20/07/2004-21/07/2004 @00:31:50 ^02:48:39

admire your handiwork instead of moaning about how someone else could have done it better

I kept going to write updates but being distracted. Sorry, I guess

Also I bought a UPS for the computers. More on this, and the subsequent messing about with IEC320 plugs later. But for now:

FIVE ARCHVILES AND NO COVER

Realm of Shades Seven maps, beginning with an industrial/tech style and ending up with more stone/hellish texturing. These maps are all well made, large and open, and given the authors fondness for flying monsters, nowhere is really safe. This is especially apparent on map 2.

Map 5 is also a gem but Map 4 is probably the best; it's a large classic Doom 2 computer centre/toxic waste refinery style map, made very atmospheric by wonderfully moody lighting. It is a shame that the very end where you must rescue the red key from the centre of a nukage pool was found to be impossible without using god mode. Yes I am quite ashamed but really.

With a fondness for large quantities large monsters and hard to find secrets these maps will keep you going for some time. Sadly marred by the spot where I found cheating to be necessary it's still worthy of your attention.

The Rusting starts off fairly blandly in a corridor with a hut in the middle. The corridor ends up going into a small yard outside with another small building in the middle. It's fairly dull, until you go back.

You are presented with an enormous flooded city, way down below, buildings soaring above you. It is rammed with monsters and you have to run around like a maniac. This is fun shit and it was designed to be as such. After clearing outside you get to do all the buildings as well, then one of the walls lowers and the outside fills up again with even more monsters. This is a delight to play and the scale and size makes it - at least for me, it arguably lacks in detail which some people dislike - a delight to look at.

Blastem Finally in a random search of D!1000 I found a map I've been wondering about for a long time; the map that inspired the legendary Blastem2, which as I'm sure you recall I spent much of the last couple of years being obsessed with, and latterly, recording demos for.

It's a very strange thing to be going round a map that inspired another that you're incredibly familiar with. All the major features of Blastem2 are here, but you can see how they've been expanded upon and added to... The gameplay seems to lack the flow of the remake, as the latter brings in more monsters at up to half a dozen different flashpoints, Blastem only has two such moments following the initial entry to the map. You can remove the monsters before they emerge as well.

Still I can see how fun it is and indeed I can play it several times in a row... so I might even make some demos for it... It's a shame it doesn't seem to be in the idgames archive.

Doom 3 It's "gone gold" and will be out in early August or something. It might even be good.

I'm still not at all excited, though.