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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Unholy Realms & Zone 300 (simultaneously!)

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UR map 08

Another atmospheric one, surprising to find hell leaking through this early. Some interesting encounters and traps, I managed to get the red key early by jumping out the window, I'm assuming thats an intentional bonus for mountain goats though. I liked the look of this one, with all the incidental details that give a sense of story, although there was a weird bit of flesh hanging from the ceiling that was behaving like a malfunctioning door, opening and closing the whole time. I have no idea what that was meant to be, other than slightly annoying. Unless it was a bug? For once I survived all the traps, I must be getting more wary, though they were maybe not as harsh as some previous ones. I guess its down to luck though.

300 map 08

I wasted a lot of time and health playing shepherd to baron of hell at the start, but I didn't feel like trying to kill him with the puny guns, so instead I led him to the lift and stranded him where the red key was. After that I discovered how annoying it is to have pain elemental behind aracnotrons, have to remember that one. I was expecting more ambushes but that was it, nothing happened after getting blue key, and the final fight was some meat spilling out of a tunnel. Bit of an anticlimax maybe.

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UR MAP08: Research Point Beta

More great music to set the tone. As others have said, good atmosphere here, with the darkness of the base and the hellish influences seeping through combined with the music to make this one stand out. If this is what we get for the rest of the WAD, I'll be happy. None of the battles here are too challenging unless the player gets unlucky - the only one that got me was the AV/blue armor one, but decent spread of enemies. The initial exit non-trap actually made me worried more than the actual ambushes.

Unfortunately, some of the complaints in previous maps crop back up here. There's some more insta-popup enemies, which even more annoyingly tend to feature chaingunners. Also, while I dig the layouts and lighting, I feel like Snakes has a poor eye for color coordination, and tends to just use every color possible. In this room for example, you can see FIVE different light colors! The Amazing Technicolor COMPETILE Room also makes a comeback. It's just too garish in places and kinda undermines the otherwise good aesthetic design, IMO. And my two cents on the moving flesh tentacle - cool idea, but doesn't work because of the door noise. 3/5

Zone 300 MAP08: Waste Disposal Plant

But wait... if the door I came in at the end is a fake door with a light behind it... how did I get here!?

As for the level itself, eh. I'm starting to see some sameness creep into the design here, with lots of the levels being room-hallway-room-hallway, with maybe some backtracking with keys/doors. A lot of the 100 linedef maps felt similar because people found out that using vertical gameplay with maps wrapping around in on themselves was the best way to use the line limit efficiently; I was hoping that 300 linedefs would do the same except multiplied, but aside from MAP03 haven't seen much of that.

Combat is easy-peezy (as PCorf acknowledge is likely) though I think that's partially my own fault for playing continuous. I feel as though I should probably start playing on pistol starts. Textfile does say it's designed for 'em.

This map isn't worse than any of the others, but they are starting to feel a bit repetitive. 3/5

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Unholy Realms MAP07 - "Passage Underground"

This is an interesting map. Thoroughly quite moody, yet provides many interesting fights/encounters/surprises at the same time. Occasionally I felt the game doesn't play truly fair, but I managed to win anyway and felt badass :p. Really, those sudden twists when monsters appear, sometimes even right behind you... Yeah, I like the atmosphere of this level. Snakes actually added something above the "standard" great architecture and gameplay - is that even possible? For this, he definitely deserves credit.

The different employments of darkness, teleports and damaging floors thorough UR maps fascinate me pretty much. Great ideas there! I must copy some :)


Zone 300 MAP07 - "Heavyweight"

Well, it is not at all any revolutionary MAP07, but anyway it's pretty fun action-based level, interestingly constructed with a use of height variation. I know it's not entirely easy to make use of wooden textures without getting things ugly, but here it was fine. Actually it is possible to get 'lost' in the arena, heh, I mean, you always keep finding new items in your way and you're not sure where you already picked things up and where are some left. So it's one well made arena layout. I took the end as a practice in SSG-ing a Cyberdemon. (Maybe I shouldn't - I died many times.) A HUGE ammo surplus for those playing continuously is already pretty obvious.

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Zone 300: Map 8 - UV, pistol start

I liked this level more than the previous couple, I felt that it had pretty good ammo balance. I ran out of shotgun shells just as I killed the baron & I ran out of bullets just as I killed the pain elemental. I was on the edge of my seat playing this because of the low ammo. Unlike the last few maps I never got really low on health which made the level somewhat easy, if not for the low ammo.

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To all them peeps complaining about the door open/close noise in Map08, I'm sorry - in PrBoom+ this is completely inaudible. Any source port that's a derivative of ZDoom will, unfortunately not make this work. You'll also encounter a crusher effect that has the same kind of concept behind it later on (though it's far less annoying, granted). The twitching-skin overhang was inspired by Suspended in Dusk, a wad which I never have and never will play in ZDoom for this exact reason.

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That bit of twitchy flesh makes a piston sound in some ports? Huh, weird.

UR Map 09 -- Metallic Bloodline - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Another base buckling under the weight of hellish corruption, and another cold, minor-key MIDI. I'm quite liking the way Snakes is playing the 'Shores of Hell in Plutonia' theme thus far, and I'm generally finding these more atmospheric BGM tracks much preferable to some of the repetitive/insistent rock/metal tracks of past maps, as well. I'm also consistently enjoying most of the gameplay on each map now, surely a good sign.

The layout here feels quite open when you're just looking around, as the main area is essentially two spacious arenas, one neatly nested inside the other, nothing separating the two but some railing and a promenade between them. In actuality gameplay is quite compartmentalized, with areas not really being reused for more than one battle this time around, but that's not such a bad thing, for variety's sake. From an aesthetic standpoint there are still a few of the same foibles that past maps have shown in evidence, the most persistent one being Snakes' propensity for some garish color combinations/tech decor. There's also at least one other oddity, that being that the red pillars in the slime arena are very visibly (even without mouselook) 'cut off' by the beamwork over that arena while they're still raised, giving the effect of their lowering a rather unnatural impression...I suppose we can sort of sweep that one under the rug with a 'because Hell' explanation, though. Despite these issues, in a way I'm glad Snakes' detailing style has the sort of compulsive air to it that probably accounts for some of the rainbow-puke we see in a few places, as I imagine it's that same compulsiveness that accounts for a lot of the incidental details designed to depict Hell's encroaching influence....I think one of the reasons his treatment of this particular theme is working so well for me is precisely because it's not particularly cohesive or consistent in implementation, characterized mostly by one-shots that don't repeat themselves, like the marble face suspended by flesh tendrils near the beginning, or the vision of the Icon of Sin peeking through the wall into the yellow skull arena.

As I said earlier, I've been enjoying the play, as well, and this map continues the streak. I played sloppily and got pretty beat up in the process of gaining a foothold in the map (securing the promenade is fun from a pistol-start, incidentally, since you have to move around quickly not only to avoid attacks but also to collect munitions), but still managed to avoid death thanks to the fairly generous supply of medikits in the lower yard, and very timely discovery of the secret soulsphere. Like map 08 before it, I really wouldn't say this is a particularly dangerous map....sure, there's a lot of fire coming your way at most points, but there's also so much room to run in most of the battles (which tend to proceed in 'waves') that things are generally quite manageable, allowing the player to use the tactic of his/her choice. The battle that I would easily consider to be the highlight actually comes in one of the side areas, that being the yellow skull fight--I like that the arch-vile and his bony bodyguards make their appearance before the player has actually grabbed the plasma rifle, and I really like that after finishing them off you get to defend that small enclosure from a steady of stream of lower-tier enemies before you can exit, gives the proceedings a sort of cinematic feel, something I always appreciate. It occurs to me that it does tend to take the stragglers from this wave quite a while to actually materialize, but that's a small thing.

Looking forward to the next map.


******

Z300 Map 09 -- Nuclear Power Station - 100% Kills / No secrets
.....alright, this is pretty dire. Basic keyhub setup with a basic visual centerpiece, and a lot of very boring, orthogonal corridor-slogging lazily packed with haphazardly-chosen monsters. Sometimes you come to a larger room, and the monsters express how happy they are to see you by cheerfully slaughtering each other. Behind the red door there's a vaguely memorable iteration of the trope where you snake around a corridor and then all of its walls later lower with bad guys on them....that's the only thing even remotely resembling a highlight. I also remember healing items being fairly limited once again, so I guess this is sort of an endurance-slog. 'Slog' being the operative word...300 lines or not, this is already quite a bit longer than it needs/deserves to be.

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Z300 Map 09:
Ugh.

Hitscan roulette and chokepointing- the map, with seemingly rather thoughtless item placement.

The start actually isn't bad, although the use of Cacodemons is a bit pointless, since their flight doesn't let them do anything special. After you kill the opening Chaingunners and run from the Cacos (you don't have ammo to kill them yet), that's when things basically go to hell. Endless hitscanners in corridors, a big battle that basically asks to be chokepointed, a massive hitscan roulette fight, a green armor that appears at the very end of the level and comes after basically every single health pick-up (thus rendering it basically meaningless), and a rocket launcher that's present for apparently no reason at all.

I guess I at least like the effort made in the exit corridor for this one.

I think I'm dropping out for the rest of the month; I took a peek at some of the ep. 3 maps, and they did absolutely nothing to convince me to keep going.

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MAP09 Metallic Bloodline

*Regular Run*

Now this is quite fun. Lotsa open spaces, enemies scattered about. Yeah, that's scenario's been with us before but it's quite fun here. Also, I fucking love this music track, so beastly ominous, better than previous too :). That soulsphere secret was a bit clever as well. The hellknight/mancubi ambush at the RK can be difficult, but I had mancubi distract those guys in the nukage and ran outta there to pick the mancubi off. Eastern part was well done, the part where the archie rises from the blood had several teleporting monsters, where I would hide behind the door in the next area before it to take them out with rockets. Fun. Final Time 4:45.

*Reality RUn*

This was harder than it looks. Open spaces means imps can shoot fireballs from anywhere, and this means if I'm not careful, one stray fireball would throw me off. So more sniping w/ chaingun before heading down into the mancubi arena. I payed attention to the caco ambush for the sole pain elemental which would obviously be annoying, before clearing the rest off. It's not true reality because of the nukage pit, (over there I again tried to escape quickly having mancubi distract them which had a few attempts), but all the well. Behind the red door was a trubble spot, I used PG to clear ground monsters, then chaingun, and a bit of luck with shotgun guys hitting their friends instead of me. In the blood pit near the YK was probably the hardest bit. I summon the revenants, go behind the big SPCDOOR3, and fire a shot to summon the teleporting monsters. Then I would use the "open door, shoot, close door" trick to get rid of these guys. And then the hellknights in the nukage pit get shot at with rockets before I exit. Final Time 7:21.

MAP09 Nuclear Power Plant

*Regular Run

Feels like yet another Twilight-Zone map. Me a sucker for those. Hub area, find three keys. Trying to skip some cacos to deal with later, Nothing too special though, a lot of silver around, the hitscanner ambush on the way to the BK was probably the most interesting part. Final Time 3:08.

*Reality Run

There are chaingunners in the beginning, so I had to get them before the cacos. That hitscanner ambush I mentioned requires a PG and a bit of luck. The narrow exit room is really starting to annoy me with the hellknight inside as well. Final Time 2:42.

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UR Map09 - "Metallic Bloodline"
This was pretty good, again a real mish-mash of colour, tech and hell. The gameplay is fairly challenging though all my deaths came prior to obtaining the ssg, then well I won without much trouble. Not much else to say, the secret is nicely done too.

Zone 300 Map09 - "Nuclear Power Station"
Meh, this map isn't very good, hubspoke, plus some random and at times bad monster placement, the lolfactor room with tonnes of enemies lined up. Ammo and health shortages though the former isn't an issue with the berserk pack.
Here is a first exit demo


oh dear (the comments section)

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Unholy Realms MAP08 - "Research Complex Beta"

I am specially keen on this level for several reasons.

Of course it is the generally very pleasing looks and enjoyable combat. I like the first mancubus encounter, in which I suddenly felt so powerless, even though I consequently managed it without getting much hurt. Fights in the final part behind blue-locked doors is specially interesting, as you meet primarily high-tier monsters there, wisely placed.

Atmosphere. I like the creepiness followed by the fact that there actually ARE things to fear. Which is a huge difference from the games/mods that have scary parts but you're assured you won't be dying in them (much). Well to be honest, this level isn't truly scary, but you somehow get the 'dark' feelings anyway. Thanks to the music probably. Also, the closing door sound. I don't get why some people consider it a fault. I'd say it's a feature, giving the room a special feel. You know that sometimes isn't right there. And you're worried.

And finally, I believe this map is a masterpiece in terms of work with light. Probably even without it being Snakes's focus. The last parts in particular looks very impressive in its dark tone. I am of the opinion that certain textures work best (or greater than normally) combined with very certain light levels. And good mappers know these special combinations and take advantage of them. Maybe even without realizing it, just intuitively? Anyway the room in which the last combat takes place (I mean the left branch) is just beautiful if you focus your sights on the lighting.

All in all, another great map in which everything is at the very least - good and appropriate (the length too) - but often it adds even more.


Zone 300 MAP08 - "Waste Disposal Plant"

Kinda generic name, isn't it? Nevermind.

Well, I must say again that I like the difficulty of these maps, as they're not extremely punishing but also not entirely easy and you can die if you don't keep yourself on toes, which admittedly sometimes happens to me. I'm just a little disappointed that the level contains damaging floors but you aren't forced to step into them at all. Everything other is OK with me. The gameplay element repeatedly used in this map, that the game actually leads you another way than you'd expect at first, is a nice choice.

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Unholy Realms Map09: Metallic Bloodline

Another enjoyable map. I'm definitely digging Snakes' style to reuse and repopulate previously visited areas. This the player options to play safe and kill baddies as they appear or to go kamikaze-mode and wake up more and more enemies in the same battlefields to get everything out of infighting possibilities. I'm a sucker for chaotic fights so I tend to do the latter and it makes for really fun gameplay. There's another trick here to speed things up, a very easy one at that, which involves an early BK. The armor down at the Manc arena was more tempting though so I didn't fully use it here but it's basically the same thing I do except you turn right on the lower ledge and run across the gap. Grabbing the BK early would result in a bit different route for maxing which may or may not be faster but I didn't really even try it much. Highlight was the RK arena and it's surroundings where the most of the action in the first half was taking place. The YK Archie was also well placed since I found him more dangerous than he should have even been. Also if you do the jump in the start that I do in the vid but steer a bit to the right, you'll get blocked by the Mancs infinite tallness and become trapped in the corner. I thought that was pretty clever and I'd definitely imagine it's intentional.

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This song seems to have been well received in Unholy Realms.

Map09 "Descent (Into Hell) v.2"



This is actually a remake of an old song I did from the mid 2000's. Dark, brooding, and powerful despite its more generic bass line of i, vi, v progression. Sometimes the most simplest of things can be good, I suppose. Played around with melodic toms to give the drum set a more Industrial vibe to it.

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^ Thanks a bunch for the music track uploads & commentary, it's fun to read.

UR Map08 - "Research Complex Beta": Definitely a more sinister map here with (I believe) some more details added in than I remember. This, MAP06 and MAP10 are my favorites from E1 for having some very tight encounters, smooth design and lots of appealing visuals. I was a dope again and forgot about the RL in the lobby so the AV fight was pretty damn hectic as I looped around a column to dodge his blasts while cacos spat vehemently behind me. As with all the other maps the traps come full blast but give you just enough time to react and backpedal if need be, other than the very first one perhaps. The AV at the end was icing on the cake. I really liked the details in the walls here, although the "rainbow" tech room at the eastern side is a little too cheery for the rest of the complex.

UR Map09 - "Metallic Bloodline": Larger, more open spaces here serve as a hint to E2's theme but without the bite of the previous maps. Sure, there's plenty to kill you strewn about but it's all pretty direct and easily handled: mancs in a large courtyard followed by a few flying foes from one direction, then HKs in the acid pit that can be melted down with the RL & strafing, and finally the AV fight for the yellow key can be solved using the big iron pillar or backing out and just slaughtering whatever comes down the hallway. It's all good and fun but feels like it lacks a strategic depth to it beyond "don't get hit". Fun, but there are certainly better encounters.

I must say though, I really adore the window that lets you peek in at the IoS; a cool little feature that's easily missed.

---------

Z300 Map08 - "Waste Disposal Plant": An alright map—its one cool feature is the release of the baron, since you don’t want to fight it with your measly SG, so you’re left to keep him alive for a good chunk of the map. Having him hound me while I was trying to clear my way to the SSG was the best part, but the fights after that were pretty droll and straightforward, including the shooting range inside the exit room. I like how quirky this midi is.

Z300 Map09 - "Nuclear Power Station": Another solid map, this time hub based. There’s some good opposition here that can be thankfully disposed of pretty swiftly once the SSG is picked up, and at least the exit room has a trap this time around. Best part of the map was the midi—really foreboding and expresses the fatigue of a long journey well.

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UR MAP09: Metallic Bloodline

The large open spaces and panoply of ammo at the start made me think this was gonna be a bloodbath, but the creepy (and good!) music said otherwise. Which is fine, as there are still some good fights here. I really liked the first half of the map (everything pre-red door), but the second half left me a bit cold. Just had too much trouble with the hitscanners, and the AV fight on the yellow key was very frustrating with the close quarters (very difficult to dodge the rockets) with all the monsters streaming in behind. They teleported in pretty slowly too, which also was somewhat lame. Looks-wise, it's nice but still has what I consider the weakness of the "rainbow color" syndrome. Really liked the secret. 3/5

Zone 300 MAP09: Nuclear Power Station

Switching to pistol starts, since I was getting a bit bored with the mapset playing continously.

Kinda surprised at the hate this map is getting... maybe it's just because we finally get something that breaks from the "room/hallway/room with key/go back and open door/room/exit" design of the last few maps. Of course, it's a Pcorf hub map special, but still. Some decent fights - I actually like the giant room full of enemies (mainly due to hiding the PE in there) and the drop-down fight after the red door. I admit that the thing placement doesn't seem as well thought out as other levels - there's some pointless weapon placement (the chainsaw is useless by the time you get it, the baron is too close for the RL to be useful and there's no other rockets on the level, etc.) The Hell Knight teleport in the exit room/corridor is a bit unfair but at least it's better than another long room with a bunch of meat in it. And I LOVE this music, though I'd say it fits more for an episode 3 map than MAP09. 3/5

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Zone 300: Map 9 - UV, pistol start

This level wasn't that bad. I was lucky right at the start & had the chaingunners weaken the cacodemons for me. Things were pretty easy after that, the highlight of the map being the room with the pain elemental. I thought the chainsaw & rocket launcher were pretty pointless in this map, the chainsaw being particularly annoying because I ran into it while killing some bad guys which got me killed :P The music track for this map is another good one.

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MAP10 Premortem

*Regular Run*

This so-called "reverse teleport trap" happens in a few places where monster closets open up but the monster teleport away. Needless to say, it pays to memorize and then smash some of them before the majority of them teleport, lessening the pain. I do this in the northeast and southwest, killing particularly shotgun guys and chaingunners. In the nukage ravine, an archvile was supposed to teleport, but it looks like the sector he's on and the rest of the nukage-filled area were not joined. And for that final battle, I use rockets to kill as many as possible, although that didn't work out too well. So I tried something that didn't look special to finish this map. Final Time 5:00.

*Reality Run*

Nothing too out of the ordinary except of course for that final battle. Trying to fight those guys initially actually didn't give me lotsa fun, so I tried firing from the balcony to the south to see if I could get them. A little luck with those projectiles though. Final Time 6:43.

MAP10 Cargo Bay

*Regular Run*

Aargh, crate maze, fuck off. Annoying level, despite the nice berserk at the start, it's just too cramped, and hellknights and revenants dish out hurt. Also, five secrets for such a small level? At least the archvile makes his first HMP appearance here. Final Time 2:25.

*Reality Run*

Didn't use berserk this time, but still annoying, had numerous jump fails when reaching the PG secret, also the two secrets before it only waste my time. Boo. Final Time 2:32.

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Unholy Realms Map10: Premortem

Ehh, didn't really fancy this too much. The architecture is nice and visually it's high standard but the map just feels empty. Too many silent moments between fighting for my liking. The whole thing is built around the reverse teleport trap -concept which doesn't work too well here in my opinion. The traps are reduced to nothing and then the final battle which everything leads up to is rather lackluster with only one Archie and no big guys present. I think I remember there being a Cyber in the yard in multiplayer right from the start? I think he could be an interesting addition to single as well. Then put a PG with some cells somewhere late in the map, like the final switch balcony, so that the Cyber can't be instantly killed but instead provides some added threat early on. Would add some needed difficulty too since this is a pretty easy map right now. The only major trap here, the symmetrical side-wing in the outside area, is pretty enjoyable though and probably the most threatening part in this map.

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Z300 MAP05

Fun and linear map with height and some smart traps.

MAP06

Small and really crampy and kind of boring to fight in hallways and camp there.

MAP07

Surprisingly enough it doesn't use arachtrons.
But there's a cyber to warm up the difficulty , pretty much like dead simple but it just has that neat little surprise rather then a tedious fight with arachtrons.

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Map10 "Memento Mori (Remember Death)



Yet another slow, haunting track similar to that of E2M2, using a melody from Symphony X's "Lady Of The Snow" and some harmonic minor for the low pad synth to give it some tension. Also gave it some purty harmonizing with the fantasia and bowed synths which I think contrasts well with the tension the pad brings. You don't commonly hear 3/4 meters and the like in Doom music so this track is unique in that way. Otherwise, pretty simplistic, it doesn't even have chord progressions like most of the other songs x)

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UR Map10 - "Premortem": Ran around lost for a bit because I forgot to press the other manc switch :P

PRIMEVAL's track here fits like a glove as you explore the nonlinear complex, having its foes mysteriously whisked away once you go for the primary keys. Veinen thinks the map is "too silent" but that's what I really enjoy about it; the unsettling atmosphere keeps the player uncomfortable and wary, especially after maps brimming with traps. It's not too difficult other than the finale thanks to plenty of ammo and health, but serves as nice downtime before our E1 climax. The major complaint I have regarding this level is that the doors have no texture coordination (some white/green/brown doors can be opened while others can't) and serves only to confuse the player in the heat of battle (like when I tried to escape through the white door on the ledge in the courtyard to find it wouldn't open).

Z300 Map10 - "Cargo Bay": This is a kind of awkward level since it was designed with the vertical platforming section in mind, giving it a slow plodding pace for the majority of the map. I found the aspect of designing the crate section more amazing than it was in reality, so props to Corfiatis for the good idea but as a whole the map is just kinda... bumbling.

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UR Map10 - "Premortem"
Rather easy map to be honest, rather strange vibe to go along with the now well established hell-tech combo with much colour and variety. Combat is pretty low key with many of the largest traps turning out to be duds at the time. Plenty of interesting gimmicks which tend to play with your mind.
The final fight can be cheesed badly though by hiding in the side room and spraying everything with rockets with relative safety.
The exit looks rather hellish, what could lie in wait.....

Zone 300 Map10 - "Cargo Bay"
Certainly an interesting map, but feels rather cramped, this makes the cacodemons a real pain and you can be check-mated rather cheaply and killed by a caco 20 feet above your ahead with no chance of escape.
There is no max demo for this because not only can you die easily, but the chances of screwing up the secrets is also high, plus I've not had too much time. I hope to catch up this weekend, likely map11 will be done before this.

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Unholy Realms MAP09 - "Metallic Bloodline"

Hey, the map is easy!

Don't take it as a complaint, at all. I am absolutely satisfied with the map's gameplay and difficulty. I am just surprised. This far in a game, and I felt like I'm "not challenged enough". You must understand it from my perspective. I am used to the fact that I die in every unexpected trap, which in Unholy Realms is every few minutes at least. But here... Even the (awesome looking) large courtyards didn't have greater slaughters. I actually felt a tension. I expected the full assault to suddenly arrive every second. And it didn't arrive. The overall difficulty progression of this level was quite smooth and didn't have any radical twist I was so worried about. Anyway thank you for a map like this, very beatable even for unskilled continuously-playing folks. I died only once, near the end due to a revenant. :) My stupid fault only, as always.

On this map, I specially like how the secret soulsphere is accessed, and the Icon of Sin face :). Also the fleshy details and other marks of hellish influence built into a techbase, and the mix of stock+custom textures together. It's almost pointless to add that I'm very, very impressed again.


Zone 300 MAP09 - "Nuclear Power Station"

I think I'll start MAP10 from pistol beginning, because it's just getting way too easy with the loads of ammo from previous levels. Pcorf's maps are very generous in ammo provision, supported by the (IMO unnecessary) ammo pickups in the exit corridor, when everything is already dead.

The theme and structure of this map is, err, interesting, but I must admit, the key pillars bugs me a little. I usually overjumped the key, because the platform started lowering before I grabbed it. Of course, this is no reason to get angry for me. It's OK. But I also wondered why isn't every key connected with a teleport trap. It could have been, in my opinion, it'd be definitely possible to get lines somewhere. Or are they there in multiplayer? I don't know.

Although the map is mostly just corridors, I enjoyed the shootage. I found out it is possible to press the switch behind a berserk without grabbing it. This time it is unfortunately possible to camp. No teleporting monsters behind you - mostly. Still, fine gameplay. I like the little light work done in the corridors, and the texture selections. Continuous play is extremely easy, but I already commented on it. A nice simple piece of work here.

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The nice thing about this is that catching up is soooo easy :D

Unholy Realms
MAP08: Research Complex Beta:
Dark, haunting and, for some reason, completely removed my ability to dodge, so the generous supplies were all used up. I really liked this one. Hell is definitely announcing itself here and the soundtrack is fantastic.

MAP09: Metallic Bloodline:
More of the above, basically! I like that trap for the yellow skull key a lot - very chaotic, but thanks to the open plan map also remarkably easy to get out of and fight back. Another case of being heavily supplied but needing it, but this time more due to the map than my own lack of skill, I'd like to think. The music was a bit more cliché in it's "creepiness" than the last track, but still enjoyable.

The little touches (like the Icon of Sin peering through a small gap and the flaming ruins behind a door) really make the aesthetic in this map for me. This map set has really picked up, IMO.

MAP10: Premortem:
This one feels pretty Plutonia all round, swapping the more creepy vibe of the previous two maps for a more straight-up action scene in a tech/crypt over flowing with liquids and baddies. The final fight is pretty clever as you can actually weaken it by killing some of the enemies before they teleport away if you're quick enough. The next level has me intrigued, being called "Death" and all...


Zone 300
MAP08: Waste Disposal Plant:
Almost hard to believe I'm playing the same game after the three UR maps I've just played. The Arachnotron/PE room is surprisingly tough with the available weapons, but otherwise the map is a breeze. The ending corridor/meat-grinder matches the rocket launcher secret perfectly, at least.

MAP09: Nuclear Power Station:
This feels very early-90s, with the largely flat, corridor layout and mono-themed texturing. I did like the fight through the red key door though, as the walls dropping and sudden ambush made my choice of the chaingun ideal for some frantic lead farming. The blue key room felt like something I made back when I was learning to map, which gave me an odd sense of déjà-vu and nostalgia all in one. Nice to see pcorf go for a different touch with the usual meat grinder ending.

MAP10: Cargo Bay:
A great little crate maze (a quintessential Doom environment, I'm sure we'll all agree) that is necessarily smaller than the average map here in order to make better use of the design. I really enjoyed finding all of the secrets here, given pcorf managed to get 5 into such a small map. Good ending room too - simple, yet effective.

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bit of catching up..

UR map 09

I liked this one, its one of those maps that I find it too tempting to leave stuff alive, there is so much space to dance around the monsters so I leave them to hunt for better ammo. It doesn't always work as a tactic, but it is fun. Managed to survive quite easily through most of this map, up until the archvile appeared, that was nasty - mainly because I was expecting the bars to block me in there and didn't realise I could freely escape. That seems to be the best option for survival, and there is an interesting bit of layout there for choosing your battle.

UR map 10

Very hellish feel to this one, nice apocalyptic music too. Lots of choice of where to go and what to do, and no SSG that I could find, which made things a lot more interesting, altohugh i did leave a load of pain elementals alive after legging it out of the dark tunnels. They seemed to be blocked at a doorway so I left them to it. No major problems surviving until the finale, and only then because I was having so much fun with the layout and infighting that I got a bit carefree and reckless. In the end I found the best option for taking out the archvile was leaping in there and rocketing him while he was busy frying someone else. Nice battle, great map overall, very interconnected and varied.

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Z300 MAP08

Worst map in the collection , impossible.

Z300 MAP09

Boring map with repetitive textures everywhere , who's gonna enjoy this?

Z300 MAP10

Another bad map , when will this stop? Who thought that a crate base will be a cool idea for a map?

UR MAP05

Nice map with lots of complicated hallways and creative traps.

MAP06

Hardass map that begins in a single step and countains a spider mastermind , isn't this enough?

MAP07

Good map with more frenzy stuff and radiation challanges. But it's hard.

MAP08

Extreme courtyard map with tunnels and trippy traps , that exit door is missaligned from behind.

MAP09

Best map so far and my favorite theme too , I like mortar with tech blended.

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Zone 300: Map 10 - UV, pistol start

I had a pretty easy time with this map, chaingunners were nice enough to kill all the cacodemons for me at the start. Then I killed everything on ground level & started working my way up the crates. Picking off the revenants was tedious, but the hell knight on the lift surprised me & almost killed me. Next came a little bit of platforming to get the plasma gun & red key. The plasma gun made killing the Arch-vile pretty simple. So overall this was a very easy map compared to the last few. Visually I liked it, pretty good use of 300 lines to make a crate maze.

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UR Map 10 -- Premortem - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is quite obviously another sector of the same base we began exploring in 'Metallic Bloodline'; same general sort of construction/materials, same Hell-blight. In contrast to the last few maps, the Plutonic aesthetic is more in evidence here than ever before (it's the muddy-looking masonry and the dirt that does it), but the same sort of one-shot hellish details I've been enjoying so far continue as well, ala the marble Baron relief that weeps blood, or the vaguely WOS-esque stretched-hide construction of the outdoor teleporter pad.

As others have already noted, the most prominent aspect of the gameplay here concerns the persistent theme of traps that are essentially all feints. The level is comprised of a bunch of generously-scaled and generally foreboding rooms that, while initially more or less empty, all look purpose-built to spring some big, nasty closet traps. And they do!......except, not really. Generally, the majority of the aggressors will spit a curse or two at you, and then promptly beam away, only to return at some future point. This is of course a callback to the elusive arch-vile from map 07; I thought he was pretty cool, and so I felt more or less the same about this. That being said, I reckon at least one of the traps here probably should have played it totally straight, just to keep the player off-balance and guessing. As it is, I caught on to the scheme pretty quickly, and was eventually able to predict most of the goings-on. I actually had guessed that the teleporting monsters would all rematerialize in the blood pool in the courtyard eventually; close enough for government work, as it turns out.

Of course, with most of the monsters from the traps being non-entities until the end of the map, a majority of the actual battles are pretty non-threatening, especially considering the glut of rockets available. Easy combat or not, and my general feeling of confidence or not, I still ended up running like a speedballing rhesus monkey on a bad trip (read: really fucking fast) out of the yellow skull setup. Just goes to show you that intimidation is 90% in presentation, I suppose....I love everything about that setup, let's do it again sometime! Incidentally, the pain elementals that Mouldy mentioned as being hesitant for him ended up teleporting out of the room where they initially appeared somehow for me, so no problems there.

Another worthy map. A bit light on the actual combat, but I've got no problem with a bit of that from time to time, as long as it's played mainly for atmosphere.

Z300 Map 10 -- Cargo Bay - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
This map is well-named: there are a bunch of crates around, and it's scrap-sized in length. The nature of the environment means that enemies generally hold entrenched/superior positions, meaning that the smart thing to do is to take your time and pick them off from the greatest distance you can manage....I often don't do 'the smart thing', though. Running through and trying to reach the top of the crates without doing much actual fighting was vaguely entertaining for a minute or two (wouldn't be possible with infinitely-tall actors, of course, another fine example of why not to use them if you don't have to, as far as I'm concerned), but again, there's really very little substance here. Most of the secrets hardly qualify as secret, to boot. The arch-vile was no sweat.

Kind of ho-hum again, I'm afraid.

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UR MAP10: Premortem

Definitely continuing the theme here with the brick outside, techbase/metal insides, hellish details and rainbow light decorating. Unfortunately, I think this one feels a bit less cohesive than the last couple maps. The reverse teleporter trap concept is kinda interesting, but doesn't really pay off... if anything, I just felt a bit disappointed and confused as to where all the monsters were going. The yellow key trap actually killed me the first time because the monsters didn't teleport; the second time I hightailed it out of there and was only left with the two PEs to deal with. There's a TON of rockets on this level as well, which had me thinking there would at least be a Cyberdemon or something, but just the horde at the end which isn't too challenging. In fact, the most challenging thing about it was that I kept running over the damn flesh teleporter and wasting rockets in the wall as I teleported... overall, the map feels a bit empty. Not just because of the traps, but there's also a lot of hallways and monster closets without much in them, and it makes it all feel a bit... unfinished. Probably the weakest map so far, IMO. 2/5

Zone 300 MAP10: Cargo Bay

Another map that most seem to have disliked but I liked. Crate mazes are overplayed, sure, but this one is pretty short and in a WAD like this I think it fits well. I enjoyed the vertical gameplay, and the high number of secrets (especially after not having any secrets on the last map, a big no-no!) And the exit room is finally something behind just bruiser meat. A nice bit of fresh air from the design cues we've seen so far in this WAD. 4/5

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Z300 MAP11

What a lame map, first you collect keys by killing some enemies in flat and tiny hallways and then you get a very original trap.
After that you just teleport into a big sector filled with enemies and enemies on ledges , what a boring deal , I hate pushing so many switches with no killing stuff in between.
Would be a good a MAP07 but it's already taken , I guess pcorf ran out of ideas and started putting you into flat mazes and a big flat arena.

UR MAP10

Great theme , the final trap was stupid , all I did is just waited for some enemies to teleport , shot a shotgunner and got into the furnace of death. Whats with the toxic and the lava and blood? Why did it stop damaging , the previous map didn't had this so why now?

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