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Liam

The /newstuff Chronicles #92

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As a tribute to my 'unprofessionalism', /newstuff was delayed a day. Sorry. The /newstuff gods have responded to our sacrifices with six new wads this week, and I do believe there's a little something for everyone. DMers, SPers, Guns'N'Roses fans, and AndrewB will all be overjoyed with this gift from the heavens and if they aren't they'll probably be smitten. Better playing Ralphis maps than smitten, right? Thought so.



Narcosis by Espi - - Narcosis is a Doom 2 Map01 DM replacement that consists of a circular marble arena lined with catwalks. A metal structure in the middle of the map cuts off the player's view of the opposite side and creates three seperate paths in and out of each side... it's an uninteresting layout if I may say so but it works just fine. One nice little aspect of the DM play that made me squeal was the variety in availiable weapons; that is, this isn't just another big arena with SSGs littered in random places. You'll have to make good use of every projectile weapon in Doom but the BFG9000 (and the plasma doesn't even get spammed, imagine). The map is comfortable for 2-4 player DMs, spawnfrag-safe. The only real downside to the map is that it has some qualms with playing correctly in Doom2.exe, so whatever OlDsKeWlErS actually read my reviews may have to tear themselves away from the dos prompt for a few games. Narcosis is kind of like a refreshing one-week myrtle beach vacation away from the frantic SSG duels forced by ZDaemon's 29 Dwango5 servers and 1 Vex DM server... minus the seafood diet and the insane heat. Advanced Doom port recommended.

Eidolon's Lair by Alexis Aiello - - Amazing, a new Heretic wad... nothing too original though, rather a conversion of Hexen 2's final boss map to an older engine. Eidolon's Lair runs on Heretic E1M1 and gives you a choice of three opponents (D'Sparil, a Maulotaur, or an Ironlich, all of which are some three+ times easier than Eidolon himself) depending on the difficulty level you choose to play on. I also noticed that this map is also quite a bit, eh, smaller and brighter than the Hexen 2 original (or I need to play Hexen 2 again). That's kinda it I guess... if you've played the original you may have some fun with this one but it's really safe to stay away from, even if you're a Heretic.

The Rocks / Mossvale Estate by Alex Parsons - - Alex Parsons returns with his best-looking and worst-playing wad yet! The wad with the variable name sports an impressive monster count of 700+, irritating chaingunners placed on very high ledges and pesky revenant gangs withstanding. The map is set on a series of cliffs textured with, yes, SP_ROCK1. Said cliffs surround a marble ruin that you'll weave your way in and out to get to the exit. Really I think the architecture looks like a million bucks, it exemplifies beauty through simplicity. Like all his previous maps however, there isn't much in the way of dodging room and there's a lot more to deal with in this one. Playing it on UV felt more like work than a game; I had a blast running around like an idiot with -nomonsters on though. Maybe I'm just retarded. Advanced Doom port required.

Telekenesis by Black Void - - A semi-hellish map to replace Doom 2 Map01, Telekenesis (eh) had me hitting the quickload button a bit more than I'm used to doing. This wad is really visually lacking... save a swank archvile fight in a dimly-lit metal room there isn't much to distinguish it from a bunch of twisty hallways but man this map hits home with me gameplaywise. The ammo is placed almost teasingly and you'll be forced in and out of tight spots and near-death experiences. If you don't aim your shots carefully you may find yourself having to box with a revenant or make a mad dash through a horde of demons for the box of shells at the other end of the room. I also got a rare chance to use my head once or twice too, although I try not to work it too hard and doom does a good job of keeping. Telek...e...nesis gets my personal recommendation but your milage may vary... just give it a shot and see. Advanced Doom port required.

Anarchy by Dejan - - CAUSE SHE'S PLAYIN' ALL NIGHT! AND THE MUSIC'S alright which ones are Guns'n'Roses again? Bah, it doesn't matter, this is a three map replacement for Plutonia Map01-Map03 (yes I said Plutonia, but I didn't see any problems when I tried it with Doom 2, feel free to give it a go yourself). The first two maps take place in what is either some kind of cavern or mine, or texture misalignment Hell... the third takes place on the surface. The detailing is the strong point here, all the construction and architecture looks well thought-out and believeable, and there's touches of nostalgic early realism (beds, toilets) in the first map. The wyKkEd tYtE mine environment of the first two maps makes the wad worth downloading, despite a texturing job that looked intentionally bad in a spot or two (no, not talking about the giant Guns'n'Roses poster in Map03). Too bad the gameplay got played-out after the first map, I really think a little less ammo would've made things a bit more exciting; having a plasma and 600 shells halfway through the first map dulls things up mighty fast. Oh and there's a music replacement too, I'll leave it up to you to figure out who it's by.

AndrewB Still Sucks It by Ralphis - - My comrade-in-arms and well-respected community member Ralphis harnesses the power of WadAuthor to bring us the only single-player Dooming experience of this caliber since 'AndrewB Sucks It'. The wad replaces Doom 2 Map01 and consists of a flesh arena speculated to be the interior of a certain person who is said to 'suck it'. Surprise, he is filled with dangerous hell demons from hell and it is your job as Corporal Flynn Taggart to clean the place up, undertake the rigorous search for the red, blue, and yellow keys, and escape in one piece. In true andrewb.wad fashion, you will be rewarded for surviving the onslaught with a nifty piece of automap art, drawn in the 'avoid creating anything remotely resembling architecture' style. So the textures are misaligned, so the map is short, so there's no detail, the fact that I'm here reviewing it makes it a work of ironic genius and it's staying in my /pwads dir.

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now, wait for railgunner to come bitching about how bad andrewb2 is. I'd post the IM log, but, it's worthless. i like the mario music, heh.

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AndrewB2 Review

A little TOO overated.
No gatewatcher, this aint bitchin.
Oh guys, liam gave the wrong description. all this is a CRAPPY level that spans one small room and texture misalignments. Geez, imagine fighting a CYBERDEMON IN ONE SMALL TINY UGLY ROOM!
Overated....

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RailGunner said:

A little TOO overated.
No gatewatcher, this aint bitchin.


Yes it is bitching, quit your bitchin' ;)

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OVERATED



BigBadGangsta150: Hehm dude, didn't you hear that ID hired Ralphis to design levels for DooM 3?
BigBadGangsta150: For real, he is going to work at ID
BigBadGangsta150: And fredrik
BigBadGangsta150: And maonth
BigBadGangsta150: And Linguica
BigBadGangsta150: And liam
BigBadGangsta150: And pritch
BigBadGangsta150: And skippy
BigBadGangsta150: And Katarhyne

That's retarded!

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RailGunner said:

OVERATED



BigBadGangsta150: Hehm dude, didn't you hear that ID hired Ralphis to design levels for DooM 3?
BigBadGangsta150: For real, he is going to work at ID
BigBadGangsta150: And fredrik
BigBadGangsta150: And maonth
BigBadGangsta150: And Linguica
BigBadGangsta150: And liam
BigBadGangsta150: And pritch
BigBadGangsta150: And skippy
BigBadGangsta150: And Katarhyne

That's retarded!


Heh, retarded eh? *points at lament's sig*

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Alex Parson's map is good. Challenging, yes... so skilled players will appreciate the ordeal (it's not impossible). Lesser mortals can, of course, play on something other than UV. That's what difficulty settings are for!

I played the heretic map a bit... hadn't launched heretic in a looong time (now I might start doing so more often, since Vince Catalaa started a Compet-N like page for it... http://www.geocities.com/peroxyd2s/ ...at the very least I'll watch the demos). I died, but the odd thing is that when I was killed by one of those levitating wraiths it got hit by D'Sparil. The wraith went off to attack his master... who never responded to the many attacks and died. If I'm not mistaken D'Sparil WILL retaliate against these minions. But it seems like he won't if the player is dead. Odd, that doesn't ever occur in DOOM; monsters will get angry no matter what.

I played around in Anarchy a bit. Unlike it's stated in the TXT, the WAD does require a limitless engine. It gave me VPOs in many places. That makes me think, what are VPOs dependent on? Does their presence vary in different machines or OSs? Seems so, for the author says he ran it without problems on doom2. The WAD had some good points, but was too dark and had many places that lacked space, IMO.

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Whenever the player dies in heretic, the surrounding monsters usually turn around and fight each other. What's funny is this happening on e3m8 between D'Sparil and his minions, since he will randomly summon more wizards only to have them turn against him the moment they are created.

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Vile said:

Whenever the player dies in heretic, the surrounding monsters usually turn around and fight each other. What's funny is this happening on e3m8 between D'Sparil and his minions, since he will randomly summon more wizards only to have them turn against him the moment they are created.

If the Wizards kill him while you're dead, do you win the game?

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myk said:

I played around in Anarchy a bit. Unlike it's stated in the TXT, the WAD does require a limitless engine. It gave me VPOs in many places. That makes me think, what are VPOs dependent on? Does their presence vary in different machines or OSs? Seems so, for the author says he ran it without problems on doom2. The WAD had some good points, but was too dark and had many places that lacked space, IMO.


VPOs are dependant on the architecture and nodebuilding, and the particular source port (or original exe) used.

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I zipped up the wrong .txt file. the text which accompanies the zip in the directory is correct I think. I will update it soon, thanks Liam.

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NiGHTMARE said:

I take it that concepts like irony and sarcasm are lost on RailGunner.

YUO = TEH WIN

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NiGHTMARE said:

I take it that concepts like irony and sarcasm are lost on RailGunner.

they can't be lost, they were never there. :)

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Well, that's only the third Heretic wad to be released this year (after sinful.wad by Ice, and shadow.wad by myself) and yes, it is much smaller and brighter than the real thing in hexen 2. It's also harder than you think...

Anarchy was good, but andrewb2.wad was not. Telekinesis wasn't bad, and ap_007.wad was waaaaaaaay too big. (not to mention the lack of everything but weapons and ammo in the first half of the wad)

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No, you don't win if D'Sparil dies after you do. Unlike E2M8 and E3M8 of Doom, when D'Sparil dies, the map does not immediately end. Instead, all the monsters are killed (including any he may have summoned) and the 666 sector tag is run. Unfortunately, since you are dead, you can't make your way to the switch that has opened up to raise the stairs that lead to the exit.

Anyway, I've noticed that if a monster kills you, all the other active monsters (those chasing you at the momemnt) will generally seek out the other monsters, but if you die from lava, a crushing ceiling, or by checking to see if your rocket rauncher was loaded, the monsters seem to just stop where they are and not attack anything.

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Anyway, I've noticed that if a monster kills you, all the other active monsters (those chasing you at the momemnt) will generally seek out the other monsters, but if you die from lava, a crushing ceiling, or by checking to see if your rocket rauncher was loaded, the monsters seem to just stop where they are and not attack anything.


I've also seen this in Chasm: The Rift.

Anarchy was good, but andrewb2.wad was not. Telekinesis wasn't bad, and ap_007.wad was waaaaaaaay too big. (not to mention the lack of everything but weapons and ammoin the first half of the wad)

I agree. I got really lost in ap_007. Anarchy was good, but andrewb2.wad was the worst level ive played.

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It's funny watching the fight sometimes. D'Sparil will teleport around and his minions will chase after him with their purple projectiles, but yeah, Ichor is right. Once D'Sparil dies, all of his minions will die at once and the level will be empty while the way to the exit opens up. :)

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RailGunner said:

A little TOO overated.
No gatewatcher, this aint bitchin.
Oh guys, liam gave the wrong description. all this is a CRAPPY level that spans one small room and texture misalignments. Geez, imagine fighting a CYBERDEMON IN ONE SMALL TINY UGLY ROOM!
Overated....

I can see you and me are gonna need a little lesson on sarcasm...

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Now to add my cheap two cents about the newstuff-

Eidolon's Lair- I don't know; I don't own heretic :-)

The New Alex Parson's Level- Let's just say, I died within five minutes... ok, that's a lie... 3 minutes... so I ended up pulling out IDDQD- yeah, it's cheap, but I like the design of the level- I just don't like monsters shooting at me from all sides...

My level- I ain't glorifying myself, I could've done some things differently- like changing that aweful looking blood fall room with the two cacos...

Anarchy- Nice level, although I don't like Guns'N'Roses (I hate 80s music even though I grew up in the 80s...)

AndrewB- Erm... uh... let's just say I have more fun playing with play dough- hey! I can make spaghetti!

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RailGunner said:

OVERATED



BigBadGangsta150: Hehm dude, didn't you hear that ID hired Ralphis to design levels for DooM 3?
BigBadGangsta150: For real, he is going to work at ID
BigBadGangsta150: And fredrik
BigBadGangsta150: And maonth
BigBadGangsta150: And Linguica
BigBadGangsta150: And liam
BigBadGangsta150: And pritch
BigBadGangsta150: And skippy
BigBadGangsta150: And Katarhyne

You sir, are an ass for bringing this up. Now go away.

That's retarded! [/B]

So are you, but no one's complaining :P

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Just finished 2002:A DooM Odyssey and it's been a pleasure to play such a quality megawad. Right from the start, pure class, authentic detail and some really nasty traps and gameplay. In fact I was a little sad when I finished it, as I didn't want it to end. On to Nimrod (once I've downloaded it's ridiculously large 8 megs...) as I'm a bit behind at the moment.

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2002 ado is a very cool wad indeed. I have two gripes with it though:

1) The spelling and grammar, some of the worst I've seen in a Doom wad that's otherwise extremely high quality.

2) The levels in episode 4 seem to be left overs from the previous episodes or something, because, unlike the other episodes, there seems to be no consistent theme to this episode.

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DooMBoy said:

You sir, are an ass for bringing this up. Now go away.

...


So are you, but no one's complaining :P


Im so tempted to go to your house and kick your ass. But your 11 so i cant hurt a KID!

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RailGunner said:

Im so tempted to go to your house and kick your ass. But your 11 so i cant hurt a KID!

Uh, DoomBoy is like 20.

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NiGHTMARE said:

2002 ado is a very cool wad indeed. I have to gripes with it though:

1) The spelling and grammar, some of the worst I've seen in a Doom wad that's otherwise extremely high quality.

2) The levels in episode 4 seem to be left overs from the previous episodes or something, because, unlike the other episodes, there seems to be no consistent theme to this episode.


I noticed that too, it keeps saying "you're" instead of "your", and episode 4 seems mostly unthemed TFC-like except for the first couple of levels. The Wolfenstein level was cool, though. (it even had the rock4 texture in it, which of course originated from there)

(and is that Horace I see up there in blue?)

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