11/05/2006 @19:51:34 ^20:57:23

"2006, it's Swiss O'Clock" is the new "1990s, Time for Guru"

This is why you don't let the internet choose the shit you write on the side of your team's official bus. Mind you I can't decide whether or not that's funnier than the fact that for security reasons the USA's bus is the only one that won't have its flag on the side

OGRE LABS

A new and extremely large map from Russell Pearson, the guy who made Blastem2. Let's get the bad news out of the way first - it can't be finished in engines that aren't ZDoom, even though it's meant to be Boom-compatible. I tried to debug it, as did some other people but I don't think Russell can be bothered with fixing it, as if you read that thread you'll see he seems to hate it. Oh well, that's a shame. However, I found that in Prboom I could do almost the entire map, except for pressing the two switches right at the end that open the exit. I would say it is still worth doing.

You start off outside surrounded by trees, and gain access via an airvent to a corridor which leads to a central hub. Then you go up the lift to the roof and a helipad, and the first key is in the control tower. Then you go to the bottom of the lift and through the storage bay, at the end of which you get the second key, back at the central hub. Then you go off into the containment area - this bit is rather like a certain area from Doom2 map10. Anyway you fetch the last key and get into the research labs, where you eventually find a shielded area housing yet another portal to Hell.

Hell is like a completely separate map. It is a floating catwalk in a very large open dark space. The best part of Hell is a circular room where people are being tortured. The sound effects are hilarious and worth playing the thing through just to get this far. Anyway once you've destroyed that you go round the rest of Hell, through some more portals, eventually finding yourself by the aforementioned pair of switches, which if pressed, lower the shields around the evil face of Hell itself, which can then be shot and the level ended.

This map is believable and engrossing. There are section signposts over doors that announce what theme the next area will be (in Impact font, as far as I can guess) Also some of the weapons are in clearly labelled security lockers. In the occasional visit outdoors, there's plenty of beautiful green foliage. It's far from "a steaming pile of dung"

There are a lot of monsters, 850 or so, but they're mostly small and there's plenty of ammo. In fact once you know the level, it's quite easy. A lot of the monsters teleport in or come out of the walls behind you. The action isn't always immediately in front of you, instead it's well spread out around you and keeps things interesting. Secrets are also good, there are decent clues and you don't have to search too much to find most of them.

In summary: This is nowhere near as bad as Russell thinks and is definitely worth playing so I hope he releases a fixed version!!