Deadalus: Alien Defense - it's not really a bad megawad...

[T-Rex]

I feel I need to disagree with a lot of people who say that Team TNT's Deadalus: Alien Defense is bad. No disrespect to anyone who say that it is, but I think it's a pretty decent megawad. Sure, it's got some cryptic moments which puts you in a where-am-I-supposed-to-go? kind of situation, however, once you figure out what you're supposed and how to do it, it becomes somewhat enjoyable. So, I'll just point out a few things which I hope will make you give a second chance. Whether you agree with me or disagree, that's fine by me, but, just read...

The first thing I'm going to point out is the gameplay, because a lot of people say Daedalus is bad because of it. I think the reason why people say that is because that since Daedalus is supposed to be a sequel to Icarus: Alien Vanguard, they thought it will be just running through rooms, shoot enemies, and find the exit, even if it uses ZDoom features like polyobjects, moving walls, etc. It won't work in Daedalus. For starters, it's a hub-based megawad, and yes there are wads like that where you just simply blast enemies and find the exit, but, unlike the former, this megawad has you complete certain objectives in order to progress. So in a way, Daedalus plays more like Quake 2 and Half-Life than Doom, or even Hexen for that matter since it's a hub-based game, and when you get in tune with the gameplay style, it will be a bit more enjoyable.

The next thing some people complain about is how you have to keep recharging the translator in order to understand what messages you might receive the requires the translator, and that it becomes a chore which takes the fun out of the megawad. Surely, they knew that after the second hub to the rest of the game, you won't have to worry about it anymore? You also have to recharge a ship which will cause it to overload, it affects the Doomguy's brain, he now understands the language, and there you go. This is also needed in order to access a seemingly unreachable room which will let you pick up the item (forgot the name) and access the Cryonics area.

The new graphics are fairly nice. Instead of using Doom textures with new textures like in Icarus, Team TNT decided to strictly use only the new textures they drew for this megawad. In a way, I think it's a nice touch. While it has the Doom monsters and the mapping layout is Doom in style, all the new textures and graphics made me feel as if I'm playing a completely different game. Yes, it's sometimes dull since the colours are mostly green and silver, there was a fair bit more variety compared to the ship levels of Icarus, where some mappers abuse the usage of the SHAWN textures. That doesn't mean Icarus is worse, since in my opinion I found Icarus to be more well-thought out than Daedalus since they give you variations of ship levels, simulation levelsl, and planet levels, which does make the megawad more interesting and consistent thanks to the exits that hint out what level you'll enter next.

Speaking of enemies, while all the enemies are from Doom and Doom 2, there's three new enemies, which only appear in the final level. To be honest, I'm kinda glad they were only used in one level as they were in truth uninspiring. I do believe Team TNT could have thought up of better enemies than snails that suck your health, giant flies, and the bosses - an army of spiders. Although the boss fight was somewhat tough, it was pretty anticlimactic, to say the least.

There's not much to say about the ingame cutscenes since there's not much, except for texts and messages you'll receive from time to time. Just pay attention to the texts that appear as some give clues to what to do next, or how to complete a certain objective. I won't give away the ending, but I'm only going to say that it could have been better and not be so generic...

Lastly, the music is another thing some people complain since it only has 6 tunes, plus the intermission text section before moving onto the next hub, giving us a total of 7 tunes - something which I have to agree on since every single tune in Icarus is new, nothing gets repeated, except for sometimes the main theme, not to mention that since the music tracks for Daedalus were composed by Rich Nagel, he could have done more and even do one new track after another as he did with Eternal Doom. This is the one of the few things that dropped some points for Daedalus.

So, overall, despite some certain annoyances and flaws, and what other people have said, Daedalus: Alien Vanguard is a fairly good megawad. It may not be one of the best hub-based wads, but it's still darn good, and it's by Team TNT, so it's a wad of quality. To people who are giving hub-based wads a try, I suggest starting with Assault on Tei Tenga and Trust. They are simple hub-based wads which give out mission objectives and give you a taste of wads that try to emulate the likes of Quake 2 and Half-Life. I may not be a fan of Half-Life, but I do like Quake 2, so I didn't have much problems playing wads like Daedalus and Assault on Tei Tenga. I strongly encourage you to give Daedalus a second chance and see it as what it's trying to play like, and if you like it, that's great. If you don't, or still disagree, that's fine too. You don't have to play it if you don't want to. That's all for tonight. Thanks for reading.

Cheers

T-Rex

[AkiraZXE]

Agreed on pretty much every point. There are definitely some things that could have been done better, or could be done better now, but it was still enjoyable. Was the first time I'd seen something that large and complex in Doom.

[Vordakk]

The text file should say in plain English that jumping is required.

[Rant Incoming]

I never understood people who spend months and years making painstakingly beautiful maps with great architecture, innovative gameplay, and tons of cool ideas, and then just slap the text file(replete with spelling and grammar mistakes and omitting critical information) together in 3 minutes. In the case of Daedalus, the paucity of information in the text file is a real headscratcher, as the authors clearly busted their asses making the wad.

[ellmo]

I actually kinda liked Daedalus. The objective system is clunky and the megawad crashes really bad on some ZDoom versions, but I really like it's atmosphere.

I also like the way how the whole aliens-and-spaceships idea is really abstract. It's not straightforward like many simple sci-fi productions. It takes more from Arthur C. Clarke than from George Lucas.

[printz]

Vordakk said:

I never understood people who spend months and years making painstakingly beautiful maps with great architecture, innovative gameplay, and tons of cool ideas, and then just slap the text file(replete with spelling and grammar mistakes and omitting critical information) together in 3 minutes. In the case of Daedalus, the paucity of information in the text file is a real headscratcher, as the authors clearly busted their asses making the wad.

I guess people do that to present most text inside the game.

[Vordakk]

printz said:

I guess people do that to present most text inside the game.

I get that they don't want to spoil certain things by blabbing about it in the text file. But some basic instructions and reminders for how to play are still warranted IMO.

[Katamori]

Absolutely agree. That was a great stuff!

[Grazza]

My review of Daedalus can be found here.

Overall, it suffered from being too ambitious and too complex, and some design fatigue must have set in during the many years of its development. There may have been a certain amount of "just get the fucker out of the door" when the release date approached. The wad is an incredible achievement in many ways, but also stands as a landmark to a point in mapping history when projects were becoming too complicated to be fun to play. The backlash against this produced a trend towards less complex maps and a paradigm that just because an editing feature exists, you shouldn't feel you have to use it.

[Khorus]

It's been many years since I've played Daedalus, so I'll need to give it another go at some point. I get the feeling my opinion won't be improving, but who knows.

[punnyone]

I never found it to be a bad megawad. I wouldn't say it's my favorite team TNT wad, but I still re-play it from time to time and still manage to enjoy it.

I do find certain aspects of it not as appealing. Some maps feature very plain wall and floor textures (map 11), but then again, Icarus did as well and I didn't mind it as much back then. The puzzles sometimes frustrated me when I missed a step and had to repeat a hub level with the VERY annoying re-spawning enemies trick used, and the last level, which had some kind-of out of place leftover elements from the aborted Ragnarok project was an odd way to end the game.

However, some of the levels and ideas used were very creative. The optional crew quarters/dance club in the second hub, the whole third hub in particular impressed me both visually and puzzle-wise, and the train station in the final hub, with the station room that changed textures depending on where you were supposed to be, all very impressive and innovative ideas.

Honestly it's a shame Team TNT is no longer as big of a presence as it used to be. Their last work, the Eternal Doom IV demo showed promise, and I'm still clinging on to that last big of hope that one day it'll be completed (or at least worked on some more).

[NightFright]

TeamTNT wads are great in general. Basically, you have to play them all at least once.

While we are at it, does anyone have the episode ending texts for Icarus and/or Eternal Doom? I am currently trying to make language files to bring back automap names for those wads in ZDoom and noticed the map 07/12/21/31/32 enter texts are still those from Doom II. Was it like this in the original games as well or did TeamTNT make custom texts for that? I can't find any Youtube videos where these screens are actually shown.

[kristus]

It was pretty ugly for the most part. The first hub was the best looking from my memory. Even if most of the following hubs looked a bit too similar for a WAD that long.

And people complain about Hexen having poorly executed puzzles. Daedalus takes the cake on that one though.

There are things I like about it. But it really falls apart whenever the story sequences enter. Or intermission texts I should say. Those are just simply embarrasing. And the end just takes the whole thing to such an absurd territory that I don't even want to think about it.

That coupled with that the general Doom game play is pretty awful throughout. It's just a sub par project. It's ambitious in a way. But it's cracking at the seams.

[Graf Zahl]

... and let's not forget the awful monster respawning logic that punished players who forgot to do some of those inane puzzle pieces and had to repeatedly travel between maps.

It definitely had its good spots but unfortunately also some very, very bad ones.

[T-Rex]

NightFright said:

While we are at it, does anyone have the episode ending texts for Icarus and/or Eternal Doom? I am currently trying to make language files to bring back automap names for those wads in ZDoom and noticed the map 07/12/21/31/32 enter texts are still those from Doom II. Was it like this in the original games as well or did TeamTNT make custom texts for that? I can't find any Youtube videos where these screens are actually shown.

Um, I think they didn't alter the custom texts and automap names for Icarus and Eternal Doom. It said so in their textfiles. Otherwise, they would have provided a Dehacked patch for them.