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Katamori

What are you playing now?

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I played two (new to me) wads this weekend.
Eternal Torture and DBzonev8...

I didn't wanna bash it, but I guess we're all entitled to opinions here....to keep it short, I think Eternal Torture is a beautiful set of levels that are complex enough that you need to continuously pay attention to where you're going. For me, the action fell very flat though, and while I was really impressed with how much craftsmanship went into the levels, the flow of it and kinds of monsters used made me feel like I was playing serious sam and I eventually just started cheating my way through to get to the end.

DBzonev8 was an absolute blast for the first few minutes until the "puzzles" started showing up, and they're close enough to being impossible to solve that I just stopped caring. One of the buttons I needed to advance got masked by a blood splatter sprite, sure enough the button was red, so I had no way of knowing it was there until I watched someone beat it on youtube. it was like a 2x2 unit size button anyway..and it's just silly. Clearly a lot of work went into this WAD too, and it contains a TON of original content, but it's wrapped up in unsolvable puzzles or near impossible obstacle courses and that warranted a legitimate rage-quit. I actually forced myself through one of the obstacle courses (noclip wouldn't work) to get to the end, which got you to a switch...I figured the switch would end the level. After dicking with this obstacle course for what must have been 30 or 40 minutes, I got to the switch....it did not end the level, and I couldn't force myself to care anymore, even though it had really cool custom enemies, jump pads, swim-able water, it's actually quite an achievement, it's just wrapped up in so much crap it's unplayable without lots of dedicated time, and without having first cracked it open in doom builder to see where all the stupid hidden "puzzle" things are.

Regrettably, both of these just kinda taught me what not to do in my own projects....but I'd still say they're both worth at least checking out just to see what weird/beautiful stuff people have made for doom, as again, a ton of work clearly went into both of them.

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Continuing on through Bloodstain, just finished map 18. Really good set so far, although the difficulty curve seems slightly off in some places. Other than that, it plays nicely and looks great. Looking forward to playing more.

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Just finished SgtMarkIV's Starter Pack....such a lame final boss fight. From cool to annoying in 30 seconds.

Going to play Erkattanne with the DWMC next.

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Finished up Incineration last night. Phenomenal. Y'know, I wasn't that big a fan of the original E3, but man I sure do dig E3 PWADs. I have "Infernos" sitting right next to "Incineration" in my Doom folder (I do Windows shortcuts like others do batch files) and I might have to give that a run sometime soon...

Also playing Ur-kuh-tanya with the Megawad Club. It's freewheeling Monti fun, which is always, well, fun. But I find myself missing the (comparative) polish of the Favillesco series.

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I recently played through cannonball’s Return to Hadron and AD_79’s Violence—both outstanding mapsets!

Cb’s Return to Doom 1: Third Time's a Charm is great not because it’s a sprucing up of Hadron’s weakest episode, but because the guy has fully nailed the “frantic playground” design philosophy. Other than the first two maps, almost every other map is a chaotic jamboree of hellspawn coming at you from every direction, pressuring you from all angles and flushing you out of hidey-holes. It’s been a style that I think cannonball has been continuously tweaking and refining as he’s grown as a mapper, and nothing better showcases it better than these nine maps. E1M9 and E1M6 are my favorites for how utterly bonkers they become (the latter just going full-force once the invasion begins), and the only map I was disappointed by was the lukewarm E1M8 finale. Other than that one map, it was a great ride from start to finish.

AD’s mapset was also refreshing to play because I finally got to see what he’d do with more than 50 monsters. While the maps are still distinctly ADish, I think allowing him more creative freedom with monsters and layout lets his style breathe a little more, especially in the case of the titular MAP04 (which I never wanted to end—after all, I can’t get away tonight). Plus the lilac color scheme mixed with an industrial setting set to some dirty Doomline Miami beats really gave the mapset some sexy flair I wasn’t expecting. The coolest thing however, is how AD constantly used low tier enemies throughout all four maps, both as fodder and to wear the player down, providing the set with non-stop action and explosions… er, when I wasn’t lost, that is. A super cool wad that’s a blast to play through; definitely my favorite thing of his thus far.

Next up on the itinerary is Stardate 20X7, which I'll probably jet through in-between Hell Revealed maps.

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Ketting my ass kicked a bit on New Gothic Movement. Also I started to play Heroes' Tales, as it was missing in my collection of russian wads.

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Playing Requiem on UV after finished the Memento mori series of which I apprecieted more the first chapter (more balanced in difficult and more memorable levels/situations). I liked A LOT the levels from Jens Nielsen, shame this guy only did five levels.

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T-Rex said:

Played through T. Elliot Cannon's Iditarod, a set of 10 maps very nicely done with solid and tough gameplay, though I felt his Odyssey episode was much better. Oldies but goldies.


That guy = DM-Deck16][! Memories wow!

He also made a shitload of other cool maps in other games.

What would be of me if Epic haven't hired him? Maybe when he didn't done Iditarod?

EDIT: sorry, just a sec, this is some pages behind, right? :/

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I'm playing the first NOVA right now in GZDoom with improved brightmaps, blood color fix and dynamic lights. This is actually the first PWAD I've played since 2014 as last year was relatively Doom-less as I had to catch up with other titles.

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Thanks to Suitepee's stream of A.L.T., I've started it for myself and am loving it so far (Just got to MAP04). Eerie atmosphere, brilliant lighting, fun yet relaxed gameplay, and some really great world-building are exactly what I need between Hell Revealed maps.

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The Darkening 2. I'm really enjoying the maps and all, but the awful music is driving me nuts. I hope that this one will eventually get an alternate midi pack.

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I played a little of Valiant: Vaccinated Edition, but even that is darn hard so I got frustrated. (At least in good old PrBoom+) I couldn't beat MAP01 in first try!

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Finished Requiem: fun and more easy then MM2 and MM. I liked the levels of Anthony Czerwonka (especially map 24 and map 28) also the musics are generally good. Now I'm going to start an UV playthrough of Hell Revealed.

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As soon as I've had a break from playing Doom wads with Super Mario World, going to be playing Hell Revealed for the DWMC. It's also one of the three wads I want to play this year.

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I'm blasting through a bunch of Kurt Kesler's wads. Kbase, Kbrick, Kmetl, Kboom, Khills, all of them are fun and challenging with great level design and high replay value. Then a few of Rex Claussen's Wicked maps, Doomsday of UAC, and Matt Tropiano's Dimensions of Time before I get to playing HR with the DWMC.

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Finished A.L.T. I thought it was pretty good, though my initial impression of the mapset kinda cooled down as I played more. Azamael’s introductory maps did a great job at setting up an eerie mood where the isolation was palpable, but afterwards A.L.T. kinda just meanders to and fro. Quite a few maps are pretty long which gave me some mixed feelings sometimes—I wanted some stuff like MAP03, MAP12, and MAP26 to never end (mostly for the atmosphere, not gameplay reasons), whereas stuff like MAP13, MAP31, and MAP22 just went. on. forever. and. ever. It was by MAP15 that I felt A.L.T. had abandoned the original mood that made it endearing to me, transforming into a weird—but beautiful!—mapset. It rounded itself out by the end, but there was a whole section in the middle that felt entirely divorced from what A.L.T. seemed like it set out to accomplish—to unnerve and alienate.

I mentioned in Suitepee’s stream that Russian authors are usually quite peculiar compared to many other Western mappers, and I stand by that statement. It has its pros and cons of course; the maps themselves are very distinct and it's clear that A.L.T. is filled with talented authors, but man... it almost seemed like the playtesters gave zero feedback. I mean, MAP22 is an exercise in frustration, unnecessary backtracking was rampant, and Azamael's last 3 maps spun out of control—the final map in particular had one of the most boring and rote sections I can think of. Yet these eccentricities are the marks of visionaries, and while I don't agree with the decisions, I can still respect many of the mapper's skills (specifically Azamael). Plus the visuals were fantastic throughout, even if I didn't feel there was a coherent story thread barring the opening and closing. Oh, and the pacing was all over the place, which was a bit of a bummer (same with the difficulty). Nevertheless it's probably my favorite Russian megawad based on concept alone.

As an aside too, man did I hate mandatory secrets. It's funny playing this and Hell Revealed so close together because so much time split between the two was using a regular shotgun on bulky enemies and cursing the authors for hiding essentially mandatory weapons behind some dumb secret walls. Argh

I was gonna do Stardate next but seeing as that's getting some more maps (hooray), I'll probably hold off for a bit and do other stuff.

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I'm currently running through the Japanese community project. I'll be honest, I lost interest in doom lately, mainly due to nothing interesting to play and I noticed essel's link in the Japanese-themed maps. I'm on MAP04 and so far I've been enjoying it quite a lot. These guys have some cool ideas and the maps are generally good. I skipped the maps just to see the opening shot and MAP32 has the best opening shot I've seen in a while. MAP08 has one of the best automaps I've seen in a while also.

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Finished up Erkattanne, which was great. Also just cranked through Death Tormention 1, which was fun (I'm a sucker for E4 stuff.)

Probably will continue with the Death Tormention series for now...

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DRL 3.33 said:

The Darkening 2. I'm really enjoying the maps and all, but the awful music is driving me nuts. I hope that this one will eventually get an alternate midi pack.


I was just about to post the same thing. Such a disappointment after Darkening I, i promptly muted the music in almost every map in II.

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Finished Darkening 2 despite the music making me want to kill whatever clown circus it came from, and also on map15 or so of Back to Saturn X E1.

BTS is amazing, it has huge maps which flow good (i usually hate big maps), relaxing sci-fi music and a great color palette.

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