Again, I gotta say it, screw this new interface. My last published Doom musing is on 8/15, not 8/1, even though it says otherwise, and this one shall be published on 9/1 when that date comes around.
One of my earliest memories with Doom WADs has to be trying to discover the WADs that were more than just simple levels, and of course I was drawn into WolfenDoom. This stems from playing Wolfenstein 3D a year before I first started playing Doom, and I was little at the time and was fascinated by this stuff. Anyways, yeah, WolfenDoom looked neat to me. Of course, it had to take learning how to play in a different port in order to do it, but luckily all of these WolfenDoom WADs play well in a ZDoom-based port like most other TCs.
So WolfenDoom, basically several Wolfenstein scenarios reimagined in the Doom engine. Quite neat in concept. Of course, those who are experienced know that the oversized Wolfenstein secret levels in Doom II are silly, so these more or less follow suit. All of these were done by one man, Laz Rojas, and because of this you will notice as you play Laz's mapping style. Arguably, Wolfenstein is sort of a maze-y game, which is a mark against it, but you'll probably roll your eyes at how the mapping design exemplifies loads of backtracking, which is a big minus when you think about how much you gotta do as you go along. As Wolfenstein is a very hitscanner-centric game, the meat of the combat is dealing with hitscanners, and the larger the area, the harder it is to deal with. Depending on the specific scenario, some of the boss enemies have changes to them to make them harder or honestly a big joke (specifically the ones who act like hell knights/barons but shoot invisible projectiles, which are still easy to dodge). Some of the DeHacked changes are decent, but others suck so bad. I think I'll use this time to rank the WolfenDoom projects from worst to best. Starting with the worst:
Operation Eisenmann: It is somewhat cool involving a mutant-centric plot. Levels are quite huge, but a lot of spacey and samey. A few interesting tidbits like many other WolfenDoom maps. MAP07 however is absolutely asinine. A few places to get stuck, it takes too long to get to BOTH bosses, and there are dumb 30-second doors against the final boss.
Operation Arctic Wolf: Design and dehacked work is top-notch. Well not sure on dehacked. Why would you make the SS, the most commonly used enemy here, have enough health to survive a direct rocket to the face? And what's with the complete lack of weaponry and loads of open spaces? Rocket troopers are extremely deadly out there. The whole thing becomes incredibly slow-paced as a result, and the backtracking is extremely horrendous.
Operation Rheingold Episode 2: Okay so it's got the overall best level design (less saminess even though there's still lots of backtracking), but it's only three levels long, three really large levels, but again, souped-up SS, plus other enemies which are high HP hitscanner tanks, and you can also walk through barriers which is dumb.
Astrostein trilogy: The concept of Nazis in space is pretty excellent. The Portal is somewhat decent for a prelude aside from the backtracking. The first Astrostein has LOADS of backtracking and gray, Astrostein 2 feels like an unnecessary continuum without much in ending, while Astrostein 3 does still have much of the same, although both the runway and the city levels are great. But it's fairly monotonous.
Die Fuhrer Die: An okay rendition of the third Wolfenstein episode that adds quite a few more but really doesn't hit a lot of strides overall.
Escape from Totenhaus: Not as bad as the others (other than the officer's health) but still fairly monotonous, loads of brown, but a bit easier than the others overall.
Treasure Hunt: I LOVE the concept here, infiltrate a base, get loads of treasure, go back through familiar levels and fight boss monsters. It's still not as well-executed though.
Operation Rheingold Episode 1: Hotel idea is pretty good, especially having to run out after you've been discovered. Compounded once again by the annoying SS health. The last level is great and frantic though.
Original/Nocturnal Missions/Spear of Destiny: Very faithful recreations down to the wire of the original Wolf3D mantra. Nothing else to them really, but it's like playing the real deal only more Doom-like.
Halten Sie!: Feels like a regular Wolf3D add-on overall, but of course Doom-like. Quite original and I enjoy that kind of thing.
Wolfenstein 3D 2nd Encounter: Finally the best one. 32 levels based off of the Mac/3DO/Jaguar/whatever console port of Wolfenstein. It's a bit like the Die Fuhrer Die thing in that the places are oversized and more enemies are around, but there's always lots of fun in these maps and they don't feel overdone.
And even though there's a lot of shortcomings, I still feel obliged to return to each of these. It's the themes and presentation that really sell WolfenDoom off in my opinion, despite their poor age. Even at their weakest, my boredom comes back to play these at times, and I still find myself having some form of enjoyment.
No comments:
Post a Comment