One day, Sodium, Potassium and I were bored.
"Shall we go to the shops?" I said.
"Na" said Sodium.
"Okay fine, let's go see a film!" I said.
"K" said Potassium.
that's the best joke I thought up since the last joke I thought up
Kids TV
Kids TV is for children but that doesn't mean I shouldn't watch it occasionally on the grounds that it might be funny for some stupid reason. Recently there have been a number of things on that are worthy of comment.
Lazy Town
This is the best thing since Tiny Planets. Seriously this is the most incredible piece of television I have seen for a very long time. It's totally fucked up. In fact every so often it just goes over the line and you wonder if it can't just be a gigantic pisstake.
You have this girl Stephanie who moves to this town where everyone is really lazy, hence the name. But she wants to play and dance and whatever. Then this guy turns up, his name is Sportacus and he does all these backflips and shit and gets everybody motivated. I think he's meant to be some sort of superhero or something because he's got this flashing crystal that tells him when someone's in trouble (cue swinging arms, bunch of orchestra hits, backflips etc) There's this other guy, who is basically the Grinch, his name is Rotten Robbie or something, all I know is, he's got the most unbelievable chin you've ever seen. Anyway he wants the town to carry on doing shit all so he can get some peace and quiet. These three are the only real people, there are a load of puppets as well who are Stephanie's friends, also the town mayor, etc. The whole thing is apparently designed to promote activity and healthy eating in children.
Dumb highlights:
- Of course the only reason Sportacus is called Sportacus is so they can do an episode where Robbie Rotten pretends to be him (oh yeah he's a master of disguise as well, which is deeply impressive given his chin) and they can have an "I'm Sportacus" "No I'm Sportacus" scene
- One time all the kids fall out with Stephanie because they think she's written mean things about them in her diary. She hasn't at all, it's just Robbie's plan. The kids are so stupid they think Stephanie must have written the note they have. Sportacus of course brings them all back together. The best part is when he says "how did you know she wrote it" and they're all "it's on pink paper who else would have written it!"
- Lazy Town gets voted the most inactive town in the world, which delights Robbie but they decide to do something about it by being really active. The only thing Mrs Busybody is good at is answering the telephone quickly, so they keep making phones ring all over the town and she runs around answering them. But she can't keep it up so Sportacus does another one of his massive jumps, pulls an apple off a tree and throws it at her. She eats it and runs off at high speed, going "I feel so alive!!"
Okay you totally have to have the right sense of humour to appreciate this programme. Most people I think would hate it or think it's stupid. But it must do some good, because whenever I saw it I really wanted to eat apples afterwards...
The Basil Brush Show
Okay I like this because it's so stupid. I mean the jokes are just so horrible and you can see them coming a mile off BUT that's the whole point, it's very self-aware and well I want to say it breaks the fourth wall but that just means talking to the audience so that's not really what I mean. But it's aware that it's a TV show and makes fun of itself in that way and I like that in a programme for some reason. Like, when something dumb happens and Basil goes "who writes this rubbish!" Yeah I know it's stupid but I have a stupid sense of humour, go away.
The Giblet Boys
This is some dumb comedy in which three brothers get into wacky adventures and concoct zany schemes. It's funny because all the characters are so dumb and it's all very silly. Like for example the eldest one is always trying to make money but ends up filling his entire house with bananas and things like that. Well it makes me laugh and for something that's on ITV it's not bad!
Mona the Vampire
This is a horrible cartoon about three children who dress up as a vampire an alien and a princess and then go and have adventures that are vaguely related to real life stuff going on around them. The weird part is is that they're not really superheroes disguised as children, but just that they're all completely delusional. Like in the one episode I actually saw all of, Mona has this aunt who takes a fancy to the school principal, but for some reason they see the aunt as this giant spider who wants to eat him. Mental.
Trollz
Remember that episode of the Simpsons where they add a character to Itchy & Scratchy? Bart Lisa Milhouse Nelson and some other kids are on a focus group thing which concludes that the ideal I&S would have both far out crap like magic and lasers and fantastic adventure, and at the same time, deal with real life issues relevant to kids today and blah blah blah.
Trollz is that programme. You have these five girls all with fucking huge hair (like those stupid troll dolls I guess) and they have magical powers and there's this evil goblin trying to take over the world and there's ogres and stuff like that. But at the same time they're obsessed with fashion and going shopping and generally acting like teenaged girls who have to go to school etcetc. I swear this thing was designed by a committee to appeal to as many markets as possible. I mean the characters are so unlikely to get on with each other, there's an overzealous leader and an airheaded fashion slut and a studious nerd and maybe one who's sporty, I forget. The best one is a goth with piercings and an attitude problem! I couldn't stop laughing. It's just a wonder you can't phone in to win things!
apparently this is the only bit some people read
"I read your site but I skip the reviews" "But the reviews are all I post" "Well I read those little bits you put at the start!"
(Hello to everyone I saw a couple of weekends ago)
Blofeld X
Blofeldx.wad is a six-map wad for Doom 2. As you might guess from the name, it's supposed to be Bond-themed, at least vaguely. Indeed there's some cute plot that goes on about how Blofeld has mutated himself into an imp and is going to build an army of such creatures to take over the world blah blah blah.
What you actually get are a load of tan brick / dark metal maps with not inconsiderable amounts of detail in them. There's a particular emphasis on machinery (with lots of noisy moving parts) and partial constructed Doomsday devices. It all works very well if you use your imagination. True to form there is indeed a level inside a volcano where the final objective is contained within a room that has steel blast doors on the windows, and right at the end of the wad, "Blofeld" tries to get away from you with a jetpack.
Gameplay suffers a little from Elixir syndrome of having too many zombies with hitscan weapons and possibly suffers more from the author not realising that not all ports have mouselook and proper thing height clipping. That is to say there's quite a few places where he hides monsters in invisible holes in the floor, only to have them pop up later; if you have proper clipping you'd just walk over them, but PrBoom doesn't so you get invisible obstacles. Indeed map 5, which is probably the best-looking one, has a trooper in an air duct that blocks your way and as far as I can see makes the map impossible to complete unless you have brought a rocket launcher along from a previous map so you can use the splash damage to clear out the way.
Also quite often the illusion of there being only one Blofeld imp is shattered, as you kill it before it teleports away (or you don't, and you end up not being able to get 100% kills on the map) But all my little niggles aside, this is a decent set of maps and you should look at them (especially, if I may drop a very large hint, if you're doing your own vaguely Bond-themed map)
Scientist 2
Scientist 2 is the recently released sequel to a 2002 release, Scientist. I remember the original coming out, but somehow never got round to playing it, so, bugger doing a comparison. All I'll say is that the new version has 20 maps, 10 deathmatch maps, and a load of new graphics and sounds - in particular weapon replacements - as opposed to the simple 12 maps of the original.
This one has a cutesy plot as well. The titular scientist is a man hellbent on discovering the secret of immortality, but God doesn't want this to happen as it would make man his equal or some goofy shit like that. So what does he do, well, he does what any bipolar psychotic maniac would do, he sends down a plague of monsters to destroy the world before the secret can be uncovered. Coming soon to a cinema near you!
Your job is to stop the scientist before God destroys the world, by the way. That's a twist, I would have expected you to be the scientist, especially since the author's nickname is "Scientist"... but never mind. The scientist appears at several points during the WAD but when you shoot at him he always teleports away before you can take him out, until the final climatic confrontation somewhere in the deep jungle.
I can't say I like the new weapons very much. First of all, they're off centre, which screws my aim to all hell. As was mentioned in the /newstuff review it's odd that in a wad made to work in vanilla doom 2 you'd have weapons that really require a source port that gives you a crosshair. Still there's plenty of ammo once you get going. Having said all that though I find it quite hard to believe that a crossbow that fires flaming arrows replaced the rocket launcher.
There are some really good graphics added though. The one that caught my attention the most was an incredibly clever use of animated wall textures to simulate a row of boxes moving along a conveyor. This isn't some crappy scrolling wall thing, the crates are in 3d. There's also somewhere along the line a huge picture of a red soulsphere on a wall that looks really creepy.
The levels progress through some tech labs through to more tech labs but surrounded in icy wastelands (I guess you're meant to be in Russia, from the wall textures) eventually ending up, as I said, in the jungle. They're pretty good, necessarily simple due to the limits of vanilla doom 2, but... I don't know, they're sort of dirty, I don't know how to explain this but there is a roughness that's not present on more polished wads. There's crampedness and weird secrets and dark bits, it can be a bit annoying. I guess basically it's good but it lacks replay value, I don't know.
Addendum Just to close this off I'd like to highlight a similarity between the two wads: both Blofeld X and Scientist 2 have a boss who appears at various points throughout the game until finally taken out at the end. Scientist 2 however implements this excellently; there are in fact two scientist monsters that use the same graphics, and the "teleporting away" effect is just the death frame of the first one. So you can always get 100% kills. Care is taken so that you never see more than one of them at once.
ooh pretty
Set off another box of fireworks. Unlike last time I didn't manage to singe any plants but both the catherine wheels detached themselves from their hubs and flew around the garden. One landed in right in the hole where this plant pot used to be! Should get a big points bonus for that I think!
castle phobos
This is a really old wad and as was fairly common at the time it comes in several versions both for Doom and Doom 2. I played cphobos2, a six-level set for Doom and cphobos5, a ten-level set for Doom 2.
So firstly the Doom version. Ignore the file "cphobos.wad" as it is just the first four levels; run cphobos2.wad with -iwad doomu and warp to episode 2 (or don't - see later) The first map has what the text file describes as a base built into the side of a mountain, to which you have to gain access. It's more a fortress than a base with a courtyard and battlements but oh well. Hidden around the place are four switches which you have to press to get inside. They are pretty well hidden. Indeed this thing often forces you to find shit that is hidden in secret areas to progress. Such is life in old school wads. Just use the map editor, I suppose.
The second map is a warehouse followed by a bunch of tunnels flooded with slime. This isn't quite as annoying as it sounds if you know where you're going, which I did. I admit I'd long ago got fed up with the wad hiding shit everywhere, and turned the map cheat on! The third map is even more complex, with secrets absolutely everywhere, a chapel with a teleporting baron, and a secret exit(!) The fourth map is more like a dungeon and then the final map is quite mansion-like. It features a large throne room, whose intimidating decoration doesn't match up to its population, which is a lone baron. I guess barons were a lot scarier in 1994.
There is a secret level, E2M9. It is one of the cleverer ones I've seen. All the maps run on from each other, that is, each starts in a copy of the end area of the previous map. The secret map is a copy of about half of the third map. You have to do about half of the third map again, but backwards. There are subtle differences obviously but it's convincing nevertheless. I think the best part was where I looked out of a window across some waste ground to another similar building, and guessed correctly that I would be seeing this from the other side later. And indeed on map 5, I found the other building and could see out of its window to the area in the secret map! Very good.
But there's one problem. cphobos2 runs in episode 2, where the secret exit only works properly on map 5! I think this wad was released after id demanded PWADs shouldn't work with the shareware version so in particular don't replace episode 1 maps. I don't know though. Anyway if you play this, renumber the maps from E2Mx to E1Mx. This is really easy in a hex editor and the wad makes much more sense that way.
So anyway the Doom 2 version. This adds 4 more maps and some extra graphics. Obviously you lose the effect of the secret level, which is now just regular old map 6. The seventh map is another maze of slime-filled tunnels, the eighth is a huge outdoor castle, you run around a long ram part and teleport to a central building, eventually exiting to the courtyard below which is full of monsters. Map 9 feels more like a final map due to all the large monsters in showdown settings and the hall at the start where you are given all the guns, but it's not; the final map is much more like one of the previous castle mazes, like map 3 only smaller and harder I suppose.
The extra graphics include the sergeant being replaced by a black-suited marine (although he turns back into a sergeant on death!) and the imp becomes some sort of black magic wielding dark druid who throws glowing skulls at you, and who evaporates on death. The conversions of the original maps are mostly easier because in general the barons are replaced with hellknights but the newer maps can be quite tough. Don't try to do these things from scratch either, they're not designed for it. For example map 8 has tons of plasma but nothing to fire it with. I tried to do it from scratch anyway and ended up using a cyberdemon to finish everything else off, but didn't have the ammunition to finish it off! Oh well.
In summary if you've read this far Castle Phobos is a decent set of maps for Doom, especially given how old they are. There are good 1994 maps, you just have to search for them! The Doom 2 conversion isn't so great, it definitely loses something without that secret level thing, and the graphics aren't so great. But convert the maps to run as episode 1 maps first!
End Game
End Game is a compilation of 8 maps by various authors, released at the start of 2004. According to the compiler's homepage it is his final work for Doom. I don't know about you but I think announcing you're going to leave a community is a bit daft but still this is a good wad so I'll say no more about it. Indeed I remember thinking "oh that's bound to be good I must play it" when it came out but never got round to it until a few weeks ago. I'm glad I eventually did though, and I think you should too!
- "Arctic" A reworking of Classic 11. It's slightly different in a few places and probably easier, although the start can be nasty if you're not expecting what's coming up. Design-wise it's an E1/E2 base like all the good maps in the Classic series, and leaves you thinking that this was what Doom Episode 2 should have looked like in the first place.
- "Old School" A smallish Doom 2-style base, mainly green and metal. It's simply done without masses of detail but the layout is complex enough to make it interesting. It's not difficult, provided you keep your wits about you. It's possible (but quite difficult) to get yourself locked in the first room, so be careful.
- "Morsel" Another classic Doom 2-style base. This is very reminiscent of a certain era of Doom mapping, when people were getting good but coming up against the limits of the original executables renderer. For example there is good lighting but it's stark, not graded and softened. Also the texturing is a bit rough around the edges - there is an indoor lawn next to the start position which looks odd in the middle of of a metal and brick area in a base, for example. However the player has a complex map to explore, being able to follow several routes to find the keys and exit; and a lot of the lines on this map are not parallel to an axis, which is good to see. It's slightly harder than the previous two maps although not much - I managed to conquer it first time but I was quite lucky when I met the archvile.
- "Garrison" Typically competently built map from the author of Scythe. It's fairly large with E1-style architecture but not E1-style textures, if that makes any sense. It's apparently full of speedrunning tricks too but I didn't really spot them, unless you count a couple of jumps to secrets. A couple of traps that can be nasty if not expected. Oh, and shoot the barrels, that's what they're there for!
- "Zylstra" We change style to a less futuristic setting. This brick fortress map is very remindful of maps from Memento Mori, or its sequel. The large number of zombies and relative lack of health don't make it easy. The route is basically linear but immersive as you get to see many future areas before reaching them. The atmosphere is enhanced by your steps being dogged by a cyberdemon that appears occasionally and then teleports away. Fortunately as it turns out you don't actually have to fight it, which is a relief because most of this map's areas aren't really big enough to guarantee success against one!
- "Chaostile" Still back in the past - more convincingly so, with use of the gothic textures - we are presented with a complex and detailed castle map. You start off being swept along by a strong current to the back entrance; it uses a Boom special effect to do this, but it's apparently compatible with doom2.exe nonetheless. Play is difficult even if you know what you're doing, there are monsters hiding everywhere and it's easy to take damage. Indeed the ending features a battle with two cyberdemons in quite a small courtyard, but you can soften them up a bit using infighting and some windows overlooking the exit. With plenty of hellknights, chaingunners and more than a few archviles hiding in the darkness, this map is a challenge but a rewarding one.
- "Water treatment facility" Dark metal techbase full of special effects and lighting tricks that all work in doom2.exe, apparently. It centres around a river which flows through a facility which, for all its technical sophistication, is in fact based around a fairly simple layout. It's pretty easy, too, the monsters used are mostly zombies, so if you can avoid running out of health you won't have too much trouble keeping the kills counter ticking over. While you're doing this watch for the lighting and the doors that open from the top and bottom at the same time and the switch that floods out the entire facility!
- "The Beauty Of Evil" "I wanted to design a slaughter type map ala "Hell Revealed". It's really just a cheap excuse to BFG lots of enemies" That's a pretty fair description! This is a pit of rocks and lava (fortunately not harmful) out in the open air, and crawling with monsters. It is extremely replayable despite a number of issues I have with the gameplay: namely that the monsters get in the way rather a lot. The good weapons for slaughter maps are quite hard to get hold of, none more so than the BFG which is very well hidden, and which you have only one chance to get before the area becomes overrun with monsters which seem to crowd around all the places where you want to be! You will probably find that you get caught in a loop of jumping into the lava to escape the horde of monsters blocking your path and then teleporting out again, right back into the same crowd of monsters. There's no way through and then you just die. Maybe I've just not found the right route, but there aren't any demos for this map on the DSDA for inspiration either. If you do manage to finish it - I had to use lots of savegames - you'll find you have a lot of ammunition left. The balance is wrong, really... Still if you look past the problems this is a very believable and three-dimensional map full of jumps and routes. Indeed it's interesting to compare the contrasting styles of this map and the previous one, in the context of maps 6 and 24 of Alien Vendetta. These two authors' styles do complement each other very well.
And speaking of the DSDA, some of my stuff is, at time of writing, on the front page, which is always nice
The Top Ten Weblog Design Mistakes
The Top Ten Weblog Design Mistakes. I think I break pretty much all of them, but I don't care!
1. No Author Biographies
I used to have an "about me" page, but I decided it was full of stupid crap that nobody would care about, except perhaps someone who wants to embarrass me. Also when I redid this site with mod_perl I didn't take into account the need for static pages in the same style as the generated ones and it was easier just to remove them! So now you know!
2. No Author Photo
Are you kidding? The hell with an author photo, I look like a tremendous prick (probably because I am a tremendous prick) There have been far too many dreadful pictures of me taken in the past; nobody wants any more.
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
Yeah I tend to go for humorous rather than descriptive and fail to achieve either
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
I do actually try to do links properly! But then again nearly all my links are either to previous updates, or files in the /idgames database, and it's not hard, when linking to a wad, to put its name between the tags, is it?
5. Classic Hits are Buried
What classic hits?
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
Side note: I am copying these titles from the original article. I am not responsible for these typographical horrors. This guy capitalises like a retard.
Anyway yeah I could implement tags but I think they're stupid and I'm not going back and categorising nearly four years worth of posts, many of which wouldn't fit into one category as I have often written large updates with several sections. Besides the only tags I'd have are "Doom", "Computers", and "Self-hatred"
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
Nobody reads this bullshit so why should I post on it every day. Plus this is why I have snafu. You click on that every day, and with any luck somebody on there will have updated. (I'll never turn it into a feed aggregator though since RSS is filth for bilgerats)
8. Mixing topics
Oh I think I covered this a couple of points up. Well anyway knobs to you, I'll write a long rambling article on a whole bunch of completely unrelated shite if I want to.
Oh wait I've actually now read what the guy said under this heading. He doesn't mean writing updates that are on several different topics he means the whole site covers articles on many different topics. Well most of what I post is about Doom these days so I guess I don't mix topics too much.
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
What future boss?
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
My domain name is owned by a free DNS provider, nuts to you!
So much for writing a usable weblog then. I'm vaguely surprised by the omission of a point about commenting though; I often see people on Debian Planet complaining about lack of commenting facilities on each others sites and having to answer each others posts with posts of their own (but that's how the ~~~BLOGOSPHERE~~~ works isn't it??) and I've even had people say they wish my site has comments but as I'm sure I've said before, fuck them. (The comments, not the people. I don't want to alienate you even more than I'm doing already.)
