The /newstuff Chronicles #470

• Rush - Archi
  Doom 2 - Boom Compatible - Solo Play - 5807728 bytes -
  Reviewed by: scifista42
  Rush is a set of 12 quality slaughtermaps by Archi, accompanied with a kickass soundtrack (part of it is inspired by music in the IWADs), many custom textures and even a custom monster (Hectebus, a black and more dangerous variant of a Mancubus).
  
  Visuals and architecture are crafted out very skillfully and elegantly; Archi excels in that. The environments are very appealing to look at, and themes vary in different maps. Gameplay seems well-polished for comfortable playability (spacious areas, mostly intuitive navigation). Monster counts tend to be high, and that's the motivation to rush through the maps fast. 100% kills are possible, but may take a long time in some maps. Difficulty gradually increases: everybody should be able to deal with imp hordes in the first map, because there's more than enough space to outmaneuver them. On the other hand, many of the latter maps are extremely punishing and above capabilities of a casual player like me.
  
  This wad should be entertaining for slaughter-lovers (I'm not a slaughter-player myself). Even if not the gameplay, then at least the visuals and music would impress you a lot. Try it!
  
  
• GruDM - grugly
  Doom 2 - Zandronum - Deathmatch - 387713 bytes -
  Reviewed by: dew
  GruDM is a collection of five DM maps for Zandronum by Grugly. The author mentions that some maps are parts of larger coop pieces he's working on, while others were made just for this project. He doesn't specify which ones are which, but it's not a mystery hard to decipher. In short: this mapset sucks. Quite a lot. It's a blatant babby's first DM wad, and it trips many concept land mines. You can stop reading now, but for the author's sake, I'll try to explain why.
  
  "A Duel" is a single open-air room shaped like the letter A. It looks pretty decent (bar the bleeding midtex) and it could possibly work as a part of a bigger map, but in its current form it's completely dysfunctional. This tiny non-event has just two SGs and one SSG placed in a way that ensures one player getting total dominance and spawn-raping the other guy till his ammo runs out. It's also possible to straferun out of the map, heh. "X Duel"... yeah, you guessed it. It's a tiny enclosed X-shaped room with four single shotguns. Gameplay is so abominable that I'll use a simile: a coop session broke a script of a starting room, and after realizing they're trapped forever, the players just start fragging each other before moving to the next map. Except now this is the intended concept. "Octagon Duel" is the one functioning map in the set, but only because it's a completely bog-standard small square symmetrical arena. It works, but we've seen it a thousand times, and anyone inclined towards this sort of gameplay congregates to shoot!.wad anyways.
  
  The other maps are the single player designs converted to DM, I assume. "Pentagram Deathmatch" features a ridiculous sequence of six or seven switches to get the rocket launcher, which may be somewhat interesting in SP, but it's more of a head-scratcher in DM. The BFG casually thrown on the outside pillar is even weirder. It's not a bad layout, to be honest, but item placement doesn't work at all. And finally, "Tank Deathmatch" doesn't feature the tanks everyone wants upon seeing the title. It has two tanks full of corrosive liquid in which you have to dive (ZDoom swimming) in order to fish out an RL or a PG. In a weird twist of events, other players can trap you inside by draining the tanks for about 30 seconds. This is a very cool idea that fails on many levels because of its execution. The map is filled with gimme SSGs, so RL or PG doesn't thrill anyone, as getting them is quite a time waster better spent on fragging with the main weapon. Draining the vats traps a player on a corrosive floor and their only option is to bunnyhop for 30 seconds, because it's actually improbable they'll get mercy-killed outside of a duel. Why? The tank is bulletproof, so the opponent would have to ride an elevator and walk to the tank over a 3D platform, which is so awkward that it's much easier to just let the guy inside burn to death. Very anti-climatic.
  
  tl;dr this mapset is a thrilling show of concept failure stemming from lack of experience in what makes a good DM map. Keep trying!
  
  
• Superfast Mapping: Deathmatch Edition - Combinebobnt and Argentum
  Doom 2 - Boom Compatible - Deathmatch - 2263367 bytes -
  Reviewed by: walter confalonieri
  This is a megawad of 35 DM maps for 8-16 players. All the maps are made by Zandronum forum members in under 1 hour. Excepting the short time done for making the maps, the levels are very cool looking and have lots of fluid layouts perfect for DM (with bots, I think it could be OK also with players).
  
  Detailing in some maps is little bit bland, and in other areas is pretty awesome in its simplicity, but the usage of new textures (mostly from Gothic textures or RETRES.WAD) are pretty good looking. Themes are cool and classic (I liked the lava and ice map), gameplay is addicting, but a pair of maps is too large for any FFA in my opinion, so I've skipped them.
  
  Overall, recommended for play with bots and your friends or other people around the world! It could be a new 32in24 (maybe) if it gets any attention!
  
  
• village - jameson2_fr
  Doom 2 - ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 9179124 bytes -
  Reviewed by: vtm
  Village is a two-map mod for ZDoom/GZDoom.
  
  map01 is huge; sectors are to close causing small graphical errors in ZDoom, and it contains more than 1000 monsters. There are some snipers in the map; you will find "sniper zombies" and invisible monsters shooting at you from tall and/or far places. For some reason water damages you, and switches are tiny holes in the walls. Dark areas are all the more dangerous.
  
  The map looks nice and well done; the author put a lot of work into it. I don't like to play with gamma but it was necessary because the map is too dark. Ammo isn't scarce but isn't abundant either, so one must be careful of wasting it. The music used in map01 is the original from Doom 2; I like that song, but it doesn't fit with this map.
  
  Second map looks like an office building. Two secrets need to be found to complete the map. Same as before, stealth monsters will ambush the player, invisible revenants sniping the player; most rooms are the same, so it gets boring to explore all the map. Music in map02 is the same as Doom 2.
  
  Overall the mod is hard; sometimes it feels like the author wanted to make the player suffer. Something I didn't like is the fact that switches are small and hidden.
  
  Looking at it with Doom Builder I found two more maps, both of them seeming to be almost complete. One looks like an advance tech base, where the author made some nice effects, and the second is a dark cavernous place filled with tiny annoying spiders.
  
  
• The Icon Of Sin's Lair - Omegalore
  Doom 2 - Zandronum - Solo Play - 19208030 bytes -
  Reviewed by: Unholypimpin
  I'm gonna start by saying this wad is a typical Omegalore wad, so for those who know what I'm talking about then ignore this review all together.
  
  The intro map was actually not bad and made me think that this wad was going to be decent...
  
  This wad is one long and drawn out map that for the most part is really confusing. At one point I got the red skull key and realized he cut off the path back to the red skull key door soo.... yeah, I found the blue skull key before I could find the way back to the red skull door.
  
  I will have to admit that after a while I got super bored and typed in iddt, only to find out that I only completed half the map... so I idcliped to the icon of sin which was more bland looking than Doom 2's icon of sin map and killed him.
  
  Now lets talk about the map's detail, layout and overall flow. Detail wise the map was decent, but as you would expect some rooms look like Omegalore said "FUCK THIS SHIT" and literally put no detail at all. The map layout was pretty horrible; all he did was make a bunch of connected hallways and put detail in them. There is nothing more boring than playing a map that has rooms that almost look the same and have almost no architecture.
  
  I will say this, the hell portion of the map started out interesting, but in the end turned out to be just like the techbase portion which consists of boring hallways and large amounts of pointlessly placed monsters that you can easily skip.
  
  Oh, I almost forgot: he added gore that was so bad it made Brutal Doom look good. There really is something wrong when a bloody bullet hole is the size of a zombieman's head!!
  
  Overall, the wad was "OKAY" but nothing worth playing. I will admit that Omegalore is getting better at mapping and I hope he keeps it up.
  
  
• Maruta 731 - Jesse Proctor
  Ultimate Doom - ZDoom - Solo Play - 15764685 bytes -
  Reviewed by: vtm
  This mod contains nine levels and it's about the UNIT 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Japanese Imperial Army.
  
  The entire mod is gray, textures and sprites were recolored to look grey, some decoration sprites looks horrible, the whole combination of textures looks bad, levels are short, and most rooms are big rectangles with the same texture. I played it at fourth skill, was hard; first level lacks health, while the others are OK.
  
  Monsters bleed when hurt, it seems that they reload after several shots. Stimpacks dropped by enemies only heal for 5%. Some monsters' walking animations are glitched. Monsters pick up ammo left on the floor.
  
  Some weapons looks horrible and are uncomfortable to use, autoaim is disabled and you will have to rely on ZDoom's aim. Fists are replaced with an ugly sword. Chaingun is replaced with a bonesaw? You also have a small knife. Pistol and shotgun use the original sprites, the reloading sound for the shotgun sounds weird. The chaingun looks very weird and ugly, and the reloading animation looks horrible. I couldn't make the mine work; the TXT explains how to use it, but whenever I used the fire button I got gibbed instantly.
  
  The idea of making a mod based on the UNIT 731 is nice, but the execution is horrible. That gray tone kills the gameplay, it's ugly and tiresome, and the music makes the things worse; the gibs are ridiculous and blood splats look ugly. ZDoom also throws some warnings with the DECORATE, as it seems the author copy-pasted a lot of code without knowing what he was doing, not that this extra code breaks something.
  
  
• UAC Budget Cuts (v1.4) - Tuxlar
  Doom 2 - Vanilla - Solo Play - 59179 bytes -
  Reviewed by: scifista42
  I like Tuxlar's mapping. He approaches it with a clear vision of what he wants to achieve, and also somewhat "scientifically". He's good at emulating and polishing an existing art style, but also at coming up with his own styles and interesting new ideas; a prime example is his You Dig wad, and also the concept of this wad I'm reviewing here. I find it a shame that Tuxlar hasn't been active in the Doom community for the last three months, but I hope that he'll return.
  
  UAC Budget Cuts is a single map with no custom textures or music, and it's based on Tuxlar's own "minimalist mapping" concept. He had a thread on the subject; it was supposed to become a community project, but Tuxlar eventually cancelled it and deleted (edited out) his original post that contained rules of the minimalist concept. The rules read along these lines: (simplified)
  
  1. The map must be aligned to a 32-unit grid.
  2. The map must use orthogonal angles only.
  3. The map must consist of 96-units wide corridors only.
  4. Exceptions to rule 3: The map can use up to 8 instances of 160-units wide corridors, and up to 2 instances of rectangular rooms of whatever size.
  
  Many people found the concept too restrictive and also too complicated for a true "minimalist" mapping, and that's why the project wasn't successful. Anyway, Tuxlar has released his map.
  
  The map indeed follows the rules explained above. It's a relatively extensive map, but feels a bit cramped due to its corridor-based structure. Anyway, the layout is nonlinear and well interconnected. Texturing seems coherent, but different parts of the map use different textures - the most-used ones are BIGBRIK, grey brick, brown/green wall and SP_ROCK1. There is only as much detail as the rules allow: almost none. But the map doesn't look bad at all. There's just a general lack of impressive-looking areas.
  
  Gameplay-wise, the map might be controversial. It's certainly a challenging map. Tuxlar knows what he's doing when placing monsters in the map and creating architecture. His focus is gameplay (though he doesn't underestimate aesthetics), and indeed, combat scenarios in his maps tend to be punishing, but also pretty interesting and fun. On the other hand, Tuxlar sometimes throws the player into a tight (and exciting!) escape scenario without providing him an appropriately powerful weapon. There's a moment where you have to run away from revenants in a tight corridor. The corridor is dead-ended at first, but gradually unveils to be longer and longer. You only have a shotgun, but there's an SSG behind the revenants (which you might easily overlook, though). There's a few more punishing situations like that in the map. They're cleverly crafted out, that's for sure, but they might get annoying for some. Take it into account when playing. There are difficulty settings to make your game easier on lower skills.
  
  Anyway, I liked the map. The visuals were just "okay", no less and no more, in my opinion. But I appreciated the efficiency of the layout and monster encounters. You might enjoy this map if challenge is what you want.
  
  
• Meatballs - riderr3
  Plutonia - Vanilla - Solo Play - 122744 bytes -
  Reviewed by: walter confalonieri
  A medium-sized slaughtermap for the slaughtermap king (or father, if you prefer), Plutonia (or queen? since Plutonia sounds pretty feminine as name... hey, stop digressing and finish writing the review!), made by this riderr3 guy, author of other maps besides this (I kind of remember something called Forgotten Estate was made by this author?), but this is actually the first I played from this mapper. Anyway, the level is pretty cool, made in the style of original Plutonia with some licence, set in our classic Plutonia techbase. Layout has good flow but with some annoying moments like searching for the blue keycard or the SP_FACE1 portal in the sewers locked door waterfall section (that leads you to the section in screenshot 5, where I had to use IDCLIP to pass over) and a missing linedef action for lowering a wall that appears in the first section of the map (the east section of the map shown in screenshot 1), but is set on the other side of said wall!
  
  Monster placement is medium-hard, like a typical early Plutonia IWAD map slot, but unluckily it wasn't well mixed with the ammo placement, since for the first part of the game (the "searching for the blue keycard section") I found myself without any ammo for a minute, and this is pretty dangerous in these kinds of maps!
  
  Overall, the map looks well-made; there's few sections that catch your attention, but overall it is a pretty cool map. Download it if you want some action!
  
  
• Botanic Biosphere v. 1.1 - UltimateLorenzo
  Doom 2 - ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 1559516 bytes -
  Reviewed by: scifista42
  A single, large map. It's memorable for very impressive and unique visuals. Not only does it contain lots of competently used detail and ZDoom features, but it also extensively uses custom textures, flats and sprites depicting vegetation, which fit surprisingly well with the stock textures. See the screenshots. Or better, you can downright go play it! The map is definitely worth checking out for its visual appearance alone. I can't stress it enough.
  
  Exploring the environment is a joy and the map's main appeal. Progression is semi-linear: There are long and wide linear path branches which occasionally meet; unfortunately you'll need to backtrack several times.
  
  Gameplay - I mean, fighting - is good for the most part, but has its flaws. Casual and relatively easy shootage is complemented by small-scale slaughter battles here and there; that's OK. However, practically every pickup of an important item or weapon immediately results in a teleport ambush, which feels cheap. Several times, you'll face an archvile with no or minimum cover. Or barely visible hitscanners (hidden behind the vegetation), which I didn't mind that much, but in fact, these hitscanners will pose the biggest threat of the whole map. There was also a moment where two archviles got released somewhere in the map, and before I encountered them, they managed to revive many monsters at various places. At other times, there are relatively long sections of calm and silence, at least temporarily. All in all, the map's pace is slow, and most of the combat excitement is concentrated into several fights, some of which are easily skippable and some are a bit unfair.
  
  Either way, I recommend this map, it's a great and memorable one.
  
  
• Green Pile - Lukasxd
  Doom 2 - ZDaemon - Deathmatch - 734236 bytes -
  Reviewed by: the_miano
  Green Pile is a six-map deathmatch WAD made by Lukasxd. For the most part, these maps have excellent architecture. Almost every corner is filled with detail. I haven't had the opportunity to play this with actual players, though based on the size of these maps, I would say that they are suitable for 1-on-1 duels as well as 4-player FFA. Anything more than 4 players would ruin the gameplay and become a total clusterfuck.
  
  MAP01: This map is pretty much a square-shaped arena with a BFG on top of a wooden looking pillar. The layout somewhat resembles Judas23.
  
  MAP02: This map is another square layout with a BFG in the middle. There are plenty of obstacles and platforms with weapons that players can grab. There are also a few other routes that direct the player to more weaponry and ammunition.
  
  MAP03: Another symmetrical map... The majority of the action would take place in the middle where the bridge connects the two sectors with rocket launchers.
  
  MAP04: WTF, this looks like something from a Megaman game or maybe Tron. Weird looking 8-bit green textures with some random Doom textures. The sky is black too. Is this supposed to be a virtual reality theme like from Tron?
  
  MAP05: This map is kinda small. The action takes place outdoors and inside a brick/rock fort. There is also a route to a BFG, which is pretty easy to obtain.
  
  MAP06: I laughed my ass off when I saw the textures for the billboard signs "Ishit" LOL. This map has a city theme and the map size is also relatively small.
  
  Again, the maps are visually nice. I would definitely like to play this online so I can see how it plays against actual players.
  
  
• DoomRL Special Levels: A Recursive Adaptation - Chaosvolt
  Doom 2 - ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 354011 bytes -
  Reviewed by: scifista42
  To explain the context: "Doom: The Roguelike" is a top-down RPG roguelike game, set in the Doom universe. Its normal levels are generated randomly. But in some of them, you can find an entrance to so-called "special levels", which are firmly formed and balanced out.
  
  This wad contains 12 maps; each of them recreates one of DoomRL's special levels. That's an interesting achievement in itself, but other than that, these maps have little good in them. Visuals look OK, at least. But the gameplay... not really.
  
  The first map shows off extreme symmetry and way too trivial difficulty. The second map continues in that trend, this time in a form of an arena shooter. Once you kill the initial wave of monsters, more monsters appear, but you can already safely run to the exit. From the third map to the last one, gameplay is heavily spoilt by the possibility of running straight to the exit, which is very often easily reachable, sometimes even very close to the player start. These maps obviously weren't created with the purpose of providing a good single player experience. Monster placement and progression aren't accustomized to that at all. The maps are just recreation of layouts with some monsters thrown in, and that's it.
  
  If you just want something fun to play, don't bother with this, you won't miss anything. Only check it out if you're curious to see some top-symmetrical, authentic DoomRL layouts in the Doom engine.
  
  
• Insano-Plutonia - insanoflex312
  Plutonia - Vanilla - Solo Play - 143415 bytes -
  Reviewed by: scifista42
  A small three-map set for Plutonia. The maps are relatively simple, vanilla-styled, and I liked the layouts, clean visuals and pacing of fights. Everything in the maps seemed to be there on purpose, not just randomly thrown in (linedefs, archviles, revenants...). The provided challenge was efficient, sometimes cruel, but quite fun. Gameplay was generally slightly more fair than in the original Plutonia, and the progression slightly more intuitive.
  
  However, MAP03 was horribly bugged: in the dark room with red torches and invisible bridges, I could go up first and fall into an illusio pit with monsters, then I couldn't get back on the bridge from the switch platform and had to jump down. That was a letdown. A tip for anyone reading this and wanting to play the mapset: when you encounter this room and walk onto the invisible bridge, turn right first and go press the switch in there; only then will the illusio pit raise properly.
  
  Either way, I considered these maps good and "beautiful in their simplicity". I can recommend them. If only the bug wasn't there...
  
  
• GZDoom Speedmapping Session #3 - Cyberdemon531
  Doom 2 - GZDoom - Solo Play - 4175202 bytes
  Reviewed by: Jaws In Space
  GZDoom Speed mapping Session #3 is a wad by Cyberdemon531 containing 30 speed maps all made in a three hour period of time, or about ten minutes per map. Cyberdemon531 says, in the text file, that he feels that his third incarnation is actually kind of fun compared to his previous two efforts. While I will admit that this was more fun than GZDoom Speed mapping Session #1 and #2, that still doesn't mean that this wad is even remotely decent in quality. While all of the maps here are at least beatable this time, there are still missing textures everywhere, most maps are ugly and simplistic in nature, and of course there are still unbeatable hordes of enemies, but you can just slide past them and get to the exit most of the time. So until Cyberdemon531 spends at least 15 hours making one of these speed mapping megawads, I would just go on to play something else.
  
  
• Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions: Session 11 - Obsidian Jimmy Unholypimpin Minigunner Mugsy 4shockblast
  Doom 2 - Boom Compatible - Solo Play - 2734566 bytes -
  Reviewed by: Jaws In Space
  So here is the 11th and most recent addition to the long line of Abyssal Speedmapping Session WADs held about once every month by Obsidian over Skype. Obsidian will give a choice of three different themes for each mapper to choose from, and then they will have two hours to make a speed map and an additional 15 minutes to choose custom textures and music. Since this is the Halloween edition of the ASMS, all three themes are spooky themes. The first theme is "catacombs" which was used by four people, the second theme was "haunted house" which was used by one person, and the final theme was a "nightmare sequence" which was also used by one person.
  
  Visually this is one of the most impressive ASMS I have yet played, having previously played #7-10. All of the maps have a nice bit of spooky detailing to them, with good use of lighting and a nice spooky Halloween-themed texture pack used throughout the WAD. The layouts of each map are also pretty good, but I think that Jimmy does do the best job layout wise; it's pretty nonlinear and provides good use of height to introduce challenging game play. Game play is probably the weakest element of this wad, though it is still quite fun; I found that all maps were very tight on ammo, and I often found myself chainsawing monsters that I normally wouldn't, like a Mancubus in map 3. Aside from the lack of ammo, the only other issue with this wad is the stupid Arch-Vile horde at the end of Jimmy's map, which seems to be a recurring theme with him, and the slow crusher that takes forever to kill the Romero head on map 6, and I don't think that the nightmare sequence in Obsidian's map worked very well.
  
  This is definitely the first ASMS that I can say is good and that you should play all the way through. I hope that this is a sign that the people who frequent this project are improving their skills and learning new things about making good maps.
  
  
• Walk - Izuver
  Doom 2 - Vanilla - Solo Play - 691790 bytes -
  Reviewed by: scifista42
  A ten-level mapset. It is likely to be the author's first release (he doesn't have any other wads on /idgames). It's obviously an amateurish work, but has its good sides too.
  
  Well, the wad gives a bad first impression. MAP01 only consists of chaotic brick ruins and uses about two textures in total, and there is an incredibly weak pistol sound replacement. I can already reveal that there are also new pistol and chaingun sprites; the pistol's ones are okay, but the chaingun's are rather mediocre (see the last screenshot). I thought that this was supposed to be a jokewad for a while.
  
  Visuals in the whole wad tend to be sub-par to OK-looking, and orthogonally based more often than not. There are several interestingly structured semi-realistic outdoor and indoor areas, and the environment is varied in different maps (techbase, underground, hell). You'll find a couple blocky cars, too. Progression is mostly linear, with short optional paths here and there.
  
  Regarding gameplay, the author apparently likes to throw hordes of monsters against the player. These hordes are always surpassable with relative ease, but sometimes it takes too long and gets tedious. The author doesn't yet have a sense for it; as a beginner he probably considers slaying monsters to be a great joy in itself that can last an infinite amount of time - but no, the player needs to be able to finish a fight in a reasonable time before he gets bored. Combat scenarios are commonly simple, a linear shooting gallery or a monster closet at best, or an occasional skippable monster fight. On the other hand, it can actually be fun at times. Not all moments were tedious; sometimes you're allowed to rush and kill fast, and that's a good ride.
  
  This wad's soundtrack definitely deserves a mention - there is custom music for each level (unnecessarily converted to MUS inside the wad - come on, all Doom ports and even vanilla can play MIDIs), and they sound pretty good!
  
  All in all, this is an average wad at best. But you might enjoy it anyway.