Vordakk Reviews

Excellent review, and congrats for it on being the first on the boards!

Download here:  www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/av.zip

Authors:  Anders Johnsen, Kim Andre Malde, Martin Aalen Hunsager, Lee Szymanski, Brad Spencer, Anthony Soto, Jan Endre Jansen, Madani El Hariri, Yashar Garibzadeh, Mattias Berggren, Pablo Dictter, Vincent Catalaa, Kristian Kall

Year:  2002

Alien Vendetta is a wad that, along with Suspended in Dusk, many seasoned veterans point to when a relative newcomer to the Doom community asks, "What pwads should I play?"  And for good reason.  Alien Vendetta is a collection of 32 maps from some of the best authors of the time.  Due to the sheer number of different mappers, you might be tempted to think that the quality would be all over the place.  But luckily, AV stays at a fairly high standard the entire time, only dropping off in quality maybe once or twice.  Around this time period, I imagine most level designers would have been using DEU as their level editor of choice, which makes this even more amazing.  When you consider the complexity of levels such as "Misri Halek" and "Blood Sacrifice", and then imagine mapping the damn things in an editor without modern amenities such as 3D mode, it really gives you a new level of respect for these older, godlike mappers.

Architecture is, in my humble opinion, where this wad shines the brightest.  The team behind Alien Vendetta shows a level of creativity rarely seen in Doom level design from any time period.  You'll marvel at the stylish use of lighting, the interesting layouts, and the gorgeous-but-not-too-overdone detailing.  The texturing is great as well, tastefully done throughout the pwad, featuring some new textures pulled from Heretic, Hexen, Final Doom, Osiris.wad, and even a few from Duke Nukem 3D!  As a mapper myself, I love to move through these levels, often with the -nomonsters parameter on, just to see how the authors used space and height variations to create interesting locations to explore.

Gameplay-wise, AV kinda has something for everyone.  You have over two-thirds of the mapset that is more closely aligned with classic Doom gameplay, and then you have close to a third that I would call "slaughter-style" gameplay.  The intensity really seems to shift around Map 25, where you square off against over 1300 monsters.  I've made my preferences on gameplay known in the past, so it should come as no surprise that these later levels are not among my favorites.  Even the later maps that do have lower monster counts still sometimes rely on what I feel are dickish situations in order to create challenge.  I can still recall my dismay when one level suddenly pulled the ever-classic "You're trapped in a tiny room with a Cyberdemon, have fun!" move on me.  But I also acknowledge that my gameplay inclinations are not objectively superior, so I can see how many Doomers, especially those who gravitate toward such projects as Swim With The Whales and Sunder, might find the later AV maps thrilling.  But even throughout the early and middle levels, the enemy encounters in Alien Vendetta sometimes becomes a bit lackluster.  Often you'll open a door to a new area, only to be greeted by a room full of pink demons or chaingunners, arranged rather symmetrically and all facing towards you.  It's not exactly what I'd call brilliant thing placement.  And it happens enough in my opinion to become problematic, thus dragging down the score of this otherwise epic pwad. 

Of particular note regarding Alien Vendetta is one of its mappers, the late Kim Malde.  It is my assertion that Malde provides the best levels to be found in AV, although out of the 32 maps present, he is only responsible for 4(although he co-authored another map and helped out here and there on some others).  Malde was able to create compelling layouts, breathtaking detail, and balanced, fun gameplay with razor-sharp precision.  His levels are close to perfection in my view.  If this sounds like hyperbolic praise, download the wad and IDCLEV your way to Map 20 or Map 23, play the level(s) through fully, and then come back to me.  Rest in Peace Kim Andre Malde, you are an inspiration.

Overall, Alien Vendetta is certainly a must-play pwad.  It's not quite perfect, but it's very very close.  In closing, I will echo what has been said many times in the past - if for no other reason you should download this wad just to see Map 20.  Seriously.

Score:  9.4/10

Download here:  www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/curse

Author:  Kristian 'Kristus' Käll, Karl Käll

Year:  2010

In my review of Hexen: Scourge of Viscerus, I talked about the paucity of good Heretic and Hexen wads in comparison to the unending torrent of new wads which are created every day for Doom and Doom II. In 2010, Kristian Käll decided to return to idTech1 mapping after apparently working with Team Future on a mod called Doom 3: Phobos. He saw that Heretic had not enjoyed as many user-created levels as Doom and Doom II, and he decided to change that, so he created Heretic: Curse of D'Sparil. This wad is an episode replacement for Heretic featuring nine new levels, eight of which were made by Kristus, and one of which was made by his brother Karl. The maps are much larger and harder than the Heretic iwad levels, while still using almost entirely stock textures and assets. The wad requires a limit-removing Heretic source port.

If you read my previous review, you may remember where I praised Matt Tropiano for his decision to place gameplay and fun factor above super-fancy architecture and detailing. You might recall where I mentioned that some modern authors excel at the latter pursuits while relegating thing placement, traps, and level progression as an afterthought. Well friends, in my opinion Kristus is one such author. I absolutely adore his attention to detail, his use of space and color, his eye-catching decorations and arches, his grandiose columns, pillars and vaulted ceilings dripping with atmosphere and character, and his asymmetrical fantasy realms adorned lovingly with flair and pizazz. But unfortunately, this wad was not designed to be played with the -nomonsters parameter. And this is precisely where the trouble begins.

Curse of D'Sparil is much, much harder than Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. The difficulty is in small part due to larger numbers of monsters per map, but that doesn't tell the whole story. While CoD does have more enemies per level than the iwad episodes did, the numbers aren't ridiculous considering the size of the levels, and these maps certainly don't qualify as slaughter maps in my opinion. So why is Curse.wad often touted as being so hard? In my opinion, and in the opinion of many others who've played this wad, it's lack of ammo up front. Sure, the levels technically contain enough firepower to get the job done, but right off the bat you are beset by huge packs of enemies, giving you no time to equip yourself for battle. And finding the tools of combat is no easy task either. In many cases, Käll has placed weapons and ammo pickups in places which require the player to go through the hordes of enemies in order to get at them. The gameplay in Curse of D'Sparil most often devolves into running in circles to provoke infighting while simultaneously scavenging weapons and ammo from esoteric nooks and crannies in order to stave off the oncoming legions of threatening enemies. After this has been done, the player quickly blows through the ammo he's picked up, usually falling back on the elvenwand rather quickly since ammo for the superior weapons is given rather sparingly. And let me tell you, there's not much that's more boring than having to slowly chip away at Ophidians, Sabreclaws, or Weredragons with the wand. For those of you who have not played Heretic, it is the equivalent of having to use the pistol to bring down hell knights, pink demons, and arachnotrons. It only serves to make these long levels even longer. The fact that the author went as far as to tout these levels as being balanced for wand start is nothing short of laughable.

Take the first map, titled "Beginning of the End". This map contains 150 monsters, which doesn't seem all that bad, even for a first map. But guess how many of them will be coming after you as soon as the level begins? About 75. You read that right. 75 monsters are awakened when the level opens and will be trying to kill you as you scramble for ammo, with only an elvenwand and 50 crystals to your name. I'm not even counting the ones down a flight of stairs that can't get to you, even though they will all be active. These monsters include a ton of fire gargoyles and nitrogolems(ranged attackers), lots of fast-moving sabreclaws(melee attackers), and ophidians(ranged attackers), and they can cut your health down real fast. There isn't a safe place to run to or hide in order that you might catch your breath, so you literally have to do a -nomonsters run-through first to learn the locations of the ammo stashes(which are not obvious at all), then play as normal and just run like mad collecting ammo while 75 pissed-off creatures chase you down. The ethereal crossbow is behind a ton of nitrogolems...have fun getting to that weapon. You'll likely be cornered and killed a fair number of times, so I hope you have the patience of a saint. Save often, you'll need it.

Don't believe me, you say? Go to Youtube and watch the author, who uploads under the name KristusTF, play "Beginning of the End" himself. He literally runs around for the first few minutes practically ignoring the enemies so he can get to the ammo caches, many of which are behind enemy lines, and all of which he already knows about despite their obscure locations because he made the frigging level. He then circles around some more, provoking a bit of infighting, and then tediously has to elvenwand a bunch of mid-tier enemies to death after his crossbow ammo runs out, which it inevitably will because there's not a lot of it, even if your aim is perfect and you never miss a shot. This is level 1, guys. There are 8 more just like it.

Even if this style of gameplay somehow sounds fun to you, you must admit that 9 levels of it might get old at some point. What I'm saying is that this formula is used over and over again throughout Curse of D'Sparil. It might be more agreeable with me if perhaps just one or even two levels sported this type of approach, but not all of them. What about a level with clever traps, or one with jump-scares, or even one with a cool gimmick or puzzle? Sorry, not here. It's just mobs of enemies in your face from the word "Go!", and you scrambling to find something to kill them with before you die clutching your elvenwand. It's as if Kristus used up all his creativity on layouts and detailing, and then just threw monsters and items in willy-nilly at the end, telling his critics to play on a lower skill level if they can't hack it.

Another issue that Curse of D'Sparil suffers from is map length. In theory, the thought of 9 huge, expansive maps sounds good. After all, more is better, right? The reality, however, is that some of these maps drag on for too long. While I do commend Kristus for his skill and creativity as an architect, his tasteful detailing, and his wealth of ideas with regard to layout, I also think he could have pared down many of these levels a bit. The levels are visually breath-taking, but after a while it's almost too much of a good thing, and coupled with frustrating gameplay style Kristus has chosen to use, things can get old quick.  Perhaps it would be best to have only one or two epic levels per episode, rather than seven or more? Or maybe even shorten the levels and then take the left over ideas and make a second episode?

This mapset wouldn't be complete without a ending map which is very pretty to look at but tedious-as-all-hell to play. You are pitted against not one but four D'Sparils at one time, and just like in the iwad they can and will teleport around the map quite often, usually right as you are nailing them with a high-powered weapon. What some players may not know is that killing just one D'Sparil effectively destroys all of them, due to a flag that is hardcoded into the Heretic executable file. That means that the player, in theory, could just attack one of the four D'Sparils in order to bring them all down, but since they teleport around frequently, and ammo once again is spread out to the far corners of the map, it is practically impossible to keep track of which D'Sparil you have already wounded. So you are forced to attack them all until one of them finally goes down, thus ending the level. (Interesting side note: I did a variation on this boss battle in one of my maps, titled Dark Deity's Bastion. The difference was that I color-coded the different D'Sparils so that the player could keep track of which one he needed to attack, making the battle far less mundane and time-consuming.)

To summarize, Heretic: Curse of D'Sparil is a gorgeous-looking levelset with sub-par gameplay. I do recommend playing this wad, if for no other reason than to see the truly awe-inspiring vistas and structures that Kristus came up with. Kristian Käll has an amazing talent for layouts, an artistic vision that outdoes most of his peers. I just wish he could improve his gameplay implementation.

Score:  6/10

Postscript:  In some ways, Curse of D'Sparil's popularity can be looked at as an example of a definite trend towards putting aesthetics first and gameplay second; style over substance if you will. This trend has been active in the Doom community for some time now, growing more and more rampant as level editors become more powerful and easier to use. Things like the Cacowards and the popular "Post your Doom screenshot" thread on Doomworld's forum only serve to further cement this inclination on the part of both old and new mappers alike. Nowadays, when judging a wad's merit, an undue amount of emphasis is placed on how pretty and well-detailed it is. Mappers obsess over texture-alignment and frivolous detailing, so much so that they have no energy left for creating compelling encounters. Someone pointed this out in a thread recently(phml? TimeofDeath? I can't remember), and not many people paid attention, but his words rang true with me. You are just more likely to get higher ratings and win an award if your level is more visually appealing, often at the expense of gameplay.

So how much of the lifeless gameplay in this wad is actually Kristus's fault, and how much is Raven Software's fault? From what I've played, I think Heretic's entire existence can be accurately summed up as "Prettied-up Doom with a fantasy theme, slower weapons, and damage-spongey yet mostly-non-threatening monsters."

While there are plenty of cool layouts and good-looking levels in Heretic, I can't say any of them ever stood out to me as having even slightly above-average gameplay, from a Doom player's standard. Maybe Kristus's mapping does emphasize style over substance, but I think Heretic itself also encourages pretty-but-insubstantial design inherently via its own gameplay.

I'd love to be proven wrong and shown a map for Heretic that blows me away like something from UAC Ultra or Sunder or Plutonia or even MAP29 from Doom2.wad. But I'm not holding my breath.

Thanks for the recommendation! Icebound is now my favorite Heretic map. I still found much of the combat grindy (grrr Heretic), but the way challenge is imposed via control of movement and limitation of space is very well-designed. Compared to that, I can certainly see why you say the maps in this review are lacking.

Yeah, Heretic is a game I never played in its heyday. I wish I had, because there IS a lot to like, and the passion and nostalgia some people have for the game is inspiring.

Ending Quest sounds cool! I know Deathevokation's name from seeing his work before. Best of luck.

Hey Fonze, out of curiosity have you ever played any of the pwads that I did for Heretic? I'm trying to improve as a mapper, and so any input you might have would be useful to me. They are in the archives under the author name "Stormwalker".

Overall my favorite 2000's mapset, and Kim's levels are absolute masterpieces, it's no wonder all the screens you posted are from his maps.
I wouldn't be able to ever touch his level of design if I tried.

Thank you sir!

Awesome review bloke!

Download here: www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/tvr

Author: Thomas Van Der Velden

Year: 2001

Thomas Van Der Velden is perhaps best known for his stand-alone total conversion wad Harmony, which was released in 2009, but T.V. has in fact been making wads since way back in 1998. Revolution! is, as far as I know, the first wad Thomas ever released to the public, which is interesting because it is a full 32-level megawad. I wouldn't fault you for assuming that this wad must suck, since most noob megawads tend to be pretty rough. But the good news about tvr!.wad is that it's actually pretty awesome.

Revolution! admittedly doesn't really get cracking until you're a few maps in. Basing one's opinion solely on the first 3 or 4 maps is a bad idea, because I feel that Thomas saves a lot of his best ideas and hardest work for the last two thirds of this megawad. So please, do yourself a favor and don't bail out early.

The style of these maps is rather varied, which turns out to be a very cool surprise because you never know what to expect visually. Thomas uses a combination of stock Doom 2 assets with new textures and flats sprinkled in as needed. He also enjoys building areas which look less abstract and more closely resemble actual real life architecture and locales. During my journey I rode on a moving train, swam in a swimming pool, ran past a military tank, and even made my way through the guts of a giant worm creature. That's not to say that Van Der Velden always employs this style though. Most of these levels are the same abstract Doom level design we all know and love, but I like that T.V. wasn't afraid to step outside the box and make bedrooms with desks now and again. The architecture and layouts are very cool, and become better and more complex the further into this wad you get. Even at this stage of his mapping career, Thomas had a good understanding of how to make progressing through a level fun and engaging.

The gameplay in Revolution! is very much on the easy side. The maps do get harder as you go along, but even then you are almost never in any danger whatsoever. Thomas does not throw a lot of enemies at you, and he is overly generous with his health and ammo pickups. While I do think that these maps should have been made more difficult, I do not believe that it hurts this mapset that badly. Make no mistake, you are going to have fun playing this. I enjoy a good casual blastfest as much as the next guy, and the way Thomas presents the various enemy encounters is always creative and fun, even if it isn't always particularly challenging.

All told, Revolution! is a great megawad. Thomas went on to do many more maps for various projects such as Plutonia 2 and Community Chest 1 and 3, and ultimately his finest hour was when he released Harmony to great accolade, but with tvr!.wad we can see that even back in 2001 Mr. Van Der Velden had what it takes to be an excellent Doom level designer.

Score: 8.8/10

The first time I played this one I did the very same thing.  I think I made it to MAP04 and deleted it.  But like I say in the review, it really does get better and better the further up in levels you get.  I'm glad I stuck with it because some of the ideas that Thomas had for his later levels are pretty creative and definitely inspired me as a mapper.