Ashun Ashun Ashun Ashun Doom!

[Amaster]

It's supposed to happen. It's kinda of a joke.

[Murdoch]

It's a joke. The weapon is faulty. Before you pick it up, did you notice the scientists killing themselves with it and blowing themselves through the wall? That was supposed to be a hint that picking it up is not a good idea.

[chilvence]

The happy wind up tune is nice though!

Finished it :(

Need more...

[dsm]

JoelMurdoch said:

It's a joke. The weapon is faulty. Before you pick it up, did you notice the scientists killing themselves with it and blowing themselves through the wall? That was supposed to be a hint that picking it up is not a good idea.

Aww that's no fun! Gameplaywise that is.

Anyway, I just beat the game and I've got this to say:

The gameplay style is very original for a first person shooter and presents a wholly different challenge than what I'm used to, but I have to admit that it was nothing like what I had expected (but that's probably because I haven't quite read up on the AD info that was provided along the way) and I must confess that this Contra arcade style with slow bullets and stuff isn't really up my alley anymore.
Still, it's a load of fun and a nice, fresh change from what we're all used to. Plus, those reload animations (and the graphics in general) are awesome.

The level design is top notch, especially in the visual department and there are some neato touches here and there and some nice "easter eggs" - I think the most fun is the end "map", but I won't spoil that here.

There are a few places that piss me off though.

1. That darkened cave thingy where there are a bunch of imps roaming around. I know that mood and fear factor is a great part of any game and that the fact that you cannot survive a single hit increases the fear factor in darkened places where you can't see the enemy, but for crying out loud, this is just too annoying.
The only way I got outta that place was by blasting in all directions and pray that none of the imps would get close enough to me.

2. The vehicle trip on the freeway (or whatever) where you have to jump from vehicle to vehicle. Now, I generally hate jumping puzzles like this one, but I wouldn't have complained if it weren't for the fact that the very first jump (from the van you started up) is a real bitch - far too often did I get my jump disrupted because I bumped my head against the roof.

But aside from these two, the game is excellent entertainment from start to finish and the bosses are a fresh change from the usual cyberdemons and Baphomet.

[kristus]

Yeah. I tried killing the imps in hel but I kept getting overrun. Partly due to the machineguns "short" trigger linedef. So I assumed it was supposed to be overrun. and I ducked into the teleporter.

[sgtcrispy]

The BFG7500 kills you? Hmm...

Oh yeah, God Mode was on! Silly me!

[Zoost]

Music and Graphix are top notch! Really ACTIONlent.

[june gloom]

dsm said:

1. That darkened cave thingy where there are a bunch of imps roaming around. I know that mood and fear factor is a great part of any game and that the fact that you cannot survive a single hit increases the fear factor in darkened places where you can't see the enemy, but for crying out loud, this is just too annoying.
The only way I got outta that place was by blasting in all directions and pray that none of the imps would get close enough to me.

you know the doorway you go through to get to the imp holding area?

yeah. serves as a great bottleneck. just wait for them to come... and make them die.

[june gloom]

by the way, is the imp head thingy in the labs in level 2 supposed to be a reference to john carpenter's 'the thing'? good christ that scared me, especially when the mirror smashed and 20 or more of the little bastards jumped through.

[Tormentor667]

Great Piece of work :) Although it's very short, it has a high replay value because of the great secrets ;) Everytime you discover something new ;)
[spoiler]I already found the Super Mario stage, the Alien Ship, the DoomRacer Console, the Golden Statue (*g*) and err... yes, that's all ;)[/spoilter]

Thx for this, Scuba!

[Vile]

dethtoll said:

by the way, is the imp head thingy in the labs in level 2 supposed to be a reference to john carpenter's 'the thing'? good christ that scared me, especially when the mirror smashed and 20 or more of the little bastards jumped through.

It's probably a dual reference, The Thing and Doom 3.

[june gloom]

Vile said:

It's probably a dual reference, The Thing and Doom 3.

likely. i almost had a heart attack after killing them all and going into the observation theater, and one last imp head who hadn't seen me 'cuz he was too low under the back of the seat attacked me.

[gemini09]

Got to map03, I think, I'm in hell at the part with the machinegun turrets, and the 200 imps coming through that black hole. I'm having a problem with that part because pressing left shift 5 times in a row activates something I don't remember...and I don't see how to disable it in the same window.

Some thoughts about the game, it's very, very good, and original, but it should've been done better. Some, or alot, of things are just too annoying, and the ZDoom gameplay isn't exactly that great, making the part where you jump from vehicle to vehicle a pain in the ass. The forest parts were done nicely...and especially the city map. The underground UAC base wasn't very good in my opinion, just too simple. And I was almost always stuck with the pistol, where's the ammo??? If there're only 4 maps, why am I still using the pistol as my main weapon in map03? I'm not too bothered about being killed by one single shot, since there's usually fair fights. But I really hate ZDoom's gameplay. When I stepped through that teleport, and ended up in hell, it was really awesome. Best hell I've seen in Doom (together with Deus Vult). Great music, nice level design, and the use of the mountain textures, and a skybox, worked really well. Looked very, very good. And the bodies that fall from above into the river, was really clever. Brilliant :-D Very nice fence-textures, too. But why are the Barons Of Hell making gunshot sounds when they shoot fireballs at you? Nice monster usage too...and, I didn't get to ride the boat, unless it's later in the game, but 'driving' a vehicle, and paraschuting down from a chopper, and whatever else there was, was really awesome. I like this game very much, despite the annoying gameplay (ZDoom takes half the blame). Doom Racer was a funny bonus...

Also, Scuba Steve, I'd really like to use the fence texture (the one in hell) for a wad of mine. Would you mind?

[Kaiser]

Action Doom has some the best scripting I've ever seen, and I didn't even knew that Zdoom could pull off something like this, especially Doom Racer, which I thought was creative and brilliant.

[Scuba Steve]

gemini09 said:

Also, Scuba Steve, I'd really like to use the fence texture (the one in hell) for a wad of mine. Would you mind?

Go Hog Wild.

[Zoost]

Deathman said:

Doom Racer

Does Doom Racer react to any controls? And if yes, what are does damn controls!

[Nanami]

Try strafing and walking forward.

[Scuba Steve]

Zoost's title said:

ALL HAIL ZOOST THE INTELLIGENT

Nanami said:

Try strafing and walking forward.

heh

[cyber-menace]

Linguica said:

WHAT DO PEOPLE THINK OF DOOM RACER

I beat your time by 14 seconds. I wanted a prize, like that Yellow Key I never found.

[Atlas]

Maybe its just me, but I honestly didn't like Action DooM all that much...

Technically it's amazing - I didn't know you could even do half the stuff that they've pulled off in AD...

Even so, I found it more frustrating than anything. The areas are annoyingly crampt and hard to navigate (the forests on level 2 especially) and the one-hit-kills thing IMO only causes the action to stop and start in a rather unenjoyable way...

...oh, and leap-of-faith jumps in an FPS?... No thanks.

Maybe I'm just a misery guts, but while AD had a brilliant sense of humour and some of the prettiest level design I've seen, I just didn't really start enjoying it before it ended.

...and I can think of several DooM wads that I've found to deliver more sustained and hectic action...

I'll shut up now.

[dsm]

dethtoll said:

you know the doorway you go through to get to the imp holding area?

yeah. serves as a great bottleneck. just wait for them to come... and make them die.

Yeah well I used that one, but it took for fucking ever for all the imps to walk into the doorway, so in the end I just thought "screw it" and ran inside.
I'm not as patient as I was back in the Wolf3d days where camping at doors and exhibiting considerable patience was the primary strategy, and truth be told, that strategy is kinda obsolete nowadays.

[LexiMax]

Atlas said:

...and I can think of several DooM wads that I've found to deliver more sustained and hectic action...

I'll shut up now.

Like what, NUTS.WAD?

:rolleyes:

[Atlas]

I was just voicing my opinion...

There are many Wads (TNT3, etc) that are hectic because huge numbers and patterns of monsters are being thrown at you through different environments, constantly for entire levels.

With AD, the hectic nature seems to come from the fact you can only take one hit, not because of inventive/unexpected attack patterns and monsters. More often than not I died because I walked backwards into a shot I couldn't have possibly seen while trying to avoid a densley packed, practically static group of enemies. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't find that kind of unavoidable death thing fun...

I guess my other complaint is the stop-start nature of the level design. The game goes from an all-out blastathon (which is great fun) to these rather annoying Duke Nukem 3D-esque strolls with smallish groups of identical monsters slowly walking a neat path towards your gunfire, while you struggle to get through some rather awkward scenery that gets in the way.

I love some bits of this game (the rock-hard fights with dozens upon dozens of monsters in an arena that gives you room to really move about and dodge about), but they're so broken up by long waits or monster encounters that feel more like shooting galleries than actual fights (with the occasional irritatingly placed monster plugging you in the back with no warning. Grrr.).

Hey, its just my opinion. Judging by the overwhelmingly great reception AD has received, I'm obviously not of a widely held opinion. What can I say, I'm just a pedant. :)

[dsm]

AlexMax said:

Like what, NUTS.WAD?

:rolleyes:

How about...oh I don't know... Memento Mori and Hell Revealed?

I actually found that AD lacked action - ironic isn't it?
"Action Doom needs more action" :-P

I suppose it depends on your own definition of action - to me, that's lots of big guns and lots of gunning away with said big guns. "Arcade Doom" would've been a more fitting name (but I suppose that name was already taken).

This is not to slam AD in any way, but I found that the limits in weapons and ammo capacity kinda killed off the action - most of the time I was running about with the damn pistol.

I'd have preferred a more steady supply of ammo, but with more dangerous traps that call for the big guns, but that's just the kind of stuff that appeals to me I guess.

[The Flange Peddler]

dsm said:

This is not to slam AD in any way, but I found that the limits in weapons and ammo capacity kinda killed off the action - most of the time I was running about with the damn pistol.

I'd have preferred a more steady supply of ammo, but with more dangerous traps that call for the big guns, but that's just the kind of stuff that appeals to me I guess.

I think this is my biggest gripe with Action Doom. You spend way too much time with the pee shooter when you are quite often up against things (like the turrets) which take quite a fair amount of damage to finish off. I think you definately need more opportunities to use the bigger guns available.

Having 3 lives or something would also be cool, but I understand that wasn't possible with the current version of zdoom.

[Use]

Deathman said:

Action Doom has some the best scripting I've ever seen, and I didn't even knew that Zdoom could pull off something like this, especially Doom Racer, which I thought was creative and brilliant.

Doom Racer works perfectly, I'm now very good at it, but never remember my damn time. :P

[Scuba Steve]

The Flange Peddler said:

You spend way too much time with the pee shooter

Heh, could have been worse, at least it had unlimited ammo.

[Linguica]

Use3D said:

Doom Racer works perfectly, I'm now very good at it, but never remember my damn time. :P

Doom Racer is so unfair heh, your time is wholly dependent on how long the track is randomly made to be. That's why sometimes your time is way longer than others despite performing at about the same level.

[Mogul]

Linguica said:

Doom Racer is so unfair heh, your time is wholly dependent on how long the track is randomly made to be. That's why sometimes your time is way longer than others despite performing at about the same level.

Heh, that is brilliant game design. What can I say?

[Captain Red]

Those imp head spiders are awesome!