23/06/2007 @14:50:16 ^16:09:19

Knee-Deep in ZDoom

Everyone's written about this already so why not me? However everything that could have been said has been and I have no particular opinion one way or the other. Besides, it's for ZDoom, which I cannot be bothered to get working on my system again, not after the last time.

Status of /idgames

It appears to be back online. As growler pointed out the web server came back up only a few hours after my last post, but as FTP was down, the system was still effectively dead. But I just checked now and that appears rectified. Not sure how long it's been back, but anyway there you go, some good news.

Hellfire (again), Zap18: Paradox Lost, Systemic Corruption

Yet more on Hellfire. For some reason I couldn't just give up. It's not extraordinarily bad, it's far from the level of innate worthlesness that makes me stop playing a wad completely. It does have some merit. It just has a lot of annoyances that put me off it, too.

Oh well after three posts I'm pretty sure I'm done with it for now. As I say I've done all the maps, and it's an explorer wad that's fun to go round once, but now I've done it once I don't feel like playing it again.

Zap18: Paradox Lost Ah this is more like it. Made some years ago for a project that never finished, Zap18 is a grey techbase of moderate difficulty. The architecture has the right balance of simplicity and interest, and the difficulty is quite low, although you can't go mad. There is excellent use of height. I wish more maps were like this.

Systematic Corruption (UPDATE: /idgames link) is another well-detailed techbase which hasn't made it to /idgames yet. It seems highly reminiscent in both architectural style and difficulty, of the base/mines levels in Scythe 2. It looks pretty much flawless, but I found it rather hard, especially the end where you are locked in a room and a huge horde of monsters teleport in. With many revenants especially, the chance of having a huge accident is quite high, and there's hardly any health available, and it was quite frustrating. I found it much better on HMP - strangely HNTR was somewhat lacking in ammunition...