The /newstuff Chronicles #283

[LexiMax]

Hello again, Internet. Only my second week on the job and I'm already fashionably late with my reviews. It doesn't terribly matter, though, we've got a measly three mapsets available for you this week, one single player and two deathmatch, so let's get cracking on this week's /newstuff. Heck, with any luck we can get through this week together without any "Doom community is dying" soothsayers.

• Catharsis - Wills Hines
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 527 KB - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  First, the good stuff out of the way. This is a reasonably nice looking wad...when you can see where the hell you're going. And, if you're looking for a tough-as-shit challenge, this is a perfect wad. However, for me, I found this wad very frustrating to play through. It seems like the author went out of his way to place you in extremely unfavorable situations or at impossible odds. In addition, the cacodemon replacement is one tough cookie, with a revanent-style homing fireball and a cloud of lethal gas if you linger too close. So far, these things are forgivable in my book. However, I can't stress enough how strenuous on the eyes this wad is. The pictures do not indicate it, since I'm not a fan of putting up pictures of a wad that are impossible to see, but there are tons of places where you are forced to fight huge firefights when you are essentially blind. The heavy red mist of the city map near the middle doesn't help at all, and by the time I got to the second to last level, where almost the entire level is shrouded in darkness, between that and the absolutely retardedly unfair monster placement I was ready to give up on any hope that the author had actually underwent any sort of playtesting of the levelset. Pass unless you're feeling masochistic.
  
  
• Lightning Deathmatch Skulltag Edition - Infurnus
  Skulltag - Deathmatch - 1470 KB - (img) (img) (img) (img)
  Playing through this mapset with bots gave me a definite feeling of deja-vu, and not in a good way. This mapset feels really similar, in concept, to SurgeDM, which I was also not a fan of. It seems like the author loves to copy and paste architecture all over the freaking place, leading to boring, symmetrical, arenas. In addition, though the detail level is high, the author seems to choose really "safe" texture sets in places, which makes some of the maps look even blander than their layouts suggest. However, there are a few neat maps in-between the vast amounts of filler, and the stolen Quake sounds mesh well and don't sound too blatant, and the music is really nice for the most part. If the author put these kinds of production values into better layouts overall, he might have awesome something on his hands here. As it stands now, though, it's a very ordinary, though polished, set of deathmatch maps. Worth a look, but given the polish I expected more.
  
  
• Mortal Kombat Doom - CyberHunter
  Skulltag - Deathmatch - 14436 KB - (img) (img) (img)
  At sight of the name and the fourteen megabyte download, I was expecting something epic. What we have here instead is something that is essentially a crapshoot and not fun to play at all. You and your opponent spawn on a single line, which you can't seem to stray from. Your only weapons are your fists. That's it...you punch each other until you're dead. E for effort, but most definitely not worth the time it took to download.
  
  

[Julian]

fp. :P

[TheShep]

sp! small week eh?

[julz_d]

You forgot extreme monsters modification (extrmons.wad)

[Siggi]

What an epic selection...
I wonder if that GZDoom map will at the least provide some much needed laughs.

[Kristian Ronge]

Only 3 items!? Bah! The Doom community is dying.

[LexiMax]

julz_d said:

You forgot extreme monsters modification (extrmons.wad)

According to your idgames entry, your map was uploaded on the 7th, which means that it was supposed to have been reviewed for /newstuff #282. I didn't notice that dean had skipped over it, rest assured your wad has been filed in the "NO WAD LEFT BEHIND" files.

[leileilol]

haha mortal kombat doom! beats rebdoomer's version

p.s. someone make darkstalkers vs doom2 please

[Schneelocke]

Kristian Ronge said:

Only 3 items!? Bah! The Doom community is dying.

Netcraft confirms it...

Well, seriously, though, I hope that Carthasis is goot, at least.. If there's just one SP WAD this week, it better rock. :)

[deathz0r]

AlexMax said:

Only my second week on the job and I'm already fashionably late with my reviews.

I can now officially say "Welcome to the /newstuff crew!"

I didn't notice that dean had skipped over it,

I "skipped" over it because I didn't see it in /newstuff when I downloaded the WADs on Saturday morning.

[Csonicgo]

leileilol said:

p.s. someone make darkstalkers vs doom2 please

Why must you do this to us?

[infurnus1]

Glad to see I have some guardian angels. Heh.

[Csonicgo]

Infurnus said:

Glad to see I have some guardian angels. Heh.

yeah that wad was fun when I played bots with it.

[Th0r]

Cool wads, i loved the first one, challenges always r0x0r my b0x0rz.
Infurn your dm wad was pretty good i liked. Had a few gameplay flaws but it wasnt bad. The mortal kombat one is a good idea, but this is doom 8)

[Russell_P]

you also missed out ogrelabs :(

[Kaiser]

Kristian Ronge said:

Only 3 items!? Bah! The Doom community is dying.

Correction. Its falling :(

[Belial]

Th0r said:

Cool wads, i loved the first one, challenges always r0x0r my b0x0rz.

Challenges? Where?

[Udderdude]

The Doom Communty is ROFLing as far as I'm concerned.

Catharsis was ok. I attempted to play map 2 from a pistol start and was quickly ambushed, with no ammo in sight. Yay!

[june gloom]

hahahahahahaha.

http://www.doomworld.com/images/newstuff/283/mkdoom10.png

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Jon]

Gokuma did a Mortal Kombat doom a while back, possibly for Legacy, which was really quite good. I don't know if it's anywhere (His website appears to have disappeared)

Edit: here:

* http://doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=10475

[deathbringer]

Didnt Eric Harris make a "Mortal Kombat Doom"? or maybe it was Street Fighter. I saw a screenshot, it was a giant GRAYBIG arena with some brown pillars, one of which had a Megasphere on, and a big black block with a switch, that presumably lowered the pillar. Not his best one, then (TIER, however, the one mentioned in that pdf of his stuff, sounded very cool, shame nobody except the staff at the police archive where evidence is kept, can get it. Somebody in the community go and work for Jefferson County PD already!)

[Jimmy]

lol, Jack Baeur Son is in all for of those screenies for Lightning Deathmatch. What the hell?

[Searcher]

deathbringer said:

Didnt Eric Harris make a "Mortal Kombat Doom"? or maybe it was Street Fighter. I saw a screenshot, it was a giant GRAYBIG arena with some brown pillars, one of which had a Megasphere on, and a big black block with a switch, that presumably lowered the pillar. Not his best one, then (TIER, however, the one mentioned in that pdf of his stuff, sounded very cool, shame nobody except the staff at the police archive where evidence is kept, can get it. Somebody in the community go and work for Jefferson County PD already!)

Google search:
eric +harris +doom
gets over 500K hits

[Veddge]

Hmm, a bit weak but I suppose Catharsis is decent.

[Csonicgo]

Jimmy91 said:

lol, Jack Baeur Son is in all for of those screenies for Lightning Deathmatch. What the hell?

JACK BAUER, SON

[Jimmy]

rofl indeed.[/sarcasm]

BTW, speaking of "The Community is Falling", when will Episode 3 of TCIF be released?

[deathbringer]

Searcher said:

Google search:
eric +harris +doom
gets over 500K hits

None of which contain his wads that arent available, like Tier and Realdoom, because they arent available, being stuck on his own computer which is presumably in a dusty warehouse of old evidence

[Csonicgo]

the HD has probably failed by now.

[Searcher]

dethbringer, Someone has to have copies on their systems. Finding them may be the problem.

http://iddqd.ru/popup/anypics.php?site=1&d=../around/columbine/files3.gif

http://iddqd.ru/press.php

Edit:
Here are a few maps, including Mortal Kombat Doom, but not the ones you are looking for.

http://columbine.free2host.net/eric/doom.html

[myk]

Searcher said:
dethbringer, Someone has to have copies on their systems. Finding them may be the problem.

His point, which is apparently correct, is that they were never released. Realdoom sounds like a megawad or episode he never finished, and the DM level Tier wasn't probably complete.

The stuff being pointed to in the Russian links is from the PDF the authorities released from Harris' HDD.

Csonicgo said:
the HD has probably failed by now.

Perhaps, though the cops may have backed the stuff up.