#RTC-3057

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2004): RTC-3057 Full version

In October of the previous year, I took a look at the demo of a WAD called RTC-3057. I remember that I had fun while playing that map despite its problems. Now, I’ll cover up its full version (or rather the second preview of this WAD; what was left from it after being abandoned).

And I’m already telling you: It was a better experience than Daedalus.

...

Mostly because it was around four times shorter.

G3: RTC-3057 (full version)

Main author(s): Team Future (lead by Jacob Kruse)

Release date: January 20th, 2003 (demo), July 27th, 2004 (Blue Hub 1 version)

Version(s) played: Blue Hub 1 preview

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 7 (hub-based)

Just a little note before we start: I recommend you check out my review of a demo before taking a look at this review. Here is a link to it: ==>

Some of the sections I’ve covered previously might end up either much shorter or just straight-up ignored. So like I said, if you get confused, check the demo review first.

...

...

...

Alright then. Now, assuming you read the demo review, let’s see if the first hub was as good as the demo.

Quality-wise, the WAD looks the same as the demo (which is good). The first map (which is Deck 4) looks rather the same although I’ve noticed some changed details in the areas like prison cells and the puzzle room. The rest of the WAD looks good too. Really liked the moment at the end where the escape pods area turns into its demonic version for a moment.

The music was rather fine. There isn’t really anything to complain about. As for my favorite tracks, I guess I would choose that one track that first appears in a part of Personnel where you fix some malfunctioning doors, and the track from Labs and Cryo.

The new sound effects are mostly the same, with all of their cons and pros. I kind of enjoyed how most of the screen messages were now spoken I might add.

Playing this WAD felt like an extended version of a demo, not only in terms of now playing seven maps instead of just one but also adding new mechanics to the mix to spice the gameplay up.

Panels are now more than just recolored switches. You can choose an option by pressing O and P by default and confirm it by pressing L.

Due to being a cyborg now, you are getting messages from your mind (and from someone else) directly to your brain, which you can check by pressing L.

There are also logbooks scattered all over the hub. I don’t know what their purpose is but they are there.

So yeah, as you can see, RTC has a lot of stuff and gets kind of complicated due to these. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that it was still more enjoyable than in Daedalus because you are not punished by not knowing where to go with a cutscene of teleporting to another part of a hub most of the time, and the messages giving you a clue where to go can be checked at any moment without annoyingly pooping at the screen every couple of minutes.

It would’ve been even better if not for the fact that you move slowly as molasses. Running is still passable, but walking... Yeesh... I know that you are basically a cyborg in this WAD, but I remember playing as a cyborg at least on one WAD before RTC, so I don’t know what was the idea behind the movement here.

The full version of RTC-3057 isn’t really hard. Unlike in the demo, the toughest enemy you will fight are Cacos (although you will still be fighting lots of the lower-tier demons). And even when you have to grab the red card from Deck 3, where the Cyberdemon spawns nearby, don’t worry, he’s placed in such a way that you can grab a card without noticing you. And you can later kill him with pressure.

The actual toughest part was at the very end, where you have to fight six Hell Knights at once (on HMP). Although, I can’t decide if it’s hard because of the number of goats, or due to the map’s architecture being against you.

There are two or three moments in the entire hub when enemies will spawn after going from one map to another. Thankfully, unlike Daedalus, it’s not actually a punishment for not knowing where to go, but an award for progressing this hub.

Also, there are no stealth monsters. That’s always a bonus for ZDoom WADs/maps.

Asides from the bug that I mentioned in the previous review, the only bug I’ve encountered was on Deck 1, and it’s just a visual glitch related to looking into the void and the 3d bridges.

From just one hub only, RTC-3057 showed that it was more competent in being a hub-based WAD than the entirety of Daedalus. It could’ve ended up as a good WAD but unfortunately, the development ceased by the end of 2004. On the one hand, it’s kind of sad that it happened, but on the other, maybe it was for the better. There is always a chance that an unfinished product can end up badly despite the great promise.

We are not, however, ending on a sad one. For B.P.R.D is coming back for the next review with a new map!

I’ll see you then.

Bye!

[wadbot]

3057hub1.wad: RTC-3057: Blue MAP04: Deck 4: Cell area (-1200, -160, 0) Author: None Date: 2004-07-28 Description: After countless hours of hard work, the first hub of RTC-3057 is complete. We are very pleased with how it has turned out, and hope you will be too. The hub consists of 7 levels and takes place on the Federal Commonwealth of Earth's flagship, "The Enforcer". It is a mod for Doom2 using the powerful port of Zdoom. You probably already know this, so...Enjoy!

[dmvisbot]

3057hub1.wad Date: 07/28/04 Description: After countless hours of hard work, the first hub of RTC-3057 is complete. We are very pleased with how it has turned out, and hope you will be too. The hub consists of 7 levels and takes place on the Federal Commonwealth of Earth's flagship, "The Enforcer". It is a mod for Doom2 using the powerful port of Zdoom. You probably already know this, so...Enjoy!

[wadbot]

3057hub1.wad: RTC-3057: Blue MAP06: Deck 2: Escape pods (656, -576, 0) Author: None Date: 2004-07-28 Description: After countless hours of hard work, the first hub of RTC-3057 is complete. We are very pleased with how it has turned out, and hope you will be too. The hub consists of 7 levels and takes place on the Federal Commonwealth of Earth's flagship, "The Enforcer". It is a mod for Doom2 using the powerful port of Zdoom. You probably already know this, so...Enjoy!

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2007): Knee-Deep in ZDoom

Welp... I’m done with my rather short hiatus. After taking a break, I think I’ve come up with the idea of how not to experience another burnout. Simply, I will take at least a week-long break after every review/post related to Doom WADs. That will give me time to experience other games that I have in my Steam library or read some magazines.

And now, without any further to do, let’s take a look at, from my point of view, one of the more controversial WADs/partial conversions that came in the second half of the 2000s.

G6: Knee-Deep in ZDoom

Main author(s): Various (project lead by Tormentor667)

Release date: June 2nd, 2007 (original release)/December 27th, 2008 (version 1.1)/June 16th (version 1.2)

Version played: 1.2

Required port compatibility: ZDoom (obviously)

Levels: 10 (typical episodic structure plus one super secret map)

Knee-Deep in ZDoom – another case of trying to remake/reimagine the original first episode of Doom I, and quite possibly the most recognizeable one (for good and bad reasons).

Many of the WAD makers behind this one were encountered in my previous reviews. Among the people who were the core team behind KDiZD, there is Tormentor667, who was the project leader behind ZDCMP1 (likewise with this WAD); Graf Zahl, the creator of GZDoom; Pawel Zarczynski, who created the GZDoom port of 2000’s ZanZan; and Nick Baker, who helped with both Darkening installments, RTC-3057 and ZDCMP1.

The WAD’s development was in shambles for lack of better words, earning it not only the regular Cacoward but also the Mordeth Award for the WAD with the longest development cycle.

So what actually happened? From what I’ve gathered, the development went on for around three years, so I can only guess that it all started in 2004. It was originally supposed to be released somewhere at the end of 2005/beginning of 2006, but the ambitions of the team members made it constantly delayed, with the WAD’s release becoming a joke in the community. KDiZD was hyped to the level only Action Doom was capable of, with posters, testaments, and other similar stuff the other WAD did, but of course, it was more mocked rather than celebreated. There was even a time when the beta version of this WAD leaked. Not to mention new team members being added and dropped like flies.

The funniest thing about KDiZD is that when it was finally released, the biggest reasons why this WAD was delayed ended up as the biggest cons in the eyes of the Doom community.

Nowadays, it’s probably even more disliked/polarizing than it was back when it was released, but I will try to take a look at this WAD with my 2007 glasses. To see what a casual Doom WAD player would think about it without thinking about all of this controversy shit back then.

So, without wasting any more time, let’s finally take a look at Knee-Deep in ZDoom.

If there is one thing where this WAD is legitimately good at is the visuals. It looks great. It might get too far with tiny details and ambient sound effects in some places but by 2007, this was the shit. The best part is, of course, the locations from the original levels; they might look unrecognizable on the first look but for people who were sniffing Doom coke for over a decade at this point, it feels like how people in 1993 saw them for the first time.

Even the original locations that extend the maps aren’t half bad, whenever it’s the new techbase rooms, hellish corruption showing up much more frequently than in the original episode (if those were there at all), or the outside/underground areas.

There is even an option to launch this WAD with rotating sprites for items. Originally it was hard-coded, but since version 1.1, it’s in a separate file. Honestly, you can skip these since these sprites sometimes make it harder for an item to be found.

The music tracks are stocks from the original game, which makes sense since it’s another interpretation of Knee-Deep in the Dead. I still prefer playing this WAD without music since the original tracks feel too short for these extended maps.

There are, however, two custom tracks that play at the end of Phobos Anomaly Z; During the prologue to fight with Bruiser Demons and during the actual fight itself, and during the final boss fight. I recognize these two tracks since the first track was used in Scythe’s MAP26, but I’m not sure where I heard the second one (maybe it was in Scythe 2; I don’t know).

Now playing this WAD – this is where the bigger cracks start appearing.

As I mentioned earlier, the maps are now extended; there are completely new locations on each map, like the mine section in Toxic Refinery Z, or the tower in Central Processing Z.

Most of the time I was fine with these, but some of these, particularly the ones in the fourth and seventh map, overstated their welcome, feeling like I was walking in circles in another mangled maze.

On the other hand, each map has at least one interesting thing to offer, whenever it’s related to the level progression or finding secrets/items.

For a couple of examples, there is restarting the generator in the water where the water turns into toxic slime, using the keys to unlock the doors by flipping the switches in the center of the map rather than by using them on the doors, using a bomb on a timer to blow up some rocks, or turning off the other generator to deactivate force fields.

Since the original episode focused on a human base on Phobos, this WAD changes the skulls into silver, green, and orange keycards to make more sense tonally.

There are also two new items. The first one is a Megasphere from Doom II; it functions the same while looking different. The second one is completely original – Terrorsphere; it makes you see orange and enemies run away from you (they still fight back occasionally, though). I wish it was more frequent.

Now aside from remastered levels, there is a tenth one, super secret map – Penultimate Evil. And you can’t get there by finding a secret exit on one of the regular maps. There are two ways to get there.

The first one is speedrunner’s delight – finishing all levels under the par time. Perfect for people who are into this stuff.

The second one is aimed closer towards regular players – get at least 90% of kills, items, and secrets on all levels before E1M8, even on E1M9. Now I have a problem with this, particularly with collecting items. Not only you would have to waste some very valuable items that you would like to save for later, but you also need to lick every floor tile to be sure you won’t end up under 90%.

And I know that no person with a brain would like to suffer through going to all of the locations to search every corner of them just to find one tiny health/armor bonus that was under their nose when they were having the big fight with demons just to reach 90% of collected items. Sure, on (G)ZDoom, you can type summon [item] enough times to reach that percent but still.

...                                                                                      

The new intermission screen looks kind of cool though... and offers more than the regular one... even though it feels unneeded.

Coming back to Penultimate Evil, at least I can say it’s the best map in KDiZD. On the foundation level, it’s a Frankenstein’s monster made out of locations from the later episodes of Doom I, and yet everything fits in place. Asides from the E2M2’s crate maze that almost always sucks, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this map was dragging out. If you ever want to try this WAD, you can at least play this map.

Now, how hard is this WAD? It’s kind of challenging but I wouldn’t say it’s hard. There are moments filled with bullshit like corridor fighting and hitscanning snipers here and there, but these were rather rare from what I’ve experienced.

Although, I wasn’t a fan of how ammo-starving the first 1.5 levels were, especially Z1M1. Even if you know where the secrets are, you will end up without shells, forcing you to kill enemies with your peashooter (at least it’s slightly faster here than in the original games).

Also, some numbnut decided to remove infighting in the WAD. Like, are fucking shitting me?! Infighting is hilarious in Doom WADs. There is at least one fight where it begs for some infighting but no. Whoever came up with this must be an asshole that wants to be threatened seriously but fails in at least 50%.

Oh, and by the way – hard-coded falling damage. Because fuck you.

Changing the subject, it’s time to introduce you to the new roster of enemies, at least doubling the amount of enemy types in the first Doom.

Starting with new zombie variants, we have Rapid-fire Trooper, who’s basically Wolfenstein SS if he was an actual Doom enemy; Chainsaw Zombie who requires no description of what he does, and Obituary’s Rocketeers, coming back to show you once again that they will kill themselves more frequently then you.

Oh yeah, Hoovies also join the fun, now looking like an aging old fart... great... -_-

As for the Imp variants... oh boy... we have seven of these.

We already met three of these variants in Cheogsh. Shadow (renamed Howler in that map) is the Class 2 Imp from STRAIN if he actually looked and sounded more like an original monster. Soul Harvester is basically a mini-me Revenant with projectiles that almost always hit you if there is no cover. And Nightmare is complete and utter bullshit filth to fight that thankfully only appears in two sections of Phobos Anomaly Z.

And as for the original variants, we have Stone Imp at the start; a slow, melee enemy that’s rather easy to defeat.

There are also three variants of the Dark Imp. The regular Dark Imp has yellow eyes and shoots homing projectiles (that turn slower than Revenant’s missiles). Skulltag Imp has red eyes and shoots much faster projectiles (it might feel like you were fighting regular Imp on Nightmare). And Void Imp has orange eyes and functions like Undead Warrior from Heretic, AKA has a chance to shoot a red projectile that deals much more damage.

Pinky aside from having Mauler whom we already met in Cheogsh (that charges at you like the Lost Soul), also has a variant titled Blood Demon, which is basically half-robot Pinky that is twice as tough to kill.

Hell Nobility has five additional variants in the roster. We already met Satyr, Hell Warrior, and Bruiser Demon AKA the one who’s a melee-type enemy, the one with the shield (that often uses it right as he’s about to get shot), and the one that’s basically a boss version of Baron.

As for the new variants, Hell Knight joins the game, now with a slightly different color and sounding different (for some unexplained reason). There is also Hell’s Fury, a tougher variant of Baron, that shoots red, faster projectiles and three homing projectiles (same ones as Soul Harvester). When he dies, his head comes off (it looks like a beta Lost Soul).

As for the original enemies, the last map introduces two of these. The first one is Hell Cube which is basically an enemy version of the summoning cube Icon of Sin spits out from his forehead.

The second one is actually a boss – Magmantis, who defends the portal to Deimos. He can summon portals that shoot fireballs or Lost Souls, and sometimes he dives back into lava, summoning Imps in between. He feels like a filler, not gonna lie. The final area with hell nobles felt more like a proper finale than he was. Not to mention how easy he is when you constantly shoot him with a BFG replacement.

To fight all of these new monstrosities, you get three new weapons to use:

There is the Super Shotgun, and at first, having this beast from Doom II added might make you think that it’s a Christmas miracle, but it feels like another pair of socks to the pile of these that your nanna bought you. It looks off, it sounds off, and the worst of all, it reloads slower than the original version! Like, come the fuck on man! Who’s coming out with these ridiculous nerfs in gameplay?!

...

At least it’s not completely useless... Good thing the other two weapons don’t feel like that.

The Grenade Launcher feels like a Super Shotgun answer to the Rocket Launcher. It fires slower, the blast radius is much higher, but the damage is around 1.5-2 times higher. It has two fire modes, each changing how far the grenade flies.

The Rifle, on the other hand, feels like if a hitscanner weapon became the BFG. Its bullets are as hard as rockets, it fires rather fast, can kill a couple of enemies in the line, and can easily stunlock them. The only thing that makes it not completely overpowered is the ammo capacity; you can hold up to 75 bullets only without a backpack. So use this gun only on the toughest bastards in tight areas.

Another pro about this WAD, is that it doesn’t have game-breaking bugs, only the visual ones (at least from what I remember).

Knee-Deep in ZDoom is a WAD that took a hit in quality due to the ambitions and questionable decisions made by the team behind it. With falling damage, nerfed Super Shotgun, worthless final boss, and infighting removed as some of the bigger cons of this WAD. It might be seen nowadays as a laughing stock by the Doom community... but I would be lying to myself if I didn’t say that I was having (at least) some kind of fun while playing it.

It’s not a bad WAD, but honestly, I think I would recommend other episode 1 reinterpretations.

Next WAD on our list is another community project. It’s the return of Community Chest. I wonder how many of the maps won’t bore me.

See you all in the future.

Bye!

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette: Revenant Awards 2004

Look, guys! I’m finally making an award ceremony on that thing I ripped off! :]

PASSION OF DOOMGUY – REVENANT AWARDS 2004 EDITION

Okay, but seriously now. 2004 looks like another year dominated by ZDoom. Like, there is barely any Vanilla WADs or those that require other source port than ZDoom. Thankfully, it seems to me that people were moving out from the Half-Life syndrome of trying to make their WADs more than what they actually are; focusing more on fun rather than a spectacle.

In this year’s case we will be having competition in three categories while the other two will have default winners.

Without any further to do, let’s take a look at the first category.

ONE MAN ARMY – BEST ONE-MAP WAD OF THE YEAR

Five maps. All for ZDoom. And it was kind of hard to choose one because all of these were at least good. Deus Vult is a really impressive marathon of a map, although I feel it might get too far in some places. Decade is another banger created by Russell Pearson. Tremor gives a surprisingly high amount of quality for an underdog. And I’m surprised how the first ZDoom Community Map Project didn’t end up as a mess but as a really good map.

All of these maps are worth checking out, but none of these came close to the incredibility of Grove. Yes, I might be biased, but this map is something on a whole other level. And it deserves to get the award. Although, honestly, Decade deserves to be called a runner-up.

FULL DECK OF DIAMONDS – BEST 30 TO 32 MAPS LONG MEGAWAD OF THE YEAR

Oh boy... This is going to be rough. Not really in terms of choosing the winner but due to the quality of all three MegaWADs being such mixed-bags.

Starting with Hell Revealed II gaining the award in the vanilla section by default. In many places, it might be an improvement over its predecessor, but it also makes regression in around the same amount of places, from some of the maps being uglier than the stuff released in 1994 to other maps thinking that shoving as many monsters as possible means great challenge. Or even sometimes both cases.

And as for Hellcore and Community Chest 2, these aren’t as polarizing as the one above, but they still are mixed-bags. Hellcore is less of a severe case but it feels unfinished, released because the authors were sick of this MegaWAD, having maps created up to 1995. CC2 meanwhile, was actually finished despite its false start, but the quality of some of the maps will make you question how these maps were even created in 2004 and/or weren’t a filler maps to actually release this compilation.

But ultimately, if not for Mucus Flow, Community Chest 2 wouldn’t get the award in the source port section. This map is possibly the biggest reason to get interested in this WAD.

OFF THE WALL – BEST PARTIAL/TOTAL CONVERSION OF THE YEAR

That was tough to choose the winner because there are two WADs in this category that are absolute bangers to play. But I’ll get to them in a moment.

We have RTC-3057 and Daedalus: Alien Defense (moved from the previous category because Doomwiki depicts it as a partial conversion). These two come to pick your poison type of choice: Either the one that was never finished or the one that mocks you for not knowing where to go with more enemies.

We have Massmouthmas, a Christmas expansion to MassMouth 2, and it was alright. There wasn’t anything obnoxious in this WAD.

And finally, we have Action Doom and Chosen. Two incredible WADs, where the former is an incredible mix of Classic Doom and Contra, while the latter is a really fun game on its own set in Ancient Egypt.

These two WADs could’ve got the award for the best partial/total conversion, but since I have to choose only one, I’m giving it to Chosen, having a slight edge over the other WAD due to its setting. Action Doom is still a runner-up.

OTHER AWARDS

And now for the rest of the WADs that won by default. Starting with the Pug-of-Pink award for the best 2 to 7 maps long WAD of the year going to Doomworld Forums 3. This WAD is something that I can only recommend to people who were into whatever happened back then in Doomworld forums. I only got one joke, maybe two.

And the Golden Spider award for the best episode replacement WAD of the year goes to Phobos Revisited. It takes the original maps from the first episode and makes something similar yet drastically different. Worth checking out as an anniversary WAD.

CONCLUSION

And that’s all I have for the Revenant Awards 2004 Edition. Despite having a stinker of a WAD that is Daedalus (and maybe HRII for some), I think it was a rather good year for Doom WADs. I’m mostly happy with what Cacowards 2004 had to offer (not counting the multiplayer WAD and the worst WAD of course). Can’t wait for what 2005 has to offer. I know Scythe 2 will probably be a banger to play.

Unfortunately, there is one filth that I have to deal with before taking care of the 2005 roster. Remember how I said in the past that I’ll eventually review properly the 007 WAD from 2002? I mentioned that after dealing with the 2004 roster, I’ll go back to this abomination and take pictures of the secrets and keys for the eventual review. And I’ll keep that promise after taking a week-long break.

Pray for me that I’ll not lose all of my marbles playing this shit again.

Bye.

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2003): RTC-3057 demo

#8: RTC-3057 (demo)

Main author(s): Team Future (lead by Jacob Kruse)

Release date: January 20th, 2003 (demo), July 27th, 2004 (Blue Hub 1 version)

Version(s) played: Demo from 2003

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 1 (MAP01 replacement (future MAP04))

Looks like we have another demo to check out after 2001’s Phobia. And, like then, it’s made out of one map. Say hello to RTC-3057.

RTC-3057 has an interesting story behind its development. Originally started as two separate projects, The RTC Corporation (by Jacob Kruse (Shaviro)) and Doom 3057 (by Team Future (then led by someone called X-Blade)). Both of these released previews of themselves around the year 2000. In 2001, these two projects merged into one being titled (of course) RTC-3057. A year later Jacob replaced X-Blade as a team lead of Team Future. He also became the WAD’s main level designer, wanting to create a multi-episode WAD based on ZDoom’s Hub system.

There are at this moment two previews of this WAD. The first one, released in 2003, is a demo that has only the first playable map. The second one, released 1.5 years later, is made out of one hub. Today, we will be taking a look at the demo version since this was the version that was placed in Doomworld’s Top 100 WADs of All Time.

Now with that out of the way, let’s take a look at what this map has to offer.

The story behind RTC is kind of complicated. It’s far from being a rambling mess from Helpyourselfish but it still might give you a small headache. The story is split into two parts – the backstory written in the textfile, and the actual plot that is told to you in the demo itself.

The backstory is where it gets convoluted. It talks stuff about the Federal Commonwealth of Earth (which was created from the United Nations), UAC being refounded, you being a titular cyborg sergeant, and that it takes around a year after the events of Doom II. At least that’s what I understood.

As for what happens in the demo itself, you are awakened on an FCE’s enforcer. You are ordered to abandon the ship because it’s under attack by demons.

From what I’ve seen, this map looks really good. There is something familiar about it but at the same time, it’s all completely different. And I really liked the blue parts of the deck you explore. It kind of feels flat when compared to other source port WADs from 2003 but on its own, this demo does a good job.

There isn’t really any actual music around the map. The only time it appears is in the last section with the puzzle room. And I guess it’s fine but I feel like it’s not enough for me to make a proper opinion about it.

Probably all sound effects related to picking stuff up are changed. And it’s mostly good. The only one that I hate is this obnoxious picking up gun one that I’ve heard already in some of the previous WADs and I hated it everytime it appeared.

As for the rest, I really like how there is a different sound for every type of item. And I’d recognize the Serious Sam one from a mile away. It’s so good!

This map focuses more on puzzles than the typical WAD stuff. You might have to spend at least a few minutes on most of the puzzle roadblocks before you figure out what to do. And that’s only one map. I don’t want to imagine what the entire Blue Hub 1 has to offer.

To help you with this demo if you end up stuck: The first roadblock requires that you shoot two heaters near the door, the second one needs two switches to be pressed (one near the prison cells area and the second one inside of it). The last room needs you to make a pattern that you can find in the generator area. Take a photo of it if you can’t remember the first time playing this map (like me).

Also, that last puzzle with a pattern to recreate? This is the one that one of the red area puzzles in Void was based on/inspired by.

And by the way, it was probably a good thing to add objectives in the upper left corner of the screen. I don’t think it adds much, but it is a nice touch.

In terms of ZDoom cutscenes, only one forces you to stop, so it’s not really that bad. The one at the start of the demo doesn’t count (even though it takes some time to actually end).

This demo is not really hard asides from the beginning, where you have to fight demons with barely no ammo and next to no health pick-ups. But once you grab the shotgun (with that awful picking-up cacophony), it’s nothing but a breeze. The toughest monster asides from hitscanners are Pinkies. There are even less than 100 enemies on this map. It’s that easy.

One annoying thing about fighting demons in the demo is door-fighting with the doors that need to be open with the code panel. I feel like the time it stays open and the time it takes to open are the same. These doors should’ve stayed open for a longer period in my opinion.

There is one bug that might make playing this demo (and the second preview) unplayable. The problem is that you can’t pick up your pistol from the starting location. It’s due to the ZDoom 2.1.0 onwards ignoring things/code written in lowercase in the DECORATE lump. In order to fix the issue you need the Slade program (or something similar), enter the mentioned lump, and add this line:

_rtc

to this:

pickup pistol

{

And voila! The problem is solved.

What’s funny is that this is the second time I had to shove my hands into the WAD’s guts to make it work properly. The first time it happened was with Doom Resurrection from 2001, where I couldn’t even launch that WAD.

The RTC-3057 demo has problems, mostly connected to ZDoom stuff, but I would be lying to myself if I said that I didn’t find any enjoyment while playing this map. If the rest of the Blue Hub 1 will stay on the same level as this map alone when I’ll start covering WADs from Cacowards 2004, then I might say that yes, this WAD is worth trying out.

However, I will not count this map to Revenant Awards because, much like Phobia, it’s only a demo, and demos tend to miss some features that the full versions have.

There is only one map from the 2003 roster to check out, and the last map/WAD from Doomworld’s Top 100 list to finally review (well, third-to last to be exact if I think about it).

See you all next time.

Bye!

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette: Revenant Awards 2003

RETURN OF THE DEMON KING – REVENANT AWARDS 2003 EDITION

Well... here we are. The tenth Revenant Awards I’ve made. And the last one related to Doomworld’s Top 100 WADs of All Time.

Even though 2003 has four WADs/MegaWADs that count as partial/total conversion, it was rather various in terms of the map amount. And there will be two awards that weren’t earned by default.

With that out of the way, let’s finish what we started. Starting with...

ONE MAN ARMY – BEST ONE-MAP WAD OF THE YEAR

Choosing the winner for this category was rather hard. In both cases (Helpyourselfish and Space Station Omega), we have a map that might leave a sour taste in your mouth after your blind playthrough but you appreciate it more each time you play it again. it doesn’t mean that these two maps are some kind of masterpieces. And it all comes down to choosing your poison for the rest of the day: Would you choose the map that is basically a typical ZDoom map/WAD of its time and thinks it’s something more than it really needs to be, or rather a map/WAD that knows what it is and what’s to give you fun but also being dickish in some places at the same time.

In my case, I might have a negative bias towards early ZDoom WADs but I would rather shoot nothing for half of a map rather than being smacked by Hoovies in cages as soon as I attack. So I’m giving the One Man Army award to Space Station Omega. It might suffer from the early ZDoom WAD syndrome, but after playing at least a few maps/WADs like this one, I can say that this one is closer to being good rather than bad.           

OFF THE WALL – BEST PARTIAL/TOTAL CONVERSION OF THE YEAR

In this case, we have three competitors (I’m not counting the RTC-3057 demo because, as I said in my review of this map, it’s a demo, and I would rather compare it with other WADs when it’s in its full potential for the lack of better words), all requiring ZDoom to be played properly and, of course, using the source port’s features to enhance themselves, for better or worse.

The second installment of the MassMouth series might have its moments where it looks impressive and/or has insane moments, but this WAD is the one that suffers the most from ZDoom’s unnecessary features. Not to mention some of the jokes falling flat on their faces even by 2003 standards. At least the voice acting doesn’t make it a complete chore to play through (even if I think Nimrod had better voice acting).

Void on the other head feels far less jarring and it’s some of the best ZDoom maps/WADs I’ve played (which is funny considering that this map and MassMouth 2 were made by the same person). Even the cutscenes didn’t feel as jarring and progress stagnating as MassMouth in some moments.

But let me tell you something folks. No matter how good Void is, the Off the Wall award will still go to Doom Raider: Crypt of the Vile. It doesn’t waste time on stuff like dialogue, or cutscenes. It uses ZDoom to enhance itself to go further into the fun zone, and even though one of its locations is now scuffed due to the later version of ZDoom and GZDoom, it is still a really fun map to play. It has my full recommendation.

OTHER AWARDS

And now it’s time for other WADs that earned their respective awards by default:

Pug-of-Pink award (2-7 maps) goes to The Brotherhood of Ruin. A treat for fans of ancient architecture, and even if you don’t care for these, you will probably still have fun while playing this WAD.

Golden Spider award (episode replacement/8-9 maps) goes to Phobos: Anomaly Reborn. Another banger made by Christopher Lutz, that not only looks great but is also fun to play and has at least one unique thing per map. Also, it makes Spider Masterminds shoot plasma. This is one major upgrade from the Classic Doom games.

And the Full Deck of Diamonds award (30-32 maps) goes to Scythe. A small, but creative MegaWAD when it comes to difficulty, splitting itself into three episodes, where you can start with whichever you want, each being harder than the last. Run From It can screw itself though.

CONCLUSION

And that’s all for today. And congratulations to the winners of the 2003 edition of Revenant Awards.

Now you might be thinking that now it’s finally time to take two weeks' worth of a break before starting making a review for Doom 64. But the truth is, Phobos: AR still has four maps known as SubP:AR. It will be funny to take a look at these. It is also a perfect excuse for another day of break to have more time to play Official Classic Doom Addons.

See you next time folks.

Bye!

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2003): Space Station Omega

#9: Space Station Omega

Main author(s): Ethan Watson (GooberMan)

Release date: January 28th, 2003 (database upload)

Version(s) played: ???

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 1 (MAP01 replacement)

Well folks... this is it... the last map/WAD from the 2003 roster. And the last WAD from the Top 100 WADs of All time. Almost 2.5 years later since I started reviewing WADs, and despite some delays, problems, and personal life shit, we are at the edge of 2003... by reviewing a map released at the beginning of 2003.

...Okay?

But let’s not waste time. What do we know about this map? Well...

Space Station Omega is the first episode of the WAD series titled The Gateway Experiments, or Doesn't The Military Ever Learn? The idea behind this map came into fruition after its author released the Starbox demo (which was the demonstration of a skybox with a moving viewpoint), and thought: Why not expand this idea? And so now we have this map.

If you want to know more about this map, there is also the textfile called ge_man. It has a lot of content, including the map’s/series’ background info, a walkthrough for the first half of the map, and behind-the-scenes stuff among other things.

Now, what’s the story you may ask. For starters, it takes place ten years after the events of another WAD titled Doom Arcade. You are a dude called Russell,  who arrives with his partner on the titular station to drop some marines. Long story short later, demons happen, and now you have to run away from the station.

As you can see, the plot is somewhat familiar to the beginning of Doom 3, where you land somewhere to do stuff, something happens and it all goes Hell (literary). Which makes it even funnier since this map came before that game.

It is also very familiar to the just-played RTC-3057 demo (at least this map’s second half), where your task is to get out of the place because demons attacked it.

This map looks good in my opinion. While it doesn’t have custom textures like RTC, it manages to make some of its locations kind of interesting with stocks only. There is also the moving skybox that started the idea behind this map that I mentioned earlier at the beginning of the map (even though you don’t see it that much).

There is also this fun gimmick where the music changes depending on which part of the map you are. It starts with The Healer Stalks, then it changes to DOOM (music track) around the second half, and it concludes with the intermission screen music at the end. I really like it. It gives more depth to this map.

Space Station Omega is a mixed bag in terms of complexity. The first half might end up as torture to you if you don’t know/remember what buttons are used for your radio and where to go next if you can’t remember. The second half is much easier to understand, and there are even a few ways to finish the map.

Thankfully, if you get stuck, there is a walkthrough that I mentioned above and if you still get stuck in the second half, just remember that it would be wise to come back to the admiral’s office in Deck 1 and check his computer before trying to run away from the station.

As I mentioned earlier, you have a portable radio where you can contact your partner to ask her for advice or open the door. Interesting idea, not gonna lie, and not badly done. Just remember that the default keys to enable the options related to the radio and confirm the choice respectively are G and H.

There are a few moments where you end up with a dialogue option. It might not look as impressive as the one in Strife, but still, good job for the author for making it, even though it doesn’t change much since they all basically lead to the same outcome.

Remember that choosing the dialogue (along with one elevator on the station) works the same as with the radio.

Are cutscenes annoying? Err... Not really? They tend to take their time to the point of annoyance but they rarely take the controls away from you, and even when it happens, there are some cool moments like Russell actually getting up from the explosion.

Like I said earlier, there are a few ways to exit the station. I’ve discovered two of these, and I don’t know if there are more. You can go through the airlock where you will get attacked by enemies in the reception room without any proper cover (even hitscanners show up which makes it shit), or you can use the teleporting device that started the demonic mess all over again but with a proper cover this time. Now try to guess which option sounds better?

This map is easy, I guess? Like the RTC demo, the toughest demon you will fight is Pinky, and the only time it might get hard is the last fight, either in the teleporter room or near the airlock (the latter is, as I said, much harder for the wrong reasons). You don’t even fight for the first half of this map. You just talk to people.

Space Station Omega is another example of a map/WAD that you might appreciate more if you play it more than once. I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece but despite being a typical ZDoom map that wants to be more than it needs to be, it’s rather good. But I think RTC-3057 did a better job about being a soldier trying to run away from the ship/station, even though I played only the demo of it.

And that’s all for the 2003 roster of WADs. Stay tuned in the next few days for Revenant Awards 2003.

Bye!