[ck3D]

The Watchtower, on 30 March 2022 - 03:42 AM, said:

I would have liked Chimera better with the classic weapons, and without the ugly (and often unfair) new yellow monster and the reuse of the water octabrain. The water octabrain looked amazing in Back to LA and the boss level, because they are both desolated thunderstorm levels, but they made very little sense in maps like Mother Base. And yeah, Frozen was terrible. Also the city level in the end made no sense progression wise, despite being very good on the looks.

Crap, I meant to upvote you for your thorough consideration for monster placement always but my trackpad slipped, sorry about that. Wish this website had a way to revert rep.

I sound like a broken record at this point but I really need to try those episodes sometime, they're pretty high up there on my to-do list. Love how the new .art recycles some of the trademark Duke textures just in different colorways (that's actually smart), and the new monsters/miniboss shtick sounds similar to part of what I'm doing with Blast Radius, so I wonder how much of an overlap. Whole idea of putting a fresh twist on the familiar instead of trying so hard to reinvent the wheel sounds great.

[Aleks]

Big City Nights - the first thing about this one I've noticed is that I used the same music track for the briefing levels in Back in Business, now at least I can give a proper credit to the author However, this version seems to be a bit longer than the one I used in BiB with some additional part - or maybe I just don't remember correctly, since I put it in very short maps. Anyway, the level is pretty damn good - especially the design stands out, it's much more detailed and mature kind of city map than anything we've seen in Last Reaction. Not sure about the progression, maybe it was supposed to be later in the episode, but the author just released what he had ready?

The detailing is very nice with some quite uncommon locations like gas station, construction site and church turned into an arena of satanistic ritual. However, the real highlight of the level is the club, which looks really cool, kinda reminds me of Malibu Club in GTA Vice City, which is always a great thing. There's some nice shooting through openwork walls from the gallery to the club's interior, which has about 30 enemies - pig cops and troopers - stacked inside. While it's cool to blow all of them with explosives, they are kinda sitting ducks there and the whole thing is pretty cramped in the end. However, there's some even more cramped places, especially the first (quite unnecessary IMO) alleywall after emerging from the sewer, which is basically a "maze" with hitscanners jumping at you.

Although the level does feel dark, it's not as bad as in some earlier maps and doesn't really cause problems with fights. As FistMarine, the only problematic area for me was the secret place inside the church, which stupidly welcomes you with spam from the yellow aliens - I've also used devastator to deal with them. Other than that, the map is pretty fair and has a nice variety of monsters, even Lameduke octabrains are put to good use in the final part where they are kinda scary emerging from the dark. The whole style of city would remind a bit of Alpha City with these bright windows, unfortunately here these weren't made fullbright, so it's a bit pointless. Nevertheless, it's another very good map - too bad it's the last one.

Now to conclude the episode, here's my rating of the maps:

Twilight for the Drones 7/10
Frozen 1/10
Green Crystals 7/10
Mountain Lab 7/10
Natural Carnage 8/10
The Mother Base 9/10
Big City Nights 7/10

Despite Frozen being complete bullshit (probably should end up as a secret level), I'd say this episode was much better and more consistent than either LR or WB. It's too bad it was unfinished, probably even the finished maps would benefit a lot from more beta-testing and polishing. Glad I finally got to play it, was well worth the time and kinda rewarding after LRWB, which honestly dragged a bit too much.

[NNC]

ck3D, on 30 March 2022 - 09:22 AM, said:

Crap, I meant to upvote you for your thorough consideration for monster placement always but my trackpad slipped, sorry about that. Wish this website had a way to revert rep.

I sound like a broken record at this point but I really need to try those episodes sometime, they're pretty high up there on my to-do list. Love how the new .art recycles some of the trademark Duke textures just in different colorways (that's actually smart), and the new monsters/miniboss shtick sounds similar to part of what I'm doing with Blast Radius, so I wonder how much of an overlap. Whole idea of putting a fresh twist on the familiar instead of trying so hard to reinvent the wheel sounds great.

Now you got one in return. XD

[ck3D]

Radar's last reaction to Last Reaction:

[ReaperAA]

Yeah I know I am very late into this (due to IRL stuff), but I just completed the last reaction episode and going to start Water Bases now (for which I am excited as I enjoyed the last 2 maps for Last Reaction). Anyways i'll continue my brief reviews of last reaction maps

Map7: Old' LA on Ice shows much better level architecture and setting than the previous maps. I really like the submerged building setting which reminds me of Flood Zone. However, the author still hasn't quite nailed the gameplay yet. It has some flaws. First of all, I HATE the puzzle switches. What is with people adding those switch combos. If there is a 5+ switch combo, I expect to have the solution placed somewhere I can spot. The next is the issue with the few water submersion spots and the lack of scuba gears. The map could have benefitted from either more submersion spots or 1 more scuba. And last but not least is the issue of getting through the out-of-order elevator to get the blue card that I mentioned in page 3. These issues prevent it from being a great map.

Map8: Launch Base. Another mostly great map with some flaws. This map borrows heavily from Randy's maps, especially Area 51 (which happens to be my favorite E4 map). However it is kind of stingy when it comes to health, one has to be careful and the 2nd half of the map takes place in dark areas with those annoying LD drones. So I recommend to be a bit cautious and be on the lookout for secrets that would make your life somewhat easier. Also make sure to not miss the secret exit which in the room behind a big door with the 4 big lava compartments.

Secret map: Hidden Base. Nice E2 style map with the green alien aesthetics. Not much issues I can think of. The balance of this map is pretty good with fair amount of resources. Just be careful of the surprise mini-battlelord behind the blue key.

Map9: Alien Detraining. An okay map that has some flaws. I am not a fan of how "hidden" the armor pickups are, but thankfully I managed to find them and all the secrets (of which, 2 of them are inside the buildings), so I didn't have a bad time with combat. But like Fist Marine, I too got stuck due to not noticing a small green switch in the alien ship that leads to the yellow card. Also I was kind of underwhelmed that the final big door to that leads to the exit had only a couple of enemies behind it.

Map10: Great Stadium. A fantastic end to the episode. In fact it really puts the original E3 Stadium to shame. This is what a stadium map should be like. I really like reference to Hollywood Holocaust and also liked how we have to get access to the stadium's security room to open the barriers to the store, bowling alley and Duke Burger. Duke Burger obviously had strong E4L2 vibes. Once you get the yellow key, you get access to the stadium playground. Here we will face the Cycloid Emperor again. But the fight has 3 stages. First stage just brings in some weak enemies to fight. The second stage has a couple of mini-battlelords and few other stronger enemies. The stage has Cycloid making appearance along with a couple more mini-battlelords and few other stronger enemies too. Thankfully, the fight isn't too hard and I like the Duke ends up winning the match with a 3:0 score

[Ninety-Six]

The biggest flaw for me regarding the Great Stadium is how obnoxiously dark it is. In fact that's an issue that persists in and forward from Old L.A..

[Aleks]

Ninety-Six, on 27 April 2022 - 02:29 AM, said:

The biggest flaw for me regarding the Great Stadium is how obnoxiously dark it is. In fact that's an issue that persists in and forward from Old L.A..

That issue persists from much earlier, pretty much since the first level (but since the 1st and 2nd level have a lot more annoying stuff, the occassional darkness doesn't get into the spotlight (pun!)). Khaki Space I think was the worst with some completely dark areas packed with hitscanners or drones.

[ReaperAA]

Ninety-Six, on 27 April 2022 - 02:29 AM, said:

The biggest flaw for me regarding the Great Stadium is how obnoxiously dark it is. In fact that's an issue that persists in and forward from Old L.A..

Honestly, darkness wasn't really an issue for me. Though that could be because I prefer to have ambient lighting(in Raze) / visibility(in EDuke32) cranked up to maximum value.

[ck3D]

Mikko re-reviewed LRWB & Chimera, map per map: https://msdn.duke4.n...lrwbchimera.php

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 10 May 2022 - 01:53 PM, said:

Mikko re-reviewed LRWB & Chimera, map per map: https://msdn.duke4.n...lrwbchimera.php

And apparently after all these years, he's still in love with these Though rating both LR & WB the same and as high as 9 seems a bit over the top, especially while at the same time ranking much more competent - for what it is of course, so an incomplete episode - lower.

[NNC]

ck3D, on 10 May 2022 - 01:53 PM, said:

Mikko re-reviewed LRWB & Chimera, map per map: https://msdn.duke4.n...lrwbchimera.php

It's a great review, so I may contact with Mikko on Steam soon to give my praises. I miss his sarcastic posts from here.

I started replaying Chimera, but after the first four levels, I have given up as the experience wasn't very good. Probably I should have focused more on the last 3, GWB seemed to do better with those. Even Mikko said Frozen is just awful in every aspect of level design, and the other 3 maps are just random bases with average design.

[Ninety-Six]

You stopped short of the better non-base levels.