The /newstuff Chronicles #402

Terrorgate is quite an entertaining old schoolish level to shoot through, it has some questionable design decisions, yeah, but I think these mostly add to it's charm than take away from it, but then again I seemed to find all the key hidden objectives with ease and with a lot of luck.

printz said:

well, at the end of the day, he doesn't like it, you do.

I never said I like it, I just wondered what about it spurred that kind of vitriol. I found it to be slightly above average. A run of the mill sort of map that you can rapidly blaze through and feel happy about getting some dooming to entertain you. It really doesn't deserve a great deal of praise, nor does it deserve any of what the reviewer said about it.

kristus said:

(Terrorgate) really doesn't deserve a great deal of praise, nor does it deserve any of what the reviewer said about it.

In your opinion.

I thought it was a bit crap, I'd just finished All Sliged Up before playing Terrorgate so I noticed a significant quality deficit with regards to gameplay (especially the annoying "progression" between areas), but "vitriol" is a pretty strong word. It wasn't a map worth getting worked up about in my review and it isn't really worth a disagreement between us, so we should agree to disagree.

EDIT: I took Speng to review, played it til I was almost finished, then had a power cut. After that I forgot to play through it again. I actually rather enjoyed it, although my eyes weren't best pleased with the unfortunate texture choices.

That's something that puzzles me as well. You raise that project to the skies for some inexplicable reason (because the maps were more detailed?) and then hammer down on this other that actually plays better (not saying a whole lot of course, since the game play of the Slige map project was by far it's greatest flaw)

I just get the feeling that there's everything or nothing with your rating of these things. No gray areas.

If I thought the Sliged maps were crap I'd have said so. I didn't rate all of the maps that highly (and said so) but the good ones from Sliged were IMO of a better overall quality in terms of gameplay and aesthetics than Terrorgate. Also if I dislike a map and it's an ancient one, that gives me leeway to be more sarcastic about it, as it's less likely the author will see it and get upset about it all.

MajorRawne said:

Also if I dislike a map and it's an ancient one, that gives me leeway to be more sarcastic about it, as it's less likely the author will see it and get upset about it all.

Well, I find that a rather silly attitude. Besides, where do you get that Terrorgate is an anchient wad from? I've looked through the description of the wad and there's nothing that suggests it being older than the 8 months it took for it to be reviewed. In your review you claim it was made with Waded, and that it was a vanilla Doom map. But the TXT file clearly states other.

To be quite honest. From what I've seen and read of you in this thread, I just find it hard to take anything you say or do seriously.

Don't read my reviews then.

I thought Kirby's review of Palace of Skorn was fair except for the ultimate conclusion he arrives at about the wad: avoid. This wad has too much going for it not to temper such bold advice without at least some warning to the player of all the good stuff they will be missing out on, and all that works about the map.

1. I thought the layout was very solid. Navigating the map was relatively easy with some nice little challenges that weren't irritatingly obscure. It has nice atmospheric areas and a strong sense of place and the heretic textures are implemented seamlessly. I like how the map somehow manages to evoke the feeling of levels from the late episodes of Wolfesntein 3D (and I'm talking about the first half of the map before meeting Uzi dudes and to some extent the revenant area). I thought the atmosphere and texturing overall were nice, certainly better than 'to be avoided'.

2. The overall gameplay balance is fine. Nothing at all wrong with it. It took a little to get used to, but this is the nature of anything new one is exposed to, but the new imps work fine. At first I thought it was a little tedious to pot shot groups of imps on ledges, and more so the two hell knights, but the need for a little strategy brought about by tougher imps to secure the main lower courtyard was fun. The uzi guys really are not that much of a problem. As pointed out they are a little bit like the white garbed officers or mutants from Wolfenstein 3D in that it's important to beat them to the shot. They are less frustrating than either of these enemies since they are so easy to fell. I found the uzi and shotgun to be the most effective against them. Overall the ammo balance was very good.

3. The new sounds for the imps are fitting and not jarring and the music, for my tastes, was welcomed (which is not usually the case with me and custom music). It very fitting and added to the feeling of throwback to Wolf3D and the level's 8-bit charm.

Suggestions/criticisms:
1. Some of the stairs in the first half of the map are a bit awkward.

2. The pillar at the end of the level was way to strong to be hit repeatedly by rockets. It was a little bit bland to just shoot through the pillar at the cyberdemon, but moreover, the pillar didn't look like it could withstand repeated punishment like that from the cyb's rockets.

3. It would have been cool if the author had made blood pools from squished monsters slimy green so that when all the imps got squished on the rising door-lift there wasn't all these pools of bright red blood which doesn't make sense.

Overall I liked the NES-Zelda era atmospherics and overall 8-bit feel the map had. It would have been nice if some of the above nitpicks had been addressed to help the overall product to feel slightly less hackneyed.

Even if (much) more aesthetically pleasing than the plausible source material, some of the "all SLIGE'd up" shots look just a wee bit familiar...

I actually don't mind my reviews not being commented on, as (in my mind) that equates to there being nothing wrong with them, as well as nothing great :P

Phobus, responses to your reviews are pretty much essential unless your reviews are already perfect. You just have to sort out the useful feedback from the hating. (Haters gonna hate.)

I tried running the dannebugina faster demo for E1M11-11-11 and instead of finishing the level he just dies and slides under the waterfall crack. Is that supposed to happen? Also the other demo that's not an FDA just doesn't work gives the 70 error.

The demos have a newer datestamp than the wad, so maybe the wad was changed after they were recorded. That tends to lead to desyncs. Though
it's surprising that any of the demos play back in that case.

The demo format 70 error means it's a Zdoom demo.

DuckReconMajor said:

I tried running the dannebugina faster demo for E1M11-11-11 and instead of finishing the level he just dies and slides under the waterfall crack. Is that supposed to happen?

If it is, it would win a Best. Demo. Ever. nomination from me! :p

Nah, that's nothing (just a bog-standard desync really). What about the demo recorded on Hell Revealed where the player exits Doom2 map01 if played back without hr.wad loaded?

What is going on here? First someone calls me dannebugina and then I'm accused of dying on purpose while recording with zdoom? I'm hurt

dannebubinga said:

What is going on here? First someone calls me dannebugina and then I'm accused of dying on purpose while recording with zdoom? I'm hurt

Hi, you weren't accused of anything. Even if you were, I can think of worse things to be accused of than getting killed in a game of Doom.

As for forum members getting your name wrong, there's an easy answer: change your name :p