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Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 3 (Alienation)
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/kncx2an82
This time i also took couple of screenshots as well.
Duke Map/Mod of the Month Club - March 2022 "Two well-known classics for this month!"
#31 Posted 06 March 2022 - 09:07 PM
Here we go, just finished Alienated level from Water Bases episode, i must say i am very impressed. Although the level monster placement was frustating at times, mostly because of shitloads of Protector Drones, the general mixed layout that brings vibes from Critical Mass, Toxic Dump, Launch Facilty and It's Impossible were great and enjoyable combo experience. In short, this classic rules!
Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 3 (Alienation)
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/kncx2an82
This time i also took couple of screenshots as well.
Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 3 (Alienation)
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/kncx2an82
This time i also took couple of screenshots as well.
#32 Posted 07 March 2022 - 03:19 AM
Finished 3 more maps, including probably the 2 longest ones, in Last Reaction and must say this is getting better with each level.
Khaki Space took me almost 80 minutes and well, it was another quite tedious level, but at least the progression was pretty clear and towards the end, I did enjoy a bunch of puzzles and fights. Design-wise, it's still mostly large empty hallways or rooms with little to no details or trimming, also there's still a fair number of rooms so dark you can't see the tip of your gun. I liked it more than the rest of the levels so far, it still suffered from long backtracking and looking for supply stashes throughout the whole map, also some rooms with random button hunts were just very basic artificial length padding. The most annoying thing about the whole episode by now is not the lack of supplies, but the stupid amount of sentry drones behind every corner which eats through the ammo way too fast for the tier of that enemy.
Lunar Factory was slightly better (and also slightly longer in my case, not due to more enemies, but more confused layout with more backtracking) than Khaki Space. This is mostly due to more diversity and details, although it still has pointless areas like the cave maze on the moon with sentry drones everywhere or random battlelords traps. The final area was quite challenging and crazy with 2 battlelords, overlord and some new beasts/commanders, even got shrunk and stomped there once
The design was still very mediocre, with plenty of scale problems (either too large, too small or incompatible x/y and z dimensions, e.g. the apartment in the building where red key can be found is a prime example of it, very cramped and tight spaces with tall rooms and steps) and some newbie mistakes like killing sectors upon approaching the walls on the moon which later get blown. Also despite the respawns, backtracking still gets tedious as it'll often be travelling across large distances with no action.
New L.A. was probably the best level so far, it reminded me Mikko's Brave New World a lot, at least concept wise - a city in space, the supreme leader cult (no idea who this guy was here, however didn't look like Mikko to me!). Here the buildings were quite distinctive, even if the mix of hi-tech/city themes were rather meh (also when will the author learn not to connect the corner of swing doors to the adjacent wall, so it warps on opening?
). The theme and openness of the level worked quite well though, even if sentry drones once again were pretty annoying. Too bad that with transition to new level you lose all the supplies, hopefully I won't be struggling for ammo again like in the 1st level.
Khaki Space took me almost 80 minutes and well, it was another quite tedious level, but at least the progression was pretty clear and towards the end, I did enjoy a bunch of puzzles and fights. Design-wise, it's still mostly large empty hallways or rooms with little to no details or trimming, also there's still a fair number of rooms so dark you can't see the tip of your gun. I liked it more than the rest of the levels so far, it still suffered from long backtracking and looking for supply stashes throughout the whole map, also some rooms with random button hunts were just very basic artificial length padding. The most annoying thing about the whole episode by now is not the lack of supplies, but the stupid amount of sentry drones behind every corner which eats through the ammo way too fast for the tier of that enemy.
Lunar Factory was slightly better (and also slightly longer in my case, not due to more enemies, but more confused layout with more backtracking) than Khaki Space. This is mostly due to more diversity and details, although it still has pointless areas like the cave maze on the moon with sentry drones everywhere or random battlelords traps. The final area was quite challenging and crazy with 2 battlelords, overlord and some new beasts/commanders, even got shrunk and stomped there once
The design was still very mediocre, with plenty of scale problems (either too large, too small or incompatible x/y and z dimensions, e.g. the apartment in the building where red key can be found is a prime example of it, very cramped and tight spaces with tall rooms and steps) and some newbie mistakes like killing sectors upon approaching the walls on the moon which later get blown. Also despite the respawns, backtracking still gets tedious as it'll often be travelling across large distances with no action.New L.A. was probably the best level so far, it reminded me Mikko's Brave New World a lot, at least concept wise - a city in space, the supreme leader cult (no idea who this guy was here, however didn't look like Mikko to me!). Here the buildings were quite distinctive, even if the mix of hi-tech/city themes were rather meh (also when will the author learn not to connect the corner of swing doors to the adjacent wall, so it warps on opening?
). The theme and openness of the level worked quite well though, even if sentry drones once again were pretty annoying. Too bad that with transition to new level you lose all the supplies, hopefully I won't be struggling for ammo again like in the 1st level.
#33 Posted 07 March 2022 - 06:01 AM
I just finished Tower in Space level, and my impression is: wow, just wow! This level, its layout, its texture choices, are amazing! The alien theme combined with tech reminds of some levels from WG Space Episode by William Gee. What impressed me the most is new "paralex sky" texture that show Mars (or alike) planet very realistic. Hunting switches puzzles and fining keycards were also well placed. TBH, one of best Duke 3D User made content i ever played.
Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 4 (Tower in Space)
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/2ehxfza5x
Screenshots can be seen here:
Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 4 (Tower in Space)
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/2ehxfza5x
Screenshots can be seen here:
#34 Posted 07 March 2022 - 11:08 AM
Aleks, on 07 March 2022 - 03:19 AM, said:
New L.A. was probably the best level so far, it reminded me Mikko's Brave New World a lot, at least concept wise - a city in space, the supreme leader cult (no idea who this guy was here, however didn't look like Mikko to me!).
Not by coincidence. Mikko's gone on record to state his own city-on-the-moon map from BNW was directly inspired by New L.A.
#35 Posted 07 March 2022 - 11:35 AM
Ninety-Six, on 07 March 2022 - 11:08 AM, said:
Not by coincidence. Mikko's gone on record to state his own city-on-the-moon map from BNW was directly inspired by New L.A.
Yeah, he also mentioned that recently in the review of Luna One, there's also MSSP9 in similar vein. Although I believe this is still a vastly underexplored potential, personally the futuristic city in 2121AD sold the idea to me much better than these maps, would love to see (or maybe make) something similar in a grander scale and more twisted. Also there's some maps like that in The Gate, particularly Martian Red Light District, which is in itself very strongly based on a location from original Total Recall with Schwarzenegger.
Spoiler
#36 Posted 07 March 2022 - 11:31 PM
I have finished Water Bases episode. And now here is my thoughts of two last levels of this episode.
Back to L.A.
First half of this level seemed weird and bit outta place. I don't say it's bad but this city part layout reminded me something that could be found on Shovelware CDs from 1990s. This style definitely didn't fit to Water Bases episode. Second half of this level was getting better. Especially the part that was inspired by Levelord's "The Sewers Below" cut level. Along with these new additions this was good combination actually. Also what the fuck were those blue transparent variations of Octabrain? Man, these vaporized me. Also the underwater fight with Mini Alien Queen and shitloads of Slimers were at same time frustrating but also unique enjoyable experience. Second half of this level definitely looks like something that legendary Levelord could have made. 
Changing The Future?
Meh, again bit outta place, but it was actually nice designed boss level. Sure, some stuff like complex Time Machine password and overpowered Drone boss were annoying a bit, but no enough to break the fun. Like Back To L.A. this one is also memorable. Nothing too spectacular but nice level.
Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 5
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/cyjctxtsj
Screenshots can be seen here:
Now guys, as i promised, next stop Last Reaction!
Back to L.A.
First half of this level seemed weird and bit outta place. I don't say it's bad but this city part layout reminded me something that could be found on Shovelware CDs from 1990s. This style definitely didn't fit to Water Bases episode. Second half of this level was getting better. Especially the part that was inspired by Levelord's "The Sewers Below" cut level. Along with these new additions this was good combination actually. Also what the fuck were those blue transparent variations of Octabrain? Man, these vaporized me.
Also the underwater fight with Mini Alien Queen and shitloads of Slimers were at same time frustrating but also unique enjoyable experience. Second half of this level definitely looks like something that legendary Levelord could have made. Changing The Future?
Meh, again bit outta place, but it was actually nice designed boss level. Sure, some stuff like complex Time Machine password and overpowered Drone boss were annoying a bit, but no enough to break the fun. Like Back To L.A. this one is also memorable. Nothing too spectacular but nice level.
Duke Nukem 3D - LRWB - Water Bases Longplay video - Part 5
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/cyjctxtsj
Screenshots can be seen here:
Now guys, as i promised, next stop Last Reaction!
This post has been edited by Gingis Khan: 07 March 2022 - 11:32 PM
#37 Posted 08 March 2022 - 04:25 AM
Guess I'll be that guy, how about posting those videos on YouTube or somewhere similarly convenient, Gingis? I appreciate your effort and think more people would watch them if they didn't have to click on a link to whatever files.fm is that's already been reported in an earlier post to not work. LR&WB could probably use a window on YouTube too. Just a thought!
#38 Posted 08 March 2022 - 05:23 AM
ck3D, on 08 March 2022 - 04:25 AM, said:
Guess I'll be that guy, how about posting those videos on YouTube or somewhere similarly convenient, Gingis? I appreciate your effort and think more people would watch them if they didn't have to click on a link to whatever files.fm is that's already been reported in an earlier post to not work. LR&WB could probably use a window on YouTube too. Just a thought!
Well i would use YouTube but my browser and OS are older and YouTube file uploading system have problems because of it. If you have a suggestion what other video sharing site i could try out, i would appreciate it. Thanks.
BTW, for me and @FistMarine viewing videos on files.fm works fine, for some other people it doesn't. I dunno why is like that.
#39 Posted 08 March 2022 - 10:18 AM
Actually the "Water Bases" title is deceptive. The first level (Alien's Trap) is like the penultimate level of Last Reaction: it has an invading spaceship, and you visit the spaceship's locations. It looks very similar to many Water Base levels, but that's because Bernard had a tendency to reuse a lot of his previous rooms with minimal changes. One of the typical reuses is the newbeast incubation segment, which is part of many other levels.
The next 6 levels are indeed waterbases, although the second one is a bit like Dark Side, a subway system with a central hub. Then the last 4 levels are completely different in theme, almost like a new episode. They also have room reappearances, but the theme is so distinct, they can't be mistaken with any underwater theme. Back to LA actually only makes sense, if you play at least the last portion of episode 1, where you can relate to the TC's timeline. I love Back to LA though, it's one of my favourite levels, and the mix of sentry drones and aquatic octabrains boost it even further. Btw. the overpowered sentry drone is blue, and acts very similarly to the miniboss version of the big drone. As I remember it was only used underwater.
The next 6 levels are indeed waterbases, although the second one is a bit like Dark Side, a subway system with a central hub. Then the last 4 levels are completely different in theme, almost like a new episode. They also have room reappearances, but the theme is so distinct, they can't be mistaken with any underwater theme. Back to LA actually only makes sense, if you play at least the last portion of episode 1, where you can relate to the TC's timeline. I love Back to LA though, it's one of my favourite levels, and the mix of sentry drones and aquatic octabrains boost it even further. Btw. the overpowered sentry drone is blue, and acts very similarly to the miniboss version of the big drone. As I remember it was only used underwater.
This post has been edited by The Watchtower: 08 March 2022 - 10:19 AM
#40 Posted 09 March 2022 - 05:40 AM
Thanks everyone for the comments so far! Glad to see people are happy about this month's choice. Might as well write about the first part of Last Reaction. Wasn't sure if to write about each segment (meaning first 3 maps, then next 3, then the rest 5) but I ultimately decided to go with this route, since there is a LOT to talk about each segment. I will see how I will split Water Bases into two or three segments and then with Chimera episode (one or two posts), as well as overall thoughts for the episodes.
And apologize for taking forever to get into the mod, I've been having a couple of life related issues as of lately. And Ninety-Six, yes I was talking about the original version of Chimera (linked in first post) which has the non-working nuke button in level 7 (the addon compilation fixes this, the missing chaingun sound and other bugs). When I get around Chimera, I will mention that again (and hope I can also do that Hidden Zone map, if I get to finish everything before the end of the month).
Anyway, let's first start with the mod's presentation, which includes the extra contents. As specified before, it contains 2 new episodes (11 levels each) and a new intro demo but that's not all. It also includes a cool new opening intro, the new AQUATIC logo (to replace ATOMIC logo), a new 20-min demo (which unfortunately desyncs in first few minutes and the rest of the demo shows the player dead, the other two demos aren't replaced but still decided to watch them anyway and while Area 51 demo desyncs halfway as expected, the Duke Burger demo somehow manages to play flawlessly until the end, with the only difference being the extra 25 health that Duke has), new art, new features (some of which were mentioned in earlier posts) and there's even two new ending cinematics for the two episodes! All these extras give the mod its own identity. It's not often you see mods going an extra mile to replace as many assets as possible. Some mods succeed doing so, while others don't bother doing that or fail to impress.
Before reviewing the maps, here are two screenshots of the main menu (includes the new logo) and the episode selection (notice the order of the episodes, which tells you which episode should play first), which were taken while the demo plays in background. For second screen, I purposely show the new Medkit item, which includes Steroids and Armor as well. I believe the new medkit only appears in Water Bases episode (and possibly later in Chimera as well).
Now for the long awaited moment! Reviewing the actual maps. The mod is played in Duke3D v1.5 in DOSBox 0.74-3, on Come Get Some skill, using saves for obvious reasons! Warning: LONG POST AHEAD!
Last Reaction
The first level of the Last Reaction episode shares the same name as the episode. But is it any good? Let's find out!
You begin the level and you see a bunch of enemies are already attacking you from far away. I suggest to quickly enter the nearby building, kill those troopers (one of which is a new yellow variant, that uses freezer), grab the shotgun + shells and start blasting the pig cops away. Be careful with the other enemies around, including drones, octabrains and turrets! Be sure to explore to find secrets as they offer large rewards and can absolutely make difference between life and death!
This might seem a bit demanding and unfortunately, the author expects you to find secrets in order to survive and EVEN THEN, you will still struggle at some particular points but you will not be in a hopeless situation if you are lucky and take advantage of drinking water. Though that assumes you have time to backtrack to that bathroom from the beginning of the level, to take a piss and drink water to refill health back to 125. I recommend saving the portable medkit for a desperate situation later in the level, where every health has been exhausted and you need health immediately! You should also carefully pick up the atomic healths that are scattered around the map, though they are mostly contained in secret areas!
Oh and there are a couple of balance issues:
First, the ammo is in general scarce. You will find secrets containing ammo and there is a hard to find secret that contains an ammo cache, easily the most rewarding secret in the entire level. But how many will find that particular secret? Otherwise, you have to rely on monsters dropping stuff for you, mostly enforcers (whom are numerous in the level).
Second, there are NO armor pickups with the exception of a single armor pickup in that secret area containing all the weapons, most inventory items, health and the single armor. You will often take damage from monsters and without armor, Duke is rather fragile. Your health will go down easily if you constantly get hit by enforcers or by commanders, for example. It doesn't matter if you have 175 or 250 health, you will find yourself with less than 100 if you are unlucky or even dead if the enemies hit you hard! And you will get hit a LOT!
Third, there are many enemies present in the map, especially on CGS skill. I know that the difficulty settings in Duke3D only change the amount of enemies present at the start of the map, depending on how the author tagged the monsters to appear on harder skills. This means that if the mapper didn't implement difficulty settings, then it doesn't matter what difficulty you play on, as the experience will be mostly the same (unless you play on DIG, in which case good luck, especially with a few extra enemies present in DIG as well). However this also means that monsters spawned throughout the level will always show up, no matter the skill level. So if a mapper constantly spawns monsters when you reach a particular place, then difficulty settings won't help you here. This is worse for maps that have little to no enemies present at start and abuse spawning enemies throughout the map at every opportunity.
Alright. Now with the most technical stuff out of the way, what about the new enemies? There are a few new enemies present, in the first map you will meet the yellow trooper (mentioned earlier, fires freezer shoots and drops freezer ammo), upgraded octabrain that spams projectiles at you (I just realized now this existed in original version of the mod and wasn't broken in EDuke32 as I thought years ago, though not sure if the author actually intended for that octabrain to spam the missiles) and later in the level, you will meet the new prototype (aka LameDuke) drones. There will be many other new enemies later on as well, so keep an eye for them!
Since the ammo is scarce, I recommend you to grab the Devastator underwater at the beginning of map and use it EXCLUSIVELY on the Octabrains. You will save a LOT of ammo doing so. Then as usual, use the pistol against troopers, shotgun against pig cops and chaingun against enforcers. You will save a lot of ammo doing so. You don't have access to RPG or Shrinker yet, so you have to be careful with ammo conservation because by the time you reach those dark caves, you will easily run short of ammo, EVEN if you conserve it and find secrets! This is a huge flaw of the map and it's what causes most players to give up early on!
On top of that, the scuba gear intended to dive in that deep hole, is hidden in a NON-SECRET area! There is a crack near that hole you have to dive into, just use an explosive and grab that very much needed scuba gear (which shouldn't have been hidden at all). Then you can dive deep down and progress with the map! Oh and don't forget to first climb on those rocks at beginning, you will find some hidden atomic health and other stuff. Be careful with those turrets hiding around for a cheap shot at you!
So once you're ready, hop into that hole and dive. Avoid the sharks (or just kill them with your pistol/shotgun), then go further and after a while, you will arrive in what seems to be an alien room. It contains a couple slimer eggs, octabrains and protectors, so be careful! There are also a bunch of hanging babes (thankfully they don't seem to spawn enemies but because I was afraid I would run out of ammo, I left to kill them once I reached the end of the level, yes you can backtrack to whole level). Press that switch (opens a way into the starting area which leads to an elevator that leads to those dark caves), collect goodies (atomic health and jetpack), kill a few spawned enemies and dive back up. Each dive will take around 10-15% of the scuba gear oxygen, so just be careful to not waste it too much, especially if you plan to return later here!
Once at surface, use the jetpack and go into that opened place. Look out for some trip mines first! Then once you blow them up, watch out for those enforcers lurking in the dark cave! There is a pair of night vision goggles that is hidden on top of that mountain (where the water fountain is found) which will GREATLY help to see those enforcers in the dark! There are also two secrets to find in the dark cave, one of which is hinted from a symbol (contains octabrains, devastator + ammo and atomic health) and other is a hard to see crack (that contains jetpack, chaingun + ammo and atomic health). Both are useful secrets that are needed.
Before I contine with the map, I want to mention that there is a place on top of that waterfall at beginning that you can fly to, it contains a couple more enemies (octabrains + turrets) and a hidden underwater path to that big secret. There is also a place you can softlock yourself if you go further in that small space (after you killed the turrets) and then find out it's a one way wall, preventing going back. This happened to me once and I just threw a pipebomb to commit suicide. That was my first death (out of 10 or so I had in total). That problematic place is located close to that underwater path that leads to that "super secret" which is very much needed! I took a picture of the automap to greatly help to find that secret (as well as avoiding that place you can softlock yourself). There is another similar looking spot that is correctly blocked, so you don't get softlocked.
Right. Now back to the main progression, in the dark caves. You have to find the blue card, which is guarded by a few enforcers. Once you find it, go all the way until you come to a room with two further paths. I think the right one leads to the blue key slot. Once you do that, you have to backtrack all the way to back to where you were before (also be careful with more spawned enemies) and go further into that part with some rocks containing lava. Once you go further, you will see the door that was previously present, is now unlocked. If the door is still there, then that means you haven't placed the blue card yet. All this backtracking was totally unnecessary and makes navigating these caves really painful. Not to mention the hard to see enforcers and the lack of armor, really make this whole thing more painful than it should be. At this point is when I had to go back a few times to drink water to refill health, whenever it fell below 50 or so. I wanted to conserve the medkit just in case. I also died once when a commander fired a rocket and hit the other commander near me, so the splash damage took me out anyway (was below 40 health at that time). So when I loaded my save, I decided to use the chaingun anyway (wasn't sure what else to use), finish them off, go back to refill health and come back after a few minutes...
Once you make it past the door, you get to a large area filled with enemies (at this point is when I grabbed some atomic healths I saved earlier). A bunch of enforcers, commanders, protectors and a few sentry drones (forgot if there was something else). At this point you should just try to run around and gather enemies in one spot and have enemies hit each other (you will see why shortly). Tank damage from sentry drones by allowing them to hit you and use your chaingun (if you still have ammo) to take down some of the protectors and even enforcers (so they can still drop ammo). I was lucky that some/most of commanders/enforcers were hit by shrink rays, so that I could step on them. I sometimes saved during battle as well (on different slots, don't worry I made use of all 10 save slots, considering I installed the mod into its own LR&WB folder, which is a fresh copy of the ATOMIC folder). I died once more here when an enforcer that returned to normal size, just killed me with his chaingun but then again, I had only 4 hp left.
On my successful attempt (with help of 1-2 pipebombs when the enemies were gathered one near each other), I managed to clear the room with just 2 hp left. I saved and backtracked all the way to refill my health because I still wasn't certain if to use my medkit right now. It wasn't until I noticed two medkits were laying around in a dark corner, before the next door.
Speaking of which, I open the door and I'm greeted by a commander. I decided to simply squish him with the door. Not worth wasting any more ammo and still haven't found the shrinker, so I'm glad I used the protectors' shrink ray attack earlier to clear those few couple enemies and save a ton of ammo. I don't see how you could have done otherwise. No I didn't find that "super secret" yet at that time, I only found with the help of Mapster once I was done with the map...
Okay. Now you get to choose between 3 teleporters (blue, red, yellow). I recommend entering each teleporter at first, it teleports you to a large room with 5 more teleporters. There are some LameDuke drones being present behind those pillars but honestly, with the ammo being very scarce, just run into them. They will self-destruct. Sometimes you will not take any damage, other times you will take little damage (less than what a sentry drone will do to you). I had exactly 100 health when clearing the 3 main teleports. Then once I was ready, I saved and tried each teleporter. Some will send you back across the 3 teleporter rooms, others will advance the map in different rooms. One sends you to what seems like a small trap filled corridor with trip mines. This is a painful part I remembered and this time I somehow had no problem surviving it. I simply crouched as soon as I teleported and took no damage from the attack. The other trip mine from middle of room still caused me a bit of damage, though only 30 damage, which means going back and grabbing one of those leftover medkits. I eventually found a lava room with two teleporters and another with four teleporters. In middle was an octabrain. I used whatever chaingun/pistol ammo I had left, then probably finished off with the mighty foot. Eventually I got to a room with the red card and a protector drone. I decided to simply kill the drone with my foot. I did it fine with just a scratch, so once I was done, I went back outside, grabbed that last medkit from earlier, saved.
There is a teleporter that leads to a button puzzle with 5 switches, which is the way to unlock the exit. The correct combination (from left to right) is buttons 1, 3 and 4. After that, go to another teleporter and you should see a door is now opened and you can insert the red card you got earlier. This will unlock the exit in the large room from earlier (before the 3 teleporters).
I wish I could give more advice on the correct/exact teleporters you have to take but this is all I remember. Just try them all and make a save beforehand.
Before leaving the level, I highly suggest to grab all the useful stuff that you can find (especially that Super Secret), so you stand a better chance at the next level.
The whole map took me at least an hour (possibly two?) to complete.
Overall, this map was very amateurish and filled with MANY gameplay issues. This map on its own if released separately, would have been quickly forgotten (and for good reasons!). But to have it right at the start of one of the best Duke3D mods ever made, it's like the author never came back to polish his earlier maps. It's a shame that you have to suffer through THESE type of maps before getting to the real good stuff.
Will the next map be better or it will still suck? Let's find out!
Mortal Transition
I can definitely say that this level is an improvement over the previous. It's still not great or even good by any means but the balance is better, therefore the map is much easier and shorter.
However there are still some areas that are filled with many enemies (such as tons of octabrains), then there's two maze-like areas (one underwater path and a lava path) that require you to navigate while taking care of the scuba gear and protective boots in your inventory. Then finally it ends up with the last room (which is dark) and filled with a couple of enemies.
To give a short walkthrough and some helpful hints: at the beginning, shoot the second and third buttons (in other words, the middle buttons) with your pistol to open the entrance door.
When you enter, kill the troopers, wait for the commander behind forcefield to take out himself (a neat trick that saves you ammo and health) alongside the enforcer, then go to the other room to find a switch (remember this room for later as this is where you will place the blue and red keys) and prepare to meet the Expander Enforcer!
Once you are done, go to the first teleporter that you unlocked earlier, which leads to a room filled with water. You have to position yourself to be able to submerge. Once you make it past that part, you should get into another room. You have to check every corner to advance, 3 corners lead to a goodie, the other to the main path you have to continue. You will find sharks and mines underwater. There is also a hidden crack underwater that leads to a non-secret area containing boots, shotgun shells and steroids.
Eventually, you will resurface and you will find dozens of Octabrains, as well as two protectors and a bunch of slimers (they may or may not eat the protectors). Here I recommend you to just run past the octabrains, go to the elevator leading to blue key, switch to devastator and kill the octabrains. Then switch to shotgun/chaingun to pick off the last one or two of them if they manage to get close to you. Kill the remaining aliens and then you can go back to the starting area.
Once you go back, insert the blue card (look out for any spawned enemies) and go to the second teleporter, which will send you to the maze filled with lava. I recommend first to go to the large room (which is now locked, unless you found out the switch first) to kill all those octabrains (with Devastator), saving you from trouble later on!
To navigate this room, here are a few helpful hints: Use the automap and tap the jump button (A by default) in order to minimize the damage taken from lava, so your boots last longer. This won't always work as some sectors are marked as "liquid" and you will have to deal with this a couple of times.
Anyway, to progress, find a room containing a switch, which opens the big door, which contains the red card and various aliens. This includes a Mini Battlelord, a few commanders and protector drones. I actually got shrunk once by a protector drone and had to run away, I made it safely (since the aliens were getting closer) but then I reloaded the save to try doing without shrinking, as I felt I could have done a bit better. I couldn't shrink the Mini Battlelord since he was a bit submerged in lava (in those few softer sectors), so I had to take him out with the RPG. Once you get rid of the aliens and enter the large room again, press the switch to make the red card appear. Take a look at your boots in order to not run of them and pick up the new boots carefully (example if you still have 70% boots, you should just go on with what you have at the moment).
Go back to the starting room, watch out for other spawned enemies. Activate the red card to unlock the last teleporter leading to the last room. The last room is dark, so using the NVG is recommended. There are a couple of varying aliens, which include drones (all 3 variants), enforcers and commanders. You will find a locked door requiring the yellow card, which is present behind one of the other 3 doors. I recommend exploring as you will find a lot of useful stuff. Once you got the card, carefully position yourself to insert it. Don't align yourself in center because the door that opens behind you contains the MINI BATTLELORD guarding the exit! I remember this part from years ago, so I was ready for what awaited me. Just use the Shrinker to get rid of him (if you are lucky with hitting him around the corner) and then once you are done, backtrack for any goodies left for the end and once done, exit the map!
There are 4 secrets to find this time around and they are much easier to find. One is found in the underwater path (should lead to a small room with goodies), two are on the lava path (one is easy to find, other requires to blow up a crack, which is near the entrance to that large room with aliens) and the last secret is found in the last room of the level (one of the 4 doors should be the secret area).
An improvement over the previous map but still a bit underwhelming and confusing at times. At least it was much shorter and easier. Will the next map be better or worse?
The Jungle Zone
And now for another long-ass map! You start in a locked dark room. Just press the door in front of you to get out.
You will find yourself in a large jungle themed place. You can tell this map will probably take you at least an hour or so. I don't know how much it took me exactly but I think it was probably 2 hours or so.
Unfortunately I had to stop halfway in the map two days ago because I felt nauseous (especially with all the view shifting when going on slopes) that I had to stop playing (it actually made me throw up!) and continued the next day when I felt better.
What I can say about the map, besides various enemies being utilized (even some invisible variants of octabrains and other enemies), your main objective is to get the blue card from those pyramids/temples area and then use it on top of mountain (that you have to climb, also watch out for those few trip mines!) to get the red card and then dive deep down a water hole that eventually leads to a dark red cave area. Hope you've got the scuba gear with more than 30% oxygen (I had 24% oxygen left from the previous map because I spent a bit too much time backtracking/exploring, so I needed to get a new one when my current one ran out while I was surfacing and lost a few hp from drowning). Don't forget to look for that secret inside that hole, it should be in a corner, look on automap to help guiding you. The secret contains various goodies and even a water fountain.
Oh yeah, before getting there, inside that building requiring the blue card, aside from a few monsters in dark places (including a mini battlelord in the bathroom, guarding the red card), there is a crack in the office room that contains a SCUBA GEAR (!), Boots and two Atomic Health. The scuba gear is very much needed, make sure you get it!
Once you are ready, dive down and after a minute of diving or so, you will see a couple octabrains and sharks. Kill them (use NVG to detect them), go further the path and eventually you will surface into a dark red cave.
When navigating throughout the dark cave, watch out for various monsters (commanders and octabrains). Be sure to also grab the yellow card sitting on a platform (it should be near the entrance of the dark cave). There are two secret places inside the red caves (located close to where you will find Devastator ammo and atomic health, hidden in a corner), one which is contained inside another. Watch out for those trip mines and more enemies spawning!
The last secret (3 atomic healths) is easily found in the area that you unlock with red card, you must climb on the panel (there is an elevator that will help reaching or you can jetpack up here) but watch out for those spawning enemies! There are also 3 more atomic healths that you can grab from those crushers, you have to be careful when grabbing them!
Eventually, after using the red card, you will teleport to the top of the lava mountains and fight more enemies. You should also find out on ground in that corner (an unmarked secret) that contains a stash of many goodies, this can be referred as the "DNSTUFF secret" that Ninety-Six mentioned earlier. It contains nearly everything! I recommend grabbing this stuff before exiting (watch out for a couple of protectors spawning), though sadly it doesn't include any armor for whatever reason. Speaking of armor, there was a single armor pickup in the whole level, in the dark bathroom inside the building that required blue card, that I grabbed earlier by accident (though my armor was running low anyway). Meaning I got to finish the level with 0 armor. The lack of pig cops (who only showed early in first level so far) means that there is no other way to get armor, so prepare to endure full damage from the aliens! Yes the levels contain a shit-ton of health in certain places but even with 250 health (maximum), you will quickly run low on health from getting constantly hit by enforcers and other crap (this was especially painful in the next level).
Eventually, you will have to find a spaceship guarded by various aliens. Use the yellow card to unlock the spaceship! Inside it, a MINI OVERLORD can be found! Take him out, explore the rest level (stock up on pretty much everything before exiting) and then you can finish it! As you can already guess, the next level will take place in space.
Overall, this level, much like the first one, was needlessly large and confusing and felt like a chore to complete, taking me far more than just a half hour (either 1 hour and half or two hours and half) and killing far more enemies than what is listed in that screenshot. The Jungle Zone felt at times like The Abyss on steroids, which is funny, considering the song from The Abyss plays in this level, also The Abyss was actually great and well balanced, The Jungle Zone is just meh at times (though interesting to explore, at least some parts).
I was also lucky to do this level without dying (much like the previous level) because I was very cautious at times. I was only afraid my jetpack would eventually run out (with all the backtracking I did, especially for that last secret in the dark caves) and I had to manage my inventory items constantly. It's not often you do this kind of thing in Duke3D. This time you have to balance the jetpack, night vision goggles, scuba gear and the boots all at once and grab the new items when done with the level, so you have everything maxed out.
But yeah, now with the first segment done (canyons and hi-tech bases), it is time for the next segment, the space maps! Will they be better or worse? Find out soon!
At the moment of writing, I'm currently on the fifth level (just finished Khaki Space last evening), hope I can finish the episode until Friday evening. Then I will see with Water Bases and Chimera in the next few weeks. Even if I manage to finish the episodes in time, it will take me a lot to write about them. I think all this pays off, having a very active topic and many participants, I felt like I did a good choice (thanks guys for the encouragement!) and I hope my walkthroughs will help others to be able to finish these confusing and long levels. No idea when I will write about Khaki Space and all the following maps.
Also nice screenshots Gingis Khan! I hope I can get to watch your videos soon. Since you did Water Bases first, I will have to first catch up and then watch the videos, to avoid spoilers!
Thanks everyone for the comments so far! I will most likely post about the space maps tomorrow or in two days, while trying my best to finish the episode and have an write-up done until the next week. I hope I can get the episodes finished until the end of the month, because the April nominations will be interesting!
Speaking of which, the nomination from Aleks' spoiler is interesting and considered for May, as I won't spoil what I have in store for April, because for that month, I will try to spice things up with some more unique nominations. Won't mention what that means until the 25th when voting begins.
Anyway for now, enjoy the screenshots!
And apologize for taking forever to get into the mod, I've been having a couple of life related issues as of lately. And Ninety-Six, yes I was talking about the original version of Chimera (linked in first post) which has the non-working nuke button in level 7 (the addon compilation fixes this, the missing chaingun sound and other bugs). When I get around Chimera, I will mention that again (and hope I can also do that Hidden Zone map, if I get to finish everything before the end of the month).
Anyway, let's first start with the mod's presentation, which includes the extra contents. As specified before, it contains 2 new episodes (11 levels each) and a new intro demo but that's not all. It also includes a cool new opening intro, the new AQUATIC logo (to replace ATOMIC logo), a new 20-min demo (which unfortunately desyncs in first few minutes and the rest of the demo shows the player dead, the other two demos aren't replaced but still decided to watch them anyway and while Area 51 demo desyncs halfway as expected, the Duke Burger demo somehow manages to play flawlessly until the end, with the only difference being the extra 25 health that Duke has), new art, new features (some of which were mentioned in earlier posts) and there's even two new ending cinematics for the two episodes! All these extras give the mod its own identity. It's not often you see mods going an extra mile to replace as many assets as possible. Some mods succeed doing so, while others don't bother doing that or fail to impress.
Before reviewing the maps, here are two screenshots of the main menu (includes the new logo) and the episode selection (notice the order of the episodes, which tells you which episode should play first), which were taken while the demo plays in background. For second screen, I purposely show the new Medkit item, which includes Steroids and Armor as well. I believe the new medkit only appears in Water Bases episode (and possibly later in Chimera as well).
Now for the long awaited moment! Reviewing the actual maps. The mod is played in Duke3D v1.5 in DOSBox 0.74-3, on Come Get Some skill, using saves for obvious reasons! Warning: LONG POST AHEAD!
Last Reaction
The first level of the Last Reaction episode shares the same name as the episode. But is it any good? Let's find out!
You begin the level and you see a bunch of enemies are already attacking you from far away. I suggest to quickly enter the nearby building, kill those troopers (one of which is a new yellow variant, that uses freezer), grab the shotgun + shells and start blasting the pig cops away. Be careful with the other enemies around, including drones, octabrains and turrets! Be sure to explore to find secrets as they offer large rewards and can absolutely make difference between life and death!
This might seem a bit demanding and unfortunately, the author expects you to find secrets in order to survive and EVEN THEN, you will still struggle at some particular points but you will not be in a hopeless situation if you are lucky and take advantage of drinking water. Though that assumes you have time to backtrack to that bathroom from the beginning of the level, to take a piss and drink water to refill health back to 125. I recommend saving the portable medkit for a desperate situation later in the level, where every health has been exhausted and you need health immediately! You should also carefully pick up the atomic healths that are scattered around the map, though they are mostly contained in secret areas!
Oh and there are a couple of balance issues:
First, the ammo is in general scarce. You will find secrets containing ammo and there is a hard to find secret that contains an ammo cache, easily the most rewarding secret in the entire level. But how many will find that particular secret? Otherwise, you have to rely on monsters dropping stuff for you, mostly enforcers (whom are numerous in the level).
Second, there are NO armor pickups with the exception of a single armor pickup in that secret area containing all the weapons, most inventory items, health and the single armor. You will often take damage from monsters and without armor, Duke is rather fragile. Your health will go down easily if you constantly get hit by enforcers or by commanders, for example. It doesn't matter if you have 175 or 250 health, you will find yourself with less than 100 if you are unlucky or even dead if the enemies hit you hard! And you will get hit a LOT!
Third, there are many enemies present in the map, especially on CGS skill. I know that the difficulty settings in Duke3D only change the amount of enemies present at the start of the map, depending on how the author tagged the monsters to appear on harder skills. This means that if the mapper didn't implement difficulty settings, then it doesn't matter what difficulty you play on, as the experience will be mostly the same (unless you play on DIG, in which case good luck, especially with a few extra enemies present in DIG as well). However this also means that monsters spawned throughout the level will always show up, no matter the skill level. So if a mapper constantly spawns monsters when you reach a particular place, then difficulty settings won't help you here. This is worse for maps that have little to no enemies present at start and abuse spawning enemies throughout the map at every opportunity.
Alright. Now with the most technical stuff out of the way, what about the new enemies? There are a few new enemies present, in the first map you will meet the yellow trooper (mentioned earlier, fires freezer shoots and drops freezer ammo), upgraded octabrain that spams projectiles at you (I just realized now this existed in original version of the mod and wasn't broken in EDuke32 as I thought years ago, though not sure if the author actually intended for that octabrain to spam the missiles) and later in the level, you will meet the new prototype (aka LameDuke) drones. There will be many other new enemies later on as well, so keep an eye for them!
Since the ammo is scarce, I recommend you to grab the Devastator underwater at the beginning of map and use it EXCLUSIVELY on the Octabrains. You will save a LOT of ammo doing so. Then as usual, use the pistol against troopers, shotgun against pig cops and chaingun against enforcers. You will save a lot of ammo doing so. You don't have access to RPG or Shrinker yet, so you have to be careful with ammo conservation because by the time you reach those dark caves, you will easily run short of ammo, EVEN if you conserve it and find secrets! This is a huge flaw of the map and it's what causes most players to give up early on!
On top of that, the scuba gear intended to dive in that deep hole, is hidden in a NON-SECRET area! There is a crack near that hole you have to dive into, just use an explosive and grab that very much needed scuba gear (which shouldn't have been hidden at all). Then you can dive deep down and progress with the map! Oh and don't forget to first climb on those rocks at beginning, you will find some hidden atomic health and other stuff. Be careful with those turrets hiding around for a cheap shot at you!
So once you're ready, hop into that hole and dive. Avoid the sharks (or just kill them with your pistol/shotgun), then go further and after a while, you will arrive in what seems to be an alien room. It contains a couple slimer eggs, octabrains and protectors, so be careful! There are also a bunch of hanging babes (thankfully they don't seem to spawn enemies but because I was afraid I would run out of ammo, I left to kill them once I reached the end of the level, yes you can backtrack to whole level). Press that switch (opens a way into the starting area which leads to an elevator that leads to those dark caves), collect goodies (atomic health and jetpack), kill a few spawned enemies and dive back up. Each dive will take around 10-15% of the scuba gear oxygen, so just be careful to not waste it too much, especially if you plan to return later here!
Once at surface, use the jetpack and go into that opened place. Look out for some trip mines first! Then once you blow them up, watch out for those enforcers lurking in the dark cave! There is a pair of night vision goggles that is hidden on top of that mountain (where the water fountain is found) which will GREATLY help to see those enforcers in the dark! There are also two secrets to find in the dark cave, one of which is hinted from a symbol (contains octabrains, devastator + ammo and atomic health) and other is a hard to see crack (that contains jetpack, chaingun + ammo and atomic health). Both are useful secrets that are needed.
Before I contine with the map, I want to mention that there is a place on top of that waterfall at beginning that you can fly to, it contains a couple more enemies (octabrains + turrets) and a hidden underwater path to that big secret. There is also a place you can softlock yourself if you go further in that small space (after you killed the turrets) and then find out it's a one way wall, preventing going back. This happened to me once and I just threw a pipebomb to commit suicide. That was my first death (out of 10 or so I had in total). That problematic place is located close to that underwater path that leads to that "super secret" which is very much needed! I took a picture of the automap to greatly help to find that secret (as well as avoiding that place you can softlock yourself). There is another similar looking spot that is correctly blocked, so you don't get softlocked.
Right. Now back to the main progression, in the dark caves. You have to find the blue card, which is guarded by a few enforcers. Once you find it, go all the way until you come to a room with two further paths. I think the right one leads to the blue key slot. Once you do that, you have to backtrack all the way to back to where you were before (also be careful with more spawned enemies) and go further into that part with some rocks containing lava. Once you go further, you will see the door that was previously present, is now unlocked. If the door is still there, then that means you haven't placed the blue card yet. All this backtracking was totally unnecessary and makes navigating these caves really painful. Not to mention the hard to see enforcers and the lack of armor, really make this whole thing more painful than it should be. At this point is when I had to go back a few times to drink water to refill health, whenever it fell below 50 or so. I wanted to conserve the medkit just in case. I also died once when a commander fired a rocket and hit the other commander near me, so the splash damage took me out anyway (was below 40 health at that time). So when I loaded my save, I decided to use the chaingun anyway (wasn't sure what else to use), finish them off, go back to refill health and come back after a few minutes...
Once you make it past the door, you get to a large area filled with enemies (at this point is when I grabbed some atomic healths I saved earlier). A bunch of enforcers, commanders, protectors and a few sentry drones (forgot if there was something else). At this point you should just try to run around and gather enemies in one spot and have enemies hit each other (you will see why shortly). Tank damage from sentry drones by allowing them to hit you and use your chaingun (if you still have ammo) to take down some of the protectors and even enforcers (so they can still drop ammo). I was lucky that some/most of commanders/enforcers were hit by shrink rays, so that I could step on them. I sometimes saved during battle as well (on different slots, don't worry I made use of all 10 save slots, considering I installed the mod into its own LR&WB folder, which is a fresh copy of the ATOMIC folder). I died once more here when an enforcer that returned to normal size, just killed me with his chaingun but then again, I had only 4 hp left.
On my successful attempt (with help of 1-2 pipebombs when the enemies were gathered one near each other), I managed to clear the room with just 2 hp left. I saved and backtracked all the way to refill my health because I still wasn't certain if to use my medkit right now. It wasn't until I noticed two medkits were laying around in a dark corner, before the next door.
Speaking of which, I open the door and I'm greeted by a commander. I decided to simply squish him with the door. Not worth wasting any more ammo and still haven't found the shrinker, so I'm glad I used the protectors' shrink ray attack earlier to clear those few couple enemies and save a ton of ammo. I don't see how you could have done otherwise. No I didn't find that "super secret" yet at that time, I only found with the help of Mapster once I was done with the map...
Okay. Now you get to choose between 3 teleporters (blue, red, yellow). I recommend entering each teleporter at first, it teleports you to a large room with 5 more teleporters. There are some LameDuke drones being present behind those pillars but honestly, with the ammo being very scarce, just run into them. They will self-destruct. Sometimes you will not take any damage, other times you will take little damage (less than what a sentry drone will do to you). I had exactly 100 health when clearing the 3 main teleports. Then once I was ready, I saved and tried each teleporter. Some will send you back across the 3 teleporter rooms, others will advance the map in different rooms. One sends you to what seems like a small trap filled corridor with trip mines. This is a painful part I remembered and this time I somehow had no problem surviving it. I simply crouched as soon as I teleported and took no damage from the attack. The other trip mine from middle of room still caused me a bit of damage, though only 30 damage, which means going back and grabbing one of those leftover medkits. I eventually found a lava room with two teleporters and another with four teleporters. In middle was an octabrain. I used whatever chaingun/pistol ammo I had left, then probably finished off with the mighty foot. Eventually I got to a room with the red card and a protector drone. I decided to simply kill the drone with my foot. I did it fine with just a scratch, so once I was done, I went back outside, grabbed that last medkit from earlier, saved.
There is a teleporter that leads to a button puzzle with 5 switches, which is the way to unlock the exit. The correct combination (from left to right) is buttons 1, 3 and 4. After that, go to another teleporter and you should see a door is now opened and you can insert the red card you got earlier. This will unlock the exit in the large room from earlier (before the 3 teleporters).
I wish I could give more advice on the correct/exact teleporters you have to take but this is all I remember. Just try them all and make a save beforehand.
Before leaving the level, I highly suggest to grab all the useful stuff that you can find (especially that Super Secret), so you stand a better chance at the next level.
The whole map took me at least an hour (possibly two?) to complete.
Overall, this map was very amateurish and filled with MANY gameplay issues. This map on its own if released separately, would have been quickly forgotten (and for good reasons!). But to have it right at the start of one of the best Duke3D mods ever made, it's like the author never came back to polish his earlier maps. It's a shame that you have to suffer through THESE type of maps before getting to the real good stuff.
Will the next map be better or it will still suck? Let's find out!
Mortal Transition
I can definitely say that this level is an improvement over the previous. It's still not great or even good by any means but the balance is better, therefore the map is much easier and shorter.
However there are still some areas that are filled with many enemies (such as tons of octabrains), then there's two maze-like areas (one underwater path and a lava path) that require you to navigate while taking care of the scuba gear and protective boots in your inventory. Then finally it ends up with the last room (which is dark) and filled with a couple of enemies.
To give a short walkthrough and some helpful hints: at the beginning, shoot the second and third buttons (in other words, the middle buttons) with your pistol to open the entrance door.
When you enter, kill the troopers, wait for the commander behind forcefield to take out himself (a neat trick that saves you ammo and health) alongside the enforcer, then go to the other room to find a switch (remember this room for later as this is where you will place the blue and red keys) and prepare to meet the Expander Enforcer!
Once you are done, go to the first teleporter that you unlocked earlier, which leads to a room filled with water. You have to position yourself to be able to submerge. Once you make it past that part, you should get into another room. You have to check every corner to advance, 3 corners lead to a goodie, the other to the main path you have to continue. You will find sharks and mines underwater. There is also a hidden crack underwater that leads to a non-secret area containing boots, shotgun shells and steroids.
Eventually, you will resurface and you will find dozens of Octabrains, as well as two protectors and a bunch of slimers (they may or may not eat the protectors). Here I recommend you to just run past the octabrains, go to the elevator leading to blue key, switch to devastator and kill the octabrains. Then switch to shotgun/chaingun to pick off the last one or two of them if they manage to get close to you. Kill the remaining aliens and then you can go back to the starting area.
Once you go back, insert the blue card (look out for any spawned enemies) and go to the second teleporter, which will send you to the maze filled with lava. I recommend first to go to the large room (which is now locked, unless you found out the switch first) to kill all those octabrains (with Devastator), saving you from trouble later on!
To navigate this room, here are a few helpful hints: Use the automap and tap the jump button (A by default) in order to minimize the damage taken from lava, so your boots last longer. This won't always work as some sectors are marked as "liquid" and you will have to deal with this a couple of times.
Anyway, to progress, find a room containing a switch, which opens the big door, which contains the red card and various aliens. This includes a Mini Battlelord, a few commanders and protector drones. I actually got shrunk once by a protector drone and had to run away, I made it safely (since the aliens were getting closer) but then I reloaded the save to try doing without shrinking, as I felt I could have done a bit better. I couldn't shrink the Mini Battlelord since he was a bit submerged in lava (in those few softer sectors), so I had to take him out with the RPG. Once you get rid of the aliens and enter the large room again, press the switch to make the red card appear. Take a look at your boots in order to not run of them and pick up the new boots carefully (example if you still have 70% boots, you should just go on with what you have at the moment).
Go back to the starting room, watch out for other spawned enemies. Activate the red card to unlock the last teleporter leading to the last room. The last room is dark, so using the NVG is recommended. There are a couple of varying aliens, which include drones (all 3 variants), enforcers and commanders. You will find a locked door requiring the yellow card, which is present behind one of the other 3 doors. I recommend exploring as you will find a lot of useful stuff. Once you got the card, carefully position yourself to insert it. Don't align yourself in center because the door that opens behind you contains the MINI BATTLELORD guarding the exit! I remember this part from years ago, so I was ready for what awaited me. Just use the Shrinker to get rid of him (if you are lucky with hitting him around the corner) and then once you are done, backtrack for any goodies left for the end and once done, exit the map!
There are 4 secrets to find this time around and they are much easier to find. One is found in the underwater path (should lead to a small room with goodies), two are on the lava path (one is easy to find, other requires to blow up a crack, which is near the entrance to that large room with aliens) and the last secret is found in the last room of the level (one of the 4 doors should be the secret area).
An improvement over the previous map but still a bit underwhelming and confusing at times. At least it was much shorter and easier. Will the next map be better or worse?
The Jungle Zone
And now for another long-ass map! You start in a locked dark room. Just press the door in front of you to get out.
You will find yourself in a large jungle themed place. You can tell this map will probably take you at least an hour or so. I don't know how much it took me exactly but I think it was probably 2 hours or so.
Unfortunately I had to stop halfway in the map two days ago because I felt nauseous (especially with all the view shifting when going on slopes) that I had to stop playing (it actually made me throw up!) and continued the next day when I felt better.
What I can say about the map, besides various enemies being utilized (even some invisible variants of octabrains and other enemies), your main objective is to get the blue card from those pyramids/temples area and then use it on top of mountain (that you have to climb, also watch out for those few trip mines!) to get the red card and then dive deep down a water hole that eventually leads to a dark red cave area. Hope you've got the scuba gear with more than 30% oxygen (I had 24% oxygen left from the previous map because I spent a bit too much time backtracking/exploring, so I needed to get a new one when my current one ran out while I was surfacing and lost a few hp from drowning). Don't forget to look for that secret inside that hole, it should be in a corner, look on automap to help guiding you. The secret contains various goodies and even a water fountain.
Oh yeah, before getting there, inside that building requiring the blue card, aside from a few monsters in dark places (including a mini battlelord in the bathroom, guarding the red card), there is a crack in the office room that contains a SCUBA GEAR (!), Boots and two Atomic Health. The scuba gear is very much needed, make sure you get it!
Once you are ready, dive down and after a minute of diving or so, you will see a couple octabrains and sharks. Kill them (use NVG to detect them), go further the path and eventually you will surface into a dark red cave.
When navigating throughout the dark cave, watch out for various monsters (commanders and octabrains). Be sure to also grab the yellow card sitting on a platform (it should be near the entrance of the dark cave). There are two secret places inside the red caves (located close to where you will find Devastator ammo and atomic health, hidden in a corner), one which is contained inside another. Watch out for those trip mines and more enemies spawning!
The last secret (3 atomic healths) is easily found in the area that you unlock with red card, you must climb on the panel (there is an elevator that will help reaching or you can jetpack up here) but watch out for those spawning enemies! There are also 3 more atomic healths that you can grab from those crushers, you have to be careful when grabbing them!
Eventually, after using the red card, you will teleport to the top of the lava mountains and fight more enemies. You should also find out on ground in that corner (an unmarked secret) that contains a stash of many goodies, this can be referred as the "DNSTUFF secret" that Ninety-Six mentioned earlier. It contains nearly everything! I recommend grabbing this stuff before exiting (watch out for a couple of protectors spawning), though sadly it doesn't include any armor for whatever reason. Speaking of armor, there was a single armor pickup in the whole level, in the dark bathroom inside the building that required blue card, that I grabbed earlier by accident (though my armor was running low anyway). Meaning I got to finish the level with 0 armor. The lack of pig cops (who only showed early in first level so far) means that there is no other way to get armor, so prepare to endure full damage from the aliens! Yes the levels contain a shit-ton of health in certain places but even with 250 health (maximum), you will quickly run low on health from getting constantly hit by enforcers and other crap (this was especially painful in the next level).
Eventually, you will have to find a spaceship guarded by various aliens. Use the yellow card to unlock the spaceship! Inside it, a MINI OVERLORD can be found! Take him out, explore the rest level (stock up on pretty much everything before exiting) and then you can finish it! As you can already guess, the next level will take place in space.
Overall, this level, much like the first one, was needlessly large and confusing and felt like a chore to complete, taking me far more than just a half hour (either 1 hour and half or two hours and half) and killing far more enemies than what is listed in that screenshot. The Jungle Zone felt at times like The Abyss on steroids, which is funny, considering the song from The Abyss plays in this level, also The Abyss was actually great and well balanced, The Jungle Zone is just meh at times (though interesting to explore, at least some parts).
I was also lucky to do this level without dying (much like the previous level) because I was very cautious at times. I was only afraid my jetpack would eventually run out (with all the backtracking I did, especially for that last secret in the dark caves) and I had to manage my inventory items constantly. It's not often you do this kind of thing in Duke3D. This time you have to balance the jetpack, night vision goggles, scuba gear and the boots all at once and grab the new items when done with the level, so you have everything maxed out.
But yeah, now with the first segment done (canyons and hi-tech bases), it is time for the next segment, the space maps! Will they be better or worse? Find out soon!
At the moment of writing, I'm currently on the fifth level (just finished Khaki Space last evening), hope I can finish the episode until Friday evening. Then I will see with Water Bases and Chimera in the next few weeks. Even if I manage to finish the episodes in time, it will take me a lot to write about them. I think all this pays off, having a very active topic and many participants, I felt like I did a good choice (thanks guys for the encouragement!) and I hope my walkthroughs will help others to be able to finish these confusing and long levels. No idea when I will write about Khaki Space and all the following maps.
Also nice screenshots Gingis Khan! I hope I can get to watch your videos soon. Since you did Water Bases first, I will have to first catch up and then watch the videos, to avoid spoilers!
Thanks everyone for the comments so far! I will most likely post about the space maps tomorrow or in two days, while trying my best to finish the episode and have an write-up done until the next week. I hope I can get the episodes finished until the end of the month, because the April nominations will be interesting!
Speaking of which, the nomination from Aleks' spoiler is interesting and considered for May, as I won't spoil what I have in store for April, because for that month, I will try to spice things up with some more unique nominations. Won't mention what that means until the 25th when voting begins.
Anyway for now, enjoy the screenshots!
#41 Posted 09 March 2022 - 07:43 AM
FistMarine, on 09 March 2022 - 05:40 AM, said:
Also nice screenshots Gingis Khan! I hope I can get to watch your videos soon. Since you did Water Bases first, I will have to first catch up and then watch the videos, to avoid spoilers!
Thank you for your support FistMarine. Your screenshots are cool too! BTW, I also started playing Last Reaction Episode and i reached level 4 Khaki Space so far. This time, due some levels of this episode being really annoying, i decided to not record any videos this time, because obviously these videos would be too long and boring to watch. Instead i will provide my thoughts and screenshots only this time.
Last Reaction
TBH, most annoying level in this episode. Even with finding some secrets i still was on lack of ammo most of times. However thanks to very useful advices and hints you guys provided on this topic i managed to finish this level quicker than expected. Thanks guys!
Mortal Transition
This is the level where things getting more fair. There's more ammo and layout and texture choice is better here in my opinion. Indeed maybe it had some annoying moments but definitely better than first level. It was actually somewhat enjoyable.
Jungle Zone
To be honest, it started with nice typical jungle layout, but the fact everything was too way much oversized was annoying part. Some places with shitloads of enemies were also annoying and repetitive. However vibe and style and ambient of this level was somewhat good if we exclude the fact that everything is too way much oversized. Not bad level but it could be done better.
Screenshots:
This post has been edited by Gingis Khan: 09 March 2022 - 07:45 AM
#42 Posted 09 March 2022 - 09:23 AM
Did anyone notice that two important design principles in GWB's maps are:
1. Oversized doors and gates: Usually oversizing is an issue in Duke maps, but he managed to make it look attractive. Probably because he mixed it with good shading, colouring, and didn't use it on sprites, only on geometry (as I saw, fistmarine noticed in Jungle Zone, but that's just a start).
2. He used sharp shadows to the extreme. There are some really dark areas, with some really bright spots, usually with a vivid colouring on them. It was mastered as he progressed with his mapping.
Not sure if it's a principle, but you can document a long list of reused areas with different enemy placement. The barracks from Khaki Space, the cantina from Atlantis Underground are used at least one more time, not to mention the typical GWBesque breeding area (you can see it both first levels), or the newbeast incubator area. And I guess there are more.
1. Oversized doors and gates: Usually oversizing is an issue in Duke maps, but he managed to make it look attractive. Probably because he mixed it with good shading, colouring, and didn't use it on sprites, only on geometry (as I saw, fistmarine noticed in Jungle Zone, but that's just a start).
2. He used sharp shadows to the extreme. There are some really dark areas, with some really bright spots, usually with a vivid colouring on them. It was mastered as he progressed with his mapping.
Not sure if it's a principle, but you can document a long list of reused areas with different enemy placement. The barracks from Khaki Space, the cantina from Atlantis Underground are used at least one more time, not to mention the typical GWBesque breeding area (you can see it both first levels), or the newbeast incubator area. And I guess there are more.
This post has been edited by The Watchtower: 09 March 2022 - 09:24 AM
#43 Posted 09 March 2022 - 04:33 PM
FistMarine, on 09 March 2022 - 05:40 AM, said:
Speaking of which, the nomination from Aleks' spoiler is interesting and considered for May, as I won't spoil what I have in store for April, because for that month, I will try to spice things up with some more unique nominations. Won't mention what that means until the 25th when voting begins.
Spoiler: what FistMarine is going to nominate for April is
Spoiler
The Watchtower, on 09 March 2022 - 09:23 AM, said:
Did anyone notice that two important design principles in GWB's maps are:
1. Oversized doors and gates: Usually oversizing is an issue in Duke maps, but he managed to make it look attractive. Probably because he mixed it with good shading, colouring, and didn't use it on sprites, only on geometry (as I saw, fistmarine noticed in Jungle Zone, but that's just a start).
2. He used sharp shadows to the extreme. There are some really dark areas, with some really bright spots, usually with a vivid colouring on them. It was mastered as he progressed with his mapping.
Not sure if it's a principle, but you can document a long list of reused areas with different enemy placement. The barracks from Khaki Space, the cantina from Atlantis Underground are used at least one more time, not to mention the typical GWBesque breeding area (you can see it both first levels), or the newbeast incubator area. And I guess there are more.
1. Oversized doors and gates: Usually oversizing is an issue in Duke maps, but he managed to make it look attractive. Probably because he mixed it with good shading, colouring, and didn't use it on sprites, only on geometry (as I saw, fistmarine noticed in Jungle Zone, but that's just a start).
2. He used sharp shadows to the extreme. There are some really dark areas, with some really bright spots, usually with a vivid colouring on them. It was mastered as he progressed with his mapping.
Not sure if it's a principle, but you can document a long list of reused areas with different enemy placement. The barracks from Khaki Space, the cantina from Atlantis Underground are used at least one more time, not to mention the typical GWBesque breeding area (you can see it both first levels), or the newbeast incubator area. And I guess there are more.
Dunno about that, while I like how some of the geometry is made in some levels (Old L.A. on Ice with really nicely done above and underwater parts or heavy use of SOS in Launch Base), I have to say I don't find anything attractive so far in either the large ass doors (especially when they are right next to tiny cramped corridors) or shadows (as basically everything is way too dark due to some low visibility + generally making everything too dark).
Anyway, finished the next 2 levels.
Old L.A. on Ice was the best level so far, although still had a lot of annoying bits (i.e. sentry drones and way too little airtank for so much underwater action). Escaping from prison feels kinda so-so with super well hidden combination for 8 buttons, but I like the destruction sentence that follows. The next part of the level is kinda meh, the level really takes off when we reach the titular ice part, which is pretty neat - kinda feels like Flood Zone, but under ice (and with far underwhelming design). There's some interesting and even memorable parts about this map, but then it still suffers from stacking all the ammo for the same weapon in a single corner, which is horrible when it comes to balancing and makes for a lot of backtracking.
Launch Base had a really nice design (the SOS geometry of the base that I mentioned is spot on) and quite a nice flow, but also so many inexplicably stupid design decisions it almost hurts. The overly-loud rain sound that just goes on and on even inside the base (thanks, SOS) is one - also why is there no roof in the briefing/conference room, besides the obviously badass rainfall and thunderstorm inside the room?! While these and a few other stuff are mostly affecting just design, the area with blue keyswitch/missiles was one of the worst parts of the episode so far. As dark as an asshole, filled with sloped pillars which you barely see anyway and which make the monsters even less visible/harder to hit, full of all kinds of flying enemies, open with no-hitscan maskwalls and on top of that - full of respawning enemies in your face, this was pretty terrible. On top of that, there's also a 7 button combination, the solution of which can be found at the other end of the map. There's also 2 painstakingly long elevator rides. The design of the acid chambers was pretty OK, the launch/destruction of missiles sequence was cool as well, even if ordinarly copied from Area 51, but yeah. Also these 2 levels get more challenging for reasons other than the first one - while the start of the episode threw heaps of health, mostly atomic healths at you, here atomics are more scarce, so for most of the time I didn't have more than 125 health in here. The ammo was plenty all around, also was quite funny to go crazy with freezer at the beginning with 2 large piles of ammo for it. The author still has no idea on how to balance the maps and the largest challenge is still memorizing all the places with stocks for particular guns and backtracking, but the design is much better than the start of the episode.
#44 Posted 10 March 2022 - 03:20 PM
Just finished Khaki Space. Here's my thoughts
Khaki Space
Although first half of the level started as nice detailed space level with interesting layout, other half ruined that experience by spawning shitloads of enemies giving a player very unfair situations with experience of unbalanced nightmare. Level Layout itself may be good, but it needs some more balancing when regarding the monsters and ammunition. Aside of that, very solid level. I just hope remaining levels will be more balanced.
Screenshots:
Khaki Space
Although first half of the level started as nice detailed space level with interesting layout, other half ruined that experience by spawning shitloads of enemies giving a player very unfair situations with experience of unbalanced nightmare. Level Layout itself may be good, but it needs some more balancing when regarding the monsters and ammunition. Aside of that, very solid level. I just hope remaining levels will be more balanced.
Screenshots:
#45 Posted 11 March 2022 - 04:14 AM
@Gingis Khan: Thanks friend. Your screenshots look a lot more interesting than mine, due to being taken sometimes right during action and also helped by having brightness set really high. I'm guessing these levels were meant to be played with brightness set really high.
@Aleks: Good one! I had a good laugh at what's in the spoiler. Though that could actually be true for much later this year (maybe on my next birthday?) if I start mapping sometime during summer. I don't know if we are allowed to nominate our own maps, though.
Khaki Space
This level is huge! It took me around 3 hours to finish it. I still had the Incubator song playing in my head by the time I went to bed.
Due to vanilla limitations, I can't tell the exact in game time and exact amount of enemies killed (I assume I killed at least 300-400 or more), so enjoy the messed up stats from my screenshot! I also died up to 10 times this time around, for various different reasons.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to write a walkthrough for this map. So I will try to at least talk about the most important parts. Because this level will take you a few hours to complete, even when checking Mapster at times I got stuck, mostly to get past some confusing parts and to find some secrets, especially the infamous "DNSTUFF secret" which gives you full ammo for everything. Though I found half secrets on my own but still, it's much appreciated that I could fully complete the level and explore everything. Considering the fact that when I first played the mod many years ago, I was barely finding any secrets.
Anyway, when you start, check every door. You have to activate a bunch of switches. Just press any switch you see, whether it unlocks other doors or turns on the light switch, which will greatly help in these dark filled corridors/rooms. Look out for monsters hidden in each room (including a Mini Battlelord in a cramped room!). You should also find a bathroom, which will be very useful to restore the health whenever you need.
Note that one of the secrets in the bathroom (which contains atomic health and shotgun/chaingun ammo) is the key to access that ammo stash (aka the DNSTUFF secret), so remember its location.
I also remember getting shrunk once by an early protector drone but thankfully I escaped. He just caught me in a bad spot and I already had to be careful with that Mini Battlelord waiting for me around the corner.
The first death I had was in that dark room (which then became green when I turned on the switch) that contained eggs and octabrains. I have no idea what exactly happened but I guess an octabrain pushed me outside of map and then I died in space. It actually left me wondering for a minute WTF happened. That was a cheap death right here!
The other deaths that happened later I got killed by a few various enemies, one time I even got killed by those mini LameDuke drones with their miniguns, I didn't even realize until that point their miniguns do so much damage, making them some sort of a Micro Battlelord (though thankfully they detonate near you for little damage). Never underestimate a drone!
There is one part where the wall collapses. Don't worry, you can explore the other side by finding a nearby teleporter inside a green crate. Just use a pipebomb to blow up a crack. Strangely, I still heard an alien or a turret shooting lasers at me when I approached that collapsed wall. I was sure I already took care of that turret myself (I even replayed that part from an earlier save to make sure that turret died) but still heard an alien trying to shoot me through wall and failing. I'm guessing some aliens got outside of map or the sectors overlapped or what happened exactly?
In the room before you insert the card to unlock the space dome (containing monsters and a section you have to swim into), to progress further, you must press on a nearby wall that contains a switch inside to unlock the next door. This got me confused for a while.
There is another puzzle later on with 4 doors and a multi-switch. You have to check every door after you flip that multi switch. But you must also find a few hidden switches in the dark to progress further to the train area. This again left me wandering for a while until I checked mapster and saw those switches in the dark (I only noticed the lone switch on the pillar but not those 3 switches hidden in a dark corner).
This map was also fairly difficult overall, because I actually had to consume THREE portable medkits (while still relying on usual health pickups and even water fountains) and was lucky I still found one in a secret much later or else I would have been out of medkit for the level. Even then, when I first reached the exit, I had 3 health left. That is before the final part with the sentry drones cramped in the teleporter, which is before the last part with Mini Battlelord and two commanders right in the exit room. That also killed me a few times but after backtracking to get health and more ammo, I stood a much better chance.
And if I hadn't mentioned yet, Mini Bosses (Battlelords and Overlords) become fairly common. In addition to plenty of enforcers and some turrets placed in dickish places to fire at you all at once to drain your health, it will always keep you on your toes! Oh and I also forgot to mention that this mod, along many other released Duke3D mods, have this annoying feature where getting hit at less than 25 health (31 health in this mod's case) will shake the screen (the command in con files I think is called wackplayer and definitely existed even in Duke3D Beta 0.99) which makes it harder to counterattack or to run away while getting hit.
There was one part where I could get into the aquarium by breaking the glass with the RPG, which the author overlooked since not all the walls are solid. I actually did that to kill the sharks for fun and when I saved and loaded, I had the underwater palette applied, so I played for a while like that, which is why you will see that screenshot taken with underwater palette applied a bit later on. I find this a bit amusing.
Speaking of which, that particular room with the pipes (after you solved the two pair of switches puzzles to enter this room, note that the numbered hints are above you in the middle of that room) which contains the red card guarded by a few aliens, there is a hidden switch in a corner (look up to find it!) that is the key to access that ammo stash secret. Once you hit that switch, you then have to go all the way back to the bathroom mentioned at beginning, go to the secret place and notice a small window opened, shoot that switch and then go near that room with the 4 multi switch puzzle. There will be a door opened in that room with the switches (one on pillar, 3 on the dark corner) that will lead to the secret ammo and health stash. There is also a non-secret crate that contains many pipebomb boxes once you find that super secret.
You will then unlock a teleporter that will send you to the corridor that contains the slimer eggs later in map, which I already had killed by that point. Meaning it was one of the few secrets I didn't find until I was done with the map (would have helped a lot earlier when I was running short on the ammo for first 3 weapons).
Oh and finally, I must mention something VERY IMPORTANT and a lesson learned from my first playthrough. In the last few parts of the map, there is a vent and an elevator. It is after the long green corridor and a few rooms before those laser traps. If you plan to backtrack (for leftover supplies, secrets, etc), make sure you first press on the elevator while stepping back, to send it back down and THEN go down the vent. If you don't do this, you can't call the elevator from down and you are almost stuck. Duke can't fit with the jetpack in the vent (due to being placed way too close to ceiling) and it is almost impossible to fit into that vent, it probably requires a careful strafe jump to land perfectly into the vent. I remember on my first proper playthrough (in 2013-2014, using EDuke32) I saved and thought I got stuck down there and had to use DNCLIP to continue. This time around, I was careful enough to learn from past mistake and not only have multiple saves but also send the elevator down. One time I forgot and I simply loaded the save. It was difficult to pull that vent jump with classic controls, so I just loaded my previous save and sent the elevator down as I mentioned.
And one last thing, I also noticed that the mod has destructible cameras. Some monitors displayed the static screen (in most levels so far) and then I quickly realized those cameras are now destructible (another feature that was planned for the original game but ultimately cut). This can have a negative impact on not knowing where to go next if someone destroys a camera that would have showed where to go next. This is unavoidable, as some cameras will get destroyed by enemy attacks.
As for health/armor pickups, well the health comes in decent amounts (there's many atomic health pickups inside secret places) and there's 3 armor pickups in the whole map, I saved only one for the end as starting this map without any armor was really painful, so I had to get one armor eventually, which took a while, meaning I didn't stay long at 250 health.
Overall, the map was very average (still better than first map, IMO), as it was quite dark at times, suffers from oversizing (something I think I forgot to mention earlier, as Watchtower pointed out), has turrets placed in annoying places (especially multiple at same time), very confusing, very long, a bit unbalanced and just underwhelming design at times. And yeah I am playing on low brightness, to make it more challenging. I noticed Laki is playing on high brightness (probably the maximum value? BTW I remember an unique message, probably an insult in French, that shows up when you raise brightness to maximum!), so he can at least see where he is going. While sometimes I have a hard time to guess where to go next or see what's happening in the darkness and sometimes I waste my night vision goggles for nothing. Oh well. Let's hope the next map will be better!
Lunar Factory
I can definitely say that this level is a big improvement over the previous one. The author finally balanced the map rather well. It's still not perfect but for one thing, the armor balance is so much better. There are like 15-16 (!) armor pickups in the whole level! This is far more generous than I expected, especially compared to the previous maps. This means you shouldn't have trouble with surviving, although I don't think this map has any water fountain available, the health and armor pickups are very generous that you shouldn't run low on supplies, especially if you find the secrets, of which are many! I completed this map without dying, thankfully.
With that said, the map is still VERY LONG (took me around 3 hours to finish it, not sure if it took as much as previous level but still a lot of time spent backtracking), it still suffers from oversizing and there are a few WTF parts such as that part where inserting the red card, temporary opens the door for 8 seconds. Sure there is the message above the card slot but you can get softlocked if you didn't see that one coming. Happened once (thinking something else was going to happen in 8 seconds, so I just ran away) and then loaded the save. You have to be quick to enter but first take out the trip mine and few aliens waiting for you. Once inside, clear the corridor of aliens and look for a crack. This crack will open the way into the level (contains a few goodies as well), allowing you to backtrack to earlier parts of the level. You can then return to this area if you need more ammo or want to explore it again, since the normal path requires another red card (similarly opens the door for 8 seconds!).
That part with the spaceship was pretty cool. The sector overlaps with the actual spaceship, giving the impression you are inside it! It is also nicely designed. There was also one a funny part after that (on the room unlocked with blue card), where a protector drone actually shrunk a Mini Battlelord and helped me get rid of him easily. Nice teamwork here!
Of course there are plenty of mini bosses overall but many of them you can just shrink if you are lucky with your aiming (crouching and aiming at their feet around the corners works the best), otherwise just use RPG/Devastator. You should be fine, especially against Mini Overlords which are slow and you can easily get in their face and blast at their feet and hope they shrink. Although there wasn't as much RPG ammo as I was hoping (maybe I used the RPG a bit more than I wanted to), as I had less than 50 ammo by the time I reached the exit (had full of everything else, besides boots and scuba gear which were close to 100%)
Forgot to talk about a few earlier parts. The crane/factory parts were pretty interesting, although you could skip them with the jetpack, at least the part that had you standing in lava and wait to get picked up by crane. The map rarely got confusing and I had fun with it.
Interestingly, I noticed that yellow freezer trooper (that was in the room with a switch intended for progression) got glitched and became unkillable, while running into walls. I loaded a slightly earlier save and then I could kill him fine. What happened is that I'm guessing when the trooper first saw me, he probably hit himself by his own projectiles. Instead of freezing, he got glitched. This is probably fixed in the addon compilation as well (I remember reporting this glitch before, though at that time I didn't know the correct cause of it). Oh yeah and I noticed he can drop the Freezethrower as well (I noticed this in the next level), not just the ammo.
For more WTF moments, there was that one point where a red card sitting on a platform was a trap. To grab it, jump or else you will fall into a pit. I activated the jetpack as soon as I heard Duke screaming. I knew there was some sort of trap involved with the card. It wasn't too bad but if you don't expect it and go directly instead of jumping, you will be in for a nasty surprise! At least I realized I had the jetpack, otherwise would have been one pointless death.
Later on, there was a point where I got "stuck" and had gotten another red card but couldn't find the blue one to go further, so I had to consult Mapster. Turns out, the blue one was sitting down on that rotating platform in one of the screenshots I took. Yes, I noticed the cards are reused several times, in total there are 9 cards, 4 red, 3 blue and 2 yellow. IMO would have been cooler if there were 3 for each color, I guess the author liked using the red card more.
The map seems inspired at times by mostly Lunar Reactor and Dark Side. It actually even uses the song from Lunar Reactor, though like with previous level, it gets repetitive after the first hour. In fact, if both levels were split into 2-3 parts, I don't think anyone would have complained. I'm surprised all the maps ran fine so far in just plain DUKE3D.EXE v1.5 (in DOSBox 0.74-3), I never had any crashes. So I have to give credit to the author. I remember the Watchtower saying that the two levels are just as big as the entire Lunar Apocalypse episode. Now I see why.
There are 14 (!) secrets to find in total but thankfully most are easy to find. I found them all (with a bit of help from Mapster) by the time I reached the exit.
Oh and there was a non-secret area easy to miss, in that building on the moon, you can enter inside (near where you would find one of the secrets anyway) that has a bar, a few troopers and some dancing ladies. And I guess a Devastator hidden in that room as well, which helped to get back to 99 ammo. I found these after I was done with the map. Killing the ladies spawn a bunch more enemies, including a Mini Battlelord! So take them out and then finish the map (assuming you were backtracking) after grabbing all the supplies.
I don't think there is much else to say about the map. It was fine. I had fun with it and found it one of the more memorable maps from the entire episode so far, especially the parts inspired by Dark Side, mostly on the second half. Looking forward to the next map!
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New L.A.
While the map still suffers from oversizing much like the previous ones, you can tell the maps are getting better as you progress. This one still has few cheap tricks and the balance could have been a bit better but at least the author is learning. I had a lot of fun with this map, despite a lot of backtracking. Most of the time I knew where I had to go next. Whenever I got a card, I knew where I would place it next.
There are a couple memorable bits. The one part I remembered the most is the club. Yes, it suffers from oversizing and was slightly dark (that I had to use the NVG to see the monsters initially) but I really like how in background, it plays the music Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf! That's a very neat touch there! And I know the original game, in E3L1 (Raw Meat), had "Born to the Wild!" which possibly made a reference to this song. In fact, I have memories from around 2010 or so when a commercial at my TV played this song and I actually had Duke3D in mind at that time. Whenever I heard "Born to be Wild!", I would always think at that part from Duke saying "Born to be Wild!".
For other memorable bits, I guess that part where you see the small buildings in one of first screenshots I took. It contains a card inside, so make sure you grab it.
I also liked the part where you press on the radio buttons and suddenly you warp into a green alien room, though be careful with that upgraded octabrain that spams blasts at you! Once inside the mini spaceship (which contains a few ammo pickups), at first I thought I got stuck when that door closed behind me, so I loaded the save and re-killed the octabrain but eventually after waiting enough time, I was let out. No idea what exactly was going on but once I got out from that mini alien spaceship, I continued with my business.
Some secrets are tricky to find. I know there is one that will have people puzzled (there is no indication that the switch exists), if you look at one of the screenshots (in the right side of the 6th one), I show you the hidden switch. It's located near those shark tanks. It opens outside that big orange door with Duke face on it, which is guarded by two sentry drones. When you get there and grab the goodies, press on the left side for another hidden switch, to open a nearby compartiment with shells, health and armor (this one doesn't count as a secret, I think). Other secrets can be found in vents and there is an optional sewer area that you can explore (which contains 3 more secrets, including two boots pickups and health/armor supplies). I don't know if these octabrains in sewers were upgraded versions (since I killed them quickly with devastator) but in rest of the level there are plenty of upgraded octabrains, so be careful with them! Usually, the Devastator should help with getting rid of them.
There is also a secret that even looking at mapster confused me (because the crack didn't show up on the correct side) but all you have to do is, in the club, fire a RPG shot at the dancing woman screen. This will open a secret area with a few enemies and some supplies inside. There is another non-secret, located at the OPPOSITE side of that tricky secret (where the giant blue Duke picture can be found) where you blow up a wall to access a Devastator with ammo and a hidden jetpack. But to get there, you have to use an already existing jetpack in order to collect the new one. I didn't find any other way and was already getting exhausted from backtracking, so I had to grab everything and move on to the next map.
Oh yeah, I had to backtrack a few times for some missing enemies. I remember finding an enforcer in one dark corridor and then later, a corner I didn't explore (with an octabrain and slimer eggs) in the room I grabbed a card much earlier. Again these are easy to miss and you will never know whether you got everything due to the bugged kill count that Duke3D has. Not to mention the maps being this big, means you will never know how many kills you got in vanilla Duke3D, as once you kill more than 255 monsters, the counter starts glitching. Either you get less enemies killed or you get non-existent missing monsters. No idea how the game decides I missed a bunch of monsters but I wish this glitch was fixed back then (source ports fix the total time and monsters killed).
At the end of the level, after you teleport and step forward, you get captured by pig cops. Killing those 2 pig cops is tricky as they may not cooperate and the gate is blocking projectiles, so using RPG is the best option while trying to position yourself to reduce damage (took a few tries to kill both and still end the level with full 250 health). Shrinker seemed to work as well (assuming both got very close to the gate to get shrunk and stepped on) but I could never kill both pig cops that way, as the second would never come too close to the gate. So to me the RPG was still the best option.
Overall, the level was fairly interesting. A noticeable upgrade from the previous levels so far but still suffers from oversizing and some areas still lack supplies. But at least the author has started using the regular health pickups more commonly than just spamming atomic healths everywhere and same applies with ammo to some extent. Too bad you lose everything in the next level, which is why I recommend having 250 health to prepare you for what awaits you next!
Old L.A. On Ice
Duke is captured and placed in a prison on an electric chair. You can tell the ending of previous map and beginning of this one are based off Death Row. Heck, at the end of this level, you get inside a submarine which is again inspired by Death Row. This time you don't get The City Streets playing in the background, as it already played in the previous map. Instead, you get Water World, the song from Toxic Dump! Which is nice and fits the level nicely, as there is quite a bit of underwater action involved later on.
Unfortunately, the map is still plagued by various annoyances. For one, the beginning part is just annoying (though wasn't too bad other than losing my extra health quickly in next room). I took a bit of damage from tripmines (most likely some pig cops set them off), took a while until I found both pistols at short interval (until that time I relied on dropped shotguns and kick attacks, thankfully I got a shotgun from first pig cop but still, the rooms could have been brighter so I could see more stuff going on). Then there are two sets of switch puzzles. I figured the first combination myself (I think it was 2, 4 and 6, something like that, an easy combination) but the second one that unlocks entrance door, had to look in Mapster to figure out after what seemed like 5 minutes of trying and not finding the correct combination. The correct answer was: 2, 3 and 4.
Then once you unlock the big gate and go further, there is NO WAY BACK TO THE BEGINNING! There are no secrets at very beginning if you are wondering but I initially missed what was behind those gates in left side (since it was so dark and I missed that nearby switch that unlocked the gate, it wasn't until I checked Mapster how to get there), I loaded an earlier save and I explored further. Inside those cells, are a few troopers and a pig cop. But there's also NECESSARY items, such as an armor pickup (one of the two armor pickups in whole map, besides whatever pig cops will drop for you), an atomic health, night vision goggles and boots and probably something else I'm forgetting now. Oh yeah and you can't go back to the water fountain later on (and also the broken toilets), so the rest of the level has you relying on whatever health you can find on your way! Good luck, you will need it!
And after getting through the beginning parts, finding a few secrets (including a much needed Chaingun!), a hidden red card (wasn't too difficult to find but still) that unlocks that big door behind trip mines and then the most infamous part with swimming in the ice, which is very dark! This is where I died first time (I died around 3 times in total, twice by drowning and once from a commander's rocket after the part with the only mirror in the level). I actually drowned right in last second I spotted the scuba gear in the dumpster! There are actually two scuba gears in the whole level but I didn't know the existence of second one until I looked now in Mapster (at the moment I'm writing this message), which is around the place where you would use the yellow card to blow up a path underwater that leads to last part of the map. You must destroy those vents to make the stuff drop, I think. I guess I will reload an earlier save and redo the last part of the level, just to get that scuba gear as it might be helpful later on (whatever oxygen remains left, which may be useful in next map). Because there is no way back once you drop down! Oh yeah and if that wasn't enough, there is even a secret (right before dropping down the pit) that requires you to jump while on a slope to reach it, which required me about 5 attempts. It is very easy to miss and once you fall down, there is no way to go back in the earlier parts of the level as you don't have access to jetpack. Even navigating through those underwater parts sucks with the lack of scuba gear, as you will get unavoidable drowning damage, which can be as little as just 1 health lost or as much as 100 or more health points lost. And since you don't get access to water fountains again (though there is a toilet available at the end of the level that can be useful if you are low on health), all that precious health may be required to fight aliens or else the map might become unwinnable! The original Flood Zone had a lot of underwater action going on but the level had two scuba gears that were easy to find (on top of the one you carried from Raw Meat) and you could quickly resurface if you needed oxygen. But this level has two hidden scuba gears and you don't get to carry the one from previous maps, plus there are very few spots you can resurface.
I don't have much else to say as I don't want to sound too harsh. The level was overall much better designed than the previous (some areas looked really cool!) and there wasn't as much oversizing in certain areas, plus it was memorable but it is plagued with annoyances that were also seen in the earlier maps (stuff that could have been easily fixed if the author playtested his maps more) and the map was also a lot more difficult than it should have been (partly because of losing your entire arsenal and inventory at the start), so much that I had to use both portable medkits from the level and still struggled a bit with health at certain times, until I backtracked and grabbed every medkit I could find (though in the end, I still finished the level with maximum health and 84 armor). A shame that the level had all those annoyances because at this point it's when things start getting really good. I am still giving the author credit and I know that in next levels and especially Water Bases episode, things will get very good! I'm not getting my hopes up (I don't remember much from my old/last playthrough) but this is the point where things are getting really good. I hope.
I also haven't mentioned where secrets are found as there are so many and very difficult to write a walkthrough. I can say for this level, there is a hidden secret area underwater that when you surface, you end up in a green room with canisters and slimer eggs, plus it contains Shrinker, ammo and armor. To clear this room quickly, throw a pipebomb, submerge and detonate. Then on one of the buildings, there is a secret RPG (again, another necessary weapon) that requires you to steroid jump to the building. Not bad since you are given another bottle of steroids when you grab the RPG and ammo but I feel like this level could have been more generous with supplies, especially with 1-2 more scuba gears and maybe a jetpack in a secret place, to help with backtracking and reaching other secrets. Though using steroids to jump on the building was clever, the original game didn't require that and some user maps did this, I'm fine with that actually. The damage from the fall was relatively minor. I even noticed that the Devastator is the only weapon missing in this level. A bit odd to leave that one out, as it would have been useful at times. Hopefully it will be found in the next map.
Here are a couple more screenshots. I took a lot more this time around (mostly for the big-ass space maps) and hope they aren't cluttering the topic. I also ended up talking about 4 maps this time around, two of which were very long (taking around 3 hours each) and two other which were just long (taking around 1-2 hours each to finish).
Hope that later today I get to finish the last 4 maps! Yes, I now know where is the secret level found. It is found somewhere in level 8. I will give a walkthrough to get to it, once I do the map later today. I will probably write about rest maps in next few days, then next week (if I finish Last Reaction later today), I will then focus on Water Bases episode. No idea how I will categorize the maps (probably again 3-4 maps written for each post) and then preparing for Chimera, which I will probably write about it near end of the month, in the last week! Around the time voting for next month begins.
If anyone is interested, I might also plan to record short gameplay videos about defeating the final bosses at end of each episode, though in case of Chimera I am not decided which level to show (due to lack of final boss), either some later parts of 6th or 7th map. Have a nice weekend everyone!
@Aleks: Good one! I had a good laugh at what's in the spoiler. Though that could actually be true for much later this year (maybe on my next birthday?) if I start mapping sometime during summer. I don't know if we are allowed to nominate our own maps, though.
Khaki Space
This level is huge! It took me around 3 hours to finish it. I still had the Incubator song playing in my head by the time I went to bed.
Due to vanilla limitations, I can't tell the exact in game time and exact amount of enemies killed (I assume I killed at least 300-400 or more), so enjoy the messed up stats from my screenshot! I also died up to 10 times this time around, for various different reasons.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to write a walkthrough for this map. So I will try to at least talk about the most important parts. Because this level will take you a few hours to complete, even when checking Mapster at times I got stuck, mostly to get past some confusing parts and to find some secrets, especially the infamous "DNSTUFF secret" which gives you full ammo for everything. Though I found half secrets on my own but still, it's much appreciated that I could fully complete the level and explore everything. Considering the fact that when I first played the mod many years ago, I was barely finding any secrets.
Anyway, when you start, check every door. You have to activate a bunch of switches. Just press any switch you see, whether it unlocks other doors or turns on the light switch, which will greatly help in these dark filled corridors/rooms. Look out for monsters hidden in each room (including a Mini Battlelord in a cramped room!). You should also find a bathroom, which will be very useful to restore the health whenever you need.
Note that one of the secrets in the bathroom (which contains atomic health and shotgun/chaingun ammo) is the key to access that ammo stash (aka the DNSTUFF secret), so remember its location.
I also remember getting shrunk once by an early protector drone but thankfully I escaped. He just caught me in a bad spot and I already had to be careful with that Mini Battlelord waiting for me around the corner.
The first death I had was in that dark room (which then became green when I turned on the switch) that contained eggs and octabrains. I have no idea what exactly happened but I guess an octabrain pushed me outside of map and then I died in space. It actually left me wondering for a minute WTF happened. That was a cheap death right here!
The other deaths that happened later I got killed by a few various enemies, one time I even got killed by those mini LameDuke drones with their miniguns, I didn't even realize until that point their miniguns do so much damage, making them some sort of a Micro Battlelord (though thankfully they detonate near you for little damage). Never underestimate a drone!
There is one part where the wall collapses. Don't worry, you can explore the other side by finding a nearby teleporter inside a green crate. Just use a pipebomb to blow up a crack. Strangely, I still heard an alien or a turret shooting lasers at me when I approached that collapsed wall. I was sure I already took care of that turret myself (I even replayed that part from an earlier save to make sure that turret died) but still heard an alien trying to shoot me through wall and failing. I'm guessing some aliens got outside of map or the sectors overlapped or what happened exactly?
In the room before you insert the card to unlock the space dome (containing monsters and a section you have to swim into), to progress further, you must press on a nearby wall that contains a switch inside to unlock the next door. This got me confused for a while.
There is another puzzle later on with 4 doors and a multi-switch. You have to check every door after you flip that multi switch. But you must also find a few hidden switches in the dark to progress further to the train area. This again left me wandering for a while until I checked mapster and saw those switches in the dark (I only noticed the lone switch on the pillar but not those 3 switches hidden in a dark corner).
This map was also fairly difficult overall, because I actually had to consume THREE portable medkits (while still relying on usual health pickups and even water fountains) and was lucky I still found one in a secret much later or else I would have been out of medkit for the level. Even then, when I first reached the exit, I had 3 health left. That is before the final part with the sentry drones cramped in the teleporter, which is before the last part with Mini Battlelord and two commanders right in the exit room. That also killed me a few times but after backtracking to get health and more ammo, I stood a much better chance.
And if I hadn't mentioned yet, Mini Bosses (Battlelords and Overlords) become fairly common. In addition to plenty of enforcers and some turrets placed in dickish places to fire at you all at once to drain your health, it will always keep you on your toes! Oh and I also forgot to mention that this mod, along many other released Duke3D mods, have this annoying feature where getting hit at less than 25 health (31 health in this mod's case) will shake the screen (the command in con files I think is called wackplayer and definitely existed even in Duke3D Beta 0.99) which makes it harder to counterattack or to run away while getting hit.
There was one part where I could get into the aquarium by breaking the glass with the RPG, which the author overlooked since not all the walls are solid. I actually did that to kill the sharks for fun and when I saved and loaded, I had the underwater palette applied, so I played for a while like that, which is why you will see that screenshot taken with underwater palette applied a bit later on. I find this a bit amusing.
Speaking of which, that particular room with the pipes (after you solved the two pair of switches puzzles to enter this room, note that the numbered hints are above you in the middle of that room) which contains the red card guarded by a few aliens, there is a hidden switch in a corner (look up to find it!) that is the key to access that ammo stash secret. Once you hit that switch, you then have to go all the way back to the bathroom mentioned at beginning, go to the secret place and notice a small window opened, shoot that switch and then go near that room with the 4 multi switch puzzle. There will be a door opened in that room with the switches (one on pillar, 3 on the dark corner) that will lead to the secret ammo and health stash. There is also a non-secret crate that contains many pipebomb boxes once you find that super secret.
You will then unlock a teleporter that will send you to the corridor that contains the slimer eggs later in map, which I already had killed by that point. Meaning it was one of the few secrets I didn't find until I was done with the map (would have helped a lot earlier when I was running short on the ammo for first 3 weapons).
Oh and finally, I must mention something VERY IMPORTANT and a lesson learned from my first playthrough. In the last few parts of the map, there is a vent and an elevator. It is after the long green corridor and a few rooms before those laser traps. If you plan to backtrack (for leftover supplies, secrets, etc), make sure you first press on the elevator while stepping back, to send it back down and THEN go down the vent. If you don't do this, you can't call the elevator from down and you are almost stuck. Duke can't fit with the jetpack in the vent (due to being placed way too close to ceiling) and it is almost impossible to fit into that vent, it probably requires a careful strafe jump to land perfectly into the vent. I remember on my first proper playthrough (in 2013-2014, using EDuke32) I saved and thought I got stuck down there and had to use DNCLIP to continue. This time around, I was careful enough to learn from past mistake and not only have multiple saves but also send the elevator down. One time I forgot and I simply loaded the save. It was difficult to pull that vent jump with classic controls, so I just loaded my previous save and sent the elevator down as I mentioned.
And one last thing, I also noticed that the mod has destructible cameras. Some monitors displayed the static screen (in most levels so far) and then I quickly realized those cameras are now destructible (another feature that was planned for the original game but ultimately cut). This can have a negative impact on not knowing where to go next if someone destroys a camera that would have showed where to go next. This is unavoidable, as some cameras will get destroyed by enemy attacks.
As for health/armor pickups, well the health comes in decent amounts (there's many atomic health pickups inside secret places) and there's 3 armor pickups in the whole map, I saved only one for the end as starting this map without any armor was really painful, so I had to get one armor eventually, which took a while, meaning I didn't stay long at 250 health.
Overall, the map was very average (still better than first map, IMO), as it was quite dark at times, suffers from oversizing (something I think I forgot to mention earlier, as Watchtower pointed out), has turrets placed in annoying places (especially multiple at same time), very confusing, very long, a bit unbalanced and just underwhelming design at times. And yeah I am playing on low brightness, to make it more challenging. I noticed Laki is playing on high brightness (probably the maximum value? BTW I remember an unique message, probably an insult in French, that shows up when you raise brightness to maximum!), so he can at least see where he is going. While sometimes I have a hard time to guess where to go next or see what's happening in the darkness and sometimes I waste my night vision goggles for nothing. Oh well. Let's hope the next map will be better!
Lunar Factory
I can definitely say that this level is a big improvement over the previous one. The author finally balanced the map rather well. It's still not perfect but for one thing, the armor balance is so much better. There are like 15-16 (!) armor pickups in the whole level! This is far more generous than I expected, especially compared to the previous maps. This means you shouldn't have trouble with surviving, although I don't think this map has any water fountain available, the health and armor pickups are very generous that you shouldn't run low on supplies, especially if you find the secrets, of which are many! I completed this map without dying, thankfully.
With that said, the map is still VERY LONG (took me around 3 hours to finish it, not sure if it took as much as previous level but still a lot of time spent backtracking), it still suffers from oversizing and there are a few WTF parts such as that part where inserting the red card, temporary opens the door for 8 seconds. Sure there is the message above the card slot but you can get softlocked if you didn't see that one coming. Happened once (thinking something else was going to happen in 8 seconds, so I just ran away) and then loaded the save. You have to be quick to enter but first take out the trip mine and few aliens waiting for you. Once inside, clear the corridor of aliens and look for a crack. This crack will open the way into the level (contains a few goodies as well), allowing you to backtrack to earlier parts of the level. You can then return to this area if you need more ammo or want to explore it again, since the normal path requires another red card (similarly opens the door for 8 seconds!).
That part with the spaceship was pretty cool. The sector overlaps with the actual spaceship, giving the impression you are inside it! It is also nicely designed. There was also one a funny part after that (on the room unlocked with blue card), where a protector drone actually shrunk a Mini Battlelord and helped me get rid of him easily. Nice teamwork here!
Of course there are plenty of mini bosses overall but many of them you can just shrink if you are lucky with your aiming (crouching and aiming at their feet around the corners works the best), otherwise just use RPG/Devastator. You should be fine, especially against Mini Overlords which are slow and you can easily get in their face and blast at their feet and hope they shrink. Although there wasn't as much RPG ammo as I was hoping (maybe I used the RPG a bit more than I wanted to), as I had less than 50 ammo by the time I reached the exit (had full of everything else, besides boots and scuba gear which were close to 100%)Forgot to talk about a few earlier parts. The crane/factory parts were pretty interesting, although you could skip them with the jetpack, at least the part that had you standing in lava and wait to get picked up by crane. The map rarely got confusing and I had fun with it.
Interestingly, I noticed that yellow freezer trooper (that was in the room with a switch intended for progression) got glitched and became unkillable, while running into walls. I loaded a slightly earlier save and then I could kill him fine. What happened is that I'm guessing when the trooper first saw me, he probably hit himself by his own projectiles. Instead of freezing, he got glitched. This is probably fixed in the addon compilation as well (I remember reporting this glitch before, though at that time I didn't know the correct cause of it). Oh yeah and I noticed he can drop the Freezethrower as well (I noticed this in the next level), not just the ammo.
For more WTF moments, there was that one point where a red card sitting on a platform was a trap. To grab it, jump or else you will fall into a pit. I activated the jetpack as soon as I heard Duke screaming. I knew there was some sort of trap involved with the card. It wasn't too bad but if you don't expect it and go directly instead of jumping, you will be in for a nasty surprise! At least I realized I had the jetpack, otherwise would have been one pointless death.
Later on, there was a point where I got "stuck" and had gotten another red card but couldn't find the blue one to go further, so I had to consult Mapster. Turns out, the blue one was sitting down on that rotating platform in one of the screenshots I took. Yes, I noticed the cards are reused several times, in total there are 9 cards, 4 red, 3 blue and 2 yellow. IMO would have been cooler if there were 3 for each color, I guess the author liked using the red card more.
The map seems inspired at times by mostly Lunar Reactor and Dark Side. It actually even uses the song from Lunar Reactor, though like with previous level, it gets repetitive after the first hour. In fact, if both levels were split into 2-3 parts, I don't think anyone would have complained. I'm surprised all the maps ran fine so far in just plain DUKE3D.EXE v1.5 (in DOSBox 0.74-3), I never had any crashes. So I have to give credit to the author. I remember the Watchtower saying that the two levels are just as big as the entire Lunar Apocalypse episode. Now I see why.
There are 14 (!) secrets to find in total but thankfully most are easy to find. I found them all (with a bit of help from Mapster) by the time I reached the exit.
Oh and there was a non-secret area easy to miss, in that building on the moon, you can enter inside (near where you would find one of the secrets anyway) that has a bar, a few troopers and some dancing ladies. And I guess a Devastator hidden in that room as well, which helped to get back to 99 ammo. I found these after I was done with the map. Killing the ladies spawn a bunch more enemies, including a Mini Battlelord! So take them out and then finish the map (assuming you were backtracking) after grabbing all the supplies.
I don't think there is much else to say about the map. It was fine. I had fun with it and found it one of the more memorable maps from the entire episode so far, especially the parts inspired by Dark Side, mostly on the second half. Looking forward to the next map!
png]New L.A.
While the map still suffers from oversizing much like the previous ones, you can tell the maps are getting better as you progress. This one still has few cheap tricks and the balance could have been a bit better but at least the author is learning. I had a lot of fun with this map, despite a lot of backtracking. Most of the time I knew where I had to go next. Whenever I got a card, I knew where I would place it next.
There are a couple memorable bits. The one part I remembered the most is the club. Yes, it suffers from oversizing and was slightly dark (that I had to use the NVG to see the monsters initially) but I really like how in background, it plays the music Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf! That's a very neat touch there! And I know the original game, in E3L1 (Raw Meat), had "Born to the Wild!" which possibly made a reference to this song. In fact, I have memories from around 2010 or so when a commercial at my TV played this song and I actually had Duke3D in mind at that time. Whenever I heard "Born to be Wild!", I would always think at that part from Duke saying "Born to be Wild!".
For other memorable bits, I guess that part where you see the small buildings in one of first screenshots I took. It contains a card inside, so make sure you grab it.
I also liked the part where you press on the radio buttons and suddenly you warp into a green alien room, though be careful with that upgraded octabrain that spams blasts at you! Once inside the mini spaceship (which contains a few ammo pickups), at first I thought I got stuck when that door closed behind me, so I loaded the save and re-killed the octabrain but eventually after waiting enough time, I was let out. No idea what exactly was going on but once I got out from that mini alien spaceship, I continued with my business.
Some secrets are tricky to find. I know there is one that will have people puzzled (there is no indication that the switch exists), if you look at one of the screenshots (in the right side of the 6th one), I show you the hidden switch. It's located near those shark tanks. It opens outside that big orange door with Duke face on it, which is guarded by two sentry drones. When you get there and grab the goodies, press on the left side for another hidden switch, to open a nearby compartiment with shells, health and armor (this one doesn't count as a secret, I think). Other secrets can be found in vents and there is an optional sewer area that you can explore (which contains 3 more secrets, including two boots pickups and health/armor supplies). I don't know if these octabrains in sewers were upgraded versions (since I killed them quickly with devastator) but in rest of the level there are plenty of upgraded octabrains, so be careful with them! Usually, the Devastator should help with getting rid of them.
There is also a secret that even looking at mapster confused me (because the crack didn't show up on the correct side) but all you have to do is, in the club, fire a RPG shot at the dancing woman screen. This will open a secret area with a few enemies and some supplies inside. There is another non-secret, located at the OPPOSITE side of that tricky secret (where the giant blue Duke picture can be found) where you blow up a wall to access a Devastator with ammo and a hidden jetpack. But to get there, you have to use an already existing jetpack in order to collect the new one. I didn't find any other way and was already getting exhausted from backtracking, so I had to grab everything and move on to the next map.
Oh yeah, I had to backtrack a few times for some missing enemies. I remember finding an enforcer in one dark corridor and then later, a corner I didn't explore (with an octabrain and slimer eggs) in the room I grabbed a card much earlier. Again these are easy to miss and you will never know whether you got everything due to the bugged kill count that Duke3D has. Not to mention the maps being this big, means you will never know how many kills you got in vanilla Duke3D, as once you kill more than 255 monsters, the counter starts glitching. Either you get less enemies killed or you get non-existent missing monsters. No idea how the game decides I missed a bunch of monsters but I wish this glitch was fixed back then (source ports fix the total time and monsters killed).
At the end of the level, after you teleport and step forward, you get captured by pig cops. Killing those 2 pig cops is tricky as they may not cooperate and the gate is blocking projectiles, so using RPG is the best option while trying to position yourself to reduce damage (took a few tries to kill both and still end the level with full 250 health). Shrinker seemed to work as well (assuming both got very close to the gate to get shrunk and stepped on) but I could never kill both pig cops that way, as the second would never come too close to the gate. So to me the RPG was still the best option.
Overall, the level was fairly interesting. A noticeable upgrade from the previous levels so far but still suffers from oversizing and some areas still lack supplies. But at least the author has started using the regular health pickups more commonly than just spamming atomic healths everywhere and same applies with ammo to some extent. Too bad you lose everything in the next level, which is why I recommend having 250 health to prepare you for what awaits you next!
Old L.A. On Ice
Duke is captured and placed in a prison on an electric chair. You can tell the ending of previous map and beginning of this one are based off Death Row. Heck, at the end of this level, you get inside a submarine which is again inspired by Death Row. This time you don't get The City Streets playing in the background, as it already played in the previous map. Instead, you get Water World, the song from Toxic Dump! Which is nice and fits the level nicely, as there is quite a bit of underwater action involved later on.
Unfortunately, the map is still plagued by various annoyances. For one, the beginning part is just annoying (though wasn't too bad other than losing my extra health quickly in next room). I took a bit of damage from tripmines (most likely some pig cops set them off), took a while until I found both pistols at short interval (until that time I relied on dropped shotguns and kick attacks, thankfully I got a shotgun from first pig cop but still, the rooms could have been brighter so I could see more stuff going on). Then there are two sets of switch puzzles. I figured the first combination myself (I think it was 2, 4 and 6, something like that, an easy combination) but the second one that unlocks entrance door, had to look in Mapster to figure out after what seemed like 5 minutes of trying and not finding the correct combination. The correct answer was: 2, 3 and 4.
Then once you unlock the big gate and go further, there is NO WAY BACK TO THE BEGINNING! There are no secrets at very beginning if you are wondering but I initially missed what was behind those gates in left side (since it was so dark and I missed that nearby switch that unlocked the gate, it wasn't until I checked Mapster how to get there), I loaded an earlier save and I explored further. Inside those cells, are a few troopers and a pig cop. But there's also NECESSARY items, such as an armor pickup (one of the two armor pickups in whole map, besides whatever pig cops will drop for you), an atomic health, night vision goggles and boots and probably something else I'm forgetting now. Oh yeah and you can't go back to the water fountain later on (and also the broken toilets), so the rest of the level has you relying on whatever health you can find on your way! Good luck, you will need it!
And after getting through the beginning parts, finding a few secrets (including a much needed Chaingun!), a hidden red card (wasn't too difficult to find but still) that unlocks that big door behind trip mines and then the most infamous part with swimming in the ice, which is very dark! This is where I died first time (I died around 3 times in total, twice by drowning and once from a commander's rocket after the part with the only mirror in the level). I actually drowned right in last second I spotted the scuba gear in the dumpster! There are actually two scuba gears in the whole level but I didn't know the existence of second one until I looked now in Mapster (at the moment I'm writing this message), which is around the place where you would use the yellow card to blow up a path underwater that leads to last part of the map. You must destroy those vents to make the stuff drop, I think. I guess I will reload an earlier save and redo the last part of the level, just to get that scuba gear as it might be helpful later on (whatever oxygen remains left, which may be useful in next map). Because there is no way back once you drop down! Oh yeah and if that wasn't enough, there is even a secret (right before dropping down the pit) that requires you to jump while on a slope to reach it, which required me about 5 attempts. It is very easy to miss and once you fall down, there is no way to go back in the earlier parts of the level as you don't have access to jetpack. Even navigating through those underwater parts sucks with the lack of scuba gear, as you will get unavoidable drowning damage, which can be as little as just 1 health lost or as much as 100 or more health points lost. And since you don't get access to water fountains again (though there is a toilet available at the end of the level that can be useful if you are low on health), all that precious health may be required to fight aliens or else the map might become unwinnable! The original Flood Zone had a lot of underwater action going on but the level had two scuba gears that were easy to find (on top of the one you carried from Raw Meat) and you could quickly resurface if you needed oxygen. But this level has two hidden scuba gears and you don't get to carry the one from previous maps, plus there are very few spots you can resurface.
I don't have much else to say as I don't want to sound too harsh. The level was overall much better designed than the previous (some areas looked really cool!) and there wasn't as much oversizing in certain areas, plus it was memorable but it is plagued with annoyances that were also seen in the earlier maps (stuff that could have been easily fixed if the author playtested his maps more) and the map was also a lot more difficult than it should have been (partly because of losing your entire arsenal and inventory at the start), so much that I had to use both portable medkits from the level and still struggled a bit with health at certain times, until I backtracked and grabbed every medkit I could find (though in the end, I still finished the level with maximum health and 84 armor). A shame that the level had all those annoyances because at this point it's when things start getting really good. I am still giving the author credit and I know that in next levels and especially Water Bases episode, things will get very good! I'm not getting my hopes up (I don't remember much from my old/last playthrough) but this is the point where things are getting really good. I hope.
I also haven't mentioned where secrets are found as there are so many and very difficult to write a walkthrough. I can say for this level, there is a hidden secret area underwater that when you surface, you end up in a green room with canisters and slimer eggs, plus it contains Shrinker, ammo and armor. To clear this room quickly, throw a pipebomb, submerge and detonate. Then on one of the buildings, there is a secret RPG (again, another necessary weapon) that requires you to steroid jump to the building. Not bad since you are given another bottle of steroids when you grab the RPG and ammo but I feel like this level could have been more generous with supplies, especially with 1-2 more scuba gears and maybe a jetpack in a secret place, to help with backtracking and reaching other secrets. Though using steroids to jump on the building was clever, the original game didn't require that and some user maps did this, I'm fine with that actually. The damage from the fall was relatively minor. I even noticed that the Devastator is the only weapon missing in this level. A bit odd to leave that one out, as it would have been useful at times. Hopefully it will be found in the next map.
Here are a couple more screenshots. I took a lot more this time around (mostly for the big-ass space maps) and hope they aren't cluttering the topic. I also ended up talking about 4 maps this time around, two of which were very long (taking around 3 hours each) and two other which were just long (taking around 1-2 hours each to finish).
Hope that later today I get to finish the last 4 maps! Yes, I now know where is the secret level found. It is found somewhere in level 8. I will give a walkthrough to get to it, once I do the map later today. I will probably write about rest maps in next few days, then next week (if I finish Last Reaction later today), I will then focus on Water Bases episode. No idea how I will categorize the maps (probably again 3-4 maps written for each post) and then preparing for Chimera, which I will probably write about it near end of the month, in the last week! Around the time voting for next month begins.
If anyone is interested, I might also plan to record short gameplay videos about defeating the final bosses at end of each episode, though in case of Chimera I am not decided which level to show (due to lack of final boss), either some later parts of 6th or 7th map. Have a nice weekend everyone!
This post has been edited by FistMarine: 11 March 2022 - 04:22 AM
#46 Posted 11 March 2022 - 11:36 AM
Quote
Strangely, I still heard an alien or a turret shooting lasers at me when I approached that collapsed wall. I was sure I already took care of that turret myself (I even replayed that part from an earlier save to make sure that turret died) but still heard an alien trying to shoot me through wall and failing. I'm guessing some aliens got outside of map or the sectors overlapped or what happened exactly?
There's apparently some turrets stuck in the ceiling in the left corner right next to the collapsed wall, if you shoot RPG there, they should get caught up in the blast and destroyed
And yeah, the little amount of airtank in Old L.A. on Ice was annoying, although I found the first one (on top of the vent) before even submerging, this rooftop can be accessed by jumping on a camera pole at the side of the building. Also having only a single spot to submerge was quite dickish and what made it seem much more tedious/annoying than e.g. Flood Zone.
As for the Death Row reference (as well as few other areas that were similar to various original Duke 3D levels), this seems kinda lazy and uninspired, the penultimate level has a corridor which is pretty much entirely copied and retextured from Overlord.
#47 Posted 11 March 2022 - 09:03 PM
It's great news to me that you're going to start mapping, FistMarine! I can't wait to see what you'll come up with. Please do not hesitate to post or PM if you ever need any help. Also nice screens, really makes me want to play this now.
#48 Posted 12 March 2022 - 01:41 AM
Finished Last Reaction, here's some thoughts on the final levels.
Hidden Base seemed pretty generic most of the time, besides some large, open and pitch black areas with monsters shooting you before you can spot them and the general oversized/sloppy design, there's not much to complain about. I assume this one went more for the "Water Bases" type of design with all the green pal and space/alien theme.
Aliens' Detraining was a pretty good level, maybe even the best from Last Reaction, with nice mix of city design and a spaceship (which is partly retextured Overlord). The city is again so dark you can barely see the tip of your own gun, but at least the encounters felt more fair and entertaining, even with some random pig cop tanks shooting at you across the whole map. This map (as well as the secret level) also didn't drag so much like some of the previous levels and the design was definitely improved.
Great Stadium had a cool final fight, some nice details and ideas (like the secret in Arcade where you "play" a VR game) and generally neat design, but fuck the darkness of the start made it so confusing and annoying that it dragged the whole experience way down. The cinema which was a bitch to navigate and the lobby/hall area suffered the most from it. Duke Burger was kinda cheap shot as it's layout and even the shrinking secret reminded too much of the original game level. Changing the final cutscene would be a nice touch if it wasn't just, well, a scoreboard changing...
Here's my quick evaluation of Last Reaction levels:
Last Reaction 1/10
Mortal Transition 4/10
The Jungle Zone 2/10
Khaki Space 5/10
Lunar Factory 6/10
New L.A. 7/10
Old L.A. on Ice 7/10
Launch Base 5/10
Hidden Base 6/10
Aliens' Detraining 7/10
Great Stadium 5/10
Also started Water Bases, which nicely ties to the end of Last Reaction. The first level was definitely an improvement and I have to admit the abrupt ending really surprised me in the most pleasant way! The design was much better than pretty much anything we'd seen in the previous episode, even with some copy-pasted areas or too direct inspiration from original game, I especially liked some of the new textures which are made from stock Duke textures, so they do fit in. My favourite area was obviously the bridge with an impressive view of retreating alien fleet and an opened rift in space, really cool design there. I hope the momentum isn't lost in the subsequent levels...
Hidden Base seemed pretty generic most of the time, besides some large, open and pitch black areas with monsters shooting you before you can spot them and the general oversized/sloppy design, there's not much to complain about. I assume this one went more for the "Water Bases" type of design with all the green pal and space/alien theme.
Aliens' Detraining was a pretty good level, maybe even the best from Last Reaction, with nice mix of city design and a spaceship (which is partly retextured Overlord). The city is again so dark you can barely see the tip of your own gun, but at least the encounters felt more fair and entertaining, even with some random pig cop tanks shooting at you across the whole map. This map (as well as the secret level) also didn't drag so much like some of the previous levels and the design was definitely improved.
Great Stadium had a cool final fight, some nice details and ideas (like the secret in Arcade where you "play" a VR game) and generally neat design, but fuck the darkness of the start made it so confusing and annoying that it dragged the whole experience way down. The cinema which was a bitch to navigate and the lobby/hall area suffered the most from it. Duke Burger was kinda cheap shot as it's layout and even the shrinking secret reminded too much of the original game level. Changing the final cutscene would be a nice touch if it wasn't just, well, a scoreboard changing...
Here's my quick evaluation of Last Reaction levels:
Last Reaction 1/10
Mortal Transition 4/10
The Jungle Zone 2/10
Khaki Space 5/10
Lunar Factory 6/10
New L.A. 7/10
Old L.A. on Ice 7/10
Launch Base 5/10
Hidden Base 6/10
Aliens' Detraining 7/10
Great Stadium 5/10
Also started Water Bases, which nicely ties to the end of Last Reaction. The first level was definitely an improvement and I have to admit the abrupt ending really surprised me in the most pleasant way! The design was much better than pretty much anything we'd seen in the previous episode, even with some copy-pasted areas or too direct inspiration from original game, I especially liked some of the new textures which are made from stock Duke textures, so they do fit in. My favourite area was obviously the bridge with an impressive view of retreating alien fleet and an opened rift in space, really cool design there. I hope the momentum isn't lost in the subsequent levels...
#49 Posted 12 March 2022 - 01:56 AM
After taking small break of Khaki Space, i decided to continue playing LR Episode. I have finished Lunar Factory and New L.A. and i reached the Old L.A. on Ice. Here's my thoughts:
Lunar Factory
In beginning i was really amazed by mixed vibe of Toxic Dump and Lunar Apocalypse. What was annoying a bit is unbalanced ammo. Even if it had enough ammo in this level in general, the earlier parts of level shall had some more ammo. Otherwise, level layout is very good and enjoyable. The part with "Moon Caves" were my favorite and most enjoyable experience for me, especially when i was chased by Lizard Enforcer and Mini Overlords and used these caves to hide and shoot them. Very nice level and memorable experience.
New L.A.
Here i was even more impressed. This level was even more fair yet challenging enough. It literally felt like joined efforts of Levelord and Allen H. Blum, especially that some parts all had vibes from L.A. Meltdown, Hotel Hell, and Freeway combined. The level architecture was great. My favorite level so far.
Screenshots:
Lunar Factory
In beginning i was really amazed by mixed vibe of Toxic Dump and Lunar Apocalypse. What was annoying a bit is unbalanced ammo. Even if it had enough ammo in this level in general, the earlier parts of level shall had some more ammo. Otherwise, level layout is very good and enjoyable. The part with "Moon Caves" were my favorite and most enjoyable experience for me, especially when i was chased by Lizard Enforcer and Mini Overlords and used these caves to hide and shoot them. Very nice level and memorable experience.
New L.A.
Here i was even more impressed. This level was even more fair yet challenging enough. It literally felt like joined efforts of Levelord and Allen H. Blum, especially that some parts all had vibes from L.A. Meltdown, Hotel Hell, and Freeway combined. The level architecture was great. My favorite level so far.
Screenshots:
#50 Posted 13 March 2022 - 05:19 AM
While you guys are still hot ... I'm near the end of Water Baes, and for some reason, I'm stuck while I wasn't last time O_o
The thing is this >
I'm not hallucinating right ?
Or did I do something wrong ?
The thing is this >
I'm not hallucinating right ?
Or did I do something wrong ?
#51 Posted 13 March 2022 - 05:34 AM
Haha, no way! This looks like the worst puzzle. C'est une blague !
Bonne chance !
Bonne chance !
This post has been edited by ck3D: 13 March 2022 - 05:35 AM
#52 Posted 13 March 2022 - 05:53 AM
TheDragonLiner, on 13 March 2022 - 05:19 AM, said:
Or did I do something wrong ?
You did but it's not your fault. What you have is almost correct: but you have to switch everything the other way around. Every green is red and not the other way around.
In the text file, the switch combination is written like this: 11010110010110111011010010010001
And if I might digress for just a little bit, I kinda hate every switch combination that uses these dots. This includes Area 51 from the vanilla levels. It's not always clear what means what, because sometimes it means something different depending on who the mapper is (I guess they see hitting the switch as making it "darker" and therefore worth being red). It is a metric pain in the ass and it leads to situations like the one you've found yourself in.
I prefer the binary method. It tends to be a bit more rigid in its meaning. Though to be completely honest, these switch combinations in general aren't really worth much. They're just a random point of slowdown for no real reason. Sometimes they can be meaningful if they're used, like, as the answer to a question or riddle or something. Like the elevator switch to access the secret level in Duke Hard.
#53 Posted 13 March 2022 - 09:35 AM
Oh okay. I guess I must have thought about doing it in reverse last time but didn't this time ... >_>
Personally, I always found that the Green/Red thing was based on the color of the light below the switch. As you can see, it turns green once activated. If you're playing on Polymer that's also what it does !
But I definitely agree with the 101 thing. When I wrote my Hint Lists for Oblivion, I actually used another method : the "Yep/Nope" one ^^
Personally, I always found that the Green/Red thing was based on the color of the light below the switch. As you can see, it turns green once activated. If you're playing on Polymer that's also what it does !
But I definitely agree with the 101 thing. When I wrote my Hint Lists for Oblivion, I actually used another method : the "Yep/Nope" one ^^
#54 Posted 13 March 2022 - 11:12 AM
TheDragonLiner, on 13 March 2022 - 05:19 AM, said:
While you guys are still hot ... I'm near the end of Water Baes, and for some reason, I'm stuck while I wasn't last time O_o
The thing is this >
duke0000.png
duke0001.png
I'm not hallucinating right ?
Or did I do something wrong ?
The thing is this >
duke0000.png duke0001.pngI'm not hallucinating right ?
Or did I do something wrong ?
Well i actually wasn't even aware of that "camera hint" existence. But like @Ninety-Six already pointed out, i found my solution in the text file of mod. I agree that this amount of complicated puzzles is totally unnecessary. When it comes to method of clue or hint, i also prefer binary method. I'm glad you eventually managed to enter right code @DragonLiner.
#55 Posted 13 March 2022 - 10:01 PM
TheDragonLiner, on 13 March 2022 - 09:35 AM, said:
Personally, I always found that the Green/Red thing was based on the color of the light below the switch. As you can see, it turns green once activated.
Yeah, I know. But I don't think it's the same for everyone. And in their defense, the light below the switch is fairly small, so it's not impossible to see why they'd reverse the red/green if you look at just the buttons themselves.
I also blame Area 51 for really not helping matters. Despite its numerous attempts to tell you the code it still managed to make it confusing.
#56 Posted 14 March 2022 - 04:50 AM
@Aleks: Thanks for the hint. I checked in Mapster now, that turret (if it's the one you are talking about) is placed a bit higher in the ceiling, so that isn't visible normally. Moving the turret in space with mapster, it can now be seen. No idea if there were more than that. I also had the impression that the explosion from collapsing walls would have already taken those turrets out. Oh well, I guess I will look for those backup saves I have made for end of each level and try to see if I can get rid of that glitched turret with the RPG. Wish I knew about that earlier! I will keep in mind for future, if there will ever be another replay of the mod.
@ck3D: Thanks man, I will definitely start mapping sometime during this summer. I will see what I can do and if I need help with mapping advice or anything like that, I will let you guys know about that, so my first released map doesn't suck!
@Gingis Khan: Nice screenshots my friend!
About the code, yeah I remember that code at the end of Water Bases and it's also shown in the text file as binary code. I also remember the Area 51 code confusing me a bit as a kid (when I played Atomic Edition first time in late 2007/early 2008), thinking that the green dots are the correct switches.
I can't wait soon to replay Water Bases and Chimera, considering last Friday I finished Last Reaction, so here's my reviews (I wrote most of this during the weekend on a text document) for the last four maps:
Launch Base
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this map as much as I wanted to. Between the major lack of health, areas too dark (mostly later in map), getting struck by lightning inside a building (yes it actually killed me once!), annoying enemy placement (those mini LameDuke drones in the darkness, can just fuck off with their bullshit miniguns) and some dumb switch puzzles (had to look up in Mapster for that one you see in 5th screenshot), all this dragged down an entire good level. Such a shame because some parts were really good, I really like the Area 51 feeling I got from this level. And some of the parts were quite enjoyable. But having to backtrack a few times to the beginning of the level to rely on the broken toilet to refill my health whenever it fell down below 50 (no I still haven't found a new medkit at that time and there wasn't much health scattered around either) because if I tried to fight in the dark with less than 100 health, I would take too much damage.
Oh yeah and there wasn't armor until much later in the level, when you are given TWO armor pickups in same room (with TWO pair of boots) and another three armor pickups later in the following rooms (two of which are again placed relateively close to another). But the health is almost non existent!
Despite starting with 250 health, early on with the pig cop ambushes, I managed to lose a lot of my health until I had like 50 left and no armor. Later on, followed a bunch of deaths throughout the level: I died from the pig cop tanks in the room with the crates, struck by lightning (because I only had 22 health at that time), getting shredded by those mini drones several times (in the launch room) and even a random death from those rockets exploding when I tried to press randomly (turns out I activated a switch through the wall and was supposed to activate from the nearby door after inserting the launch code). And then two more deaths later on, with getting blown up by something (I guess I stepped on a Battlelord mine I didn't see?) and shortly after loading the save, suiciding with RPG while trying to fire at the Mini Battlelord but then a protector suddenly jumped in my face. You can tell I was getting frustrated at this point and wanted to finish the level already. No, I didn't have any medkit or night vision goggles to help in my situation. They were both in a non-secret area that is accessed by inserting a yellow card, which most people wouldn't notice (don't worry, the same yellow card activates both this secret door and the main progression door).
Oh yeah and another bullshit that really pissed me off. I won't complain about where the secret exit is found (the path to secret exit room is found inside one of those 4 lava compartments behind the big gate). I will instead complain about not being able to backtrack anymore after blowing up those rockets, as that door earlier closes and locks up. Why? I don't get the reason behind this. I had to load an earlier save to find whatever stuff I missed earlier (including the Devastator secret I initially missed and that non-secret that contained a protector, medkit, NVG and Freezer ammo) because of being unable to backtrack, then redo the last parts of the level with far more health. Still lost a shit ton of health at times but at least now I stood a much better chance. Then once I was done and even cleared the normal exit path (the few nasties guarding the big door/elevator, while the exit being guarded by a single pig cop), went back down (damn slow elevator!), went to that room with 4 compartments (where you need to press all switches to lower purple lava to get blue card and other supplies), swim in one of the blue compartments, blow up the crack underwater, blow up another crack on surface, clear any eggs and hanging newbeasts, collect a hidden atomic health, take a look at the viewscreen, save and then finally exit.
Forgot to mention that I was also shrunk by a protector drone right after using the yellow card and then the elevator, before the door that gets locked later on. Well I just took the elevator back up and waited until I get back to normal size. Surely these protectors have gotten really annoying as of lately. Either that or I'm being unlucky but at least I didn't get stepped on.
Puzzle solution for the 5th screenshot: 1, 2, 5 and 6 are the correct switches!
Five secrets to find:
Shrinker + Holoduke (destroy a crack in the water at beginning of level)
Freezethrower + ammo (destroy a crack near the jeep, located outside the base entrance)
Devastator + atomic health + slimers in vent (near the part with lightning strikes inside building)
RPG ammo (in the corridor leading to the red door, press on one of its walls to open a secret room)
Secret exit (in the room that leads to blue card, swim in one of the blue acid tanks, will eventually lead to the exit)
Just had a miserable time throughout this level. I simply didn't enjoy my time with it. With all the issues mentioned above, every good thing about the map (like the interior of the base) was drowned from all the bullshit that happened. At least I managed to get all kills and secrets.
Design wise, reminds me of Area 51 from The Birth, so I guess it's fine, it's got the nice looks. But the gameplay just wasn't very good. Sorry. Hope the secret level will be better!
Hidden Base
Now that's more like it! A very nice E2 themed map (even if it includes protectors and mini drones), it could have been included in the original game with a few tweaks.
The only noticeable flaw of this level is that it's still dark at times (which was hard to see) and I took quite a bit of damage at times but at least health was plentiful with a water fountain provided at beginning (which I didn't actually use), there were plenty of atomic health pickups and enemy placement was a lot more fair. There are also enough ammo supplies to get you by, though I wish there was one more armor pickup instead of just one (which I grabbed at end). Still, the armor was much appreciated, as the current armor I had just got consumed by the time I got to the end!
Other annoyances include a Mini Battlelord placed directly in front of the blue door (I took quite a bit of damage even though I stepped back while the door was raising but nothing too bad) and there was a platform in middle of that lava room where seemed to only work once when you press the switch. If using the switch again, nothing would happen anymore. Therefore, I was stuck and had to use the jetpack to advance the map (good thing the previous map included a jetpack! otherwise would require a map restart).
Oh yeah and there is the ending part which is interesting, where you must run the corridor or else you get blown up. When you reach the end, look for a teleporter showing up and enter it to get sent to the end of previous map's normal exit. First time I just stood there at the end of the corridor (didn't see the nearby teleporter showing up) and the explosion got me, though I still had like 70-something health left. That was before I did backtracking to get all the stuff (not sure if the walls behind have collapsed), so I loaded the save, backtracked, collected everything, saved and redid the last part while also killing the enforcer quickly.
There are four simple secrets to find, two of which are found in vents, one is simply a shotgun that sits on a pillar and another one is accessible from blowing up a crack. They are easy to find, so I don't think there's any need to mention them. You can also go in the lava and find scuba gear and other goodies, as well as many octabrains and slimers. There are two scuba gears actually, one in the big middle room (somewhere in one of the sides), the other is on that rotating platform in a smaller orange room (the path leading from swimming in that vent containing Shrinker and other stuff), where you would find boots and pipebombs on surface.
Couple of issues aside (the darkness and that bugged platform), I enjoyed this one. An experience you don't want to miss! Highly recommended!
png]
Aliens' Detraining
While the map was overall much better than the first half of the episode (and also better than Launch Base), the balance wasn't as good as I was hoping. I had an awful time in this level due to the early parts (located near that cool spaceship) where the enemies keep decimating me. I started the level at nearly maxed health and armor and already died to those bullshit drones with their overpowered miniguns. I mean seriously, why do their guns do so much damage? Eventually, after reloading and having to use my medkit to stay alive during combat (because the few health pickups that exist are scattered all over the place), I clear this area with just 100 health and had no more armor left. Then I keep getting killed by various dumb shit, like the pig tanks when I try to auto-destruct them from behind and even a fucking pig cop that sniped me from miles away and I couldn't even see where I was getting hit from (he was hiding in the darkness in the entrance of the stadium). Being at 50 or less health at this point was very painful and was desperately looking for health and grabbed whatever small/large medkits I could find. Didn't think to pick up the two early atomic health I kept for later, because I wanted to find normal health items first. Too bad there wasn't any water fountain to help this time around.
Oh and there's a few more deaths inside the alien spaceship, one from those bunch of turrets behind that big door, another from those damn protectors guarding the devastator secret and two more from the mini battlelord. And all that because I was low on health most of the time. So yeah I died around 7 times in total due to the reasons already mentioned. Then after that point, I got stuck because I didn't see a small green switch to open that nearby door to get the yellow card (I had the red card but didn't know where to place it), so I spend 10 minutes running through the whole map like an idiot. At that point I got angry and decided to look in mapster to see what to do next, as well as hunt for secrets. I found a hidden armor and more atomic health, got my health to 250 and armor to 100 and the rest of the map was a breeze when I had the health and armor to survive as I rarely ever took damage again. Shame that I had to spend about half of the map with 100 or less health and no armor thanks to all those enemies earlier doing loads of damage to me. This is what frustrates me about the mod so far, the combat is just downright frustrating at times and also not helped by being really dark at times (which puts you at a severe disadvantage when you can't see who is shooting you), though this map didn't really suffer from being dark but still the enemy placement is so fucking goddamn cheap! Sorry for being so harsh but besides some real life issues that I had as of lately, I was getting frustrated and wanted to finish the episode in that evening. If I hadn't taken all that massive damage early on, the map would have flowed a lot better. The interior of the alien spaceship was really cool and I like the E2 (mostly E2L9 and a bit of E4L10) vibes I got from inside the ship!
Oh and even got shrunk by a protector drone near the exit but thankfully I used the jetpack and escaped as I was nearly getting stepped on. Didn't want another bullshit death, so yeah I just used the jetpack to get away. Not sure how I managed to often get shrunk by protector drones in this episode (this was the 4th time so far) but in the original game and in many custom maps, this rarely ever happens. I guess their placement was a lot more smarter this time around or just had bad luck or something. At least I never got stepped on, so it's nothing more than a temporary annoyance.
Then I backtracked to get absolutely everything. While I looked in Mapster, I noticed there was a second armor hidden in a dark corner (near the stadium entrance) but since I already got used armor from one of last pig cops (which restored by armor to 125), I didn't need anything else. Which makes me wonder, why are the armor pickups placed in hidden spots like that? Not only the armor is scarce in some levels but also it is mostly hidden, so a player normally wouldn't find them and struggle with survival when they absolutely need armor at that moment. Either that or the author relied on the random armor drops from pig cops. It really sucks when you are stuck with low health and have to save scum to be able to beat the next couple of enemies like that, it slows down the action and makes every death more painful! I mean dying once in a while every now and then is fine but there is a difference between completing a level without dying once and then completing a level with up to 10 deaths. So far it seems half of the levels were completed with little to no deaths and then the other half with up to 10 deaths! I don't know, I just find that weird. Sort of a difficulty spike at times. It's also not helped by the vanilla controls where dodging attacks is more difficult, so in few cases I have no choice but to tank the damage.
Anyway, after backtracking, I have everything at maximum (except the jetpack fuel which was at 91%). I'm fully prepared for the final level, which I'm hoping is good and makes up for all the pain earlier!
There are again four secrets to find, two are inside two different buildings, one inside the spaceship (mentioned earlier) and another inside the sewers.
Overall, the map was nicely designed (way better than Launch Base) but too bad the gameplay balance wasn't as good as I was hoping. Just wasn't my day, I guess. Will the final map be really good or disappointing? Find out now!
Great Stadium
A great finale! The final map didn't disappoint and I had a lot of fun with it. Except for still being damn dark at times (the main starting corridor and few other corridors) so I had to sometimes shoot blindly and take damage from troopers but thankfully the map is generous with ammo and health pickups. You can find atomic health hidden inside those Duke meals (those "D" boxes, you know what I mean) which will greatly help for a quick health refill, on top of the ones you would find inside secret places! One atomic health is even found inside fire, keep an eye for that one!
There are some absolutely great places to explore. I enjoyed visiting the Duke Burger area, the Bowling area (something that should have been in the original E4 as well) and of course the great stadium itself! The cinema (inspired by E1L1) suffered from being a bit too dark and there were some nasty surprises awaiting me too. Died once in a dark corridor (inside the cinema) from an overpowered octabrain variant that spammed projectiles at me, which I couldn't avoid and I still wonder who thought it was a good idea to make an enemy spam so many projectiles at once. Otherwise, had no problem at all with the map, including the final boss, which was challenging and fun. Of course by that time you should have everything fully maxed (the moment I've been waiting for!) which means you can just spam your strongest guns and with a bit of luck with dodging rockets, you should easily win the fight.
There are nine secrets to find, one is sort of a VR (Virtual Reality) room that doesn't seem to serve any progression purpose, instead if you manage to find the correct path (else you get teleported in center again), you end up in a room with two protectors and various goodies (chaingun + ammo, atomic health + armor).
Then in one of the bathrooms, there is a secret vent where you actually have to shrink yourself twice, the secret contains pipebombs and steroids, then once you grabbed them and blew up the crack, fire at the mirror and come back to the main room.
Other secrets are also pretty creative! I will let the readers to discover the rest secrets.
As mentioned, the final battle features the return of the Cycloid Emperor! First round you get mostly weaker aliens, second round you get some stronger aliens and third round gets you the Cycloid alongside a bunch of strong aliens (mostly mini bosses). If you circle strafe, you should be fine. I ate 1-2 rockets from the boss but still survived. Strangely, I had the screen shake when I got hit by a rocket and still had 75 health left but I guess it's either I took so much damage at once or the shot almost killed me (the armor absorbed a lot of damage and was nearly gone). Either way I did it fine and I'm happy with how everything went. And while doing this last fight, I also decided to record a video, so I will probably share that video sometime later, if I get to upload it somewhere.
Great map and a nice proper finale to the episode, complete with a nice new cutscene, even if it's just a scoreboard changing, it's better than nothing! Looking forward to Water Bases!
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I was originally going to give overall thoughts for Last Reaction but I rather wait until I finish Water Bases as well, at the very least. Then I will see with Chimera and giving final thoughts for all episodes, hopefully around 25th when voting for next month begins.
@ck3D: Thanks man, I will definitely start mapping sometime during this summer. I will see what I can do and if I need help with mapping advice or anything like that, I will let you guys know about that, so my first released map doesn't suck!
@Gingis Khan: Nice screenshots my friend!
About the code, yeah I remember that code at the end of Water Bases and it's also shown in the text file as binary code. I also remember the Area 51 code confusing me a bit as a kid (when I played Atomic Edition first time in late 2007/early 2008), thinking that the green dots are the correct switches.
I can't wait soon to replay Water Bases and Chimera, considering last Friday I finished Last Reaction, so here's my reviews (I wrote most of this during the weekend on a text document) for the last four maps:
Launch Base
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this map as much as I wanted to. Between the major lack of health, areas too dark (mostly later in map), getting struck by lightning inside a building (yes it actually killed me once!), annoying enemy placement (those mini LameDuke drones in the darkness, can just fuck off with their bullshit miniguns) and some dumb switch puzzles (had to look up in Mapster for that one you see in 5th screenshot), all this dragged down an entire good level. Such a shame because some parts were really good, I really like the Area 51 feeling I got from this level. And some of the parts were quite enjoyable. But having to backtrack a few times to the beginning of the level to rely on the broken toilet to refill my health whenever it fell down below 50 (no I still haven't found a new medkit at that time and there wasn't much health scattered around either) because if I tried to fight in the dark with less than 100 health, I would take too much damage.
Oh yeah and there wasn't armor until much later in the level, when you are given TWO armor pickups in same room (with TWO pair of boots) and another three armor pickups later in the following rooms (two of which are again placed relateively close to another). But the health is almost non existent!
Despite starting with 250 health, early on with the pig cop ambushes, I managed to lose a lot of my health until I had like 50 left and no armor. Later on, followed a bunch of deaths throughout the level: I died from the pig cop tanks in the room with the crates, struck by lightning (because I only had 22 health at that time), getting shredded by those mini drones several times (in the launch room) and even a random death from those rockets exploding when I tried to press randomly (turns out I activated a switch through the wall and was supposed to activate from the nearby door after inserting the launch code). And then two more deaths later on, with getting blown up by something (I guess I stepped on a Battlelord mine I didn't see?) and shortly after loading the save, suiciding with RPG while trying to fire at the Mini Battlelord but then a protector suddenly jumped in my face. You can tell I was getting frustrated at this point and wanted to finish the level already. No, I didn't have any medkit or night vision goggles to help in my situation. They were both in a non-secret area that is accessed by inserting a yellow card, which most people wouldn't notice (don't worry, the same yellow card activates both this secret door and the main progression door).
Oh yeah and another bullshit that really pissed me off. I won't complain about where the secret exit is found (the path to secret exit room is found inside one of those 4 lava compartments behind the big gate). I will instead complain about not being able to backtrack anymore after blowing up those rockets, as that door earlier closes and locks up. Why? I don't get the reason behind this. I had to load an earlier save to find whatever stuff I missed earlier (including the Devastator secret I initially missed and that non-secret that contained a protector, medkit, NVG and Freezer ammo) because of being unable to backtrack, then redo the last parts of the level with far more health. Still lost a shit ton of health at times but at least now I stood a much better chance. Then once I was done and even cleared the normal exit path (the few nasties guarding the big door/elevator, while the exit being guarded by a single pig cop), went back down (damn slow elevator!), went to that room with 4 compartments (where you need to press all switches to lower purple lava to get blue card and other supplies), swim in one of the blue compartments, blow up the crack underwater, blow up another crack on surface, clear any eggs and hanging newbeasts, collect a hidden atomic health, take a look at the viewscreen, save and then finally exit.
Forgot to mention that I was also shrunk by a protector drone right after using the yellow card and then the elevator, before the door that gets locked later on. Well I just took the elevator back up and waited until I get back to normal size. Surely these protectors have gotten really annoying as of lately. Either that or I'm being unlucky but at least I didn't get stepped on.
Puzzle solution for the 5th screenshot: 1, 2, 5 and 6 are the correct switches!
Five secrets to find:
Shrinker + Holoduke (destroy a crack in the water at beginning of level)
Freezethrower + ammo (destroy a crack near the jeep, located outside the base entrance)
Devastator + atomic health + slimers in vent (near the part with lightning strikes inside building)
RPG ammo (in the corridor leading to the red door, press on one of its walls to open a secret room)
Secret exit (in the room that leads to blue card, swim in one of the blue acid tanks, will eventually lead to the exit)
Just had a miserable time throughout this level. I simply didn't enjoy my time with it. With all the issues mentioned above, every good thing about the map (like the interior of the base) was drowned from all the bullshit that happened. At least I managed to get all kills and secrets.
Design wise, reminds me of Area 51 from The Birth, so I guess it's fine, it's got the nice looks. But the gameplay just wasn't very good. Sorry. Hope the secret level will be better!
Hidden Base
Now that's more like it! A very nice E2 themed map (even if it includes protectors and mini drones), it could have been included in the original game with a few tweaks.
The only noticeable flaw of this level is that it's still dark at times (which was hard to see) and I took quite a bit of damage at times but at least health was plentiful with a water fountain provided at beginning (which I didn't actually use), there were plenty of atomic health pickups and enemy placement was a lot more fair. There are also enough ammo supplies to get you by, though I wish there was one more armor pickup instead of just one (which I grabbed at end). Still, the armor was much appreciated, as the current armor I had just got consumed by the time I got to the end!
Other annoyances include a Mini Battlelord placed directly in front of the blue door (I took quite a bit of damage even though I stepped back while the door was raising but nothing too bad) and there was a platform in middle of that lava room where seemed to only work once when you press the switch. If using the switch again, nothing would happen anymore. Therefore, I was stuck and had to use the jetpack to advance the map (good thing the previous map included a jetpack! otherwise would require a map restart).
Oh yeah and there is the ending part which is interesting, where you must run the corridor or else you get blown up. When you reach the end, look for a teleporter showing up and enter it to get sent to the end of previous map's normal exit. First time I just stood there at the end of the corridor (didn't see the nearby teleporter showing up) and the explosion got me, though I still had like 70-something health left. That was before I did backtracking to get all the stuff (not sure if the walls behind have collapsed), so I loaded the save, backtracked, collected everything, saved and redid the last part while also killing the enforcer quickly.
There are four simple secrets to find, two of which are found in vents, one is simply a shotgun that sits on a pillar and another one is accessible from blowing up a crack. They are easy to find, so I don't think there's any need to mention them. You can also go in the lava and find scuba gear and other goodies, as well as many octabrains and slimers. There are two scuba gears actually, one in the big middle room (somewhere in one of the sides), the other is on that rotating platform in a smaller orange room (the path leading from swimming in that vent containing Shrinker and other stuff), where you would find boots and pipebombs on surface.
Couple of issues aside (the darkness and that bugged platform), I enjoyed this one. An experience you don't want to miss! Highly recommended!
png]Aliens' Detraining
While the map was overall much better than the first half of the episode (and also better than Launch Base), the balance wasn't as good as I was hoping. I had an awful time in this level due to the early parts (located near that cool spaceship) where the enemies keep decimating me. I started the level at nearly maxed health and armor and already died to those bullshit drones with their overpowered miniguns. I mean seriously, why do their guns do so much damage? Eventually, after reloading and having to use my medkit to stay alive during combat (because the few health pickups that exist are scattered all over the place), I clear this area with just 100 health and had no more armor left. Then I keep getting killed by various dumb shit, like the pig tanks when I try to auto-destruct them from behind and even a fucking pig cop that sniped me from miles away and I couldn't even see where I was getting hit from (he was hiding in the darkness in the entrance of the stadium). Being at 50 or less health at this point was very painful and was desperately looking for health and grabbed whatever small/large medkits I could find. Didn't think to pick up the two early atomic health I kept for later, because I wanted to find normal health items first. Too bad there wasn't any water fountain to help this time around.
Oh and there's a few more deaths inside the alien spaceship, one from those bunch of turrets behind that big door, another from those damn protectors guarding the devastator secret and two more from the mini battlelord. And all that because I was low on health most of the time. So yeah I died around 7 times in total due to the reasons already mentioned. Then after that point, I got stuck because I didn't see a small green switch to open that nearby door to get the yellow card (I had the red card but didn't know where to place it), so I spend 10 minutes running through the whole map like an idiot. At that point I got angry and decided to look in mapster to see what to do next, as well as hunt for secrets. I found a hidden armor and more atomic health, got my health to 250 and armor to 100 and the rest of the map was a breeze when I had the health and armor to survive as I rarely ever took damage again. Shame that I had to spend about half of the map with 100 or less health and no armor thanks to all those enemies earlier doing loads of damage to me. This is what frustrates me about the mod so far, the combat is just downright frustrating at times and also not helped by being really dark at times (which puts you at a severe disadvantage when you can't see who is shooting you), though this map didn't really suffer from being dark but still the enemy placement is so fucking goddamn cheap! Sorry for being so harsh but besides some real life issues that I had as of lately, I was getting frustrated and wanted to finish the episode in that evening. If I hadn't taken all that massive damage early on, the map would have flowed a lot better. The interior of the alien spaceship was really cool and I like the E2 (mostly E2L9 and a bit of E4L10) vibes I got from inside the ship!
Oh and even got shrunk by a protector drone near the exit but thankfully I used the jetpack and escaped as I was nearly getting stepped on. Didn't want another bullshit death, so yeah I just used the jetpack to get away. Not sure how I managed to often get shrunk by protector drones in this episode (this was the 4th time so far) but in the original game and in many custom maps, this rarely ever happens. I guess their placement was a lot more smarter this time around or just had bad luck or something. At least I never got stepped on, so it's nothing more than a temporary annoyance.
Then I backtracked to get absolutely everything. While I looked in Mapster, I noticed there was a second armor hidden in a dark corner (near the stadium entrance) but since I already got used armor from one of last pig cops (which restored by armor to 125), I didn't need anything else. Which makes me wonder, why are the armor pickups placed in hidden spots like that? Not only the armor is scarce in some levels but also it is mostly hidden, so a player normally wouldn't find them and struggle with survival when they absolutely need armor at that moment. Either that or the author relied on the random armor drops from pig cops. It really sucks when you are stuck with low health and have to save scum to be able to beat the next couple of enemies like that, it slows down the action and makes every death more painful! I mean dying once in a while every now and then is fine but there is a difference between completing a level without dying once and then completing a level with up to 10 deaths. So far it seems half of the levels were completed with little to no deaths and then the other half with up to 10 deaths! I don't know, I just find that weird. Sort of a difficulty spike at times. It's also not helped by the vanilla controls where dodging attacks is more difficult, so in few cases I have no choice but to tank the damage.
Anyway, after backtracking, I have everything at maximum (except the jetpack fuel which was at 91%). I'm fully prepared for the final level, which I'm hoping is good and makes up for all the pain earlier!
There are again four secrets to find, two are inside two different buildings, one inside the spaceship (mentioned earlier) and another inside the sewers.
Overall, the map was nicely designed (way better than Launch Base) but too bad the gameplay balance wasn't as good as I was hoping. Just wasn't my day, I guess. Will the final map be really good or disappointing? Find out now!
Great Stadium
A great finale! The final map didn't disappoint and I had a lot of fun with it. Except for still being damn dark at times (the main starting corridor and few other corridors) so I had to sometimes shoot blindly and take damage from troopers but thankfully the map is generous with ammo and health pickups. You can find atomic health hidden inside those Duke meals (those "D" boxes, you know what I mean) which will greatly help for a quick health refill, on top of the ones you would find inside secret places! One atomic health is even found inside fire, keep an eye for that one!
There are some absolutely great places to explore. I enjoyed visiting the Duke Burger area, the Bowling area (something that should have been in the original E4 as well) and of course the great stadium itself! The cinema (inspired by E1L1) suffered from being a bit too dark and there were some nasty surprises awaiting me too. Died once in a dark corridor (inside the cinema) from an overpowered octabrain variant that spammed projectiles at me, which I couldn't avoid and I still wonder who thought it was a good idea to make an enemy spam so many projectiles at once. Otherwise, had no problem at all with the map, including the final boss, which was challenging and fun. Of course by that time you should have everything fully maxed (the moment I've been waiting for!) which means you can just spam your strongest guns and with a bit of luck with dodging rockets, you should easily win the fight.
There are nine secrets to find, one is sort of a VR (Virtual Reality) room that doesn't seem to serve any progression purpose, instead if you manage to find the correct path (else you get teleported in center again), you end up in a room with two protectors and various goodies (chaingun + ammo, atomic health + armor).
Then in one of the bathrooms, there is a secret vent where you actually have to shrink yourself twice, the secret contains pipebombs and steroids, then once you grabbed them and blew up the crack, fire at the mirror and come back to the main room.
Other secrets are also pretty creative! I will let the readers to discover the rest secrets.
As mentioned, the final battle features the return of the Cycloid Emperor! First round you get mostly weaker aliens, second round you get some stronger aliens and third round gets you the Cycloid alongside a bunch of strong aliens (mostly mini bosses). If you circle strafe, you should be fine. I ate 1-2 rockets from the boss but still survived. Strangely, I had the screen shake when I got hit by a rocket and still had 75 health left but I guess it's either I took so much damage at once or the shot almost killed me (the armor absorbed a lot of damage and was nearly gone). Either way I did it fine and I'm happy with how everything went. And while doing this last fight, I also decided to record a video, so I will probably share that video sometime later, if I get to upload it somewhere.
Great map and a nice proper finale to the episode, complete with a nice new cutscene, even if it's just a scoreboard changing, it's better than nothing! Looking forward to Water Bases!
png]png]I was originally going to give overall thoughts for Last Reaction but I rather wait until I finish Water Bases as well, at the very least. Then I will see with Chimera and giving final thoughts for all episodes, hopefully around 25th when voting for next month begins.
This post has been edited by FistMarine: 14 March 2022 - 05:07 AM
#57 Posted 14 March 2022 - 09:04 AM
For the Secret Level ("Hidden Base"), I honestly don't know/understand how you're supposed to get passed it without the JetPack O_o
To me, that switch didn't look like it did anything. I hope this isn't linked to my using the Add-on Compilation because I'll have to report it otherwise >_>
To me, that switch didn't look like it did anything. I hope this isn't linked to my using the Add-on Compilation because I'll have to report it otherwise >_>
#58 Posted 14 March 2022 - 09:19 AM
TheDragonLiner, on 14 March 2022 - 09:04 AM, said:
To me, that switch didn't look like it did anything.
It does. It's just really slow, and it will retract a short time after extending, too.
This post has been edited by Ninety-Six: 14 March 2022 - 09:20 AM
#59 Posted 14 March 2022 - 09:41 AM
Ninety-Six, on 14 March 2022 - 09:19 AM, said:
It does. It's just really slow, and it will retract a short time after extending, too.
If it retracts after a short time, then I'm sure this is what happened, because I think I went to explore a nearby vent after pressing the switch. I then must have thought that this was what the switch does, as I didn't see anything move at all. I even thought about having missed another similar switch, since it was kinda hidden amidst the texture.
It creates a bridge ?
I really didn't see anything move O_o
(sorry can't be arsed checking ^^)
#60 Posted 15 March 2022 - 07:42 PM
Finally got to play more maps after being busy IRL for a few days. Just finished Khaki Space, Lunar Factory and New L.A. Man Khaki Space and Lunar Factory were long maps. Especially Khaki Space took me like 1h 15min in-game time and had roughly 570+ enemies killed by the time I exited the map. But regardless, I enjoyed Khaki Space much more than the first 3 maps. The space areas looked and played overall better than what was in the first 3 maps. Still I wouldn't call it a great map. It is overly long and still has some annoying parts. The progression is somewhat confusing at parts and has some weird/annoying parts. One of the parts is the pitch dark room with with tons of octabrains and slimer eggs. There is a crack in that room which reveals an area where you can turn on the lights (green fugly lights that is). It still suffers from low ammo for stuff like shotgun, ripper and rockets unless you find secrets (I only found 2 secrets because I suck at secret finding).
Lunar Factory was a fair bit step up in quality in my eyes. I like how it borrows from EP2 of Duke. Finally on this map, I feel that the author start doing good ammo balancing. I also like that more thought is put into progression, room layout and sector designing. I really like the spaceship at the start of the map and also the However this map (just like the previous one) is still too long. This also has like 500+ enemies and took me an hour-ish in-game time. Other than its huge length, the map is okayish on gameplay department, except for the conveyor belt crusher part where there exists a switch which I missed for a few minutes. This map also has 14 whopping secrets, of which I only found like 6 or 7.
New L.A. Now this is more like it. Unlike the first 5 maps, I won't mind revisiting this one again. This map, although oversized, is not that long and has much lower monsters. It has the perfect length and the city setting is a welcome break from the space theme of the previous 2 gigantic maps. I really like the club part especially. The combat here is much more breezy and it feels like a breather map overall (not really a bad thing in this case). This map also has a ton of secrets, of which I only found like 3 or 4 (man are these secrets really hard to find or do I just suck at finding them). Better brush my secret finding skills because we loose our inventory at the end of this map, E1L2 style. Hoo boy.
Lunar Factory was a fair bit step up in quality in my eyes. I like how it borrows from EP2 of Duke. Finally on this map, I feel that the author start doing good ammo balancing. I also like that more thought is put into progression, room layout and sector designing. I really like the spaceship at the start of the map and also the However this map (just like the previous one) is still too long. This also has like 500+ enemies and took me an hour-ish in-game time. Other than its huge length, the map is okayish on gameplay department, except for the conveyor belt crusher part where there exists a switch which I missed for a few minutes. This map also has 14 whopping secrets, of which I only found like 6 or 7.
New L.A. Now this is more like it. Unlike the first 5 maps, I won't mind revisiting this one again. This map, although oversized, is not that long and has much lower monsters. It has the perfect length and the city setting is a welcome break from the space theme of the previous 2 gigantic maps. I really like the club part especially. The combat here is much more breezy and it feels like a breather map overall (not really a bad thing in this case). This map also has a ton of secrets, of which I only found like 3 or 4 (man are these secrets really hard to find or do I just suck at finding them). Better brush my secret finding skills because we loose our inventory at the end of this map, E1L2 style. Hoo boy.
