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cannonball

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Everything posted by cannonball

  1. This is a work in progress wad that essentially acts as a sequel to "Return to Hadron" that may eventually become something more substantial. However for now there is a single episode (Map01-11) of maps that are mostly on the small/medium size. Starting out short and punchy but with some larger levels later on. The difficulty is probably sitting between early Plutonia/AV difficulty. (Hence the title, which was the best I could come up with, but heck a cacodemon atom). IWAD - Doom 2 Port - Limit removing (Complevel 2) Difficulty settings for all 11 levels - No Co-op settings at the moment. Textures - Plutonia + a few others, compiled by James Paddock. Anyway, I hope there is some enjoyment to be had here. Maplist; Map01 - Dock N' Load Map02 - Sphere of Effluence Map03 - Pervious Map04 - Enchantment Map05 - Centralised Violence Map06 - Lost Intel Map07 - Veiled Reality Map08 - Agitation Map09 - Outlander Map10 - Underearth Map11 - Epithany Episode 2 (In development) Map12 - Second Contact Map13 - The Wall (Not in the download) Map14 - Crimson Mass (Not in the download) Download - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pc7x01y6d80tedr7y4ub3/atomic28124.wad?rlkey=awqhla8tdp2jluunlmzj49wku&dl=0 Midis; Read Me text - Clay - James Paddock (Revolution! Midi pack) Title music - 10 minutes to 5am - James Paddock Intermission - The No rest for the living MIDI pack intermission by Megasphere Map01 - Freighthoppers - James Paddock (Revolution! Midi pack) Map02 - The Ratway - Stewboy Map03 - Shotgun Shawarma - @RogueAkai & @Sumo (AV Midi Pack) Map04 - Sanctuary - AD_79 Map05 - Gateway - Stewboy Map06 - The Berggren-Malde Complex - @northivanastan & @DCG Retrowave (AV Midi pack) Map07 - World Underground - Primeval Map08 - Drips - Stewboy Map09 - Hell Jungle - Stewboy Map10 - Thanatos (Tristan Clark for Rebirth Midi pack) Map11 - There lies the sky - Stewboy Map12 - 2012 (ZDCMP2 Remix) - James Paddock Map13 - Hate Machine - James Paddock Map14 - Plummeting - Bucket Pictures below - Some of these should be familiar from the picture threads. Previous versions https://www.mediafire.com/file/j22c4eubu6mlubt/atomicE1.zip/file https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzcj6pnfpc7na6f/atomicE1.2.zip?dl=0
  2. A quick update, in short I have managed to make two more complete maps, just a quick image of both for now. Map13 - The Wall Map14 - Crimson Mass Luckily both were fairly short maps (despite the scale of the areas shown). Map15 is planning to be bigger though and at this point the secret maps are essentially ideas in my head at the moment. But fingers crossed that I can continue to make progress with this.
  3. cannonball

    TNT in name only

    I will say this now, as I am finally back from holiday. The idea isn’t owned by anyone and certainly not by myself. I have hoped that at some point that someone might decide to give Final Doom the same treatment as Doom 2 and The Ultimate Doom but this was something I haven’t really wanted to do myself. So in that sense there are no issues with this; However I do have concerns regarding experience and the potential direction/travel of this project, you are pretty new here and I certainly think that you might need to present some credentials in regards to your experience in doom mapping and your general vision of how the TNT levels will be represented in this project. Best of luck with this, if this project does get of the ground.
  4. cannonball

    Doom Pictures Thread 2024

    Rate my church?
  5. Two Poog or not to poog, that is the question.
  6. cannonball

    Doom Pictures Thread 2024

    Resuming Atomic development, at least for now the aesthetics will lean towards the Doom/Doom 2 vision of hell so a touch of technological influence amidst the Hellscape. This section of the mapset will involve traversing a hellish Citadel rather than jumping from map to map via teleporters etc. First stop, scaling the outer wall (Still very much work in progress but this at least shows the vertical scale for this map nicely).
  7. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    Overall thoughts; It is fair to say that a sequel to Eviternity was on most peoples wishlists, a wad that many considered to be the greatest wad of all time. I must confess that I was never in that crowd, sure it was good but I think I gelled with some other wads more than the original. However I will say here now that I consider Eviternity 2 to be one of the greatest megwads ever made and a fantastic advert for both the expanded OTEX texture pack (Public release pending) and MBF21. At its core the level and combat design is rock solid with maps ranging from good all the way through to potentially legendary status. The themes are varied and never outstay their welcome and the poetic lore that flows through this wad seems so natural. In terms of the episodes; 1st - I think the downfall of Heaven was an excellent setting to start this one, especially after the novel setting in the last episode of Eviternity. I loved Tristan's reprise of Elysium, the sombre aftermath of your previous campaign. It was the perfect tone setter and the following maps flows smoothly and offered engaging combat whilst keeping the difficulty on the easy side. The final map was the highlight of this episode. 2nd - This episode I considered to be the weakest, but only just, there were some very good maps in here and a mix of mapping styles (Bri and An_Mutt with more of a dungeon crawler aspect compared to the more open offerings of the other mappers), I will say that this episode housed the best secret map of the set, so a touch of redemption here. 3rd - The Brutalist episode is the one that could easily end up being bland, but I consider it to be the strongest of the lot, there are two outstanding maps and the rest fill in the gaps perfectly, as I said during this playthrough, but I don't know whether it was deliberate to start the episode in the lush colourful outdoor environment and end it in a bleak, poisonned concrete wasteland, but that adds a lot to the sense of journey in this one. 4th - Whilst this episode didn't have any blockbuster maps, this episode felt the most consistently good, this also housed in my opinion Dragonfly's best map. I think the autumn/historical setting was a great counter to the concrete jungle of the previous episode. 5th - This one started a little low-key (I was expecting the maps to kick on a little bit), but there was a great pay off in both Maps23 and 24 and the boss map was ironically the best in the set (ironic in the sense that the layout was the simplest of the entire set). 6th - A bit of a strange one and I have to question whether the pacing and difficulty was right for this episode, that said the four maps up to the final boss were all of high quality and never outstayed their welcome. Overall, this is a must play for anyone who loves Doom, and a great present to celebrate the 30th birthday of a fantastic game. I think the difficulty plateaus a little too much and the last episode could have been a little tougher overall. The final boss was considerably better than the boss of the first megawad. Overall Score - 4.5/5 Favourite maps - Map11 (the best technically), Map14 (A wonderful map to just wander around in), Map24 (One of the greatest cinematic moments ever). Essentially there were all A+ maps. Honorable mentions - Map01, 05, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23, 29 and 32, like above all of these are grade A maps, which should reflect how positive I feel about this. I am on holiday for a chunk of next month so consider me out of next months campaign.
  8. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP36 - “Kenosis” by ukiro Well we all knew what was coming, a massive map where the combat is contained within separate structures arranged around a heptagram. The fights within map map vary from being rather slow and some awesome encounters. Unfortunately I went for the SSG island first, now imagine having to slow roll the astralcacos/nightmare demons and revenants, this wasn't overly fun and I was fearing the worst at this point, things didn't get better in the next room where you get the rocket launcher, a point blank archvile and 3 more on lifts that again require slow killing or leaving and hopeing you don't get zapped, finally you can lower the lifts once to climb to a switch and then a second time to access the outside area with the rocket launcher, now finally I can have some fun.... The next area I went to was the chaingun frenzy, luckily I had carry-over rockets from the previous fight, so the archviles wer not an issue, after this you can go unusually nuts with the chaingun, pretty easy and quite fun to play around with. This also gives you the yellow key, following this ws the first highlight, the plasma gun area with the rotating crusher circle that starts off with a cyberdemon and some mancubi before revealing some Dukes of Hell where you need to duck in and out of the central room, great stuff. The next fight for me was the red key room, not much to say, the fight is a little on the silly side but the most difficult bit was the archviles and revenants in the corners that were awkward to kill. After grabbing the red key you face a awkward and tense standoff around the perimeter with some veiled imps that can easily catch you off guard, especially as rockets are you only source of ammo aside from a few shells dotted in the cubby holes. The final room is a line of sight hell mixed with a platform you need to steadily rise to gain access the the plasma gun and exit with the blue key, this one isn't too bad but it would be nicer if the cyberdemon killing floor was more obvious as I killed the first before the final jump. So now we can enter the sanctuary, There are three initial fights, one of which is harder than the others in my opinion, the section with the large set of stairs was the hardest as you need to be quick to beat the wall of revenants on each pass whilst slowly whittling everything down, the fight on the opposite side is easy and beatable in one attempt. The last section in the flesh pit was another highlight, a maze with a central column of archviles that restrict your movement, the initial hell knights are easy but things get tougher as you hit the switches, luckily each switch has a megasphere to help you out. I don't know whether this was intentional but some of the archviles did escape and had to be dispatched (It was like two or three with severely depleted health). Now the final fight is open, I simply rushed past the annihilators and proceeded on the the perforator fight, now that was something else, the build up and reveal is a piece of artistic horror and I was surprised how well balanced this fight was, I was fearing that the archviles would be too numerous and as such could result in a quick death but actually things played out very well, downing the final necromenace reveals one last wave of archviles, a pair of masterminds and a cyberdemon by the exit jump. This was an exhausting map, now I believe the map is more open ended that I first envisaged and as such probably brought some of the more painful moments on myself. That said some fights here were better than others with some real spectacular moments, I will say that I wasn't overly wowed by the visuals (I think this was more personal taste, I think it is more the grey sky here than anything else), the map has some very large periods of traversing the quiet outdoor area. I do wonder whether the map could have been squashed a little bit whilst keeping the various wings intact. At least getting 100% kills shouldn't be too much of a bother this time as the fights are self contained and as such missing something is quite difficult. I don't think this will rank in my favourite maps, but this wad is worth more for having this, just like Ukiro's map in Eviternity. A solid challenge and I think there are elements for everyone in this one. MAP30 - “Cosmology” by Dragonfly I have never been a big fan of one or one boss fights in Doom, purely because Doom relies quite a bit on facing multiple threats. However I will say that the boss itself isn't too bad, though the third wave can get very hairy given the boss can move around like the Veiled imp. There is quite a bit of variety in the attacks, which means you need to be aware and able to counter in the right manner to avoid being hit. I think the first wave is a little too easy and the final wave can quickly ruin you, even when on full alert. I will however say that the bits between the boss fights isn't that great. In fact it is a little tedious to slowly grind ground astral cacodemons and then the nightmare variety after part 2. They don't pose much of a threat if you are on the move so this felt like prolonging the fight without any payoff. In the end this was certainly better than the final map of Eviternity, and the boss itself is pretty well done and the arena looks great. However I don't think this can stop this from being close to the bottom of the pile, though I will say this is nowhere near the D/F grade range. MAP37 - “Credits” by Dragonfly A nice place to relax after the last couple of maps, though you are stuck here unless you can find some hidden switches to reveal a cute but deadly fight and the final text/end screens. Full overall review tomorrow....
  9. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP29 - “Maelstrom” by Dragonfly The monster count suggests another fairly short map, however despite how far we have gone, I still think this draws a lot from the likes of Plutonia, the map might have a fairly modest monster count but every monster makes its mark here and the astral cacodemons really run havoc at times here. The blue key was by far the easiest to grab, two cybers aren't that much of a bother, especially if you can draw a couple of other monsters to where you drop in and distract one of the goats. The other keys involve a lot of flyers and they can cause real havoc as there is nowhere to hide. Once the keys are grabbed, reach the central building and exit, no questions asked. The secret exit involves finding two secret fights, one that is pretty darn perilous is found on the yellow key path, it involves a necromenace, imps and hell knights that will be repeatedly revived to the point where you wonder whether you will make it out with any ammo. Target that menace like your life depends on it, the other fight accessed by doing some island hoping was nowhere near as stressful, you have another necromenace but this time the other monsters are perched and easily avoidable. Overall despite my initial fears, this one delivers a pretty impressive penultimate map experience, it is tough and probably tougher than the other maps in this episode (By a small margin), the scenery is imposing and foreboding and the midi just reeks of that penultimate map essence. I will play Map36 tomorrow.
  10. I thought I would give a brief update into this; Not a lot has gone on in the mapping department (As such there are 12 maps in total). The reasons for this are mostly being distracted by other projects and general confidence in the direction of this project and what I wanted to achieve. In the end the aim was for something that bridged the more classic stuff of Plutonia/AV and more modern design ideas. As such a bit of fiddling has gone on in the background to try and give this wad a bit of personality before ploughing on with a Hell episode that will focus more on traversing a hellish city before the latter sections descend into some kind of abstract nonsense. So I thought I would leave the latest version here with a changelog mostly consisting on background features. Essentially this is a proof of concept before hopefully moving forward with this, wherever the end destination will be. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pc7x01y6d80tedr7y4ub3/atomic28124.wad?rlkey=awqhla8tdp2jluunlmzj49wku&dl=0 Changes; Lost soul - health dropped to 50hp Cacodemon - Uses the toxic cacodemon sprites, is faster and more dangerous than your garden variety cacodemon. As a trade off the health has been lowered a touched to make this a guaranteed kill with 2 rockets/SSG shots. Hellknight - Replaced by dark imp (As in Almistice, or Uprising or any others that make this trade). Essentially faster but has lower health. Baron Of Hell - Uses some redundant SS Nazi frames to deliver a double attack. Arachnorb - Replaces the commander keen (Essentially uses the same frames as the iteration in Hardfest 2). The cyberdemon and chaingunners have green colourations but are unchanged in all other factors. As a placeholder there is a recoloured version of the Speed of Doom status bar, I will whip up something original at some point that doesn’t suck like the effort I made for Concerned/Return to hadron. The maps themselves have been tweaked here and there based on feedback and general personal feelings, not to mention the later incorporation of the arachnorb into the maps.
  11. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP28 - “Afterimage” by Velvetic It is quite strange to think that my experience deviated so strongly from others because I had no ammo issues whatsoever. I think finding the BFG was probably one of the major reasons for this because that allows you to rush the Necromenace at the end, which I guess would be the reason for blowing all of the cells in the map. This map is short, despite the grandeur of the environment it is simply a central hub, two key wings and the exit fight takes place in the central area with the uphill path to the exit. I guess there are three complaints to this map, the first is some very rude astrocacos allow the blue key path that are there in front of the door, they gotcha'ed me good. The second is that hitting the two key switches literally unlocks the exit to the point where you can with nifty footwork avoid the final fight entirely, the final one is more a subjective one and I think this has also affected others here, I think I was expecting more punishment and given the map length I think the author could have got away with cranking the mean-ness just a little bit. That aside the combat is fun, I especially liked rushing the start and getting the rocket launcher and plasma gun quickly and allowing everything to stir together, I guess this aggression may have also helped on the ammo front. I will say that despite some of the scenes in Map26, I think this map is the looker of the episode, the decision to provide verticality to this map was a great call, it makes the scene more grand than it actually is. Another solid map that was possibly a little on the easy side, again a subjective note on my part, though a few tweaks could have made this a real highlight moment.
  12. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP27 - “Emypreal” by DMPhobos, Dragonfly A bit more to the point than the other two maps by DMPhobos, there are quite a few fights that actually require the player to use patience, in instance where you are handed a pretty awful scenario but simply dodging projectiles, ducking from archviles and waiting for the next move to present itself is the best option. The start is nasty and due care is need to keep out of sights of the two archviles, once the walls lower you can skip onto the next area, by the time I returned the only two monsters left were the archies that were weakened heavily. Both keys require a series of fights to reach your objective, the one that beings in the small maze was the better of the two (The climbing set piece on the other one is kind of cool, but also little irritating and I guess the author/playtesters agreed because this one seemed to let players off too easily). The final fight i the hardest in the map and when presented with the start of the fight you will commit a potentially check-mating mistake, with the exception of the corporals on the ledges, don't engage with everything else because it is likely that anything you put down will be instantly resurrecting upon the arrival of the Necromenace, once he arrives I found the best thing to do was to draw everything to one side, grab the key and escape to allow a better vantage point to kill said Necromenace, once dead the rest is pretty easy to dispatch and you are free to leave the map.... But hang on, there is a switch that is easy to miss, hit that and you get an optional fight that doesn't really seem to serve a purpose, it is also easier than the final fight so it isn't really an optional brutal challenge, I could simply put down everything with rockets. The only guess is that the fight was calibrated so much in the players favour that you would likely leave with 200% health, a green armour and lot of ammo. This was a bit odd. Overall this was solid and fun, though in a wad like this that gets you a middling position in the map rankings.
  13. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP26 - “Myriad” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul, Dragonfly Given we have Tristan at the helm, it is no surprise to see that this map is full of gimmicks. However despite the large monster count, the mandatory progression is quite simply one fight, what is cool is that the player has the option to partake in short challenges that will make said fight easier. Destroy - A two shot cyberdemon challenge essentially, however you do get a little ammo leeway and you have to jump to the cyber platform, which of course risks you being hit in mid air with very little chance of avoiding it. Conceal - A neat idea but I found the final section a little on the annoying side because you can easily end up with the archviles standing in positions where concealment is basically impossible, however given you can get through the first two relatively safely and there is health at the end, then I guess this wasn't too bad. Passage - A tribute to last call? No death penalty for a mistake and the passage lighting up the way it does is pretty cool. However the cyber seemed to lack the cutting edge threat as there are to many spots where he cannot hit you. Silence - This was a fairly lengthy but coll set piece where you needed to stand on a sky flat to shoot without waking anything, there is one switch where this isn't possible and here you have to run like heck to avoid the nightmare cacodemons. There are a few roaming monsters in the lower section that can hassle you and one switch is for a lift, so be on the look out. Endure - Heh, this has been done before as well, this time Map26 from Skulltiverse, essentially a short version of that where you are reduced to 1% health and need to navigate zombiemen, imps and could of lost souls and finally a chaingunner at the end. This was obviously less frustrating than said example, it is supposed to be a short set piece after all. Evade - This one is pretty easy, just saunter around the perimeter of the island you are on, basically make sure that you keep to a steady pace and you shouldn't take damage, the damaging floor is a bit of a wildcard because obviously bad timing can whittle your health down quickly. So the main event takes place in a large arena that frankly wouldn't look out of place in the likes of Elementalism or Age of Hell, the detail is jaw-dropping. However like others I got some tremendous frame rate issues when the party really got going. Now honestly if you complete all of the side quests then the fight isn't too difficult. However the another new monster is introduced here and I am on the fence a little, they are very aggressive and carry some nasty attacks, this also means that the player can struggle to be aggressive when the scales tip in your favour, as such getting the final kills was a little slow. After the fight you just need to traverse the rocky terrain to gain access to the next map. Overall this one is a real straight out of the left field map, it is tough but funily enough if you play this right then the map isn't too brutal. I actually like that this is the opener, it feels like some kind of dimensional hub that you would find before delving deeper into this unknown realm. The map has some real jaw dropping visuals, though the combat and challenges are a little more out there, so I can see some not enjoying elements of this one. Despite the fact that this map has flaws, it brings a lot to the table and enhances the variety and depth of the megawad a a whole.
  14. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP25 - “Boreas” by Dragonfly This one feels like a bit of a tech demo for the Necromenace, the start is a simple SSG shootout with some imps before entering a small arena, you will first face this new monster on its own and then again a second time later. The death of the first Necromenace hails the arrival of fodder and some revenants/hellknights, now at this point you are wondering what the fuss is about because this map is potentially one of the easiest of the wad, however the Necromenace's second arrival shows that like the archvile, he can resurrect stuff, which turns this second wave into a bigger challenge, though most of the damage I took was chip damage from hitscanners that got continuously resurrected. Once this is over the exit opens up with one archvile and some demons, not too tough as long as you don't spend your ammo during the earlier fights. I was quite close to declaring this as the worst map in the set because it is just a very short arena map, however the new monster justifies its existence and actually creates a reasonably interesting set piece. Add the this some other context then this is probably pitched reasonably well, though I feel that this could have been made tougher given the mapslot and during of the map. Overall not too bad.
  15. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP24 - “Temeraire” by antares031 This is quite a map to review, but I will state that my secret hunting for this map gets a straight F right off the bat, so as such every fight had to be done with plasma and rockets. To be honest I get the feeling that I might have got the better experience for this because the big fights are all very doable. In fact the crate and four seasons fights I beat on the first attempt and the latter I had left over power ups. The final blue skull fight did kill me a few times. I will agree with the above, the incidental combat was not executed as well as for example the previous map and I did hit a few snags in the earlier sections of the map, in fact I will say that the layout and the fact that mid tiers can strike from many angles will lead to a higher pelt percentage that the standout fights. That isn't to say the the incidental combat wasn't fun, it was, but I think it has been done better (For instance the previous map). However I do appreciate the more liberal use of archviles in this map, they have been used fairly sparingly throughout this set with astral cacos being the biggest nuisance in my view. Now the big fights come in a structure sequence of rising stakes and chaos and I think all of the fights were done very well and were varied enough to feel distinct, this map in particular felt like the first to really bite the player, in compensation the distribution of health and armour was perhaps a little too liberal. So that's it, right, well there is that moment that should take a separate paragraph.... So the great thing about seeing map sets being used to push source ports or port behaviour are those moments where you see something truly novel or amazing and you go and say "Well, this was awesome.", Think the archvile carousel in Sunlust, the opening subway sequence in Heartland. This final part of this map really fits into this category. You go through a teleporter next to the biggest and most detailed sector ship you have ever seen and suddenly you are faced with a literal hill of cyberdemons, only the one in front of the next teleporter you can kill, funilly enough this was another fight beaten first attempt and actually this was easy to do, even with just the plasma gun, simply circle the platform at a rate where the rockets from the hill will consistently missing and keep hosing the one at the front, now through the teleporter and wish granted, you are on the ship, duck behind a nearby wall and you see steps, climb these and you see a switch with the word "Fire", can it be? What the heck is this? You hit the switch, suddenly a trailed of explores travel towards the hill and boom, everything is dead and there is a charred hole revealed to where the exit is. This is possibly the greatest cinematic set piece conceived, possibly in all PWads in all formats. The technical know-how to execute this flawlessly is a sight to behold and huge pay-off for the previous half an hour of game time. Overall, I prefer both Map11 and Map14, but I cannot state how impressive parts of this map are and how potentially inspirational this could be to players and mappers stumbling upon this. This map is the best advertisement MBF21 could get and is a stand out map in a mapset full of high quality maps.
  16. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP23 - “Thaw” by DMPhobos Well my run time was fairly brisk thanks to hurtling through the early sections of the map, the fact you can play with some real aggression really helps the map because most of the combat up to the yellow key is incidental. I also didn't die once until I approached the yellow door with said key and got caught with my pants down. The combat from here now really consists of set pieces and unexpected waves of monsters that encroach on the player. I will say that the set pieces around the thawing ice are really well done, they are great fun. There are also a couple of large blowout moments such as the fight where the blue key is then accessed that has a mass of corporals, archviles and a cluster of astral arachnos/flyers. Once the red key is collected you can carefully head for the exit but watch out for said lurking monsters that were released miles away from you, the fight in the final room is fine and serves its purpose but that corridor is essentially the map done. Overall I preferred this considerably to Sovereign, the map pushes the player but never to the point of frustration and some excellent set pieces push this towards the top of the pile. Great map.
  17. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP22 - “Inclement” by Bauul, Dragonfly Well that is a rather rude welcome, easily one of the hottest starts in the wad but actually taking the map head on is the right thing to do, there are a few chainguns or SSGs and berserks placed nearby so clearly an aggressive strategy is encouraged. Once you have secured a foothold this map actually eases off the gas somewhat. Now there are a few more traps littered throughout this base, the yellow key has the outdoor and there is a strange fight for the plasma gun where you are handed an invulnerability, which lasted until the cyber was dead (not sure of the point of this fight). There is some dead air, most notably when you traverese underneath the exit area of the previous map (A nice touch but the easy platforming and light combat felt a little off here). The secret hunt wasn't too bad I guess, but it is easy to miss the switch that opens the secret exit as you can easily assume that your job is done when grabbing the BFG. This was better than the opener though and I guess this could be fun to play at full throttle all of the way through. MAP35 - “Parallel” by Dragonfly A nice idea and one that is executed fairly well. Now clearly the gimmick is displayed clearly, however some of the foundations of the map feel a little off. The switch hunt traversing various planes of existence looks cool and the map is short enough to make this work. However it is hard to not notice that this map feels a little undercooked and as such the gimmick could have been explored for interesting scenarios. There are also a couple of strange fights in here, the triple archvile seems to be deliberately cheesable by the silent teleporters and there is another stab in the dark annihilator placed in a cave. This is certainly a lot better than duality, but I can't help feeling that this map started out as an E4 candidate and then essentially got the gimmick shoe-horned in to justify its position outside of the regular roster. I will add that there was a sky tranfer issue in the heaven section where one sector didn't display the correct sky.
  18. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP21 - “Numb” by Dragonfly Probably the most "Chill" map in quite a while.... I'll get my coat.... This is probably the most insubstantial map in quite a while too, on the whole it is fairly easy, though there are a couple of awkward spots, the first section of the yellow key path can get quite hairly, especially when the astrocacos rush in as they clearly have the upper hand here and the final fight is a little on the awkward side. In the end though there wasn't much of note apart from the ice physics, which weren't too bad, the falling snow and the texture trickery in places. It isn't a bad map and in the end I suspect fairly neutral is as bad as it is going to get, but I suspect this one will escape my memory unlike most of this wad.
  19. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP20 - “Dominion” by Bri, Dragonfly The map kicked my backside far more than any of the other maps in this episode, the fortress is well manned and you will know it once the initial light skirmishes are out of the way. The map certainly relies on pre-placed foes rather than large ambushes for the most part and I think this is a key strength as to how good this map is. You have to keep moving, keep shooting because there are few places to hide within the fortress itself. There is plenty of health and armour if you look for it. The final fight starts off a little disappointing and in the end I circled the arena and waiting for the stairs to rise, then for fun I just unleash everything and pure carnage reigns supreme. I must confess I found the end sequence to be one of the weaker moments of the map, purely because it never felt liked it clicked, a little dull and easy to avoid to start and unleashing everything kind of results in projectiles flying everywhere to the point where you easily be killed by something, even when you are not the target. There does appear to be a correct strategy but again it is a slow roll of wave one and BFG the exit party before it spills beyond the stairs. Small blight aside, this was a solid closer to the episode, there was enough different to feel distinct and packed enough of a punch in an episode that I felt was being slightly too chill for my liking at times (Purely because many of the maps felt a little easier than the brutalistic episode).
  20. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP19 - “Spellbound” by Dragonfly Sharp and frenetic, this map is probably the best of Dragonfly's solo efforts so far, the setting is charming and the difficulty starts hot but eases as you progress, the yellow key probably offers the sternest test whilst the other fights are more fun than difficult. There really isn't much to say really, this was a really nice map. Oh I guess reading other people's reviews ruined that moment of being caught with my pants down in that secret, oh well, sorry you are not getting my pelt this time. Just a quick note, there is a chaingunner behind a fence just beyond the yellow door that is very easy to miss, I certainly did. Not sure whether he is necessary given he never caught my attention until the moment I realised I was missing one kill.
  21. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP18 - “Malaise” by Bauul A proper castle map that looks the part and offers a solid adventure. Combat takes a back seat, which isn't a bad thing. Despite a fairly lengthy run time, I was never tired or bored, the gameplay moves nicely and the map is fairly easy to navigate with all of the switches showing exactly what they do to progress. There are a couple of bigger fights, nothing too hard, the fodder mosh pit with the corporals and the yellow key fight, both are very fun to dismantle. This map is a bit of a slow burner, but reaps the rewards of atmosphere and exploration. The best map so far in this episode.
  22. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP17 - “Perdita” by Liberation I must confess that I didn't find this map that hard, okay the start is pretty hot, but you can gain a foothold by taking a right and go up the stairs, finishing the monsters up here gives you a decent amount of cover. From here you can chip away at the rest (Or provoke infighting) and proceed onwards in your journey. The ambushes for the red key aren't overly taxing and at this point you will have the rocket launcher, I found the astral enemies to be rather helpful at times given they can deal a large amount of damage to other enemies. From here you get a nice imp blowout, where one of my only deaths occurred purely because of chip damage from the shotgunners. Beyond there are some nice skirimishes and the final fight is pretty fun, the hellified version being the hardest to get to grips with initially, but the health and ammo is perhaps handed out a little too liberally as I left the map with a lot of cells and rockets left over. I don't know whether I just utilised infighting effectively or just got lucky but none of the fights were too punishing and good movement would always see you through over a more stringent strategy. Overall a solid map from an author of whom I enjoyed very much in 1KLines 3, the fights were always engaging, albeit not that punishing and the environments were as usual a feast for the eyes and there is a nice sense of progression here.
  23. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP16 - “Barbican” by Dragonfly A nice opener with a rather unnecessary cyberdemon, the issue being that I triggered the trap involving it last and I never saw the cyber again once I went for the exit. The rest of the map is a solid three key hunt, now I think I lucked out because I stumbled upon the secret exit very quickly. There are some nice fights dotted around but you are given power up for most of them, so nothing too taxing. Overall a solid opener, though I couldn't be bothered to get 100% kills here because of the wandering cyberdemon. Onwards to paradise... MAP34 - “Freya” by Bri Well by luck I found the perforator really quickly. This is a very colourful and lush environment that is a lot more liberal with the Eviternity 2 exclusive monsters. As such this plays at times like a mix of Bri's first entry in this set mixed with a more Plutonia-esque deployment of monsters, as such the new monsters can be deviously placed, not only that but there are plenty of turret monsters, usually revenants. The final fight I must confess to cheesing quite badly because out in the open I struggled to avoid getting hit numerous times. There are a medkit by the platform where the switch to open the exit resides, because of the design of the platform you can technically tucked yourself in there are reduce the number of directions the monsters can attack you from, this worked first time. Overall this was probably on par with Bri's other map, there is a lot of solid work here, though at times it felt a little crude and harsh. Also after a few secret maps that felt very out there, this just felt like a map that didn't fit into the other episodes, that said I felt the same about Map31 in that regard.
  24. To answer the question in a pedantic manner the only correct answer is before 2010, because as the IWads are required to run any PWad, choosing the latter option results in a load of stuff that you cannot actually play given you require the IWads to play them. 😗 If the question is specifically PWada then clearly the answer will probably be post 2010.
  25. cannonball

    The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

    MAP15 - “Rubicon” by Scotty The price of progress, the lush and bright environments of the early stages of the episode are definitely gone now. Instead we have polluted waters and a grimy and rather grim atmosphere. Fair to say that on one hand the visuals don't pop as much as the other maps, on the other hand this feels truly fitting and is the perfect send off to the episode that has really seen this wad push on. The combat takes the centre stage and there are plenty of top drawer encounters, the meanest probably being the blue key room where the room is drenched in polluted waters with only two radsuits to get your through the fight. In general the map flows nicely and whilst it isn't as strong as the last map, this feels like a nice change of pace and works well as a counterweight to the otherworldly wonder of the previous map. Fair to say that this episode is by far my favourite episode so far. Oh and the new monster is introduced really well, never truly dangerous but they do have a habit of catching you off guard, not every monster needs to be ball busting, this one seems to fit nicely in the low to mid tier range.
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