a zdaemon server hosted for Badhko1 for a while. Why put this wad NOW? Is there something in it now that I haven't seeen?


Yes, but its not stuff that would make a real difference in a quick single player examination. Recent playtesting results caused me to move one bad respawn spot to a different area of the map, add one SSG near another respawn spot, and replace a plasma gun and chaingun with a BFG (a BFG was in and out twice throughout different versions).

I actually forgot to put a chaingun back in before releasing the final version, but chaingun would have been one of those occasional-use-only weapons like Plasma on this map, so its not that big a mess up.

--BahdKo

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So you changed your wad. That's actually what I was asking about. Thank you very much. :)

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CiC looks good so far. I died about 5 minutes into it from a dumb mistake (and a hell knight), but oh well. I only have to knock it on two things:

1. The music. I can understand using a different level music for it, but... come on. The story theme? I immediately switched it to another song. Next time I play, though, I'm going to open it up in Wintex and put in something else...

2. The fire looks cool, but it oughta take health away! Now, maybe it does, in the sector with the red floor where the fire is used (I haven't checked yet), but that doesn't reach far enough to hit you anyway. I had a similar problem recently. I've been trying to use laser bars in my wad ever since I saw them in Scythe. I used the rising gate trick to do this, so that later you can get past the bars. To do that trick you need a sector in a sector to have the bars. To the outer sector I gave the -10-20% health type. But it didn't reach far enough either. So I just used another, invisible sector on the outside of the laser bars which will zap you if you get too close.

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netnomad312 said:

2. The fire looks cool, but it oughta take health away! Now, maybe it does, in the sector with the red floor where the fire is used (I haven't checked yet)

The flames don't hurt you when you are outside the building, but inside the building there are quite a few places where they do some damage. Not much though; the space marine's uniform must be quite fire-resistant. :)

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Grazza said:

the space marine's uniform must be quite fire-resistant. :)


Well, he HAS been to Hell more than a few times ;)

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