fortress of the damned - dave jessop

Filename: fortdamn.zip

File size: 173K

Author: Dave Jessop

Homepage: not known

Other work: not known

Hmmmmm... that can just about sum up my impression of the map.
It is fairly obvious that this is one of the author's first maps; there
are very many rooms which are simply square with various things in them.
The author said in the textfile that he didn't know what the HOM was
caused by (outside the castle), well I do: it's due to too many sidedefs
in view (a good half of the battlements are in view). A pain in the arse,
true. What has been constructed is very functional; rooms with room to
fight in, and a few innovative touches (the bed, for instance.)

Gameplay is actually pretty good; I found the map to be fairly refreshing
in the way that it made me go fast or I'd die. The fights up on the
battlements can become desperate and adrenaline-fuelled if you go quickly
on UV. The end can be tricky, dispensing with that archvile is hard
because you don't have a BFG or rocketlauncher. Retreating tactics
must be used.... The sounds are pretty good too; the vocal noise for
the Revenant, "he's downstairs" is effective when you're exploring
the dingy cellar. The shotgun sound I could tell was from STRAIN,
and as for the pistol, it reminded me of the same sound in a certain
partial conversion for Legacy starting with N which has 6 letters... ;-)



Aside from the HOM, no bugs.

I must say, as far as aesthetic qualities go, this map is not the best,
but it is not the worst either by far. The textures do convince me
to an extent -- the stone walls and such are quite well chosen (though
it beats me why the floor texture is metal on the upper level of the
castle, when the walls are stone.) One odd room is the entrance --
it for some reason blinks between pitch blackness and light, thus
making it extremely hard to see spectres in there (and making it
VERY frustrating on -fast.)

Pretty good distribution of the things, including the monsters.

verdict