Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Sign in to follow this  
Dittohead

The /newstuff Chronicles #302

Recommended Posts

This week we have several offerings worth checking out, including a nifty set of invasion maps for Skulltag and a level replacement set for Ultimate Doom. And, of course, it wouldn't be a /newstuff Chronicles review without your standard set of oddball creations, weapon replacements, and anime-inspired garbage. A rollercoaster ride awaits you inside issue #302!

  • Kohe 2 - Ruba
    doom2.exe - Solo Play - 89 KB - (img)
    Why anyone would want to recreate Sandy Petersen's abominable "Barrels O' Fun" is beyond me, but here we have a lad from Thailand willing to give it a shot. Unfortunately, the gameplay is somehow worse than that of its predecessor with ill-conceived barrel patterns that do little more than put a small dent in the surrounding enemies. The architecture of the map is fairly bland but does manage to keep the original feel of the level. Fittingly, the textures are also a little wacky in some places, but that's to be expected if we're trying to emulate Sandy Peterson, I suppose. Because of the barrel placement, this map is a tedious playthrough and is not quite as great as the author claims it to be in his text file. Give this one a shot if you like exploding barrels and getting your faced chewed off in the process.

  • Rainbow Plasma Gun - Theshooter7
    ZDoom Compatible - n/a - 3 kb - (img)
    A small wad file that makes the plasma rifle shoot colored projectiles. Pretty cool if you're feeling a little fruity, I suppose.

  • Railgun - hnsolo77
    ZDoom Compatible - n/a - 70 kb - (img)
    Well, it's the railgun from Quake 2. It works and looks just as it should. Other than the fact that the sprite is a little too big for the screen, there's really not much else to say.

  • Music from sentai and Tokuhatsu - The secret alliance of preservartion of sentai and Tokuhatsu
    doom2.exe - n/a - 188 kb
    This is a music replacement wad for Doom 2 that contains a peculiar titlepic of what I can only assume is a Power Ranger. Japanese anime isn't my thing, so I'll just go ahead and quote the text file to make this easier:

    Music from teh beloved sentai and tokuhatsu, the japanese super heroes! Do whatever you want whit this thing, also don't download it.

    Take that as you will.

  • Gamarra's soul story: Prologue "Training camp" - Giulio Galassi aka Glassyman
    ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 438 kb - (img) (img)
    I have never played a single Gamarra-related wad. A brief look at the idgames archives reveals an entire boatload of the author's previous work in the Gamarra series. In this chapter in the series, we have what basically boils down to as a weapons mod for Ultimate Doom with a couple boxy maps with some scripting thrown in for good measure. The first map is a sort of "training" map to get the player familiar with the weapons. Every room is square by design with no detailing or even a change in textures to break up the monotony. The second level follows a similar layout except we are treated with a few staircases here and there. To make matters a little worse, the gameplay suffers from a few problems, most notably the worst weapon design ever made for Doom: the Molotov cocktail. It's ugly and doesn't work very well, and yet the author insists that this weapon be used to clear out numerous rooms of baddies in the first mission. In addition, we have some overly aggressive bots that make getting past a few rooms very difficult.. especially when there's no extra ammo or health given to compensate. Considering how fast the author churns these out, its no wonder that they aren't of the highest caliber and could use some work. Better luck next time, Glassyman.

  • Outpost of Malice - Jonathan R. Millhouse
    ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 325 kb - (img) (img)
    Outpost of Malice is a classic Doom 2 wad that fits right in place at map slot 21. There's nothing fancy about this wad, but there's nothing broken with it, either. The architecture, while varied, is somewhat dull and seems to lack detail. The texture selection, on the other hand, is near-perfect for the theme in which the wad conveys. There is also a good amount of shading with overlapping lights that add accents to walls and surrounding floors. The gameplay comes at a nice pace but doesn't offer anything more than a few surprises here and there (on hurt me plenty) and never really gets too hard. If I could make any suggestions to the author it would be to try and inter-connect some rooms rather than having some of the long sprawling hallways. Ideally, this is a nice wad to play on a lazy Sunday afternoon when all you want is some nostalgic gameplay to go with your morning coffee.

  • Alpha Invasion - Zalewa, Wario, Forty-Two, Kuchikitaichou
    Skulltag - Solo Play - 2274 kb - (img) (img) (img) (img)
    Here we have a set of 11 invasion maps for Skulltag. For the uninitiated, invasion is a game mode in which the player must survive wave after wave of incoming enemies in expansive levels that truly test the skills of the player. These maps, while not incredible, are functional for the game mode and provide a very nice challenge. The architecture and detail throughout is all right, but some areas appear to be a little boxy and under-detailed. There is also a good amount of new artwork which helps liven up some otherwise boring rooms. The most impressive attribute, however, is the gameplay. If you happen to be a fan of HR-style killfests, then this will be right up your alley. Also, this would appear to be an obvious choice for anyone who wants a fun co-op challenge. The new music adds a nice touch, as does the opening "cutscene" which plays when the game first starts up. There are a few nuisances, such as the ice level in which you must skate around whilst blowing up enemies and avoiding fireballs. But all in all, the end product is enjoyable and I'd be interested to see what the community can develop for this new game mode. Give this one a shot, even if you don't have Skulltag installed.

  • M1 Revisited - Morbid DooMer
    Limit Removing - Solo Play - 188 kb - (img) (img) (img)
    Here we have a nice set of redesigned levels for Ultimate Doom. Included are remakes of E1M1, E2M1, E3M1, and E1M4. As with most remakes, this set stays true to its roots. Virtually nothing is changed from the basic architecture... so much in fact that it looks to be almost copy and pasted. However, what we do get is a much higher frequency of detail and overall better lighting. The architecture doesn't come off as forced and adds appropriate accents to these dated maps. Also included are some slight palette changes that lighten the hue of the greens and blues. Not really sure what this does but it looks OK. Gameplay is also mostly untouched to stay within the confines of the original creation. All in all, the wad is a success because it did exactly what it set out to do, and didn't contain any senseless detailing that seems to be apparent in many remakes these days.

  • Break-in 4 - Catman
    Skulltag - Solo Play - 198 kb - (img) (img)
    I wish I could tell you that this is the author's first attempt at a public release; however, this is not the case. But thanks to the /newstuff Chronicles, the author is going to finally get some constructive criticism. First of all, the texturing choices are just downright poor for the most part. These are unfortunately compounded by every wall and ceiling texture tiling ad nauseam. Seeing that same texture over and over is enough to give anyone headache. If that isn't enough, there is almost a complete absence of height variations throughout and the entire map. Now, I know I'm being a little harsh, but the author obviously spent some time scripting the ACS to have some sort of plot along the way. If next time he can use some of that time to correct his pegged doortracks, texturing selections, and build a few staircases, then we can reconsider. The gameplay is surprisingly not too bad, but can also lack in some areas.

Share this post


Link to post

Not much this week, if you remove the WADs from 301. (The last 5 WADs.)

..in fact, I would name the Rainbow Plasma WAD as WAD of the week, which really IS something.

Share this post


Link to post

Damn, to much work and not enough play this week. I got to get busy and try some of these. There look to be at least a couple worth trying. Nice job on the reviews.

Share this post


Link to post

Super Sentai isn't anime (it's obviously live action) and also it is the original show that Power Rangers americanizes over importing.

Just clearing that up for you and the idiots who vote 0 on it in the archive.

And the picture viewer is funny

Share this post


Link to post

:( what no SMDM? I was looking forward to the review.

..in fact, I would name the Rainbow Plasma WAD as WAD of the week, which really IS something.


Try Alpha Invasion online. It is much funner online than offline. It's fun to see who can kill the most monsters. There is currently a Czech server and German server hosting it. The U.S. server should be back up soon as well.

Share this post


Link to post

Break-in 4 - Catman
Skulltag - Solo Play - 198 kb - (img) (img)
I wish I could tell you that this is the author's first attempt at a public release; however, this is not the case. But thanks to the /newstuff Chronicles, the author is going to finally get some constructive criticism. First of all, the texturing choices are just downright poor for the most part. These are unfortunately compounded by every wall and ceiling texture tiling ad nauseam. Seeing that same texture over and over is enough to give anyone headache. If that isn't enough, there is almost a complete absence of height variations throughout and the entire map. Now, I know I'm being a little harsh, but the author obviously spent some time scripting the ACS to have some sort of plot along the way. If next time he can use some of that time to correct his pegged doortracks, texturing selections, and build a few staircases, then we can reconsider. The gameplay is surprisingly not too bad, but can also lack in some areas.


I have to figure out why people start out with ACS, before they know how to build a normal vanilla/limit removing map.

Share this post


Link to post

Why the heck wasn't Sabbat Martyr Deathmatch reviewed? I'm sure Mech uploaded it to the archives.

Share this post


Link to post
Lüt said:

Well then, this is the perfect topic to post the review in, isn't it :P

Sorry, it was reviewed in #301. I modified the wrong number in my first post.

Also nice image links.

They don't work properly for me...

Share this post


Link to post
Da Spadger said:

Morbid Doomers M1 wad really reminds me of a wad Dutch Devil made a while ago. They almost look the same to me. :P

Goddamned that guy is stealing my work again I'm gonna kill him, thanks for the second review :p

Share this post


Link to post

Regarding Outpost of Malice, Jonathan R. Millhouse wrote in maliceop.txt:

In PRBoom LineDef 1137 doesn't lower the tagged sector properly if the "Use Doom's Linedef Trigger Model" Compatibility flag is enabled. ... If anyone know the issue please email me.

I e-mailed him the following, but there's no indication whether he recieved it, and it might be interesting to other people too (AFAIK it is the only issue that causes this map even to need a Boom-compatible port):

I believe it is as follows. In Doom2.exe, there was a bug in the way highest surrounding floors were found, meaning that the lowest value that could be returned was -500 (I think this only applies in cases where there is no neighbouring sector along some sides, as is the case here). In the case of your linedef 1137, the value that you need to be returned in order for it to work properly is -528, so that the sector lowers to a height of -520. However, due to the bug, it would only lower to -492. You will see that this also affects the sector in front of the blue key, but in that case it doesn't cause a major problem.

Clearly, if an exe is trying to emulate Doom2.exe's behaviour (such as prboom(-plus) will do with complevel 0-7, or with comp_model = 1), the sector will only lower to a height of -492, blocking the player.

Possible solutions:
Make this part of the map a little higher
Simplest: Make the relevant action "down to lowest floor" instead

Further info or amendments welcome.

Share this post


Link to post
Vulture said:

Try Alpha Invasion online. It is much funner online than offline. It's fun to see who can kill the most monsters. There is currently a Czech server and German server hosting it. The U.S. server should be back up soon as well.


That was in last weeks T/NC as well so I didn't count it when considering my WAD of the week.

Share this post


Link to post

The screenshots seem a bit large, and I'm running 1680x1050.

Share this post


Link to post
dutch devil said:

Goddamned that guy is stealing my work again I'm gonna kill him, thanks for the second review :p

Fuck me. It does look the same as yours judging from the screenshots of the levels you did.

That is so wrong.

Share this post


Link to post
stphrz said:

Fuck me. It does look the same as yours judging from the screenshots of the levels you did.

That is so wrong.

I'm gonna beat that guy up and throw him in front of an train.

Share this post


Link to post
dutch devil said:

I'm gonna beat that guy up and throw him in front of an train.

Oh, ok. Me dumb. You can stop playing around. I used google. I know what's going on here now :P

Don't screw with oldbies that haven't been around for awhile junior. It ain't polite ;)

Share this post


Link to post
dutch devil said:

Goddamned that guy is stealing my work again I'm gonna kill him, thanks for the second review :p

Complain to Ty. If he really has uploaded a modified version of your level and your text file doesn't say that you can make modified versions, he'll pull it.

Share this post


Link to post

Dutch they didn't understand the humor. I thought it was funny.

So for the rest of them: Dutch Devil = Morbid Doomer OK.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  
×