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Duke Map/Dod of the Month Club - August 2021  "You read it correctly, "Dod" - now this is official."

User is offline   Aleks 

#1

Bit late this month, as I was quite busy, so apologies! There's not too many maps this time though, so hopefully everyone willing to try them out will get to it.


What's this thing?
We play through a set of maps/mods during the month, and use this thread to discuss it as we're still all fresh with our comments/opinions/feelings about the maps.

What's the purpose?
Basically, there are 4 purposes:
  • Showcasing some of the older mods/maps to wider public - they definitely deserve the attention!
  • Getting more people to actually enjoy and appreciate the user content - because let's be honest, over the past 25 years this was really what kept Duke alive after all.
  • ...and while we're at it - keeping Duke alive by still enjoying it, as there's no new games in the franchise on the horizon (and let's be honest, they wouldn't be as good as some of this stuff!).
  • Having a more structurized discussion on maps than what's going in "Last map you played" thread - which is great, but it's basically a monologue most of the time.

Can I join?
Sure, as long as you find some spare time during the month to play the stuff that's on the table!

Why a month?
Because people have lives, jobs or other stuff to do (like mapping). For smaller maps, this could be shorter time - it's all up to debate in the future!

What port should I use? Are mods allowed? Where to get the maps?
It's entirely up to you how you play the game, so you can use whatever port or mod allowed - it would be cool to state in your posts what you're using too, as there might be some slight differences between the ports! As for the maps, they should be always linked within the first post.

How should I play the maps or post about them?
Again, it's up to you. You can finish them all in one go or play them one by one whenever you feel like. On Doom forums, there's a rule that you should keep the pace by not posting about a map that has a higher number than the day of the month, so e.g. on 6th you shouldn't post about map 7 etc. I think that might be a good practice if there's a large interest in this, but first let's see how active the thread is for a start - so if there's nothing going on, feel free to post about whatever map you want to.

Previous editions:
June 2021: Roch series by Pascal Rouaud

July 2021: Maps by Maarten Pinxten


For this month, maps by Highwire (Rob Wijkstra) and FakirBaba (Geoffrey van Dijk) have been chosen!

Synopsis:
These two Dutch authors were very active back in the AMC days. Highwire is mostly known as an author for multiplayer TC City Terror and for his romantic relationship with a ventilator, but he made also quite a few maps for regular Duke. Fakir was pretty damn prolific, making vanilla Duke maps and a bunch of mods, which I will include in here as well. This time there's no single archive with all their work, also I believe the mods can be considered optional. I will just link to all their work. Also no screens this time, sorry!

Highwire:
User maps (most of them include custom art):
Tropical Alien Massacre

Driving Home for Christmas

Sun Burn

Optional:
City Terror (multiplayer only, so you can just wander around and shoot innocent bystanders)


Highwire & Fakir together:
Sewers and Strippers

Optional:
Old and unfinished Command & Conquer TC


Fakir:
User maps:
FBSP001

FBSP002

FBSP003: City under Siege

We Store Your Crap Remix (collaboration with Kevin Cools)


Optional - mods:
Duke VR (I tried launching it under Rednukem and EDuke32 and failed both times, not sure what's wrong - you might be better off with version available with Addon Compilation)

Zombie Crisis (with Andrew Childs)

There is also the HardG mod, but links on MSDN are dead and (luckily) I can't find it anywhere else... Also, I'm pretty sure I missed something, so feel free to add to this list!

There's also quite a few Dukematch only levels:
Dm7G

DM_Ducts (this one was quite popular I recall)

Morpheus Revisited

Night and Day (if you're gonna check any of these, then I'd certainly recommend this one, just for the sake of novelty)

Saturday Night Fever

Unholy


Enjoy!

This post has been edited by Aleks: 06 August 2021 - 01:28 PM

5

User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#2

Holy crap, the number of maps on the list that I recognize is surprising. And here I thought Tavio was the king of mappers that made stuff I didn't realize were authored by him.


I'll probably skip the ones I'm already very familiar with, so I'll make a few quick notes on them here:


Tropical Alien Massacre: This one was one of the levels in Fallout Tour, Nuclear Showdown's user map episode. I remember it being one of the standouts from the set, probably because of the texture set being exclusive to just that level. The part I remember the most is the building with Duke community members' names everywhere.

I do know some small changes were made to the Fallout Tour maps, so I guess I can't say I've ever played the original. That said, I don't think any major layout changes were added, especially since NS is still a fairly vanilla mod all things considered. I've played the FT version enough to make up for it, I think.


Driving Home for Christmas: I was extremely surprised to see this on the list. Honestly, I don't even remember how I found this one, anymore. I've just played it for years, one of the few esteemed maps to make it into my rotation anytime I replay the vanilla game (paired with Nuclear Winter, obviously. In play order, I mean; I don't actually run it with NW). It's extremely linear and a few of the encounters are unbalanced due to very long open sight lines, but I find this map extremely charming and pleasant despite that.


Sewers and Strippers: Another map I know from Fallout Tour. If I remember right this one had the secret exit in it. Provided I'm thinking of the right one, the combat was quite spicy in this one, though how much can be attributed to the custom monsters I can't actually say for sure. This one might be worth revisiting in vanilla, we'll see.


We Store your Crap Remix: First played this one in the Attrition mode of Alien Armageddon. Played it vanilla not long after because I was bored. Pretty fun, if surprisingly easy little romp. The warehouse design I remember thinking was very fancy for just a storage warehouse. Not that it was bad to look at; kinda the opposite, actually.


DukeVR: I go back and play this every few years. Really fun little puzzle adventure. I kinda wish we'd see more puzzles like this instead of the usual brute-force switch combination. A shame it was kinda broken by some of the updates to eDuke.


Night and Day: Another surprising entry to find, here. I remember I discovered this just a mere few months ago, and even though it was DM only I just had to check it out. It's probably the only DM map I will talk about from this list. It was so cool, and I like how even the outdoor sectors would darken with the passing of the day into night, while streetlamp areas would remain at the same brightness.

I really wanted to play a round on this, but for some reason I couldn't even get eduke's fake multiplayer working.
1

User is offline   Aleks 

#3

View PostNinety-Six, on 06 August 2021 - 02:44 PM, said:

DukeVR: I go back and play this every few years. Really fun little puzzle adventure. I kinda wish we'd see more puzzles like this instead of the usual brute-force switch combination. A shame it was kinda broken by some of the updates to eDuke.


Ah, I remember now there was a thread or post about some of the puzzles being broken in EDuke in this one. How do you play it nowadays? Can't seem to run it with Rednukem for some reason.
0

User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#4

View PostAleks, on 06 August 2021 - 03:54 PM, said:

Ah, I remember now there was a thread or post about some of the puzzles being broken in EDuke in this one. How do you play it nowadays? Can't seem to run it with Rednukem for some reason.


I dunno. That post was referring to how pipe bomb stacking was no longer a thing, but this is the first I heard of it straight not booting.
0

#5

Important: Driving Home for Christmas' midi will freeze eduke32 with OPL3 active:

https://voidpoint.io...e32/-/issues/47

Here's a fixed version: Attached File  DHFC_MID.ZIP (12.81K)
Number of downloads: 274
2

User is offline   Aleks 

#6

Thanks for the heads up and the fix, Doom64hunter.

As for DukeVR, it seems the problem from launching it at all in Rednukem was the erased difficulty settings names. Attaching a fixed con file for this mod, the only change I made are difficulty settings names of the redundant difficulties changed to "-undefined-". Also the .dmo files included with the mod should be present when launching through Rednukem, as it has the default demo playback in place, and since Freeway is erased from the con file, it would otherwise just turn to black screen after loading the game with nothing to do.

Also, just tested and pipe bomb stacking is possible in Rednukem, so the mod can be finished this way with no problems I believe.

Attached File(s)

  • Attached File  USER.CON (43.36K)
    Number of downloads: 228

3

User is offline   Sanek 

#7

That's the first time when I played almost every essential map in the list, lol.

I always liked Highwire's work. It's kinda easy to look unique when you use new art in every map of yours, but I think that he had his own style layout-wise.

Tropical Alien Massacre is a classic. It looks like it could be a good counterpart to "Penthouse Paradise" map

Driving Home For Christmas is kinda lame when it comes to design and very straightforward, but the theme makes it a winner for me. I won't call it a standout, but I play it every December.

I kinda looked into what City Terror looked like, but I can't comment much on it since it's a multiplayer-only TC. The obsolete mod that reminds us of the era when Dukematch was a big thing. The amount of work for this type of addon is what I respect.

I enjoyed Sewers and Strippers when I played it for the first time. I thought it really looks like it could be made by 3DR themselves. In retrospect though, I don't think that they caprtured the 3DR style as good as Fernando did. It looks like a user map that almost looks like the "lost" official level, but have it's share of tropes that only user maps use.
------------------------------------------------------
Geoffrey aka Fakir is a freakin' legend. His maps is what I'd call a golden standard of user-mapping.

Fbsp001 - great design and use of arctic/winter-theme. Almost every good mapper can made what he did there, but he added something to it that made it looked so unique and original, I never saw anything similiar to it ever since.

Fbsp002 is a good exercise of 3DR design done right. This time (unlike the collab) he nailed it. Perhaps it's easier when you're basically ripping off XXX-Stacy; also it's way too short.

Fbsp003
have some good design and ideas (it was the first time I saw viewscreen with mirror, which was mind-blowing), but it's my least favorite map in the series. It's kinda tedious and not as interesting as previous maps. But I like that he added new elemenes to 3DR design that don't look out of place.

WSYC Remix is business as usual for Fakir and Kuffi. Who knew that they turned a warehouse - the dullest theme possible for a usermap - into such a great-looking place!

I played both DukeVR and Zombie Crisis. VR is a great set of puzzles, which proably inspired the "hacking" sections in AMC TC, and Zombie Crisis didn't impressed me as much as other great TC's of the day, but neverthelese I was in awe that they replaced all the art and made something completely unique and original.

I roamed through all DM maps that Fakir made over the years. Dm7G reminds me of some DM maps from Platoon TC; also didn't William Gee made similiar map?

DM_Ducts is a great use of Build engine capabilites. Night and Day is also a great experiment that unfortunately didn't go anywhere after this map.


The rest of his DM maps all have good design but all looks very similiar so there's nothing special in any of these.

I never played HardG mod and C&C mod; frankly I don't time and desire to play it. What's left is a Sunburn - the map I don't remember playing.
2

User is offline   Aleks 

#8

I frankly don't remember playing Highwire's maps, but I probably did back in the day. I also remember playing through levels of City Terror in single player - to be honest, I'm not sure if it was ever any popular in multiplayer even when it was developed and released, as we prefered playing in regular Duke during AMC/DukesterX days... I kinda liked how these levels felt though. Too bad he didn't put some single player in them really.

I have played through FBSP002, FBSP003 and WSYC Remix quite recently, so I don't intend on replaying them. FBSP002 felt quite generic IMO (BTW, what's with everyone remaking XXX Stacy? There's also Arzca's X3 Studios and MetHy's map in Metropolitan Mayhem...) and I don't remember much of it, FBSP003 was a bit better, but still not very memorable. WSYC Remix was probably his best map, pretty short and nothing outstanding (and some design choices I really don't like, i.e. the pitch-black trimming of some walls), but the design is really cool and it's quite funny to play. It is also one of the first uses of maskwall "negatives" for the broken windows, I remember this being quite innovative back then.

I have played Sewers and Strippers and I don't think it really "nails" the original Duke design. There's a lot of quite repetitive/monotone texturing (especially in the sewers) and blocky city bits which I'm not too fond of. The gameplay is pretty challenging - to be honest, I got quite fucked right at the beginning with overwhelming monster spawns, there's also barely any medkits until almost the end of the sewer part, so for a large part of the map I was at about 13 HP (even got to 6 at one point with trooper resurrecting behind me). The map is also quite notorious at using bottom texture swaps for triangular shading below kind of every light source. While the shadows in general are very good, this design element kinda loses its charm for me here.

Also played DukeVR, which I remember only trying out back in the day, but never going all the way through. I can confirm it's all possible to finish in Rednukem :D Had quite some fun with it, there's as many puzzles as agility tests (and some of the jumps right between two tripmines did felt a bit frustrating, especially the one at the end of Red Mission 03...), but I really liked the mod for what it was. The design and strong visual style is also a nice part of it all. In some of the levels I'm not really sure what the challenge was supposed to be tho (Red Mission 05, with pig cops teleporting throughout). Also played the bonus "white" user levels, not sure who made them - but they didn't seem as creative and basically all were based on the same concept of kicking a monster to death. All in all, I think this is my favourite of Fakir's work. Thinking about it now, maybe I'll play around and do a bunch of short levels in this vein myself, as the mod kinda encourages adding to it and it shouldn't be too much work...

This post has been edited by Aleks: 08 August 2021 - 01:09 PM

3

User is offline   Merlijn 

#9

Ah yes, these maps bring back a lot of memories from the AMC days. I'll see if I can find the time to replay Tropical Alien Massacre, I remember that being a good map with a lot of AMC in-jokes.

I recently played FBSP001 and FBSP003 (the latter through AA) and both are very solid maps. FBSP001 has a real cool (pun intended) blue/white color scheme and implements it perfectly.
I also get a kick of all the little markers throughout the map, which are supposed to be 'Russian' but are really just Dutch words with 'ski' put at the end. Translated you would get stuff like 'Exitski' and 'windowski'.
Just your typical silly Dutch humor I guess. XD

Played these 2 today:

Sewers and strippers
I mostly agree with Aleks about this one, it doesn't *quite* nail the Levelord design they were going for even though it still a solid map.
I think the lack of moving machinery or any other sector-based effects in the sewer has something to do with that, the sewers aren't quite as dynamic or interesting as the ones in Levelords sewer map.
Gameplay also feels a bit unpolished, I played on Come get some and the first section is quite overwhelming with a whole barrage of monsters being thrown at you, including several pig tanks.
The RPG is somewhat hidden in a crate so it's easy to miss it if you don't explore (judging from Mikko's review, he never found it :D).
I did enjoy the battlelord fight a lot though. You need to quickly take them out before they reach your side of the street otherwise you're screwed, which adds a bit more pressure to the combat than usual.
Overall a solid map, I believe not many 3DR-styled maps were released back then. Most mappers went with Roch-styled or Bobsp-styled levels in the early 2000's. So in a way it was ahead of its time.

EDIT: also a missed opportunity to call the map Sewers And Sexy Strippers, which would be abbreviated as SASS. :P


R3mix

Very good map, as Sanek mentioned it takes a pretty dull theme and managed to make it look visually interesting. The main room still looks quite impressive, same goes for that broken window effect.
Gameplay is pretty good, although you get overstuffed with shotgun shells. I think I had 50 shells when I exited. I like how the secrets are handled here. Agreed with Aleks about the pitch black textures,
it's overused here so it starts sticking out. Overall a fun romp that has held up pretty well!

This post has been edited by Merlijn: 18 August 2021 - 04:26 AM

2

User is offline   Aleks 

#10

Glad to see someone else contributing in this thread besides me, thanks, Merlijn :D

Finished Highwire's Sun Burn episode and I must say I really liked it. It uses tons of new art which is quite distinctively different than regular Duke textures, but somehow works well and doesn't look out of place at any moment, very similarly to Duke Caribbean (also I think some textures are borrowed from there). This "episode" consists of Wet Dream and Tropical Alien Massacre, which was also released before as a standalone level (not sure if there are any significant changes between the 2 versions).

Wet Dream is the better map of the two in my opinion. Took me 16 minutes to complete, got 101/101 kills and found both secrets (not sure what opened the 2nd one really). There's been some nasty sentry drones, but other than that, gameplay was pretty neat - I especially enjoyed the fights with aerial enemies through the windows, which was nicely planned out.

This map doesn't take us to any overly original locations, we visit offices (AMC offices, for that matter) and some hotel/apartments. There's plenty of 2000s AMC references and Easter eggs (I think this is the one Merlijn meant, TAM didn't have that or I didn't spot them), which is a nice touch (especially for someone who would get them). The design is quite simple, but very consistent - highlight for me was the AMC building offices.

Tropical Alien Massacre is a bit older level, but still looks fresh due to how the new graphics are used. This one took me just 10 minutes, with 1 secret and 130 enemies (a lot of that was protozoid slimers I recon). The start is a bit tough due to sniping pig cops behind some trees and a lot of enemies all around, but plays much better than e.g. Sewers and Strippers. The buildings/streets we visit are neatly interconnected. The bar towards the end seems a bit like a filler with not much going on there, also the oceanarium at the end could have been expanded a lot more, as the location itself is a nice premise. The boss fight is quite tedious, as it basically has to be fought from behind the door - freezer comes in handy here. Maybe some different placement of Battlelord could make a better use of the outside area (or another route out for the player from the final building).

Also gotta compliment the shadows in both maps, which are very simple and in the classic style, with a lot of the triangular sharp shades (but not in a "repetitive" way like with SAS). They nicely detail the rather simple design of the maps.
1

User is offline   Merlijn 

#11

Haha no problem! :DI didn't have much spare time to play maps the last couple of weeks so I'm happy I can contribute something.
And yeah I think I got HW's tropical maps mixed up then. There was one that had an AMC building with an abudance of easter eggs.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#12

View PostAleks, on 18 August 2021 - 09:53 AM, said:

Glad to see someone else contributing in this thread besides me, thanks, Merlijn :D


Yeah, I'm sorry for my lack of participation on this one. Life suddenly accelerated and I haven't had much time for Duking.

Might have to take a rain check and make some belated posts like we've seen in the other two threads.
0

User is offline   FistMarine 

#13

Alright, I have played last week a couple of this month's series and I decided to finally write something about them.

Before I begin, last month I also played through Crucial Conflict episode and did it without dying this time, as well as loading my MPOrbit save game and finding the last 3 enemies (3 enforcers) that didn't spawn before for some reason, they were supposed to spawn when touching the sector in front of the switch that opens the gate (located to place that contains the vent that leads to the hidden area with 5 slimers) but somehow I activated the switch from a meter away without crossing that sector, so now I finally got 41 kills instead of 38. :D Also on MPHydro I have 44 kills and I saw Aleks had 45 kills, so I'm not sure where was that enemy that simply disappeared from the map or didn't teleport or something. I didn't want to bump that previous month topic and forgot to write about until recently, so anyway, let's begin with the entries of this month:

Duke Nukem vs The Army of Death
I think Aleks forgot to mention that mod, which also includes 3 user maps for DukeVR (at least the original zip archive at Dukeworld), so I will say it contains 3 levels (first two which are short and easy, the third one being longer and more challenging with hundreds of skeletons). The only enemies you fight are skeletons, most being the basic type that goes down in like 2 pistol shots, so I'm guessing they only have 10 health or something but they always come in groups. You should conserve your ammo, as even with the careful ammo usage, I ran out of ammo near end and had to kick at least 50 or so skeletons while being in a safe place where they can't reach me, as going to melee a skeleton normally is not a good idea, even if they only do 4 damage, they slap you as soon as you are in their melee range. There is also a bigger orange skeleton that appears a few times in last level, not sure how much damage it does but I know it takes a lot more ammo to kill, probably the same strength as the protector drone.
There is an user map created by Quakis, it's called Enlighten the Darkness: Again (I think that was called), which I haven't played yet but I will definitely play it and post screens.

Sewers and Strippers
I can say this was a very nice E3/Levelord inspired level, it really nailed the classic Duke3D feeling, although I would say it's closer to E4 style just for the inclusion of the pig cop tanks alone, making it feel more like an E4 slot map in style of E3 (such as E4L7: XXX-Stacy from original game). I think there was one or two pig cop tanks included, mostly at beginning. Strangely enough, all you get is the E1 arsenal, there is no Shrinker/Expander, Devastator, Trip Mines or Freezer, except perhaps in multiplayer mode. This also unfortunately makes one of the two secrets only accessible in multiplayer, more on that below.

Now for the gameplay and some nitpicks. The map is quite difficult with the scarce resources, especially health (though there is a portable medkit found later in map, which I didn't use) and especially early on when you get to kill those groups of enemies while all you have is pistol and shotgun. Thankfully there is one thing that saves this map from being unfairly difficult: a fire hydrant is found right at beginning and once you get past the first groups of enemies, you can drink water safely to restore health, which I did a few times since my health seemed to be around 65-70 at some points. I also got an early used armor from a pig cop, which helped me survive a shotgun blast that could have killed me in the next areas. I mean sure I had exactly 50 health and upon getting shot I was left with 19 health and if I had no armor I would have survived with just 1 health but note that I got shot once earlier when I got the used armor (so in that time before the shotgun blast to face, I had 45 armor left alongside 50 health) and unless I drank water first, I would have died if approached with less than 50 health. Yes, the pig cops can be deadly and as once Ninety-Six said, they are indeed the cause of deaths sometimes in Duke3D user maps/mods but not always, I don't keep evidence what kills me but I can agree they are deadly. I also know last month I had the misfortune, when playing the MSSP Episode (the initial release with 6 levels), in the 5th level, I got sniped at few meters away and killed in just 2 hits (my health went to something like from 72 to 46 to 0, and all that WITH armor too) which I found complete bullshit since I should have survived that (I know the armor ignores the fatal attack and disappears upon dying) and the shotgun damage WASN'T changed (which is the case in some TCs) but hey, there will be time to rant about that when we get to play Mikko's maps in next months...I guess. :D

Alright, back to the map, there isn't much else to say, I will say the encounter with TWO mini battlelords and one commander is probably the highlight of the map and as soon as they started coming towards me, I went back through the crack and safely killed them with the shotgun because it was impossible to use explosives in that situation. I didn't get to use the RPG much but I preferred to be safer than sorry. The strip club was nice at least.
There are two secrets to find, both are found close to each other at the start. The first one requires jumping into the building (gives an early armor and RPG) and the second one contains NOTHING in SP mode and it also appears to be unreachable, UNLESS...you lure a trooper to jump onto its head and then you can reach the secret, which is what I did AFTER I finished map and loaded an earlier backup save from when I reached the club since I had this feeling that there is no jetpack to reach that place and the author didn't place a jetpack anywhere in level and also probably didn't playtest in single player. Such a shame, the map is excellently designed and it is a bit ruined by what appears to be lack of playtesting, health and that secret randomly tagged and also containing nothing if you manage to somehow reach it. While I did check secrets in Mapster before I played, I only found that second secret is unreachable by normal means after watching Methy's video on YouTube and explaining only one secret is possible to reach in single player. Well at least I found a way to get to that second secret, even if involved rather strange ways to reach it. Even better, the map took me EXACTLY 30 minutes to finish! Oh and the map is named Mylev.map for some reason (short of the generic My Level) instead of SAS.MAP. I wonder whose decision was to name it like that, especially on a map with TWO authors involved, which would imply the more reasonable name of OurLev? Oh and the zip archive includes two demo files as well, I will have to rename them and watch them at a later time. ;)

We Store Your Crap Remix
As Sanek said, this was a rather interesting map made out of a generic theme. Interestingly, it made DOSBox lag a bit at times (even though I'm playing at the default 320x200 resolution, probably lag caused due to the open space in the warehouse), which I haven't encountered before when playing user maps, then again I haven't played many user maps/mods in DOS executables before, it's only something I started in last few years (to be exact, since a year ago I'm playing all 90s and early 2000s maps like that), as I usually played them in source ports and wanted to get the intended experience, at the cost of having to use default controls and such.

Gameplay wise, it's fine. I also found there's tons of shotgun shells around, often placed in clusters of 2-3 and I was also careful to only collect them when I need, so I don't end up grabbing one when at 49 shells for example, unless accidentally or when I'm about to exit the level, though even if that happens you shouldn't run out of shells, it's more about trying to finish with as much ammo as possible. :P
The only part that confused me was at beginning because after finding yellow card, I didn't see where I was supposed to place it, until later when I found you had to shoot the canisters through a crack and after that, progression was clear.
There seems to be a bit of a lack of health (or at least distributed just the right amount to get you fine until end, not as punishing as SAS, though there is no water fountain this time around), with an atomic health found in a secret at beginning, a large medkit in another secret (located at the entrance) and a portable medkit given at some point, other than that I haven't seen much health around.
The toughest part was when Mini Battlelords showed up, I was camping and tanking up a bit of damage (while using medkit) and managed to kill them in time before I got overwhelemed with my last rocket (though the Devastators went unused), since I was in that small room and if they got through that door, I was screwed. The medkit saved the day.
Four secrets to find this time around, the two already mentioned health secrets at beginning and two armor secrets (one of which is located on ledge in the warehouse).
Overall, not bad! I enjoyed this one as much as I did with SAS.

I also played the FBSP Series but I will write about them tomorrow. I had DukeVR (along with Army of Death) installed since back in May I think but haven't played DukeVR just yet, I will definitely do it next week when I get to play it and TAM, Sun Burn, C&C TC and DHFC and hopefully finishing everything up before the end of month! Oh yeah, also the DM maps as I keep forgetting about them. I also highly recommend playing DukeVR in DOSBox this time around because it seems broken in both EDuke32 and Rednukem, at least based off the posts I read recently, including in this thread and it's a shame to hear that not even Rednukem runs it properly, at least without changing the difficulty names, which if I'm not mistaken are all labelled as - or something like that?

I also tested City Terror and it's apparently a standalone game, much in the same vein of other standalone Duke3D TCs (although in this case, they renamed executable and GRP to CITYTR, the CFG file still reads DUKE3D.CFG) and it's based off Atomic Edition, with saved games provided for each level, acting as a level select and they are all on Skill 4, though I haven't tested them yet, besides watching the intro demos. I don't know what to say, Duke seems a bit out of place in this world as his sprites weren't replaced. There also seems to be a Christmas addon that has a separate batch file to enable it. Oh and had to delete that included DUKE3D.CFG since it was poorly configured and running in higher resolution lagging with weapons flickering and mini HUD enabled, I needed the low res and default controls set up to make it run smooth, even though I'm not a huge fan of the low res 320x200 but I find most BUILD engine games very charming at that low res, while higher resolutions seem to be glitchy in DOSBox with the weapon flickering even at 640x480 which is something that I have to put off when playing Redneck Rampage as that game was especially made for 640x480. Maybe I should give City Terror a try at higher resolution and see if it works better if I configure it myself on higher resolution rather than using that included glitchy CFG file. :D

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3

User is offline   Aleks 

#14

View PostFistMarine, on 23 August 2021 - 01:22 AM, said:

I think Aleks forgot to mention that mod, which also includes 3 user maps for DukeVR (at least the original zip archive at Dukeworld), so I will say it contains 3 levels (first two which are short and easy, the third one being longer and more challenging with hundreds of skeletons). The only enemies you fight are skeletons, most being the basic type that goes down in like 2 pistol shots, so I'm guessing they only have 10 health or something but they always come in groups. You should conserve your ammo, as even with the careful ammo usage, I ran out of ammo near end and had to kick at least 50 or so skeletons while being in a safe place where they can't reach me, as going to melee a skeleton normally is not a good idea, even if they only do 4 damage, they slap you as soon as you are in their melee range. There is also a bigger orange skeleton that appears a few times in last level, not sure how much damage it does but I know it takes a lot more ammo to kill, probably the same strength as the protector drone.
There is an user map created by Quakis, it's called Enlighten the Darkness: Again (I think that was called), which I haven't played yet but I will definitely play it and post screens.

Yeah, completely forgot about it or perhaps didn't even know this is a thing. Could you provide a link in this topic?

Quote

I also highly recommend playing DukeVR in DOSBox this time around because it seems broken in both EDuke32 and Rednukem, at least based off the posts I read recently, including in this thread and it's a shame to hear that not even Rednukem runs it properly, at least without changing the difficulty names, which if I'm not mistaken are all labelled as - or something like that?


Yeah, the difficulty names go completely unnamed, which is the issue, but fixing it is not really a problem. I wouldn't personally recommend it in DOSBox, as strafe jumping required in some levels would be terrible with no proper mouse controls I think, same with more precise jumps and aiming.

Anyway, the month is coming close to the end, so I think we can start thinking about the next month's entry. I will copy the previous month's contestants, feel free to suggest other stuff. So far the list goes as follows:
1) Taivo's maps
2) Duke Hard
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases

The voting will begin on 25th, so in 2 days.


1

User is offline   FistMarine 

#15

Quote

Yeah, completely forgot about it or perhaps didn't even know this is a thing. Could you provide a link in this topic?

Sure, no problem. Here is the download link for Army of Death:
https://dukeworld.co...tc/armyofdeath/

Quote

Yeah, the difficulty names go completely unnamed, which is the issue, but fixing it is not really a problem. I wouldn't personally recommend it in DOSBox, as strafe jumping required in some levels would be terrible with no proper mouse controls I think, same with more precise jumps and aiming.

Anyway, the month is coming close to the end, so I think we can start thinking about the next month's entry. I will copy the previous month's contestants, feel free to suggest other stuff. So far the list goes as follows:
1) Taivo's maps
2) Duke Hard
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases

The voting will begin on 25th, so in 2 days.

I can understand playing with original executable is undesirable these days but I don't see any alternative, plus the fact the controls can be reconfigured. I just prefer the default keyboard controls with PG UP/DOWN for looking up/down and such (which I admit is hard to do on a laptop without numpad and having to hold the Fn button), though thankfully autoaim helps a lot in most situations, so it's not like I have to do a lot of looking up/down other than hitting switches in harder to reach places.

Also I'm actually going to do something different this time around. I won't vote for LR&WB since I decided it's better if it gets chosen in October or November, makes a bit more sense due to mood I guess and in November it's my birthday and when Atomic Edition came out (I think Atomic Edition came out right on my 1st Birthday), so it makes sense to have such a mod being played at that time, if not, there is enough time next year for other popular entries.

And as for the other two entries, I'm not sure what to vote between Duke Hard and Taivo's maps, instead I'm going to submit something else entirely: SHADOW WARRIOR!
That's right, I will vote for fellow BUILD Engine game! I talked a while ago with Aleks in a PM about the possibility of playing other BUILD games/expansions for the club (or even Duke3D at some later point, probably in January) and I think Shadow Warrior won't be too bad of a bad choice for next month. There are two reasons I voted for Shadow Warrior:
1) Today is the 24th anniversary of Shadow Warrior Registered Version 1.2 (not sure if Shareware 1.2 came on same day) as evidenced by SW.GRP being dated 25/08/1997 but also when the SW CD (USA version) was created.
2) In September 1997 was when Shadow Warrior Registered actually shipped and released in stores, much like how in case of Duke3D, the full version may have been initially released on 19th April 1996 (as evidenced by game data files) but the game itself shipped next month on 5th May if I'm not mistaken.

So I think it makes perfect sense for Shadow Warrior, especially since not too long ago I restarted SW on No Pain No Gain and I just finished shareware episode once again last week. As I originally started a NPNG playthrough in summer of 2018 (probably around end of July/August) but gave up on Level 6 as I was really bored of the game, as much as I like the gameplay, the level design (especially in second episode) is a bit underwhelming in my opinion. I hope to give it another try (from a fresh start, with shareware episode already done) and also play through expansions (In 2018-2019, I only played/finished Twin Dragon, as well as 3 mods created by ProAsm, I mean TaiWang, Lo Nukem and Rampage Warrior). However, this time around for the club, I'm only suggesting the Base Game and I think it will be a nice surprise or a change from usual Duke3D maps/mods suggested, as even on DW megawad club, they played through Heretic (which was my first participation in the club) back in April 2021, so we should also play through other BUILD games and see what are people's opinion.

Alright, before writing about FBSP series, let me talk about Zombie Crisis since I forgot to talk about it previous time (probably just like how Aleks forgot about Army of Death).
It is a standalone game running on JFDuke3D. I played it last year with the included outdated jfduke3d executable (from 2004 I guess, it had NETWORK GAME option in main menu for example, which is removed in the 2005 September release) on the normal difficulty and then after finishing, I replaced the executable with September 2005 JFDuke3D (which is what I use to play mid/late 2000s user maps/mods), then replayed on hard (third) difficulty.
There isn't much to talk about it, just VERY repetitive and not much fun, just an experimental mod I'd say. You have a handgun with infinite ammo (reads 99 ammo) and eventually find a chainsaw with infinite "ammo" as well (press 0 to select it, then press 2 to switch back to pistol). Keep your distance from the zombies and you should be fine. Health is scarce and comes in form of 30 health pickups, the most common health pickup found in original Duke3D as well.
Oddly enough, I remember dying once in very first level on the first playthrough, when I got surrounded by two zombies in the maze (after I got the chainsaw) and wasn't too far away from exit, so I had to restart the level and lost 5 minutes of progress because of that shit. After that I haven't died anymore as the gameplay is easy enough that anyone should be able to get through this just fine.
Speaking of zombies, like in Army of Death case, there's only two variants, the main common variant and a boss variant with lots of health at end of last level, that turns into bat (???) and spawns more normal zombies.
I haven't tried playing on hardest difficulty to see if zombies respawn or it's just more zombies but I remember the mod takes like 30+ minutes to complete the entire episode.
I don't remember if there's any secrets to find (probably none) but there's a level (fourth level I think?) where two zombies seemed impossible to find and kill, at least that's why I was missing two kills at end of level.
There were also a bunch of test maps in original release, as well as an unused Basement map (that is fully completable) and there's an user map by Quakis that is only found in the Addon Compilation version. So I recommend this time around to play through the Addon Compilation version in EDuke32 which includes the user map and Basement as bonus levels, while removing the pointless test maps.

Alright, let's begin talking about FBSP series!

FBSP001
Here we have a snowy tech base type of level and I will say that it looks pretty good, I really like the snowy theme. Gameplay wise, it could have been slightly better, due to the rather lack of health supplies in first half but at least this time around I did the map without dying (and don't think I dropped below 40-50), when compared to my older playthroughs in EDuke32, back in 2010 or so when I used to die at trip mine trap or getting killed by pig cops.
I also noticed the map uses the music from first level of Hexen, which sounds similar to how sounds in Hexen in DOS. This isn't the first time (or maybe it was? if this map released before Duke VS AOD mod) they used first level song from Heretic in third level of Duke Nukem VS Army of Death. However in that case the music sounded slightly differently than it sounded in Heretic in DOS.
I found that interesting to point out, it's not often you hear Heretic and Hexen music being used in Duke3D maps/mods, although they are often used in many community Doom megawads.
I don't think it's necessary to write a walkthrough (and same goes to FBSP002 and FBSP003), so I will just point out the essentials.
Oddly enough, the series are numbered as 001 to 003, implying there might have been planned at least 100 maps or so. :P I mean I'm sure the maps could have been named FBSP01 or FBSP1 and no one would have noticed but I just found this interesting to point out. Just another nitpick (like with SAS being named Mylev.map). :P
Overall, good map, I liked how clean it looked.

FBSP002: XXX-Stacy's Video Productions
Quite possibly the best map in the series, this one is a remake of E4L7: XXX-Stacy and it really nails the classic feeling! Very clean level design and it is quite action packed as well (with two mini battlelords acting as bosses at end), though much like with first level, combat can be a bit cramped at times, though at least health seems better distributed. It contains two secrets as well this time around (armor located at beginning inside a building, shells and atomic health inside the poster on the bedroom with the women). It comes with a midi from one of E4 levels as well, giving it an even further E4 feeling. :P Overall, excellent map!

FBSP003: City Under Siege
Another interesting map, this one is very action packed and health seems rather scarce, now I wish there was a water fountain somewhere, though at least I didn't die, I don't think I dropped below 40 health but still, it was quite tense at times, especially when the Mini Battlelords showed up, though I think eating a commander rocket early on (when getting stuck in the corner of the door while running) was what made the map seem a bit harder.
Like with first map, there's no secrets to find. Maybe the atomic health (only one present in level) was meant to be a secret.
Interestingly, this map's exit leads to E1L7: Faces of Death from original game. If you have enough health, give it a try and try killing those Mini Battlelords in E1L7 with a better arsenal than just starting with pistol. This is the only map that sent me to E1L7 from original game, normally user maps end by warping you to next non-existent map or restart the map (if nuke button has non-zero pal) or even restart the episode (in original executables at least) if ended within a sector. ;) I think I forgot to get rid of those babes (when getting last card), so I didn't actually get all kills, I will load my save next time I get back on my laptop.
Overall, good map, felt a lot more epic than previous entries but I still think FBSP002 is the best due to how clean it looked.

Next week I will tackle the remaining maps, hopefully before the end of the month. I didn't feel like writing as much as I wanted for FBSP series, unfortunately, so the description might sound generic at times but hopefully the screenshots will make up for that.

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This post has been edited by FistMarine: 25 August 2021 - 03:13 AM

3

User is offline   Aleks 

#16

This month has been quite messy overall with all these forgotten mods :P Alright, let's start the voting for September - I will add Shadow Warrior. Next person who votes, please copy the whole list along with votes already casted and add your + to it.

Voting for September edition:

1) Taivo's maps
2) Duke Hard +
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases
4) Shadow Warrior +
2

User is offline   Merlijn 

#17

Tiavo deserves to get his turn after being included in the poll for the 3rd time. On the other hand, Duke Hard is also a good option. So added a vote for both.

1) Taivo's maps +
2) Duke Hard + +
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases
4) Shadow Warrior +
1

User is online   ck3D 

#18

1) Taivo's maps ++
2) Duke Hard + +
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases
4) Shadow Warrior +

Added a vote to Taivo's maps for the reason Merlijn mentioned and also because that's something I might actually try and play, feel free to disregard my vote though seeing as no matter how hard I try I realistically never seem to find the time for Dod of the Month besides commenting.
1

User is offline   MetHy 

#19

I love FBSP002 and FBSP003. They have such clean texturing and architecture, where the two seem simple yet go in hand in hand perfectly. It's a bit hard to describe but the word sleek comes close. It looks simple but coming up with design like that really isn't, you need to have a keen eye for dimensions and respect the textures, all the floor and ceilings are at the precise page up/down they should be, not one less or one more, and the textures at the perfect repeat they should be. It's one of those "less is more" cases but I consider "less" harder to pull off, I am more impressed with 002 and 003 than with 001 which felt just another "I can be Bob Averill too" and it's good that Fakir went out of that phase quickly to find his style.

003 probably suffers a little due to not having one central theme, unlike 002 though, but the gunplay is good.

DM_Ducts is probably the best DM map ever made with Build, it may be confusing to play and take time to learn the map at first, but once that's out of the way it plays great and makes great use of Build's non euclydian layout possibilities at the service of gameplay.

This post has been edited by MetHy: 26 August 2021 - 04:26 AM

2

#20

Zombie Crisis:
I tend to be more interested in TCs and mods than just maps in general so I was drawn to this one first. (DukeVR might be interesting, but I didn't feel like futzing around with something that wasn't Eduke)
That was a mistake.
I was going to make some epic post making comparisons to Last Rites in places, but honestly, it doesn't really deserve the effort. Arcade-style conversion or not, this is incredibly boring. Maybe its running poorly in Eduke, but if it is, why are there only two weapons, and no ammo pickups? There are two enemies in the entirety of this, the zombie I kill about 500 times, and the winged boss thing that flies around and spawns zombies. In either event all that ever happens is I see enemies, I hold down the fire button until the enemies are dead, walk forward down the simple level design, and repeat for about 30 minutes. At no point do enemies really flank me, even during the apartment level where I was afraid that they would. There are no secrets, and the only weapon besides an infinite ammo pistol is an infinite ammo chainsaw that deals more damage but is melee. Its just boring.
Even if this was made for a PSP port as I've read, I wouldn't have found it very interesting except in a case of absolute desperation. I hope that didn't involve manually pressing the attack button each time you wanted to attack. I shudder to think about that.
1

User is offline   LakiSoft 

#21

1) Taivo's maps ++
2) Duke Hard + + +
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases
4) Shadow Warrior +

DukeHard feels like official expansion to me.
3

User is offline   quakis 

#22

Just adding a fifth option as a mild reminder for future monthly threads / voting periods. I'm not certain on what or whom at the moment, but it would be nice to mix it up a little to highlight lesser known releases/authors somewhere down the road and this option exists to keep that on mind.

1) Taivo's maps ++
2) Duke Hard + + +
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases
4) Shadow Warrior +
5) Lesser known releases/authors +
3

User is offline   Aleks 

#23

View Postquakis, on 30 August 2021 - 06:46 PM, said:

Just adding a fifth option as a mild reminder for future monthly threads / voting periods. I'm not certain on what or whom at the moment, but it would be nice to mix it up a little to highlight lesser known releases/authors somewhere down the road and this option exists to keep that on mind.

1) Taivo's maps ++
2) Duke Hard + + +
3) Last Reaction and Water Bases
4) Shadow Warrior +
5) Lesser known releases/authors +


I do believe this is a good option and as I have proposed somewhere earlier, it could be something like "Someone presents", where someone would just choose like 7-10 more obscure/lesser known maps to play and discuss for that month. We can try this out at the October.

Tomorrow I will start a new thread for September.
2

User is offline   Aleks 

#24

Seems Duke Hard won the voting, so that's what we'll be playing in September!

Anyway, to wrap up this month, I've played Driving Home for Christmas by Highwire. Don't want to sound rude, but this was one of the more annoying levels I've played in a while, mostly due to blocked sprite trees everywhere and invisible walls. The map itself has a nice premise - it's basically a long, linear sneaky snake through snowy landscapes and lots of pig cops/troopers (we won't be encountering anything else besides them and a single tank on our way), we basically get a lot of weapons at the start (although I missed the RPG - backtracked the level when I was about to finish, because it did feel a bit too linear and there it was sitting almost right at the start. This might also be one of the reasons why I've found the combat so annoying here), but the blocked/hitscanning trees kinda kill the fun, especially when troopers can shoot through them and you gotta closely watch pig cops hitboxes.

The design is very basic, there's a super deep hole about halfway through the map, where the troopers might get stuck, other than that it's just snow, ice, trees and ledges. The final part of the level is a small town, which has very few houses, including Duke's one, where his wife is waiting with Christmas dinner. The new art used for trees is a bit sketchy, it has (almost?) fullbright green pixels here and there and clashes a bit with Duke's art. However, the falling snow works well and surprisingly doesn't lag/crash the game. All in all, the map takes about 10-15 minutes and it's a no-brainer really. Seems the visibility is bumped a little, so at least we're not fighting invisible enemies in the shadows.
2

User is offline   FistMarine 

#25

Since the month has ended, I might as well quickly write some things I forgot previously and what I played two days ago in a desperate attempt to play everything in time. I will play the following mods: DukeVR, C&C, Sunburn and City Terror sometime these days and hopefully Friday I will wrap up things with a final post before I begin playing the winner next week. I'm sorry for being so late this time but let's hope I will make up for this by playing through Duke Hard FOUR times (all 4 versions, in the latest 2015, 2016 and 2018 builds of EDuke32), as it seems Duke Hard won and now I have to carefully choose the EDuke32 build that also works with the mod. I will be playing through all 4 versions with the chosen EDuke32 builds (r5498 for DH versions 1.0 and 1.1, r5974 for DH version 1.2 and r7299 for DH version 1.2.1) and hopefully everything will work fine, if not, I will note down what is broken. I may or may not post screenshots of every map from every playthrough. :D

To add on the previous post, I forgot to mention previously that FBSP003 uses a midi from ROTT which is nice and suits the action perfectly! Though I still forgot to get rid of those babes and explore Faces of Death but for now I will add some screenshots from the Army of Death mod that I mentioned previously. And yes if anyone is wondering, I killed all skeletons (don't think there were any secrets other than an unmarked atomic health in first level), so I'm just posting screens of each level and the ending "cutscene" you get which is a modified E2 cutscene. ;)

And finally, I will talk about TWO user maps that each have new art and music included.

Tropical Alien Massacre
This seems like a Caribbean inspired map, perfect time to play just before the summer ends! I really liked the way things looked, though I also found the map a little bit tough. After a nice start with minimal damage (though I ignore those 4 octas for later, along with slimer eggs, for when I was better equipped), it seems nearly every enemy managed to hit me and this kept me mostly around 50% or so health at times, probably as low as 30% sometimes. Thankfully I didn't die but it was surely annoying to get ambushed by 4 or so enforcers from behind, sniped by pig cops on ledges (though not always), get hit perfectly by a commander's two rockets (after I had gotten two atomic healths at 58 health as I needed them but then ended up with 89 health after that, such a waste!) and even accidentally picking up an armor from trash can when I didn't need (so I loaded save in that last case), it seems a lot of things went wrong during playing, YET I still managed to succeed just fine without dying. I eventually got that secret place in the garage that contained medkit. There was also lots of chaingun ammo around that I didn't get to use much. At the end of the map, there is a Battlelord boss that I was able to kill just fine with a combination of Devastators, RPG and Freezethrower, even a bit of shotgun and chaingun. I killed him about 3 times in different ways, first one or two times on the bar (last room you visit before he spawns) and then another one or two times from running to the garage that you open with red key. Also I noticed there was no Shrinker to be found on the map, unless I missed it somewhere, as I found every other weapon.
Overall, this was a pretty sweet map and apparently it's included in Sunburn as well, though as second map if I'm not mistaken, since it ends with the Battlelord. This means it will be played again soon, maybe later today. :D

Driving Home For Christmas
Now it's time for the Christmas inspired map! Unfortunately there were two things that ruined the map. The first one it seems the midi caused the game to freeze DOSBox, the exact same issue that Doom64hunter mentioned above and I was surprised to see that even vanilla Duke3D (1.5) was affected by this, as I have the Sound and Music set to Sound Blaster when I play vanilla Duke3D and this particular midi was incompatible with Sound Blaster and caused Duke3D to simply freeze at ENTERING USER MAP. Thankfully I realized quickly what happened, so the solution was to either delete the midi and let play dethtoll in its place or to go to SETUP.EXE and change Music to None (which is also the default option in Duke3D). I choose the latter, meaning I had to turn music off and only limit myself to hearing Duke talking and screaming, aliens grunting and weapon sounds. :P
So after changing the settings and getting the map to work, now I was able to play and experience a Christmas themed map at end of summer. ;)
What do we have here? A very linear map with glitchy trees that block hitscan attacks and the health being rather scarce, which unfortunately affected me this time, though I might argue the health was barely enough to get you by, what happened later was getting bad luck to enemies at one part but I will get shortly to that part.
The difficulty was mostly on the tougher side and I got lucky early on, because despite unexpectedly getting hit by a crouching pig cop and getting left to 61 health, after getting rid of him and nearby troopers, I got an used armor that gave me 75 points and then grabbed a nearby medkit! So the early used armor from pig cop helped massively in this map, as there was an actual armor pickup much later placed in map (and funnily enough, killing one of those pig cops on ledges also dropped an used armor, though that one I couldn't reach at all), which means the early armor saved me a lot of trouble that I would have otherwise experienced in this difficult map. Being able to absorb a bit of damage per each shot helped considerably, considering the rather scarce health supplies, even if they come in form of 30 health medkits, they aren't as plentiful as one would think, EVEN if you collect them carefully (example if your health is 70 or lower and obviously don't grab both medkits placed close to each other if they are placed as such), there is still a noticeable lack of health. And as a small tip that I always do when playing Duke3D, when I come across a situation with two items placed close to each other but I only want to grab the first one (example two medkits while I'm at 67 health), then as I approach them, I just crouch or jump while standing still and Duke should grab the first one without having to move and end up with just the first item collected. This trick should work in source ports as well.
There is indeed a pig cop tank that spawns later in map but since you are given a RPG beforehand, he isn't too bad to take out. I would also recommend using RPG at times when there's a group of enemies or have to clear 2-3 pig cops that are shooting at you, just to get rid of them quickly, as you are given quite a bit of RPG ammo and even a couple pipebombs.
There is also at least one point halfway through where troopers will randomly spawn, so make sure to take them down as well.
Unfortunately, despite my careful approach and having played this map a few times (though at Let's Rock, while this time I played on CGS) a decade ago in EDuke32, I still managed to die once this time around. It seems I got really bad luck near end (on area with the pit) because there was that point where some troopers behind a fence or trees were able to shoot me while I couldn't see them. I made the mistake to try killing them but then I ran out and grabbed health and ended up taking a lot of damage by those troopers and pig cops from far away, which unfortunately led to Duke dying. Damn! It looks like the aliens stole the Christmas. Alternative title: How The Aliens Stole The Christmas. :lol: There is also a screenshot of where I died this time around, which is quite unusual as I don't usually post screenshots of how or where I died, this time I make an exception.
Reloading the save, I end up clearing the next area with 53 health (also at same time one pig cop dropped another used armor this time around, which I grabbed at end of level since I still had the full armor I just grabbed a bit earlier) and it makes me wonder why did I take so much damage in previous attempt, how I had that bad luck but this time I barely got shot? Then I ended up reaching the town, I had a few difficulties with some pig cops shooting me but thankfully they didn't do too much damage or that surprise killing on my last 40 or so health that they sometimes/rarely do, so upon grabbing the two medkits (last health in the level) and getting rid of all troopers, I ended up with 96 health and all aliens killed. I think there wasn't any enemy that remained in the pit because I had 0 enemies missing at end of level and I definitely remember killing them as soon as they were falling into pit. In situations like these I always make sure to kill the enemies before they drop down, though sometimes I have the bad luck and make an enemy inaccessible. Even with the pipebombs, it is hard to guess where the enemy is. I guess I could just dive into the pit, just to take a look if there is any leftover alien, though maybe another time when I take a look at my saved games. And forgot to mention, there are no secrets to be found, so don't look for them!
Overall, this was a cool map (pun intended) and I just wish it was better balanced and offered the Freezethrower at least instead of just E1 arsenal, to fit the Christmas theme. Plus there were no inventory items at all, not even a portable medkit? Come on. :P

I hope to finish the remaining mods soon enough, before I begin playing Duke Hard starting with next week. I guess I will be doing a version weekly in order to fit the time, though once again if I end up being late like in this case, it won't be a problem if I post just a few days after the month has ended, right? ;)

EDIT: Forgot to mention talking about the DM maps, I forgot to download/install them once again, I guess I won't be talking about them if I ever get around them as the month has already passed and I'm quite exhausted and already doing my best to finish the remaining stuff. It has been a messier month than the previous and I hope Duke Hard won't be too stressing, unless some weird bugs/glitches might happen in the versions I will play.

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This post has been edited by FistMarine: 31 August 2021 - 10:55 PM

3

User is offline   FistMarine 

#26

Time to wrap up the month's entries. I didn't play City Terror and the Deathmatch maps and I think I had enough, honestly. I will write up about Sunburn, C&C TC (unfinished) and DukeVR.

Sunburn

It includes a new map (Wet Dream) as the first level, while the previous Tropical Alien Massacre is the second level. I played through both maps (CGS skill as usual) and indeed TAM is easier with the arsenal from previous level but still a bit tricky at times. Having the medkit from previous level really helps!
I liked the various references to Alejandro's Mapping Center and its members (Oostrum Brothers, etc) that were mentioned in the map. I think it's pretty cool they made a tribute map to the Duke community at that time.
Gameplay wise, it's nice as well. I only wish the two armor pickups weren't given a bit late and also located close to another, I could have used some armor earlier, especially at beginning when I got down to 35 health and had to drink water from hydrant after I secured the area. I don't have much to say other than I really enjoyed this mini episode, it is a nice Caribbean inspired mini mod, though without the Caribbean stuff included obviously. :P

Command & Conquer TC (unfinished)

This is a pack of 9 maps from the unfinished C&C TC. 5 are SP levels, 4 are DM levels. Two maps are unfinished (an empty forest/jungle themed Deathmatch map and a SP map that has 10 or so enemies and no exit). They are simply played as user maps, though there exists a version included in the addon compilation which allows the finished levels to be played as an episode.
I will talk about each and how most of the SP levels were quite frustrating due to massive lack of health and also being a bit confusing at times. Note that the DM levels are C&C04-C&C07, while rest are SP levels with enemies.

C&C01 - The first level which doesn't seem very difficult, though I lost quite a bit of health near end due to my stupidity of breaking those barrels and thinking that dark vent (that seemed unreachable) might hold something inside but instead it was inaccessible and yes I had to lure a trooper which resulted in at least 30 or more damage and he often wouldn't cooperate. The other vent (accessible by climbing on stairs) holds the red card and in same room you can find a yellow card in a box (which took a while to hold). The blue card was hidden behind a pushable box in another room. All 3 cards are necessary to progress.
There are two secrets to find, first secret is easily found by crouching in a hole, second secret is hard to find and had to look in Mapster to find it. It is found in the room with lava. I died twice trying to access it by jumping into its place (though this happened after I initially finished the level without any deaths) which made me fall into inescapable lava and die until I realized you had to push to lower wall and then jump into it to enter the secret. The secret contained an atomic health and an RPG (which would have been handy for the trip mine), as well as those lava fountains that I could drink just to get my health to 100.

C&C02 - The second level which was a bit more difficult as health was a lot scarcer and it kept me on toes at times, ever since an enforcer ambushed me halfway through. I died twice near end before I reached the exit, as the last pig cop killed me when I had to swim through acid just with 22 HP (after looking in mapster for what I had to do next, as well as looking for the two secrets) and when I finally made it in and shot him, the damn pig cop kills me. Reloading save, I made it safely, kill the pig cop, saved and then try exploring in the acid to look for a small health kit that I saw in mapster but somehow in game it wasn't visible at all, I guess it got dragged away by the water currents and probably got outside of level or something. Not a huge loss since I had finished the level, though the exploration costed me another death.
There are two secrets to find, one is found at beginning (contains two shell boxes) by pressing on the nearby wall (after lowering the gate) and another is found halfway through (on the area with two enforcers) that all it contains is a pistol clip. I wonder why these secrets don't contain a lot of stuff?

C&C03 - The third level which was a lot longer and more difficult with really scarce health (even when I was provided with a portable medkit and some medkits in secret areas, they all got used fast), though somehow I did it without dying but it wasn't an easy task as I finished it with 12 HP and I had MANY moments where I just killed a pig cop just as he was about to shoot me. At the exit room with commanders and troopers, I was lucky one of the commanders shoot in wall/door and killed all those troopers in the room, so all was left is to take the last commander and the map was done! It was quite epic to survive the last rooms with just 12 HP (the armor doesn't count in this case, as a single trooper laser may have been enough to kill me) but it's not often you see this successful moment, especially on the original executable and with keyboard only controls. The map also contains 5 secrets, though I'm not going to write how and where to find each, you will most likely get them during gameplay. I just wish the armor was given earlier, as having full or almost full armor near end doesn't do much when your health is 50 or lower. The only thing that saved me was getting an early used armor (75 points) from a pig cop, which eventually ran out later in map. I can't imagine this map being possible if I wasn't given that random used armor, it would have most likely turned into save/load spam later in level until clearing rooms without damage, though thankfully that wasn't the case and with the fact I survived all the fights and had many close calls, I will be a bit more forgiving this time.

C&C04 - The first DM level, which is base themed and has 3 floors.

C&C05 - The second DM level and the only unfinished DM map, it is a forest themed map with no items placed.

C&C06 - The third DM level, which is a short map with a bridge in middle.

C&C07 - The fourth DM level, which is another base themed level.

C&C08 - The fourth SP level, which was very frustrating, I don't think I remember exact amount of deaths (probably 5 or so) but I remember how confusing and annoying it was. Even at beginning I got stuck, had to look in Mapster to find out there is a bush that hides the entrance to a vent that unlocks main gate. Minutes later, I get stuck again and must look in mapster to see I had to shoot at a button to disable that forcefield. Minutes later I get stuck again for another reason. Minutes later I get stuck yet again and find out I had to shoot ANOTHER switch, this time to raise the elevator with me into the vent. As for the gameplay, it was annoying from near beginning until near end. I spent most of time with low health once I entered the base and had to fight many red troopers and pig cops with just the pistol! Not fun! I eventually got a dropped shotgun and had like 1 HP left. I get killed once or twice by a pig cop and then twice by a trooper (what do you expect when you have just 1 health?) and eventually get health and make my way towards this hell of a level. Things start getting better later on but the constant interruptions make this map really tedious whenever I'm missing something and have to go back or check in mapster or something. There is a mini battlelord at end that can be killed with just the shotgun since there's so much shotgun ammo lying around, you won't have to worry about running out of ammo. There is also a helicopter waiting for you, so just jump carefully (and hope you have enough health because there is a fall that may damage you) and eventually you should make it!
There are 3 secrets to find, one is a large medkit in a vent, one is an atomic health with RPG (jump over fence when you reach the woods, at bottom of that building) and one is another large medkit while doing dangerous platforming. I found the last two after I finished the map with just 22 HP and had to backtrack. The extra health would have been nicer a bit earlier but at least the last part wasn't as bad as I thought.

C&C09 - The fifth SP level, which is also the unfinished one and contains no secrets. Thankfully this one wasn't painful at all (literally) since I took no damage and I even got an used armor (50) from a pig cop, which was nice, though useless this time around. There is also a protector drone to be found near end. Unfortunately, there is no exit, so once you reach the end, save and then quit. Congrats! You finished the unfinished C&C TC! :D
Overall, it was an interesting unfinished set of maps but nothing outstanding in my opinion and the lack of health made it a bit tougher than it should.

DukeVR

Alright, now comes the VERY painful mod, to conclude the month's series! It is a puzzle type of mod where Duke has to navigate various levels without triggering trip mines or avoiding mini battlelords and similar such challenges. There are some really great ideas and I especially liked some of its levels. But most levels (especially later on) weren't very fun and they turned into save/load spam and even saving on multiple slots to get past a frustrating spot. I know all levels have a way to restart (example by running into RESTART hole which kills you, in levels where you would get stuck) but I preferred to play continuous and carry over my health from previous level, which kinda affected some later levels but we will get that shortly.

There are 3 episodes (and a fourth one that isn't functional by default until you provide the levels yourself), each containing 6 levels and each episode is unique in that the first is Blue themed (Easy levels), the second is Green themed (Moderate levels) and third is Red themed (Hard levels). The mod doesn't have any difficulty settings and erases all difficulties besides the second (default) skill titled DUKE VR, though I played on third anyway. ;) The mod even comes with 3 gameplay demos (one for each episode) and I recommend watching them to get familiarized with the mod and understand what is happening. There are no secrets to be found at all and each level resets your inventory, only the health carries between levels, so I hope you have plenty of health as some later levels might become impossible or rely too much on luck. Finishing the last level of each episode will just restart the episode, so there's no ending cutscene or whatever. I will describe each level.

BLUE MISSIONS
B1. The first level is simple, though I still managed to die once or twice. You have to navigate through trip mines and also go through the vents. Eventually you will make your way to the exit.
B2. The second level is actually even more simple, though it requires you to time your shots so that the Recon car crashes into the tripmine and then opens the exit. If you fail (as it happened first two times), there is a RESTART "button" you run into to die and then restart. I did that but then I loaded my last save. Eventually I made it through after analyzing the recon's flying pattern since sometimes it flies over that hole you need to make it crash into.
B3. The third level was actually the easiest and one of the few I did without dying. The level is actually a modified starting area of E1L1: Hollywood Holocaust. Once I jumped over the canisters and reached exit, it made me ask: "That's it?"
B4. The fourth level is a bit more tricky, as you have to avoid a Mini Battlelord that stays in middle while activating THREE switches while hiding behind a rotating pillar that is provided for cover. Took a few tries, though it's not that difficult. Eventually I made it.
B5. The fifth level wasn't too bad, I think I did in first try. You have to simply lure pig cops into trip mines and kill remaining ones with shotgun or something. That's all! Though I think I didn't grab the shotgun and had to kick one remaining pig cop that followed me to beginning.
B6. The sixth level, which is a combination of the tests you did earlier in episode. It starts with the mini battlelord challenge mentioned earlier (you know what to do now) and avoiding trip mines until the end with fighting two pig cops.

GREEN MISSIONS
G1. The only difference is some tricky trip mine jump and the fact you have to kill a trooper before it activates the trip mine. I think his corpse landed on the trip mine and had to load the save after this bad luck moment. It was quite funny honestly.
G2. You have to avoid THREE mini battlelords! After you successfully make your way through (this took few attempts), you reached the exit!
G3. This is a simple one (and did in first try). You are given a Shrinker with some extra ammo, you see the mirror, you know what to do! The only tricky part is near end which took a while to figure how to shrink myself and land on the next platform. I did by jumping while the shrink ray was going to hit me and then landed on the last part. Funnily enough I ended the level while small, which doesn't have any side effects (as in original Duke3D, you start next level normal sized).
G4. Now it's time for the...really hard levels. I like the concept but I think it was quite punishing and it didn't help I started the level with only 57 health. You are given a shotgun and many shells, you must kill pig cops quickly while they get revealed and be careful to not hit any canisters, on top of killing them quickly before they cross tripmines AND survive their shots if they shoot. It took me like 20 attempts and it was quite frustrating and I had a backup save to restart level (with same health) once I messed up. I even wonder if this level is possible on Damn I'm Good? As I was planning to replay DukeVR on DIG at a later time. OK I eventually made it with 19 health, as the exit gets revealed after surviving the last door. I also didn't realize the doors were numbered, I just noticed that when I look in Mapster right now.
G5. Finally, things get easier. You have to lure ONE pig cop into the trip mine just like the 5th level of blue episode. First try done as well. That's all!
G6. And as previously, this level is combination of all previous levels of the episode, which includes a shrinking puzzle as well. Though this time there's no Mini Battlelords, instead it's a commander you have to lure to shoot a rocket into a cracked wall. Too bad I died once because of the rocket's explosion (that's what happens when you have low health), could have been done flawlessly. Ah well. At least the level wasn't difficult.

RED MISSIONS
R1. This is a simple map that just requires jumping, though the last jump requires strafe jumping. I didn't make the jumps halfway through and the last one, so I had to enter RESTART and die, then load the save since I realize I could have loaded save, but I prefer to keep it fair and let player dying in these cases. Other than that, this level isn't too bad. It's interesting to note it had no trip mines, just jumping.
R2. This is the infamous map with the pipebombs and stacking them on top of each other in order to blow up the barrel that opens the exit. This was reportedly broken in source ports recently (alongside difficulty names causing Rednukem to crash) and I'm not sure if there's source ports out there that play this mod perfectly, so this is why I played the mod in plain Atomic 1.5 executable in DOSBox. Anyway I had to look in mapster (the only map I had to look) just to see what's up with this map as I just didn't understand it at first and then realized I had to make pipebombs stack on top of each other, though it wouldn't always work, only sometimes if I didn't stay too close. It took a few attempts (if I used all pipebombs, I went to RESTART and then load save) but it wasn't too bad once you figure out.
R3. This was quite a hard one that combines avoiding tripmines with avoiding a trooper in middle of map (or else he activates the explosions) and even an underwater section that makes you hurry in order to avoid losing too much health from drowning. I'm not sure how you were supposed to do the last jump as I died a lot of times by barely touching that trip mine, other times I was successful but I had to be careful as you must rush to exit while trooper will finally wake up. It wasn't very fun to me honest, though I wish underwater puzzles were used in other levels as well. I succeeded with 88 health (just drown damage) after lots of saving/loading to try getting past that last part without damage.
R4. This was also quite tricky at times, especially avoiding the crushing platforms at beginning. After you successfully made in (took quite a bit of tries as well), avoid a bunch of trip mines and exit is right around corner!
R5. Similar to that one Green map, you have to kill a bunch of pig cops (11) quickly before they cross the trip mines. Easier said than done. Though it wasn't as difficult as the one from Green episode, it was still painful. There are two small health kits that helped a bit since I finished with just 31 health, I could have saved a bit more health but I was sick from the failed attempts so far.
R6. Very frustrating map! Thankfully it's the last map. As before, it is a combination of the tests from previous levels in the episode. There were some parts I found bullshit. There was a part at beginning that was very hard to not trigger trip mines until I eventually made it in. Then in next rooms (after the crushers part), you had to cross the trip mines quickly before they get activated once they are in your sight, after that you get stuck and I saved initially until I realized and had to reload an earlier save (thankfully before the crushers part) to redo this part. Eventually you will crawl through a vent and reach the last part of the level, which was complete bullshit with just 31 health. You are given an atomic health and a small medkit before that but the problem is that there are FOUR sentry drones that you have to make blow up in your face near a crack and take about 30 damage for each. There is a sentry drone you have to lure near one of three cracks (each contain a sentry drone and a switch you have to press) and explode in your face, while simply avoiding the last one. Problem is there isn't enough health and it took a few attempts until I eventually did with 6 health and the last sentry drone blew up around corners (probably did the same for middle crack). Without these tricks, the map is impossible to complete. I mean the puzzles in general were clever but they were quite frustrating.

Overall, I think the mod had a lot of good ideas but it could have been executed better. There are 3 (or 6?) user maps included with Army of Death TC that I should play someday, along with the Army of Death user map by Quakis and well the deathmatch levels, as well as the standalone City Terror TC. All of which I failed to finish in time, as to be quite honest, I had enough.

Conclusion: A lot of interesting ideas and many beautiful maps, I just wish the gameplay was better in most of them with more health available and less cheap tricks. I think most entries are worth playing at least once. My personal favorites and stuff that is definitely worth trying out:

Driving Home For Christmas - Nice Christmas theme, though note its midi may freeze the game depending on the port and settings used.
Sunburn - Nice summer theme, two-map mini episode.
Sewers and Strippers - Nice E3 styled map, just wish it had a bit more health and the rest arsenal included in SP as well, plus remove/rework that unreachable secret by normal means.
FBSP Series - Be sure to check out the second and third maps at least!
We Store Your Crap Remix - It's quite an interesting map, I should check out the original this was based on!
Duke Nukem VS The Army of Death - An interesting experiment and short TC with 3 levels, though it gets really repetitive later on and halfway through third level, you would wish it ends eventually.
DukeVR - Another interesting experiment, though the Red episode is a bit frustrating at times, including that Green episode map with the pig cops. Save often and use several slots in order to succeed!

See you on the Duke Hard topic! :)

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  • Attached Image: C&C01_1.png
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  • Attached Image: DUKEVR_BLUE.png
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This post has been edited by FistMarine: 06 September 2021 - 03:40 AM

2

User is offline   NNC 

#27

View PostMetHy, on 26 August 2021 - 04:26 AM, said:

I love FBSP002 and FBSP003. They have such clean texturing and architecture, where the two seem simple yet go in hand in hand perfectly. It's a bit hard to describe but the word sleek comes close. It looks simple but coming up with design like that really isn't, you need to have a keen eye for dimensions and respect the textures, all the floor and ceilings are at the precise page up/down they should be, not one less or one more, and the textures at the perfect repeat they should be. It's one of those "less is more" cases but I consider "less" harder to pull off, I am more impressed with 002 and 003 than with 001 which felt just another "I can be Bob Averill too" and it's good that Fakir went out of that phase quickly to find his style.

003 probably suffers a little due to not having one central theme, unlike 002 though, but the gunplay is good.

DM_Ducts is probably the best DM map ever made with Build, it may be confusing to play and take time to learn the map at first, but once that's out of the way it plays great and makes great use of Build's non euclydian layout possibilities at the service of gameplay.


FBSP002 has a central theme, but it was a central theme already used once in the original game, and like 1000 times in user levels. There was very little creativity in that map. It looked clean, but it lacked punch. I usually don't like maps which try to reinvent the wheel.

FBSP003 is much much better IMHO. Actually it has a central theme, a superior version of Warzone, and while it had some typical usermappy progress, the outer locations were mightily impressive and memorable.

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to say, I like FBSP001 too. It looks really interesting with it's blue/winter theme.

This post has been edited by The Watchtower: 06 September 2021 - 04:34 AM

1

User is offline   Aleks 

#28

View PostFistMarine, on 06 September 2021 - 03:35 AM, said:

R3. This was quite a hard one that combines avoiding tripmines with avoiding a trooper in middle of map (or else he activates the explosions) and even an underwater section that makes you hurry in order to avoid losing too much health from drowning. I'm not sure how you were supposed to do the last jump as I died a lot of times by barely touching that trip mine, other times I was successful but I had to be careful as you must rush to exit while trooper will finally wake up. It wasn't very fun to me honest, though I wish underwater puzzles were used in other levels as well. I succeeded with 88 health (just drown damage) after lots of saving/loading to try getting past that last part without damage.

Agree with the finish in this one being quite bullshit.

Quote

R5. Similar to that one Green map, you have to kill a bunch of pig cops (11) quickly before they cross the trip mines. Easier said than done. Though it wasn't as difficult as the one from Green episode, it was still painful. There are two small health kits that helped a bit since I finished with just 31 health, I could have saved a bit more health but I was sick from the failed attempts so far.

Funny thing: if you don't grab the chaingun in this one, you can just calmly press all the switches, then step on the touchplate with chaingun, which will release the pig cops and open the final door. You can just avoid the enemies this way, I think that was the intended, a bit trolling idea here.

Quote

R6. Very frustrating map! Thankfully it's the last map. As before, it is a combination of the tests from previous levels in the episode. There were some parts I found bullshit. There was a part at beginning that was very hard to not trigger trip mines until I eventually made it in. Then in next rooms (after the crushers part), you had to cross the trip mines quickly before they get activated once they are in your sight, after that you get stuck and I saved initially until I realized and had to reload an earlier save (thankfully before the crushers part) to redo this part. Eventually you will crawl through a vent and reach the last part of the level, which was complete bullshit with just 31 health. You are given an atomic health and a small medkit before that but the problem is that there are FOUR sentry drones that you have to make blow up in your face near a crack and take about 30 damage for each. There is a sentry drone you have to lure near one of three cracks (each contain a sentry drone and a switch you have to press) and explode in your face, while simply avoiding the last one. Problem is there isn't enough health and it took a few attempts until I eventually did with 6 health and the last sentry drone blew up around corners (probably did the same for middle crack). Without these tricks, the map is impossible to complete. I mean the puzzles in general were clever but they were quite frustrating.

This would be a lot better if provided with health refill earlier on. Although I don't remember the part of avoiding the tripmines before they activate, so I think I used another method to pass this one.

As for FBSP maps, FBSP001 is my favourite, mostly due to the aesthetics (as IIRC it was super linear). The other two maps seemed quite generic IMO, especially due to the interiors having little sense of location with the restricted texture choices.
2

User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#29

Sorry for the necropost. With the ongoing harddrive issues my play options are limited. I had most of these downloaded back when this made the rounds, and I decided to play them while I had the chance. I missed them back then due to being simply busy. Figured I may as well post my thoughts, even if they are super late.

Sorry.


With that out of the way, let's start with Tropical Alien Massacre. Specifically the version in Sun Burn since that's what I ended up getting.

Turns out I was completely mistaken. The level that was in Nuclear Showdown was actually the Sun Burn level, that is with its real name, Wet Dream. Looking at the screenshots though, I think I can be forgiven for thinking they were the same. I didn't realize WD was basically a sequel (prequel?). WD is I think the better of the pair, but TAM is still pretty solid. WD is more intricate and has slightly better balancing I think, but I still liked TAM. I especially like the pier area and the meticulously drawn shadows, for whatever reason.


DHFC is a map that already has a permanent home in my collection, as I always play it when I play through everything vanilla, paired with Nuclear Winter. It's linear to a fault, has sight lines that are too open and leads to some unbalanced encounters, but damnit it's just really charming and somehow still hits the christmas atmosphere well.


FBSP1 is BobSP1 except you kill things in it. Pretty tough; a bit lopsided in some places with how claustrophobic the environments are (and also one really mean cheapbomb trap). Still scraped by saveless.

FBSP2 is more interesting. It's closer to a proper remake of XXX-Stacy than X3 Studios was, though it still is very much its own thing that doesn't really match the progression or layout of the original. I say that neither as a critique nor a compliment; merely a statement of fact. So with that in mind, I looked at this level as a standalone experience. By that metric, I would say it's probably an improvement over FBSP1. Visually it's more classic, though the lighting is definitely more flat compared to its inspiration. As a result of the classic bend we of course lost the eye-candy of its predecessor, but for the style it was going for that's to be expected. I don't hold it against the map. Gameplay was a marked improvement, with the wider corridors giving you a chance to actually not get minced into pieces when you poke your toe out.

If FBSP1 was BobSP and FBSP2 was vanilla, then FBSP3 is... FBSP3. It doesn't really have a direct source of inspiration I don't think, at least not one I could detect. It went for a city in the midst of a war, and....yeah that's exactly what it is. The combat certainly was the spiciest of the bunch, with you basically making slow advancements down the street just to get to the next building as you get swarmed. Sometimes maybe too slow; unless I missed a secret RPG or shrinker somewhere, shotgunning half a dozen commanders at once definitely got tedious after a while. It wasn't the hardest thing in the world or anything; just slow. Still, that aside, I liked the streetwar aspect, and none of the encounters felt like a big "screw you," which I appreciate. Hard, but not requiring you to die to progress.


DukeVR - I didn't actually download it this round, but I do give it a play every few years, usually once I've forgotten most of the solutions. Just a shame it's pretty much broken in eDuke now...I absolutely enjoy the more puzzle bend to Duke 3D, and the recent Conundrum episode helped scratch that itch a bit. Hope we see more maps like this at some point.

Zombie Crisis - I forgot to grab it. Whoops. Oh well, I am planning on visiting a bunch of Duke TCs I never played (or at least never beat) before at some point, and I guess this can just be another one on the pile.


And finally,

Night and Day - I had played this on my own a mere like two months or so before this Club edition, just because I had to see it. Wasn't disappointed, and the fact that the streetlamps actually turn on at night, perfectly syncing with the sky still amazes me. Man I wish I could have played a proper round on this level (couldn't get even the fake multiplayer to work).


That should about cover it. Again, sorry for the necropost but I am limited in my options at the moment. At least I got to do something this month that I enjoyed.


Also,

Quote

Highwire is mostly known as an author for multiplayer TC City Terror and for his romantic relationship with a ventilator


what
4

User is online   ck3D 

#30

View PostNinety-Six, on 17 February 2022 - 04:49 AM, said:

Also,



what


Highwire just really loved his fans on AMC I remember now.
0

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