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Duke Map/Mod of the Month Club - February 2023  "Time to visit the WGRealms!"

User is offline   FistMarine 

#1

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

What's the purpose?
Basically, there are 4 purposes:
  • Showcasing some of the older mods/maps to wider public - they definitely deserve the attention!
  • Getting more people to actually enjoy and appreciate the user content - because let's be honest, over the past 26 years this was really what kept Duke alive after all.
  • ...and while we're at it - keeping Duke alive by still enjoying it, as there's no new games in the franchise on the horizon (and let's be honest, they wouldn't be as good as some of this stuff!).
  • Having a more structured discussion on maps than what's going in "Last map you played" thread - which is great, but it's basically a monologue most of the time.

Can I join?

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

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

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

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

Previous 2023 Editions


Previous 2022 Editions


Previous 2021 Editions


For this month, William Gee's older episodes and maps have been chosen!

For those not familiar with William's works, he is quite a respected mapper and modder, having created the well known WGRealms and WGSpace Episode, as well as the legendary WGRealms 2! And of course many other amazing maps and mods that will get covered at a later time. I really couldn't fill all the works for a short month like February, so we are only concentrating on WGRealms and WGSpace Episode for this month, especially since some of the maps included in those packs can be quite lengthy! WG Mega Pack (which also includes updated versions of WGRealms and WGSpace) will get chosen for later this year, as it includes 34 maps in total, which is too much for a short month like February.

To compensate, I will include as bonus, some of William's collaborations with other mappers, including Discarded Stronghold (a collaboration with Mikko Sandt which was also included for previous month!) and Operation: Get Bike Back (a collaboration with the Oostrum Brothers!). Oh and also a couple DM maps which you may check if you want.

Downloads:

WGRealms at ModDB: https://www.moddb.com/mods/wgrealms
WGSpace at ModDB: https://www.moddb.com/mods/wgspace

WG's Single Player maps: http://wg.duke4.net/singleplayer.html
WG's Dukematch maps: http://wg.duke4.net/dukematch.html

Please note that many maps in Single Player section of WG's website are either CBP maps that have been covered before (same goes to Duke is 10 episode) or maps that are part of the WGSpace episode which were initially released separately. So the only SP maps that I insist checking out are: WGCity, WGDooM1, Discarded Stronghold and Operation: Get Bike Back! WGold1 and WGold2 are optional, as they are William's earliest works, assuming from the title. The Deathmatch maps are completely optional.

Bonus Content: Beerzity! An user map created by Numan for WGRealms! It can be downloaded at the following links:
https://dnr.duke4.ne...s/Beerzity.html
https://msdn.duke4.net/hotbeerzity.php

Additionally, many of the maps may require a source port to play. I will look into the compatibility later but just to be on the safe side, I'd suggest using JFDuke3D at the bare minimum. Also most entries are already included in the Addon Compilation and offer additional changes/fixes.

Have fun! :)

This post has been edited by FistMarine: 01 February 2023 - 04:34 AM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#2

I often go back and play a lot of WG's work (and not just because I frequently beta test for him). The recent WGMEGA compilation made that even easier, especially with some of the fixes.

WGRealms in particular is an all-time favorite, and probably the one I play the most. It has an absolutely impeccable sense of flow, rivaling that of Alejandro Glavic, and it's done despite having much denser monster placement in comparison. I had no idea about Beerzity and should play that.

I've also played his solo maps, with WGCity probably being the one I have played the most (again for single releases), but that's mostly due to how it tends to sneak its way into Dan's various mods like Alien Armageddon and Duke Forces and so on (as do a lot of his maps, both collaborative and otherwise).

Not that it's a bad map or anything, make no mistake there. It's quite a unique city map, which I suppose makes sense from a person who really doesn't like making city maps. It still features a large degree of natural landscaping, making the map feel like it takes place on the outskirts of town. It's also absolutely wrecked, an aesthetic choice that isn't often used in Duke maps (not super rare but still rather uncommon), but it definitely works in this case because, as per WG's typical output, it is stuffed with monsters and contains a lot of intense fights. I generally tend to enjoy tougher Duke maps (with some exceptions).


The weakest set in his repertoire I think is WGSpace, but that makes sense since it was one of his earliest. The battles are a bit too claustrophobic in my opinion, particularly early on. The back half is a lot better, even moreso with the remakes of certain entries that came out within the past few years. I particularly like the one where you have to blow up an alien space ship (and you get to watch your handiwork).
2

#3

Thanks for the mention.
There is also the WGPandora episode released last year. https://www.moddb.co...ownloads/wgmega
Not to mention the WG ABYSS episode.

IMO my 3 best maps

WGCity
WGDracula - in Alien Armageddon
WGAlien
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User is offline   DNSKILL5 

  • Honored Donor

#4

I’m on mobile right now so I am limited to the mobile version of the forum so for now I’ll specifically talk about WGCity from 2005. First, I agree with Ninety-Six on what he said concerning this level. It is a very well done level, and quite massive too. I really like that the map sort of forms a circle, because it gives plenty of ways to approach it, which gives it a lot of replay value. There’s a lot of secrets, tons of neat tricks and effects put to good use here as well. The high difficulty is significant, and it gets progressively more challenging as you progress. This is one of those levels where you think you’ve reached the end a few times only to be surprised by how much more there is to the map, and the finale with the queen shows how vicious and intensely challenging this boss can be when she is not stuck in E4L10 underwater. She can reach you with her electric attack from insane distances, and her movement can be unpredictable, too.



This map is incredibly challenging on Damn I’m Good, but it is passable, and would be even more so if you were saving your progress as you moved through the map. I have to thank William Gee, as this is my third most watched user map video on my channel, and after uploading this video, I had a sudden surge in subscriber count.

I will return some time tomorrow or Monday on my PC to discuss more about WG’s maps!
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#5

View PostWilliam Gee, on 04 February 2023 - 01:53 AM, said:

IMO my 3 best maps
WGCity
WGDracula - in Alien Armageddon
WGAlien

not gonna knock those, but I particularly like wgr2 maps. Vertical and horizontal construction, along with immersive environments, are top notch in my opinion.

This post has been edited by Forge: 04 February 2023 - 08:44 AM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#6

View PostForge, on 04 February 2023 - 08:44 AM, said:

not gonna knock those, but I particularly like wgr2 maps. Vertical and horizontal construction, along with immersive environments, are top notch in my opinion.


If we're bringing Demon Throne into this, I wanna shoutout Into The Earth, Hell Freezes Over, Upside-Down, Courts of Darkness, Castle Argent, and that jungle/forest secret level in the first episode (that I sadly can't recall the name of at the moment) specifically. Those are my personal favorites.

(And while I'm at it, all the WGR2-ified versions of the WGR1 levels are fun too. Especially Crystal Mines and the absolute bloodbath that is Open Season).

This post has been edited by Ninety-Six: 04 February 2023 - 11:39 AM

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#7

OGBB and Siege Breaker were the most fun projects that I worked on, loved working with the O bros on OGBB and Siege breaker in the early days was really fun to make with DAN.
DT was really hard work though not so much fun to make and blacksand was the hardest level I have had to make or think how I was gonna connect 3 episodes in 1 level.
Open Season is something that I love in the original WGR1 using the original duke limits to make giant outdoor areas.

This post has been edited by William Gee: 04 February 2023 - 03:20 PM

7

#8

Some strange or interesting facts.

The first level in WGR1 is the house I grew up in and the paintings in the gallery are my own real paintings.
Seige Breaker had working multiplayer and one point and we used to have death match and coop games together.
When OGBB was released we faked a fight between myself and the obros days before releasing the map.
We started OGBB2 with a dark snow theme many many years ago, not sure what happened to that map.
Also started a DooM themed episode with the OBROS many years ago using the E1 maps from ultimate doom, was highly detailed. I don't know what happened to those maps. :D

I agree about WGSpace being my weakest episode, but some people still love it so that keeps me happy, though ATM it needs some fixes for masked walls that have broken for unknown reasons.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#9

View PostWilliam Gee, on 04 February 2023 - 03:46 PM, said:

When OGBB was released we faked a fight between myself and the obros days before releasing the map.


Why's that?

View PostWilliam Gee, on 04 February 2023 - 03:46 PM, said:

We started OGBB2 with a dark snow theme many many years ago, not sure what happened to that map.


I thought it became Bombshells in Alien Armageddon.
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User is offline   Quacken 

#10

Hello again! I've taken a short break, so now it's time to get to playing again. I'm first gonna try out WGRealms. Since I got the idea to say it from January, I'll be playing the Addon Compilation version of WGRealms. Let's go!

Awakening

In terms of atmospheric setters with no monsters in them, Awakening is definitely one of the best. With Sign of Evil playing, the natural moonlight being blocked by a thick layer of clouds, the roaring of thunder and the two dilapidated houses you get to explore, this map leaves quite a strong impression. Plotting your escape is simple. Locate the pistol in your shed (which has a very nice replacement sprite and sound, I'll add), hit the switch buried in the darkness and use the security camera above it to find the other two switches you need to press. Then, head to the living room and drop down the flight of stairs to finish up the map. Awakening will take you only 2 and a half minutes if you try, but this is still a great introductory setting!

9/10.

Medievil Cress

Medievil Cress continues the theme of dark and spooky maps with this stroll through a medieval castle. This map goes light on combat, but for what there is in this map it's used surprisingly well. I appreciate that William is willing to throw Assault Commanders and Battlelords at you as opposed to cheapening out and putting hitscanner spam, because it makes the combat feel more memorable. Those two Battlelords especially feel quite scary to run past. I didn't have enough ammo to kill them so I ended up running around, accidentally finding a sequence break and skipping parts of the map I wasn't supposed to. Oh well! I'd go back and play it again if there wasn't a lot of stuff to cover this month. Medievil Cress gets a C- in spelling but an A in presentation, pacing and looks.

8/10.
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#11

View PostNinety-Six, on 04 February 2023 - 07:16 PM, said:

Why's that?

I thought it became Bombshells in Alien Armageddon.


1) We did it as a joke, nobody knew we were working on a map together so it was more of a surprise.

2) I was referring to a totally different map that was never released. Bombshells was a completely different level started years after the previous ogbb2.

BTW DNSKILLS I always really enjoy watching your movies and appreciate your work making those videos. Thanks!

BTW I'm sorry for derailing the thread, I see there is a system that I haven't really kept in touch with so I will try to stay on your topic now that is specific to WGRealms1 and WGSpace episode + OGBB and Discarded stronghold.
I do know WGSpace has issues with broken masked walls so I hope people find a version that works for them at this point.

This post has been edited by William Gee: 05 February 2023 - 01:19 AM

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User is offline   Merlijn 

#12

The 2nd OGBB was supposed to take place on the moon, because the aliens stole your bike again and this time they abducted it to the moon to sacrifise it to their God (or something silly like that, I remember we had a lot of fun coming up with silly premises). We got a decent part of the moon base finished and some huge outdoor areas made by William, but then it ran out of steam and eventually died. I'll see if I can still find it somewhere, but I'm afraid it's lost in the sands of time.
Same with the Doom themed episode (which featured hilariously bad voice acting from me as the space marine :P)

Bombshells used an old DM map from William as its base, the rest was all new. So completely different map. It was briefly dubbed 'OGBB2' before it eventually became 'Bombshells'.
Anway, OGBB was a ton of fun to create. It's not our best work but still a solid map I think.

Have fun playing! WG has a huge catalogue of great maps and mods. It's hard to pick a favorite, but WGrealms is a great place to start.
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#13

About Discarded Stronghold:
Quakis had lots of unfinished high quality hightech levels just sitting around so I stitched them all together with an outdoor area and Mikko finished the level of.

Or in the words of Mikko from the txt file:

Quote

Description: Quakis has started a zillion maps over the years and
finished only a fraction. Many of these unfinished pieces shared
a common theme. William Gee took the pieces that fit together and
assembled a map. However, the level was only about 60-70% finished
at that point. Upon receiving a bunch of unfinished levels from
Quakis, I noticed this map titled "QWG" and decided to do what I
can to finish it. So I added a few new rooms, finished others (the
big railway hangar was the hardest since it was so huge but almost
completely empty at that point), added monsters, items and sounds
and so on.

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#14

View PostMerlijn, on 05 February 2023 - 01:23 AM, said:

Bombshells used an old DM map from William as its base, the rest was all new.


I actually remember discovering that when I decided to go through his DM maps in WGMEGA. Unless I'm confused with something else, I think a few maps were stitched together to become part of bombshells.


View PostMerlijn, on 05 February 2023 - 01:23 AM, said:

So completely different map. It was briefly dubbed 'OGBB2' before it eventually became 'Bombshells'.


Oh, okay I see now. That explains my confusion.

This post has been edited by Ninety-Six: 05 February 2023 - 05:04 AM

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User is offline   Aleks 

#15

Not much time for me to play this month, but probably would be nice to revisit some of the older William's stuff! I only played WGR when it was released (or perhaps only beta-tested it back then), so that just begs for replaying. As for WG Space, yeah I'm one of the people who loved them. It was created before William changed his approached to more conceptual grandness, but these maps really stand out as some of the benchmarks for still heavy detailed early 2000s style levels, which took on quite an original theme of space that was pretty uncommon back then (and let's be fair, it still is). I remember when I first came to AMC 20 years ago, they were some of the hottest stuff out there and a lot of little details made there were so memorable that probably I (and a lot of other mappers) have subconciously incorporated them into our own style.

Quote

BTW I'm sorry for derailing the thread, I see there is a system that I haven't really kept in touch with so I will try to stay on your topic now that is specific to WGRealms1 and WGSpace episode + OGBB and Discarded stronghold.

Nah, I wouldn't worry about derailing anything in here, actually it's good to see this topic so alive for a change, since a bunch of the last Duke Map/Dod of the Month Clubs were pretty silent or people just writing their own long reviews but without any proper feedback/discussion, so it's very refreshing!
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User is online   ck3D 

#16

Yeah this discussion is amazing and brings back so many ancient memories as an AMC poster at the time, holy moly. I even remember the fake flamewar thing - IIRC it was the least credible flamewar I've ever seen too, probably had smiley faces in there and lasted for five posts, good times.

To contextualize things, when WGCity dropped it was especially great in that most everyone at the time was focused on realistic urban environments and detail, still emphasizing on trying to make Duke 3D look like a modern game (of the then current early to mid 2000's), and so when William dropped this comparatively more abstract piece with a lot of open space and large structures felt like a breath of fresh air, it was a lot of fun getting to run and jump around generous terrain again, explore adventure-sized landscapes and I want to say just trust the level? And what an interesting take on the otherwise easily redundant 'city' theme too, visually. Feels a bit like playing inside someone's painting, just it's 3D and makes sense since it's a WG map. Earlier than that OGBB was awesome too and a cult classic of the time period, I wish people talked about this map to this day still, but I reckon WGCity sort of works as an extension of the concept and so people are more likely to remember this one instead, especially since it's been spread via more mods throughout time.

I remember briefly getting to see the original OGBB2.map too, someone must have sent it to me over MSN to check out after it had been dormant for a bit and honestly it was an amazing map, mostly complete as well IIRC, or at least nearing the (now old) sector and wall limits in the state it was when I got it. Didn't it have some kind of moon subway? I'm almost absolutely certain I've completely lost that file too, by the way - it's been like half a dozen computers and hard drives since. But I actually would love to find it again if there were a chance. Could potentially be a fun project to bring the vibes back and try to recreate it from memory, honestly (or just tackle the theme again) - nobodytoldmeaboutOGBB2.map style.

This post has been edited by ck3D: 06 February 2023 - 06:53 AM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#17

This thread has sort of become reminiscence for the old guard. I feel equal parts left out, but also incredibly fascinated in hearing stories of this era of Duke mapping long, long before I got into playing mods myself (I was incredibly late to the scene).
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#18

In regards to WGSpace2.map, any level designer who plays it will think the 2 areas were copy pasted, but the thing is at the time I had no Idea I could do that and made all the areas and spriteworks from scratch, after It got a high score on MSDN kuffi said the score was too high because I had just copy pasted the areas, and I was confused and knew there was a building trick I needed to learn. :D
6

#19

WGMEGA V4.2

UPDATE :4.2
1) Fixed music for Slick Willy.
2) Fixed the blocking masked walls in the WGSpace Episode that prevented the player from passing the episode.


https://www.moddb.co...ownloads/wgmega

This post has been edited by William Gee: 07 February 2023 - 02:21 AM

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User is offline   Quacken 

#20

Let's finish up WGRealms.

Open Season

Stepping through that portal transports you through (maybe) time to a lush mountainside. There's plenty of fun to be had here. The opening shootout is fast paced and fun, although having some Commanders and Protector Drones to make things more complicated would have made this section more than just a simple shotgun fest. This map looks great, especially considering this is 2004! The spinning saucer in the centre of the map looks very impressive. There's a lot of Doom textures used in this map, but unlike Mikko's maps, they add to the maps rather than make them look ugly. Rather than STARGR1, there's a lot of computer panel textures used on the walls and on the machinery, which looks excellent when combined with the bright reds and blacks. While most of the map is just hitscanners, I do appreciate the aggressive placement of the Battlelords in this map, and the hilly terrain makes it advantageous for the Commanders that do come in. Open Season is a grassroots slobberknocker that's consistently entertaining and visually exciting!

9/10.

Crystal Mines

Crystal Mines is much shorter than Open Season, but still quite solid. The visuals and the MIDI are definitely a star player here. I never thought brown Egyptian switches and blue lighting would go well together, but William makes it happen. The MIDI is jaunty and perfectly fit for the cave spelunking you'll do in this map, and I also like the setpiece you see when you're on the train ride. This map is also probably the most challenging in the set. Try and preserve your health throughout as this map doesn't like to give you anything to heal. You'll need all the health you can get if you don't want to cheese the two Battlelords at the top of a pyramid with the Shrinker. The switch puzzle at the sarcophagus is also a little clumsy. The symbols above the sarcophagus don't change when you use them, so you might end up pressing buttons you don't need to while trying to brute force it. It's not my favourite map in the set, but Crystal Mines is another solid addition to the lineup.

8/10.

Temple Cress

For the final map of WGRealms, your mission is to descend into a pyramid. Make the jump from a water feature to a teleporter, explore the seriously cool magma caves, shoot some switches and catch up with the guy who tried to do all this before you did. How Indiana Jones managed to squeeze past a Battlelord is beyond me. Once you've done all that, it's time to fight the Big Battlelord. The Big Battlelord is probably the most threatening of the bosses because of its hitscan attack. Thankfully you get a full belt of Devastator missiles, so rocket the Commanders behind the Battlelord to achieve 100% kills, then open sesame on the big guy to finish off the map. Temple Cress is a short micro challenge that looks great, has a nice Egyptian MIDI and is overall a fun and curious time.

9/10.

Closing Thoughts

So: WGRealms is a great time! Not only is it overall great in its presentation, atmosphere and appearance, but William Gee manages to make excellent use of the low kill counts in four of his maps through his excellent pacing. Even if supposedly the sequel is even better than this map set, I would still say WGRealms 1 is a must-play map set. You could beat it in a day if you tried hard enough, but it feels like just the right length for the theme to not feel like it's getting exhausting. My final rating for WGRealms is an 8.5/10.
4

User is offline   FistMarine 

#21

Massive thanks for everyone who contributed to this topic so far! Didn't expect to end up so popular, especially after the slow activity from the past couple of months! And I'm happy to read everyone's comments, including William's comments about the development, trivia, facts, etc. :D

BTW sorry to say but for this month, there is no time for WG Abyss, WG Pandora and other more recent releases. I will gladly choose WG Mega Pack for a summer month when people have more time playing. For a short month like February, we will have to settle with what we have. Hopefully people don't mind that (I really wasn't sure what else to nominate for February) and I guess WGRealms and WGSpace will get chosen/played again at a later time? What are people's thoughts about this? I want to give them a second chance for people who can't participate in February. I've always been impressed with WG series of maps/mods from back in 2009 or so when I first played them, so if anyone misses out this month, then I'm sure they will play them at a later time.

I also regret not linking to WG Mega Pack earlier. Here is the download link to WG Mega Pack in case people want to play the updated versions of WGRealms and WGSpace: https://www.moddb.co...ds/wg-mega-pack

With all that said, I've been wanting to play a couple maps first, to write a detailed post and find out a couple interesting trivia stuff while doing this. I'm sure people will enjoy reading the details nonetheless.

Recently, I looked up the contents of the WGRealms and WGSpace releases from ModDB and it appears they are newer versions than their original/initial releases that I remember from back then. This is a good thing as people will want the latest releases anyway, though there are also newer/updated versions included in the Addon Compilation and the WG Mega Pack.

I found out the original releases on Duke Repository (archived) and compared them. WGRealms was initially released as loose files (art, maps, sounds, etc), then re-released years later nicely packed into a grp file. WGSpace Episode was always released as a grp file, though it seems the older archive has less contents and the date of files is older too, apparently released on the author's 27th birthday. The downloads at ModDB are official updated versions by William Gee himself.

WGRealms (Original) - 30/07/2004
WGSpace (Original) - 06/08/2008

WGRealms (ModDB) - wgr.grp is dated 26/07/2008
WGSpace (ModDB) - wgs.grp is dated 15/03/2009

If there is enough time this month, I will attempt to play through the original releases in Duke3D v1.5 in DOSBox and the newer releases in JFDuke3D or EDuke32! Then I will see if they function correctly, as I know WGRealms should work in plain DOS Duke3D (1.5) but not sure if WGSpace will fully work (at least the boss level exclusive to the package). All this remains to be tested soon!

In the meantime, I will review a couple user maps that William Gee was directly involved in. From what I know, many of the maps are DOS compatible as well. And many of them include a new midi or voc file, so I suggest to be careful where you install them to not have overlapped music/sounds or whatever!

NOTE: The individual WGSpace maps reviewed (for today, I will review Future Matrix and Alien X, which are the secret levels in WGSpace Episode) are the initial releases from two decades ago. I decided to review them for now as bonus and to play them from a pistol start, for extra challenge. Whatever issues mentioned may NOT be present in WGSpace Episode and/or WG Mega Pack! I will do a proper review of WGSpace Episode later this month if there is still enough time left! Sorry for the inconvenience!

Maps reviewed for today: WGDOOM1, Future, Alienx and Ogbb. Played on CGS skill in DOSBox 0.74-3 with keyboard only controls. The last map mentioned is only playable in Atomic Edition (see below for technical explanations why it doesn't work in 1.3D) but the rest are DOS Duke3D 1.3D compatible! I meant to play/review more but decided to make a post about the first 4 maps I've played earlier this week. :)

WGDoom1

You can already tell what map is this from the title but I will do my best to explain it anyway.

This is a remake of DOOM E1M1. Or rather, Ultimate Doom E1M1, as it has the switch added on the pillar that leads to the outside secret area, which was only added in The Ultimate Doom, making it the ONLY map in first three episodes of Doom that was changed in the re-release.

As for the map, it is surely an interesting remake of DOOM E1M1 but I wasn't very pleased with the balance. Because I played the map in DOS version 1.3D, all the paletted enemies in the map had twice as much health (a feature that only existed in v1.3D and some EDuke32 versions from a decade ago). This made all assault troopers as strong as assault captains, the pig cops having 200 health instead of 100 and the Octabrains were just as strong as the Commanders.

I ran out of ammo a few times early on that I had to double kick the troopers and half of them didn't even drop any pistol ammo. I had to save my ammo strictly for pig cops because it was so limited that I couldn't afford killing everyone with pistol/shotgun ammo. I even had to double kick those two Octabrains and do it patiently to avoid taking damage from them. Yes, you can kick an Octabrain without taking damage as long as you have a space to dodge and walk back after about three kicks to avoid being bitten. It took a while to get rid of them (coupled with luring enemies one by one in an earlier room) but this helped a lot. The other ammo I was given were two pipebombs and two tripmines but they are almost useless, especially against the paletted enemies that have twice as much health, which means you will most likely need two pipebombs or tripmines to kill just a single enemy. They aren't very useful against a single target and are more useful in multiplayer, setting up traps against other players. Or if all else fails, maybe use them against the pig cops if completely out of ammo.

Anyway, once I got to the zigzagged room, I got 30 shotgun shells that the rest of the map was a breeze (there were 30 more shotgun shells in the outside secret area) but there weren't many enemies left and by the time I found the Chaingun as well, the map was pretty much over. On top of that, the health and armor placement was a bit weird. Most health packs available were the Small Medkits (makes sense as Duke3D doesn't have health/armor bonuses like DOOM has) but instead of seeing Large Medkits later on, I saw two Portable Medkits. There was no armor early on, though thankfully I got used one from a pig cop, it was a great help. The reason why the first armor pickup wasn't available because the Shotgun was placed on that pedestal and in turn, the map's only armor pickup was hidden inside the secret place requiring an elevator, alongside an Atomic Health nearby. The second armor outside (which was the Blue Armor in DOOM) was replaced by two atomic healths standing in the acid. I suppose I could have taken the alternate path first but I'm just used to go the main path whenever I'm playing DOOM E1M1. Things still worked fine in the end.

With that said, the map was an interesting experiment. It is v1.3D compatible, as mentioned, though as a side effect, this causes the paletted enemies (all enemies in this map are paletted) to have twice as much health. So if you want an extra challenge, please play the map in DOS Duke Nukem 3D v1.3D! :)

I know most people already know where Doom secrets are but here are the secret areas just in case (last two are only accessed by stepping on the last room just before the exit room):
1) After the zigzagged room filled with acid, press on the right wall to access a corridor leading to the courtyard. You can collect various goodies, including Shotgun Shells, a Portable Medkit and two Atomic Health.
2) After stepping on the corridor leading to the exit, go back to the zigzagged room to find that wall has lowered. Go further to find an assault trooper, as well as collect one Portable Medkit, a Shotgun and some shells.
3) Inside the second secret, press on that elevator and ride it up. You will find various goodies, including an Armor and Atomic Health.

It was an interesting experiment overall. Worth checking out as a curiosity.
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Future Matrix

One of William's earlier levels and one of the secret levels in WGSpace Episode.

This map is decent overall but there are some issues like misaligned textures and some rooms suffer from oversizing. Combat is mostly about fighting assault troopers and enforcers. Other aliens aren't used much.

Health comes in decent amounts (there are a couple Atomic Healths as well) but the armor is unfortunately left out. Though since the map isn't too difficult, I won't be too harsh on the lack of armor for this one. There is even a toilet where you can recover your health if you find yourself getting pelted by troopers and enforcers at times.

Progression is mostly straightforward, with a few times you may run in circles, like trying to find the place where to insert the blue card to unlock the last part of the map. Oh and look out for various ambushes happening at times (surprise enemy spawns), as well as that trip mines trap towards the end!

All weapons (besides the trip mines) are available in this map. The chaingun is hidden underwater, though I already got a dropped Chaingun by an enforcer just before I found the actual chaingun placed in the map. This is something that seems to happen often to me (more on that below in the next map review).

There are three secrets to find (first and second are available in same room):
1) After you decide to go swimming, you should find yourself in a bathroom. Afterwards, clear the troopers in the living room and break the bottles to access the shelf. Check the left side to collect the RED ACCESS CARD required for progression!
2) Same as the first secret, except now check the right side of the shelf to collect the RPG!
3) After disabling the forcefield, you can now collect a Scuba Gear. Press on the wall behind to access an Atomic Health!

It was fine and a promising start for William's future entries. ;)
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Alien X

The next of William's earlier levels and the other secret level in WGSpace Episode.

As impressive and as epic as this map was (inspired by E2L4: Fusion Station), I wish it was better balanced. For one thing, the lack of armor strikes again, which is an issue that seems present in a couple of Gee's maps, probably to blame on the minimal HUD that some people prefer using, as armor isn't displayed on that one, so the existence of the item can be easily forgotten. But in this map, the lack of armor was just miserable with how many tough enemies were around. After consulting Mapster, I noticed there was one armor pickup placed in one of the corners underwater but I couldn't figure out a way to open those corners, so I had no armor throughout the entire map, which made every alien attack painful.

On top of that, the Chaingun was given very late in the map, because none of the enforcers dropped one until the very last enforcer I killed, which was just shortly before the section that actually contained the Chaingun (after making the jump, grabbing health/jetpack and killing those 4-5 Commanders). Because of that, I've had times I ran out of ammo for several weapons and couldn't make use of any dropped chaingun ammo from the enforcers. Didn't help that being forced to use Freezethrower on Troopers and Enforcers means they will never drop anything (only Pig Cops still dropped stuff when they got frozen, which might as well have been a bug) and other options at that time were Pipebombs and Shrinker.

The difficulty of the map was much higher than I expected, even with health being plentiful and finding an unofficial secret earlier that rewarded TWO atomic healths, I had various unfortunate deaths caused mostly by Mini Battlelords (especially fuck that bullshit one in the middle of one of the rooms) early on and just plain bad luck at times, though something tells me that Mini Battlelords may be more accurate with their chaingun in 1.3D.

Yes, I know the original E2L4 was quite difficult, it is one of the hardest levels in the entire game and playing a map inspired by it, it is to be expected. So what did I hate at Alien X? The lack of Armor and Chaingun, which completely changed how the map played. These are my two main gripes about the map.

Anyway, the map progression was mostly clear, I didn't get stuck besides dying in a few spots and trying to overcome that challenge with low health, which is where saving/loading comes handy. I consumed one Portable Medkit and saved the second one for the end. I actually think I consumed every health pickup in the level (every health pickup was grabbed with care, to make full use of it) but thankfully I ended up with 200 health and an unused medkit in the inventory at the end, so the health distribution is nice (there are plenty of atomic healths present). The armor distribution is not nice, however.

I like how you get the choice at the end to smash the nuke button or to backtrack and kill a spawned Overlord! I did both choices and by the time I reached the Overlord, I only had 50 Devastator ammo (I did the good thing of saving this precious ammo for later) and a fully loaded Chaingun (after grabbing a few dropped ammo packs I couldn't use earlier). Every other weapon (besides the non existent tripmines) had 0 ammo left, which is a thing that happens rarely to me.

I will also give a couple of advices to help with this map:
-All weapons are available, with the exception of the trip mines (and expander ammo because this map was made with 1.3D in mind). You will also find every weapon useful, considering how the weapons/ammo are distributed in this map!
-Don't miss the Shotgun and the Shells in the starting room! Turn around and grab the stuff right behind you!
-Due to the ammo being tight, try to make most Sentry Drones hit a nearby wall, so you save ammo and health in the process. The ammo is extremely tight and you can't afford missing shots or spending them on enemies that you should avoid for now.
-Grab chaingun ammo until you reach 150 ammo. Don't grab any chaingun ammo further until you get the Chaingun, so then you get the benefit of the included 50 ammo and you will have 200 ammo when you grab it. Otherwise, grabbing the Chaingun at 200 ammo will waste the 50 included ammo!
-Killing ANY of the babes present in map will spawn TWO Octabrains nearby! There are plenty of captured babes and some you need to kill near the end to press those buttons that unlock the exit. So I hope you have some spare ammo to kill them all. If all else fails, you can kick Octabrains to death (works better in v1.3D when you can use both feet at same time) but to be on the safe side, I recommend killing one with weapons and kick the other one to death.
-Pray that an Enforcer drops a chaingun for you early on, so the rest of the map will play better.
-There are NO official secrets to find! But you can find unofficial ones, like early in the level, there are two tiny hidden green buttons you can find near those crushers. One unlocks those two doors required for progression, the other reveals two Atomic Healths which are a MUST!
-When you get to traverse those moving bridges, you DON'T actually need to waste precious pistol and/or shotgun ammo (unless you are completely out of bullets/shells, like I was at one point) to hit the button from far away! Just stand on the tiny bridge and press the button nearby, it will move you to next platform just fine. Do the same when you have to backtrack, though for that button placed above, jump while standing on the bridge and it will transport you just fine.
-You get the Jetpack late in the map. This allows you to backtrack and kill any fallen enemies in lava in the large tower area. It also helps in dealing with the Commanders, like the ones that ambush you at the same time you grab the jetpack!
-You should have around 220 or so kills when you finish the map (I got 224 kills with the Overlord killed).

As it stands, I had a miserable time in this map but even then, I really appreciate the amazing visuals and I'm positive the rest of WGSpace maps will be good. Hope that the map was also rebalanced in newer versions but if not, then in WGSpace Episode, I have the possibility to play continuous, so the later/secret levels will be much easier. Hope the next map reviewed will be better.
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Operation: Get Bike Back

And now for the real star of the show! The map's story is funny and simple: The aliens stole Duke's bike. It's time for Duke to get his bike back!

This map uses v1.3D assets only but unfortunately, it is unplayable in that version as the text file mentions in the Atomic Pack Required category:

Quote

No. It has only 1.3. textures. But it seems it don't work fine with 1.3


On top of that, Fernando Marquez made an YouTube video nearly a decade ago showing what happens if you play the map in Duke3D v1.3D in DOSBox, though it seems he renamed the map to E3L11, as loading the map showed Freeway.

Description:

Quote

A few years ago, I tried to play this classic user map in the original 1.3D version of the game, even though the readme file included stated it didn't work for some reason. Now I can see why.

The 1.3D release has a strict memory cap, because it will always allocate as much as 8Mb for the game entirely (as different as 1.4+ which allocates memory depending on physical RAM available), thus having to share memory with tiles, sound, functions and leaving very few bytes remnants for the maps themselves is not something to let pass by.

Due to its enormous size and complexity, the map is way too big for the 1.3D engine to handle, thus overwriting vital game functions in memory and behaving absolutely erratically. It is wise said to halt gameplay and restart Duke at this point, thus continuing in such a state can lead to severe consequences.


Because of reasons mentioned, I played the map in Duke3D v1.5 in DOSBox and it worked fine, I never had any bugs/glitches or crashes happening. Everything went pretty smooth, though yes, I play the DOS version on default 320x200 resolution, sorry if things look too pixelated in my DOS quality screenshots. Someone had to test the compatibility of these maps. :P

The map was very challenging and I nearly got my ass kicked early on, I even had to pick up an atomic health when nearly dead and use the first medkit to its fullest before I could clear the various enemies guarding every corner of the street, so then I could reach one of the water fountains scattered around the place.

After that, the difficulty eased when I got more powerful weapons and the Atomic Health became a common item that you could often find after or before every tough battle, sometimes the atomic healths would be often placed close to each other. The map is quite lengthy, as you will need to find SIX access cards, so if you thought the map ends after the first three cards, you thought wrong! Oh and initially, I thought each type of card was used twice but upon further inspection in Mapster, it appears there's THREE red cards, TWO yellow cards and ONE blue card. ;)

Unfortunately, this map also suffers from a major lack of armor pickups. I spent half of the map with no armor at all and it was painful whenever I would lose half/most of my health quickly, though thankfully I managed to survive in the end, unlike Alien X that kicked my ass all over the place. I noticed many mappers neglecting the armor (it might also be because Duke3D's Mini HUD doesn't show the armor at all, so people using mini HUD wouldn't care about armor at all) but to me, it is an essential item in Duke Nukem 3D, as while it is weak and doesn't save you from attacks that would normally kill you without any armor, it is far better having a bit of weak armor than nothing at all. The same applies to other video games (Doom, Quake, etc) where the player character is quite weak if he has just 100 health and no armor. ;)

There are actually two armor pickups placed in the map, one where you would get the red card on top of the building (the armor is located on top of the boxes) and one that was supposed to be located inside the office (where you would get the first yellow card) but for some reason, it doesn't appear in the map. I looked up in Mapster and that armor pickup is given "pal 21", which means, it will most likely appear only in Multiplayer. Usually MP only items are tagged with Pal 1 but in this case, it's same as the armor pickup in last level of DukeDC, it is tagged with Pal 21. If anyone knows a better explanation with items tagged with different pal appearing only in multiplayer, please let me know. :)

Of course after getting the first armor pickup, pig cops started dropping used armors too, which were nice but I wish I had one earlier, even if it was consumed in the process by how much damage I took.

With that said, the map remains long, epic and challenging, I had a lot of fun with it. I appreciate the epic battles, with many Commanders and Mini Battlelords, though in the end, I kinda wish it used Atomic assets to have a bit more diversity, so there would be additional fights against Protector Drones and Pig Cop Tanks. Oh and I initially missed the Shrinker in the office, so when I backtracked near end to collect leftover atomic health, I found it in the corner of the room. It was still great use against the last bunch of Commanders guarding the bike. ;)

There are two secrets to find, as well as an unofficial one, they are all located near each other:
1) Inside the shopping store, jump behind the window that says FRUITS & VEGETABLES to collect the RPG!
2) Jump on top of the firetruck, then jump on a nearby window and then jump on the step near the blue pole. Make another jump to the billboard and then jump to the nearby building. You can then collect Steroids, Atomic Health, 2x Pipebombs and 5x Trip Mines (weapon).

Unofficial secret: Near the orange broken billboard with the winking woman, jump on the trash can, then jump from one tree to another until you reach the balcony. You should find yourself in an orange room containing an Atomic Health and a pack of Pipebombs.

Definitely one of the best maps I've ever played!
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I will review the remaining maps sometime during the next week, probably split into two separate posts (4-5 maps reviewed per post), as things are taking out a bit longer than I expected.

I may be away for a couple days in the next weekend for a trip (more on that next week when I find more details) and I will see when I get around playing WGRealms (including Beerzity user map) and WGSpace (at the very least the WGBoss map, which is unique to the episode) and reviewing them after that weekend. This is mainly why I didn't include the entire WG Mega Pack for this month. ;)

Have a nice weekend everyone!
3

User is online   ck3D 

#22

View PostFistMarine, on 10 February 2023 - 10:30 AM, said:

Operation: Get Bike Back

[...] This map uses v1.3D assets only but unfortunately, it is unplayable in that version as the text file mentions in the Atomic Pack Required category:


On top of that, Fernando Marquez made an YouTube video nearly a decade ago showing what happens if you play the map in Duke3D v1.3D in DOSBox, though it seems he renamed the map to E3L11, as loading the map showed Freeway.

Description:

"A few years ago, I tried to play this classic user map in the original 1.3D version of the game, even though the readme file included stated it didn't work for some reason. Now I can see why.

The 1.3D release has a strict memory cap, because it will always allocate as much as 8Mb for the game entirely (as different as 1.4+ which allocates memory depending on physical RAM available), thus having to share memory with tiles, sound, functions and leaving very few bytes remnants for the maps themselves is not something to let pass by.

Due to its enormous size and complexity, the map is way too big for the 1.3D engine to handle, thus overwriting vital game functions in memory and behaving absolutely erratically. It is wise said to halt gameplay and restart Duke at this point, thus continuing in such a state can lead to severe consequences."


This is crazy, holy shit. Most creepypastas have been born from far less!
4

#23

I never really cared much about Armour pickups in duke until Alex mentioned it after I started making the WGABYSS Episode.

I made Matrix and AlienX well before I even entered the duke community, they are my oldst maps apart from WGOld 1 and 2 that are completely shitfaced.
Yes the version of AlienX is updated in the latest version of WGMEGA.
2

User is offline   FistMarine 

#24

@ck3D: I agree. The video did give me creepypasta vibes. ;)

@William Gee: I understand now. I know the armor in general is quite weak in Duke3D (though it seems to absorb a random amount of damage per hit, ranging from 20% to about 49% damage reduction, it never absorbs 50% damage as the Duke Nukem wikia claims) but it's far better to have some armor than nothing at all, even if it eventually ends up exhausted from attacks, one armor pickup is better than none at all. :P

About those old WG maps, we will see shortly how they compare to the rest of WGSpace maps. Glad to hear Alien X is updated in WGMega. I hope to revisit these maps someday.

Anyway, I just realized I should have played and reviewed WG-Old1 and WG-Old2 previously instead of the WGSpace Secret Levels that will already get reviewed when I get around playing the episode. Now I feel dumb about that decision. I guess I will skip reviewing WGSpace1-4 and WGAlien for now (I will still play them but afterwards, I will play the entire WGSpace Episode and then review it) and in their place, I will review WGCity and Discarded Stronghold to give a proper conclusion to the William Gee's user maps!

WG-Old1

Probably the oldest map that William Gee has made. It's decent at times and I really enjoyed how many homages/references to the original Duke3D levels (especially the ones from Lunar Apocalypse) were but unfortunately, the level suffered from oversizing, random explosions in your face and various other minor issues.

I will say that there is an armor early on and even a water fountain that will be a great help. The health seems to come in decent amounts (there's even about 3-4 Portable Medkits in total, most of which were consumed) but even then, I can't refuse the offer to have a water fountain available in the desperate times. I kinda wish there was one more armor pickup because the one available got used early on from how much damage I took and after that, it was painful whenever I was fighting monsters that I couldn't dodge their attacks.

Ammo was scarce at first because while you get a Chaingun on the map start, I spent my ammo on troopers, enforcers and also the spawned octabrains because the canisters blew up the babes and well, I had to kick them to death. It's also not helped that you can't kill the slimers with your feet in Duke3D 1.3D, so you have to consume extra pistol/chaingun ammo for them. Luckily, there is a glitch that allows you to kill them when latched on your face by just pressing the fire button while switching weapons, so this works even on an empty pistol or whatever. Well every weapon except pipebombs and tripmines. Oh and after a few minutes, I realized I missed the shotgun early on. After that, ammo was no longer an issue, though I didn't find the Shrinker and Devastator until I was finished with the map, as they are hidden inside secrets (more on that below).

Progression is mostly decent, there shouldn't be many confusing parts. Whenever I got a card, I knew mostly where to go. I died probably 10 times in total but I didn't have as much of a problem as I had with Alien X, mostly because of the early Chaingun, armor and water fountains being available, which wasn't the case with Alien X at all.

There were still a few annoying parts, like when you get blown up by some random unexpected explosion inside a vent or a room infested later on with Octabrains and Slimer eggs, mostly because I kept trying to throw pipe bombs but Duke kept picking them up while the slimer was eating my face. Yeah, that room killed me about two or three times, it's embarassing to admit. I guess we've been spoiled by Atomic Edition and Source Ports, which allows you to kick the slimer off the face immediately. Maps involving fighting many slimers (especially when busy dealing with Octabrains and other threats) are quite more challenging in the original 1.3D release, which makes the slimer much more interesting as an enemy, even more that its acid hurts you while you have the boots in inventory (this was fixed in Atomic).

There was also that annoying part with the spaceship firing the rockets at me through windows. It was annoying because sometimes I would end up with a rocket in my face just after taking the elevator (as if the ship knew I would arrive in next second) or by some chance get those hanging babes blown up, which spawned two nearby enforcers. And yeah every babe killed spawns two nearby enemies, most of them being Octabrains. Not that I'm complaining, I like having extra monsters to kill. The ammo was thankfully plentiful, as most enforcers dropped Chaingun ammo, which encouraged me to use the weapon more. That also makes me wish that Alien X had the Chaingun given earlier, though at least when I replay that map as part of the episode, I get the option to play continuous, so the lack of ammo/weapons shouldn't be anymore of an issue. ;)

There are SIX secrets to find, which are quite tricky to get:
1) In the area with the train, activate the switch and then immediately go before the door closes, you will get in the corridor. Go find a differently textured wall which eventually leads to the Devastator! Note that this only works from one side and probably after the vent is accessible from an explosion earlier, so you have a way to escape from this room! If you attempt from the other side (and probably before that vent gets blown up), you get STUCK!
2) In the large orange room (inspired by E2L4: Fusion Station, with the timed switch that temporary opens the door), you need to cross a sector and then immediately go to the next room to find a door temporary opened! The time limit is tight and I think this touchplate can be activated a number of times. Once you made it inside, go downstairs until you find a corpse of the Doom Marine. Destroy the corpse to find a switch and go back upstairs to collect TWO Atomic Healths!
3) Near the jail cells where you collect the red card, blow up a crack. Inside, you will find a large medkit, as well as a pile of crap.
4) After getting past the rotating gears (inspired by E1L4: Toxic Dump) and surfacing from water, take down the elevator. Press on that nearby wall to collect an RPG and a Portable Medkit.
5) In the large area with the spaceship shooting at you (a bit inspired by E2L1: Spaceport), after deactivating the forcefield, use the jetpack to fly up high. Kill the two enforcers and grab the Shrinker and the crystal!
6) In the large orange room (inspired by E2L8: Dark Side), after clearing out the monsters, fall down and open a vent. When you get back up, you will find Luke Skywalker and two Large Medkits!

Optional Secrets:
-In the middle of the cells (near where you get the red card), there is a hidden cave where you find Indiana Jones and collect an Atomic Health, just like in E3L8: Hotel Hell. And much like that level, be sure to run upon collecting the health item! ;)
-There is an extra Portable Medkit placed behind two rotating gears

The map may have been average overall but it was still enjoyable at times. I think I can see this and WG-Old2 getting remade and included as bonus/extra levels in WGSpace Episode. What do you think of that, William Gee?
Attached Image: WG-OLD1_7.pngAttached Image: WG-OLD1_13.png

WG-Old2

Gee, I found this map really annoying and frustrating at times. Early on it was a struggle to survive because I kept getting killed by those goddamn commanders sneaking behind me and also shooting too close with my RPG. And yeah you get the RPG right off the bat with extra rockets, which does make a bit strange and makes you think what lies behind that first door.

After clearing these parts, I was given a much needed Portable Medkit and I even stumbled upon a secret area containing a lot of goodies, as well as another armor pickup which comes handy much later on. Good thing I happened to stumble upon secrets containing Atomic Health, as the map was quite painful early on. Oh and when you go swimming in those pipes, be sure to stand in the center, both when submerging and surfacing. If you don't, you get squished. Yeah, it happened to me a few times, so be careful! Always keep a handy save for these situations!

After that, use the Blue Card found underwater. You will get to a large room where you can admire the Earth view. You should look for a panel that reveals a bunch of Sentry Drones. Press that switch inside to reveal an elevator but it also spawns a couple aliens around the room, so be careful! Be sure to also check out the other area which leads to the red card. Be careful, as there is a Mini Battlelord waiting for you! You must blow up the reactor and then do some platforming to reach the card.

Afterwards, you take down the elevator, kill a bunch more monsters and get access to the Chaingun and a water fountain! Eventually, you will get to insert the red card and be able to get into a room with Octabrains and Captured Babes (each captured babe when killed, spawns two more Octabrains), as well as a monolith. You know what to do next.

Clear the alien bastards, press a switch and take the elevator up. I must mention that this is a point of NO RETURN! So after you kill that Mini Battlelord from far away, backtrack for any health supplies if needed. Once you drop down, there is no way back up!

The rest of the map should be pretty straightforward, though note there is a Yellow Card that you find behind a Spacesuit panel and there is a switch underwater that is hard to find, which unlocks the said panel where you can then get the yellow card.

Afterwards, find a teleporter that sends you inside a ship, where you insert the yellow card. The card will unlock the giant door you may have seen earlier, which is textured like a big metal door with the Battlelord's face on it, though only half of the texture can be seen. It looks quite weird.

Behind that door, you will find the last Mini Battlelord that guards the nuke button. I expected a boss at the end and wasn't too disappointed, though I was thinking I will face the Overlord/Cycloid or a full sized Battlelord or whatever.

There are FIVE secrets to find, the first one being impossible to get in normal gameplay:
1) As soon as you begin the level, press on the panel in right side to access an Atomic Health. Unfortunately, it is IMPOSSIBLE to register this secret without cheats due to the sector being too narrow to enter!
2) In the second room, where you are supposed to insert the blue card, go to the right side of the room and jump through the Earth monitor. Inside, you will find lots of goodies: 3x Pipebombs, 3x Trip Mines (weapon), Armor and Atomic Health.
3) Underwater, go through the middle wall and when you surface, you will end up in a tiny gray room with a switch and an Atomic Health. Press the switch to unlock those doors underwater and grab the Blue Card, which means this secret may be required for progression, though I think you can also shoot that switch in front of blue card, not sure if both switches are required to be pressed/shot or one is enough. Either way the extra health is always appreciated.
4) After taking the elevator down, go find a panel. After revealing it, you will find inside an Atomic Health and two slimer eggs.
5) Right where you pick up the Shrinker, find a differently textured wall nearby, open it to find two Shrinker crystals.

Optional secret: Check that panel with the various developers' faces on it. Press on it to reveal a bunch of ammo packs for Shrinker and Freezer.

Because the first secret is inaccessible without cheating, maximum you can get 4/5 secrets. After I beat the map, I loaded an earlier save before the point of no return and used DNCLIP to get it and then got immediately killed when I went through wall, considering the noclip cheat is quite buggy in original 1.3D. :P

Overall, this map was quite average but the second half of the level was a bit more engaging than the first half of the map. Just like with WG-Old1, I hope to see these getting remade and included in WGSpace/WGMega one day.
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WGSpace 1-4 and WGAlien

Review not available yet! Please wait until next week after I return from the trip, as I will get to play through the whole WGSpace Episode and review it properly, including a re-review of Future Matrix and Alien X (if needed), as well as reviewing the exclusive WGBoss map that's only available in WGSpace Episode. ;)

Note that WGAlien is for Atomic Edition only! In fact, it is the first Atomic map that William has created. All the others were 1.3D only (OGBB was a special case as the map used 1.3D textures but it proved too big for DUKE3D.EXE v1.3D to handle). ;)

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures from the standalone versions of the maps, though only WGSpace1 and WGSpace2 for now, as the rest I haven't played yet. We are sorry for the inconvenience!
Attached Image: WGSPACE1_3.pngAttached Image: WGSPACE1_11.png
Attached Image: WGSPACE2_5.pngAttached Image: WGSPACE2_11.png

WGCity

This map requires a source port due to increased limits, so I used JFDuke3D (2005) and things worked fine.

As for this map, wow, this was a truly amazing one! It is a very action packed, epic, long and challenging map! It took me about 80 minutes in game time (in real time, must have been two hours) to do it and killed almost 300 monsters! I even managed to survive every fight, I didn't actually had problems with health in this map as it was plentiful, there were even water fountains at various points in the map. William Gee is always generous with health packs. There is only one armor that I got near beginning (located on the roof of the house) and since I didn't get hit too much in this map, it actually lasted until nearly end of the level, which was quite surprising in such a long map. So this one single armor was much appreciated, far better than having no armor throughout the map at all! Sure, pig cops didn't drop any used armor this time but I didn't mind that and I was well stocked on health and ammo throughout the map, which is what matters most, obviously.

With that said, the map does have a few annoyances. For one thing, there are a few confusing parts where you will get stuck not knowing where to go or where to insert the yellow card when you find two different spots that require you blue and red keys you haven't acquired yet. Yes, I used the first yellow card on the truck which rewarded me with a few goodies and another yellow card. But turns out, I was supposed to make some jumps on some buildings and eventually make it to a strip club and insert the yellow card. After this point, I didn't have trouble finding my way but I was surely exhausted when I was getting near the end.

As an interesting piece of trivia, in total there seem to be THREE Yellow Cards, TWO Red Cards and TWO Blue Cards. So you can imagine how long is this map is. Because if you once again expected this map to end after the third access card, then you will be mistaken.

There are also TWELVE secrets to find, which will be difficult to reveal their exact locations, so unfortunately no secret guide this time. But I will try my best to describe a couple trickier secrets:

-Most secrets are located on ledges, so all you have to do is jump to reach those various Atomic Healths and ammo packs.
-Some secrets are found behind a wall when climbing on those balconies/ledges located at the top.
-There is a jetpack secret that is located near a firetruck at a later point in the map, you must jump on that staircase (for a lack of a better word) and go forward, eventually opening a hidden wall with the jetpack inside.
-There is a secret that requires finding a hidden switch, which is located behind some green crates (where you collect a RPG), jump behind those crates and look carefully. You will find a hidden OWN message and a switch that unlocks an Atomic Health secret near those balconies/ledges (where you find a Chaingun secret) which is also marked by the OWN message. If you see this message and eventually find the hidden switch, you will know where to go to claim your prize!

Definitely one of the best maps I've ever played!
Attached Image: Wgcity_2.pngAttached Image: Wgcity_3.pngAttached Image: Wgcity_8.pngpng]

Discarded Stronghold

This map requires a source port due to increased limits, so I used JFDuke3D (2005) and things worked fine.

As for the map, it was created by three mappers, those being Quakis, William Gee and Mikko Sandt. For more details, be sure to check the readme file!

The map is quite challenging at times, especially at the beginning when you have limited ammo/health. Luckily, you will find a water fountain and even an early armor if you explore. The pig cops didn't drop any shotguns early on but then after a while, they seemed to be dropping used armors quite often, which was interesting. As such, I had more than enough health and armor throughout the whole map, so the rest of the map was only slightly challenging at various points but mostly on the easier side.

With all that said, I still managed to die once in a really stupid way by running directly into a Mini Battlelord when looking for health packs (this happened near the end of the level) but this didn't matter since I still had to load a slightly earlier save because I got softlocked. Yes, read below what happened, so it won't happen to others as well.

It may surprise you that there is a way to get softlocked in this map but anyway, there is this part towards end that requires you to get a yellow card while the bridge blows up. If you don't stand on the platform and wait for doors to open, you will not be able to reach this platform again due to the destroyed bridge, even if you strafe and jump as high as you can. Duke will hit an invisible ceiling and will fall down, so at this point you're screwed. Once you successfully get on the other side and collect the card (and kill the spawned enemies) before dropping down, take care of the spawned monsters, including a goddamn mini battlelord and find the last door that requires the yellow card, then drop down a tube in order to make it to the exit sector and get sent to Hollywood Holocaust! :P

I didn't manage to get all the kills. For some reason, there seems to be a missing enemy somewhere. Yes, I made sure to kill the FOUR protector drones inside those tubes (they can only be activated with explosives or Shrinker blasts and the only explosives available are whatever RPG ammo you may have left) but even then, I came up one enemy short of maximum, which makes me think an enemy got stuck inside a wall or a red trooper never came back. Kinda lame to ruin the potential to get all kills. Oh and no secrets to find.

The map was fine overall but it didn't amaze me as WGCity did and the random glitches (some HOM effects spotted), the missing enemy and a place you can get softlocked, dragged the map's quality down, which is unfortunate, as this map had THREE mappers working on it and it showed big potential. In the end, it was still an enjoyable map and worth checking out but it felt a bit disappointing overall.
Attached Image: Discard_2.pngAttached Image: Discard_4.pngAttached Image: Discard_5.png

I will be away for a few days in a trip with my parents and when I come back, I hope I can play and review both WGRealms and WGSpace, then making a few new nominations for the next month. Have a nice weekend everyone! :)

This post has been edited by FistMarine: 17 February 2023 - 10:25 AM

3

User is offline   Quacken 

#25

Hello! It's been a while owing to a much busier schedule in the new year, but tonight I've finally set aside a night to write about the first two maps from WGSpace. Let's go!

Astro Core

After being fully sick of space maps by this point, I'm pleased to say that William Gee hasn't delivered yet another riff on Lunar Apocalypse. Astro Core is a solid map with funky lighting, decent application of 3D floors and has a nice challenge. Ammo can be dicey in this map if you aren't searching for it in the dark. If you were like me and had to fight the Battlelord after having just the Devastator and nothing else, you might need to make a run for it over to the other platform and hope you don't get gunned down. The application of the 3D floors can be a little clunky as well. The lava pit section is definitely cool, but if you didn't see the elevator door off to the right and fell down to the platforms at the bottom, you could either die from the ambush you triggered prematurely or potentially get stumped by a different Battlelord that spawns right in front of the elevator you need to take to access a locked door. He'll kill you instantly as soon as you take the elevator and it's impossible to lure him down, so your only strategy then is to just get lucky by running past him. Both these situations happened to me on different runs. Finally, I'm pretty sure I found a softlock by the red door. You can jump in the notch behind where the red switch is hanging and get stuck there.

Despite its navigational flaws, there's a lot to like about Astro Core. Its visuals are certainly great. I particularly like the intro sequence as you beam into the main space station, and the usage of coloured lighting and dark areas. WGSpace is really good with coloured lighting in general, which is something I like a lot. When you play the map in order and make sure to look around for everything you can, I also do appreciate the challenge in this map. William does well with a palette of Troopers, hitscanners, Drones, Protozoids, Commanders and Battlelords, and you don't get spoonfed Devastator rockets in this map (you get quite a lot of Shrinker crystals though). I like Astro Core a lot. I think it's a very good starting map, and I also appreciate that it's an actual map unlike the opener of WGRealms.

8/10.

Alien Hive

Alien Hive is visually very striking, but I feel like its gameplay leaves quite a bit to be desired. The usage of pitch-dark spaces and bright greens is great, and I again like the use of coloured lighting here, but a lot of the other rooms besides the opener feel just a little too mute and boxy for my liking. This is something I noticed a lot past this point, but Alien Hive heavily abuses copy-pasting. The big green room and the hallway leading to it is literally just copy-pasted on both sides to allow both of them to funnel through to the Battlelord area, which I don't like at all. Having to kill four Battlelords while all of them can lob grenades from two football fields away is asphyxiating, and I don't really appreciate the switch puzzle once you do clear out everything. The rest of the map is fine but more of the same. The bridge above where the dead Battlelords can get pretty janky too, as flying monsters can pop in from the bottom to take you by surprise. I do like this map's visuals in the opening room and past the bridge towards the end of the map a lot, but I just couldn't get into this one despite me wanting to.

6/10.

Tomorrow I'll make sure to write about the other two maps I played! If those reviews aren't too long I'll try to fit in a few more maps to make up for my slack.
3

User is offline   Quacken 

#26

Here we are again.

Ice Moon

Ice Moon is definitely the best map in WGSpace so far. The outside area looks great, for one. The mountainous moon landscapes are varied and combine well with the moon sky, the tunnels are dark and finely detailed and I also like the pool of water with the bobbing debris in there and the pipework, even if it makes no sense at all. I also feel like that in general the combat is far more balanced in this map compared to MAP01 and MAP02. You get given a lot more health here along with a Chaingun for once, and you'll never be without the Shrinker when you come up against a Battlelord in this map, minimising the potential and frustration of long distance bomb snipes. You'll see a lot of long distance Battlelords later on, and at the time of writing this, this is the nicest William is with them. The visuals in Ice Moon are also a step up. Besides the opening area that I already talked about, there's a lot more usage of coloured lighting once you go into the caves, and I think it makes rooms stand out a lot more. It also makes navigation a lot easier. There's a secret exit in this map, too. Duck into a little alcove and shoot a high up switch with the Pistol, followed by pressing another switch to open the windows, and then you just have to dart to the secret switch. Although it routinely struggles with implementing its flying monsters in a smooth fashion, Ice Moon is a high point of WGSpace, and its superior combat loop and visuals more than justify its greater than usual length.

9/10.

Alien X

The (first?) secret level of WGSpace is pretty rough. Although it's the first map to sport a fancy custom MIDI, trying to get anywhere means you're gonna be stuck listening to that MIDI for several minutes at a time on the same sections. This map has a bad habit of either hiding switches in spots that would have been better to hide secrets, or blending in the switch textures with the walls. To get out of the second room you need to press a button next to a door that's the same colour as the door, and I couldn't tell you how to solve the end of the map if I tried. I think the intended way is to make a jump for the left or right platforms and take some fall damage, but the ledge to the left surprises you with four Commanders in your face, and the ledge to the right has a series of pretty pointless rooms and a Battlelord in the dark which is thankfully not too difficult to kill. I'm not wild about Alien X. Its kill count is higher than average like Ice Moon's, but its overall much more cumbersome than even Alien Hive is.

6/10.
3

User is offline   FistMarine 

#27

Hi everyone. I'm back from the trip a couple days ago and tried my best to catch up by playing a couple more maps. There isn't much time remaining this month, so I will try my best to review what's remaining. For now, I will review standalone versions of WGSpace1-4 and WGAlien, as well as Beerzity by Numan. I will probably get a proper review of WGRealms and WGSpace Episode (at least the WGBoss map that is exclusive to the package) sometime in the early March because there just isn't much time left this month and I've been busy with various real life related issues, so I didn't have much time to play/review the maps. Apologize for the inconvenience!

In general, most WGSpace maps don't actually have secrets, though maybe there were secrets added in newer versions of the maps (either included in WGSpace Episode and/or WGMegaPack). I've also noticed there are pig cops in the WGSpace maps, though maybe they were removed in WGSpace Episode and/or WGMega Pack. I'm not sure about that but I will say while their presence in space doesn't make sense, they are a good source for armor pickups in case the map lacks or has little to no armor pickups. To further elaborate about the armor placement in WGSpace maps, WGSpace1 has an armor pickup very late in the map, while WGSpace3 contains an armor right at the beginning. Whatever extra you can get from dead pig cops is luck based and will greatly help.

As disappointing as this may seem, what I'm reviewing here is their initial versions, which may have problems that were fixed later. I wish I had played the latest version(s) but I was curious about the differences between them and I wanted to revisit the series after a decade or so since I played WGRealms and WGSpace last time. While I knew there wouldn't be enough time for this month to play the entire WG Mega Pack, I didn't expect to not have enough time to do the minimum requirements, though various real life issues happened unexpectedly, so I ended up playing/reviewing whatever I could.

I will also talk about the compatibility of the maps. Most seem to be playable in just plain DOS Duke3D v1.3D but if using that version, keep in mind there are some unfortunate game breaking bugs/glitches that can happen due to memory related issues. My guess is William Gee tried to push the Build engine to its limits and as a result, glitches can happen at various times. Just make sure to NOT save after the glitch has happened or you're screwed and that save game is now glitched. Not even restarting the game will fix the glitch on that saved game, so make sure to have backup saves just in case! I will always specify which maps require which game version (1.3D or 1.5) and if source ports are needed (in the latter case, it is assumed you are already using Duke3D Atomic).

Before I begin my review, I need to point out, after watching DNSKILL's video of WGCity, it turns out the Alien Queen was added in the updated version of WGCity included in the WG MEGA PACK. The Alien Queen did NOT exist in the initial release, which is what I played/reviewed previously. So when I read about the Alien Queen's existence in that map, I thought there was a secret boss fight in the map or something. But then after I watched the video, the Alien Queen appears in the exit room in the updated version of WGCity included in the Mega Pack! :D

WGSpace1 (Astro Core)

The first of the WGSpace series, this is a challenging and well designed level. If you aren't familiar with William Gee's levels, I can only describe them as visually impressive, very challenging overall (there are especially many Mini Battlelords to be found, sometimes two or three in the same room) and very engaging. Puzzles are kept to a minimum and there is a lot of action to be had. You are usually given plenty of resources (health and ammo) to deal with the alien bastards, though sadly you may run low on health/ammo at some points if you aren't careful.

I won't be going to describe the map in detail, as Quacken covered the maps much better than I could but I will still reveal the secrets. Additionally, while being halfway in the map, after blowing up some slimer eggs with a pipebomb, I've got a similar glitch that happened in the video that I posted above. Enemies got glitched and then sometimes I got messages on screen that read "SOUND" (sounds that weren't pre-cached, I guess), then after falling into pit, Duke died and the level couldn't be restarted by pressing space, in fact there wasn't even a message on top of the screen that shows up when you die. Pressing F9 to bring the load game confirmation and then N, the level restarted but after a couple seconds, the game crashed in a weird way (granular crash). After restarting DOSBox, starting the game and loading the last save, things went back to normal and the glitch didn't happen again.

There are four secrets to find (secrets 3 and 4 are found near each other):

1) Near the beginning, after the shuttle reaches the destination, check the broken lights on the right side to collect a Portable Medkit.
2) Halfway through the map (near the ALPHA & BETA doors), look for a crack. Blow it up, then go further and then make a long jump to the window (save before doing that!), you will eventually reach the secret containing Shrinker + 2x Atomic Health.
3) Before the bridge that leads to the second secret, check the blue room that requires the red card. Clear the bastards and press on one of the computer panels, then collect an Atomic Health.
4) Near the third secret, go further to the next corridor leading to the viewscreen and a switch but before doing that, check the different looking wall on the right side, which contains four ammo packs for four different weapons.

Definitely a great and challenging map! Looking forward to the next one!
Attached Image: WGSPACE1_13.png

WGSpace2 (Alien Hive)

The second of the WGSpace series and the only map that didn't cause any deaths and glitches, which is pretty interesting. It still remains a very challenging map overall and if you aren't quick on your feet, you may get destroyed by the aliens!

Visually, the map is still quite impressive. There are a few copy-pasted rooms, though I didn't mind that at all. I only found annoying running low on health and ammo at various points. But in the end, I had more than enough to take on the alien bastards. As there are plenty of Mini Battlelords to be found alongside other assorted aliens but don't be discouraged, you usually have the firepower to deal with them. Be sure to explore to find extra ammo and health packs!

Unlike the first map, there are no secrets to find but even then, the map was great overall. I enjoyed my time with it and looking forward to the next one.
Attached Image: WGSPACE2_12.png

WGSpace3 (Ice Moon)

A very COOL map! I really like the ice theme! This is probably a highlight of the entire WGSpace episode because of how unique this map is. Bonus points for using "Aliens, Say Your Prayers!" song from original Duke Nukem 3D (E2L7: Lunar Reactor). ;)

Unfortunately, the game breaking bugs strike again. I got a weird-ass glitch where I couldn't pick up ANY items after I took out the Octabrains underwater at some point early in the map. At first, I thought the health items got glitched but turns out, this glitch affected every other item as well, so walking over an item wouldn't do anything. When I realized that my save was screwed and not even restarting the game or DOSBox fixed this problem, I ended up loading an earlier save that wasn't affected and then things worked fine. I no longer got the glitch, at least not until next map. :P

Even though there were a lot of annoying parts, this was definitely a great map. Just don't miss the early armor pickup! I didn't get another one from pig cops but this map was VERY generous with health, as there's multiple Portable Medkits and Atomic Healths that you will rarely have problems with health. Just be sure to save often, as there's plenty of cheap traps and some platforming sections to do! Oh and once again, no secrets to find.

Interestingly, I see Quacken mentioning a secret exit available in this map but I don't think there was one available in the standalone user map release and even if there was, it would be pointless, as it would either cause the level to restart or send you to a completely different level from original Duke3D. I must play through the WGSpace Episode until next week and note any differences I can find! I'm just not doing enough justice to this kick-ass series.

Definitely a must play!
Attached Image: WGS3_17.png

WGSpace4 (Infected)

Another great space themed map. Probably the most difficult of the WGSpace series and had some annoying moments, including the return of the item pickup glitch early on and the lack of armor pickups that was only resolved by about 4-5 pig cops dropping used armors, which were a MASSIVE help, as I can't imagine doing this map without any armor, it was quite painful. And even with those armor pickups, I still died plenty of times and ran low on health at some points that I consumed nearly every health pickup available in the level. And yes, I grabbed health whenever I needed (e.g. grabbing a large medkit at 70 or less health, not at 98!). I must have been unfortunate enough with the enemies being accurate and dishing shit-tons of damage, especially the Mini Battlelords that give me the impression they are much more accurate with their chaingun in original v1.3D release. But hey, saving the game often saved the day! ;)

Once again, there are no secrets to find and the progression is fairly straightforward. You shouldn't have trouble with navigating, although you need to keep in mind you have to do a lot of backtracking. You may also witness spawning enemies, which will help you guide in the right direction if you happen to get lost after pressing a switch.

As frustrating as the map felt sometimes, this was another great entry to the amazing WGSpace series!
Attached Image: WGSPACE4_16.png

WGAlien (Pay Load)

William's first map that requires Atomic Edition, if we don't count OGBB that didn't run in 1.3D due to memory related issues. WGAlien not only brings us more challenges (including protectors and pig tanks) but also a hostile alien atmosphere and some really cool puzzles. Yes, this includes a brief shrinking puzzle! Don't worry, the enemies won't come over to step on you but you should save in advance, just in case something goes wrong.

The map is quite challenging but unlike WGSpace4, it is not very difficult overall. I died a couple times but it was mostly my own fault, outside of one annoying section with two commanders that kept screwing me up. Oh and getting low on health early on but that's because I didn't use my medkit, thinking health isn't that plentiful. Turns out, there's like THREE Portable Medkits in the whole map and I never needed to use one.

The map is straightforward and will not get you stuck. I will mention a couple important parts, such as having to shoot a button with a pistol to move that platform (though you can just make a long jump to that platform if you want) and at the very end, when backtracking to the beginning and finding a switch that does "something", what you are supposed to do is stand on that starting platform and shoot the switch with your pistol/shotgun/chaingun. You will then be transported to the very last area containing the exit. At this point on, there is no way back but since the level has no secrets and there are no enemies in the exit room, there isn't any point of going back unless you are playing the map as part of the episode and want to grab as much stuff as possible. Just press the switch, watch the cool explosions, then the nuke button and the map is over!
Attached Image: WGALIEN_14.png

Overall, the WGSpace series of maps are very cool and are worth checking out! Just keep in mind that I DO NOT recommend playing the individual user map releases. I always recommend playing the latest releases, in this case, just get the entire WG Mega Pack and start playing this masterpiece!

In fact, if you are interested in the history of Duke3D modding and want to check out the initial releases of William Gee's epic adventures, you can choose between the initial releases of WGRealms and WGSpace (both can be found at Duke Repository), the updated releases from 2009 (both can be found at ModDB) or the latest even more updated versions included in WG Mega Pack (again available at ModDB). Just forget about the individual releases as user maps, it's not worth to check the original buggier versions. I only did this because the original releases of most WGSpace maps (excluding WGAlien and WGBoss) are v1.3D compatible and I was curious how they play in DOS version 1.3D. Other than those rare game breaking glitches, things worked fine in the end. And seriously now, someone really had to try the compatibility of these maps, as I initially believed William's maps are for source ports but it seems many of the user map releases work fine in DOS versions of Duke3D. ;)

As a bonus, since I didn't play WGRealms and WGSpace Episode yet (the latter is for reviewing WGBoss map, as well as secret exit locations), I decided to play Beerzity instead!

Beerzity

This is a WGRealms user map, created by Numan. It requires WGRealms to be installed and a limit removing port (at least JFDuke3D) to be played and it contains over 400 enemies (though about 50 of them are slimers/eggs), so you can already guess how long it is. Oh and no difficulty settings implemented, so the map plays identically on first three skill settings.

The map includes new art (overwrites the existing WGRealms art, so be careful!), besides the new pistol and chaingun replacement which are from WGRealms. As far as I can tell, they are statistically identical to the Duke3D weapons equivalents. They just have different art and sounds but they do the same damage. The pistol's graphics looks a bit out of place with its design but the new Machinegun looks quite badass. Both weapons feel like they were ripped out of Counter Strike, so that's why they might seem out of place. They may not be available in newer WGRealms version and/or WGMega Pack. I can't tell for sure as I used WGRealms (2004) in order to play this user map, as I don't think the map is included in newer releases, it has to be downloaded separately from the links I posted above.

I won't go into many details about the map but I will say this is a long and challenging, open-ended map that will surely take you about TWO HOURS to complete! The map is fairly confusing at certain points but I eventually figured out you have to smash those windows at the locked doors. This got me stuck for a good 30 or so minutes until I figured out.

The map is fairly generous with health, armor and ammo pickups. So you won't have much of a problem, although you will have to be careful at some bullshit trap in a dark corridor early on, where you can fall into a pit and die. Then there are many ambushes involving spawning monsters but the most dangerous ones are when groups of monsters are spawned near you, example groups of enforcers and at one point late in the map, even groups of MINI BATTLELORDS will spawn!

You also have to look for unusual switches to progress. You may want to press on anything that seems suspicious, in order to advance the map. There are hidden switches as well that you may have to press, some of which will create explosions around and spawn monsters, so be careful!

Sometimes enemies are positioned in sniper positions, most notably pig cops early on. You may want to save your pistol ammo for sniping them, since the pistol is very accurate even at miles away. But the pistol ammo is scarce in this map, so all you get is dropped clips from dead troopers. Shotgun and Machinegun should take care of those damn pig cops that try to snipe you but you will need to get closer to them in order to hit them. The other option would be to fire RPG and the autoaim will take care of them but the RPG ammo is scarce early on that it may not be wise to spend on weaker enemies.

Large health pickups (including portable medkits and atomic healths) are fairly common, on top of water fountains being placed at various points for a quick health refill. So once again, you shouldn't have any problems with health in this map.

At the end, you get to choose between the regular nuke button ending OR press a button to spawn a full sized BATTLELORD! I did both choices but the more fun way is obviously killing the Battlelord. You should already have plenty of resources (health, armor and a fully loaded Devastator) to take down the big guy.

There are five secrets to find, the last two of which are only available in an area that you can only access once, so make sure to get them:

1) Inside the William Gee's Weapon Store, press on the cash register to reveal a secret area containing a Portable Medkit and Scuba Gear.
2) Near the IMF, check those ATMs. Press the switch located on the left one and then enter the right one to access a hidden room containing One RPG and two Atomic Healths.
3) Inside the hotel, take the elevator to the top to collect an atomic health, armor and a box of Pipebombs. Note that this spawns a bunch of enforcers waiting for you down, so prepare for them!
4) In the dark room you unlock late in the level, jump in the fireplace to collect an atomic health and devastator ammo.
5) In the same room as fourth secret, press on one of those symbols to unlock a secret at the other side of the room, containing a large medkit and devastator ammo.

Overall, this was an interesting and challenging level but I sure felt exhausted towards the end that I wanted the map to end and I will admit I enjoyed WGCity a lot more. The new art (especially many of the posters/textures) in Beerzity felt a bit out of place.
Attached Image: BEERZITY_5.pngAttached Image: BEERZITY_8.pngAttached Image: BEERZITY_11.png

Before I get to do WGRealms and WGSpace (at least the exclusive boss map) sometime next week, here are the nominations for the next month:

Metropolitan Mayhem +
World War II GI + Platoon Leader

Both me and Aleks have nominated Metropolitan Mayhem and I have voted for it, as indicated by the choice being highlighted and a + added next to it. I feel like this is the next logical choice, as it was released in March 2012 and it contains 15 levels.

Additionally, I have nominated a Build Engine game for fun, WW2GI, which was released in March 1999. I included its freeware expansion "Platoon Leader" as well. I know this won't win but I will try to nominate a new build engine game once in a while, just to spice things up.

Just note the important rule that the Build Engine Game nominated only lasts for a month! If it doesn't get chosen in a month, then it gets removed and replaced by something else (can even be another Build Engine Game), depending on the choices and nominations that will happen in the future.

Have a nice weekend!

This post has been edited by FistMarine: 24 February 2023 - 11:32 AM

2

User is offline   Quacken 

#28

I'll try to do more work on WGSpace today, but for now, here's my nomination:

Metropolitan Mayhem +
World War II GI + Platoon Leader

I'm playing WGSpace Episode, so I can confirm that for at least the first two maps there are at least a few secrets and still the existence of Pig Cops. Not that I'm complaining really, it's more shells and armor for me. I don't really have anything to say about Metropolitan Mayhem also. I never even heard of World War II GI before and while that definitely seems like a so bad it's good type of deal considering the year it came out in, I think Metropolitan Mayhem is probably the better pick.
2

#29

The version of WGCity with the boss ending only exists in Alien Armageddon now, It was first introduced in WGMEGA but I have changed it since then and it is now the middle level of the WG PANDORA episode with some changed art.

Also it was CBP2.map that inspired me to start WGSpace, that was when I learned to make spriteworks with limited walls and sectors as we were using the old limits with lots of mappers.

This post has been edited by William Gee: 24 February 2023 - 03:55 PM

2

User is offline   Quacken 

#30

I promised it, so here's the conclusion of WGSpace Episode.

Infected

Infected is long, labrynthine and at times very confusing. From a technical and visual perspective it's quite impressive. Space halls and trains connect all parts of this sprawling space station, and all of them are positioned in open atmosphere. Once again there's excellent use of coloured lighting and setpiece design. All of the trains wiz by locations you either haven't visited before or have visited, giving you either some needed perspective or intriguing you for the challenges that lie ahead. Unfortunately, I find it hard to like much else about this map. Infected's combat goes beyond being challenging and a little repetitive and instead goes towards pissing me off. This map's Battlelords are by far the worst offenders in the entire map set. Without the rocket launcher or plentiful amounts of health, rooms like the red room with the lava pit and the corridor immediately following the blue door become absolute slogs to play out. I never found the rocket launcher in this map despite getting over 50 rockets. If there is a rocket launcher in this map, it probably should have been put in a more obvious location. And if there isn't a rocket launcher, then this is just plain stupid. A lack of health in this map often meant I had to take sections slowly or save scum through more difficult areas as well. The second secret exit is in this map, but I honestly just DNCLIP'd into it. I couldn't find the red key despite circling the entire map like four times, and the yellow key seemed content with taunting me behind an underpass I couldn't quite crouch through. Aside from its visuals, Infected is a profoundly frustrating map that left a sour spot in me when I finished it.

4.5/10.

Matrix

Aside from the explosion at the start, Matrix is the weakest map in the entire set. The visuals in this map are unexpectedly drab, way too dark and full of random sharp edges. While I'm glad there's no Battlelords for once, there's really not anything to say about Matrix's combat aside from a couple of slightly frustrating Enforcer traps. There's not really a lot to say about this map in general. Getting the red key is idiotic. It's in the closet next to the rocket launcher secret, which isn't marked with a different texture, and it's also a secret itself. I was stumped on how to open the last barrier in the water section until I managed to do it rather anti-climactically later. The switch that opened two barriers at once confused me and it wasn't until I was done running around the map a whole bunch did I finally figure out where to go. Matrix is over as soon as you start playing it. It has nothing of substance and reeks of being a filler map.

3/10.

Pay Load

Pay Load is pretty unassuming. It's very corridor heavy and also quite long, and for that I find it to be pretty average. Pay Load is more or less an extension of Infected with less sniper Battlelords, a rocket launcher that actually exists, and an early Shrinker. I do like the intro. The zoom into the two corridors reminds me a lot of Astro Core's opener, and navigating the dark corridors is simple but strangely satisfying. There's some decent colour usage in this map but a lot of the visuals rely on seeing outside into space, which makes quite a few of the rooms blend together. The custom MIDI's alright but it doesn't really stick in my head, and I also don't really think it fits a space station either. Pay Load's combat definitely exists. It's more of the same. Battlelords and Commanders are everywhere, but there's plenty of rockets and Shrinker crystals to go around, along with thankfully a lot more health to help you tank more hits. Pay Load's best quality is the awesome explosion you see at the end once you launch the missiles.

5.5/10.

Mother Ship

Mother Ship is the longest and most densely populated map in the set, and it's quite a good way to end off the episode. It's very green, but I like the freaky tendrils waving around both outside the ship and on the auto-map, and once the area with the locked lift opens up a little more I like how it becomes a little brighter with some crushers going off. This map is definitely a lot more challenging than the previous two maps. William's fully back on the sniper Battlelord pill, but this time the odds are much more in your favour. You get second helpings of Shrinker crystals and rockets to fight back at long distances, and you have lots of Medkits and Atomic Healths available to stave off damage. Some of the fights here get pretty hectic. I like the two Battlelords that spawn in at the end of a long hallway with a barrage of Commanders and Tanks to distract you. It's tempting to try and make the Tanks self-destruct, but you're better off just rocketing the front-lines until you've got an option to put the shrinking on the Battlelords. The final two fights are also a highlight. I was running low on health at this time, but I like that you get an option to fully stock up on health and ammo before you're suddenly thrust into a battle against an Overlord. The Overlord is as simple as always. Make sure to take out his henchmen before finishing him off with the Devastator so you can achieve 100% kills, or just do it anyway so the Tanks don't kill you while you kill the Overlord. Mother Ship is a climactic ending to a pretty mediocre back half of maps in this set.

8/10.

Closing Thoughts

So! If you really liked WGRealms and were clamoring for more of the same thing, then you'll probably love WGSpace. Personally, I think WGRealms is a much better experience. It's shorter, only having four maps with content in them as opposed to six, and the theming for each map is much more interesting and varied. While I gave quite a few maps in WGSpace a pretty average rating, in truth the main issue that holds a lot of them back is the fact that not of a lot of maps in this set are visually interesting. The main two standouts in this map set, Astro Core and Ice Moon, are notable for different reasons. Astro Core has an impressive intro sequence with you flying into the space station to start your journey, and Ice Moon has a sprawling lunar landscape that blends into an underground military base. The other maps in this set besides Mother Ship are essentially variations of a space station, which doesn't really make for compelling locations. Still though, credit should be given to William where it's due. For 2009 I think the combat and visuals hold up really well compared to modern releases. William makes excellent use of coloured lighting throughout the map set, and his maps are generally pretty well balanced with resources against the level of carnage. It's not my favourite, but I'd still recommend anyone play WGSpace. My final rating for this map set is a 7.5/10.
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