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Zen Dynamics

   (172 reviews)

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About This File

One seemingly random day, I was sitting around doing nothing... when it hit me: The perfect way to make true reloading weapons in Zdoom. It worked like a charm in an example wad I put together, but I thought that a simple demo wad with a single test level would not do the reloading trick any justice... so two weeks later, I brought you this: Zen Dynamics, a Zdoom Revolution.

Zen is a 7-level partial conversion, with 10 new guns, complete with reloading, new baddies, music, textures, you name it. It has some pretty damn memorable moments, particularly in Map04 and Map07, and is not just some quickly thrown together wad.

This wad was originally released on the ZDoom forums, as a "public beta" of sorts, before releasing to the /idgames archive for all you crazy people to enjoy. :P

The initial release only took two weeks to finish, but as always, it was littered with random bugs and such. I released several revisions that fixed said bugs, but I got bored at just fixing minor stuff... so for the fabled 2.0 release, I added several things: a new level, a new weapon, and some story elements and such.

And now, I present you with the Anniversary Edition, packed with tons and tons of new features -- Altfires, Two more new weapons, and a brand-new map, Core Zero, perfect for mass-destruction addicts! :P

Yes, there's a small storyline involved, with the usual stuff like gateways and UAC and such, but the intro does a pretty good job at telling it, IMO. :P

The highlight of the wad is probably the weapons, which are pretty much a first in Zdoom history. Just the combination of advanced weaponry with Zdoom features like ACS and portals (which I know you'll love so much more after you've played Map04).

Either way, it's been way too long since I've released anything memorable, and I guarantee you will not forget this wad. :P Sorry for all the bragging and such, but hey.... it's true. :P

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Argenteo

· Edited by Argenteo

  

Core Zero it's an amazing (secret) map. I could not kill Baphomet because it keeps dividing by zero, I guess that's what real demons do...Great music.

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Havoc Crow

· Edited by JudgeDeadd

  

A cool ZDoom mapset with well-balanced new monsters, good music, and of course the star of the show: the new arsenal. I'm not the fan of the difficulty at some spots (did I miss something in map04 or is it meant to be an ammo-starved slog?) but when you've got the full arsenal at your disposal, the gameplay becomes really fun.

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Guest

  
Taking the player's weapons away from them is a quick way to getting no more than 2 stars for your wad.

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Guest

  
Great mod! Had fun playing this. -WoolyMario

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Guest

  
Xaser you are indeed, one of the greats in doom works

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Guest

  
I miss old days with this wad 2006 great work I hope I can find more wads like this one. p.s. to those fans and haters of brutal doom shut the fuck up I didn't come here to read your stupid comments and I don't care about your fucking drama this place for ratting not for flaming you flaming scum now get the fuck out you disgrace to doom community have a good day.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Legendary 5/5

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Guest

Unknown date

  
5 stars for managing to figure a third firing button, used here for reloading. You are correct in saying that this map is a class above.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
I have to say this is by far the best WAD I've ever played. The reloading of the weapons make it a challenge to keep cover as you would in real life while reloading. The maps actually require thought and strategy to complete and not just running through them like other wads. The new monsters are even stronger than the original ones. The gameplay is very beautiful. I used to play a variety of wads now the only wad I really play is this one. 5 stars--LordSyn

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Guest

Unknown date

  
so good i feel i should paying money to play this, its perfect

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Guest

Unknown date

  
It's not very innovative. Why? Because 90% of the weapons in this mod are just stupid machine guns!

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Preety unique in the sense of weapon reloading (even if it gets time to get used to them), monsters (some are quite annoying though, overall gfx/animation/partic les, though it gets easilly annoying especially with the excessive frame rate drop in some places :P 4/5 - Optimus

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Zen Dynamics is great because I like how Xaser made it so hard. Not just because of the monsters and the fetish for cramped corridors but because of the minute amount of health and armor and ammo like he never had someone playtest the damn thing. It’s great to see that Xaser only made hardly half of the stuff in there and even better that he admitted it in the readme! It’s also nice that he made the weapons so they only worked in the supplied levels, something that Zero Tolerance had succeeded in fixing!

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Guest

Unknown date

  
If only the level design was better, it would have been one of the best wads ever made. Still, it's an impressive work (especially for weapons realoding and alternate firemodes). Awesome idea and scripting partially ruined by some below-than-average gameplay moments (even if there are some other great moments; in particular, bosses absolutely ROCK). 4.5/5

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Guest

Unknown date

  
The gameplay is quite poor, I hate the over use of the monster resource wad, the weapons look cool, yet are quite useless, the good old rocket launcher can keep the butt of whatever of these guns. Overall looks very good, but isn't the kind of wad one plays from start to finish without cheating.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
0\5 brutal doom is better

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Brutal Doom is better than getting a nail through your foot, but not better than this. Sgt Mark IV is too busy being an arrogant loudmouth angry racist to make a decent WAD.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Yes, Xaser, we love it when you recycle old shitty maps. Yes, Xaser, we definitely love it when you halfass reloading scripts using ACS and not Decorate. Yes, Xaser, we ansolutely love it when you get about a hundred other people to do the work for you while you sit on your ass and get all the praise!

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Guest

Unknown date

  
It's a Xaser wad so you know it has to be awesome. :D

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Xaser

Unknown date

  
Xaser here. Commenting on my own wad to point out that Zen predates all other push-to-reload systems in ZDoom. It was made an in era where neither LOADACS nor CustomInventory existed, so map-included ACS libraries were the only way to go. Thankfully the concept's been much-refined since.

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Unknown date

  
That's amazing! For once a mod without just weapons or new maps. This one actually takes it up to the next step. I love the weapons and honestly even though the levels were a bit annoying from time to time I loved the challenge overall. Plus the machette was probably my favorite weapon :D. And the opening scene just amazed me because it's been a while since I've seen one like it. I had to give this 5/5

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Unknown date

  
The features are great, but I found the levels a bit frustrating and the 'blue flame' attack, among other attacks, caused my framerates to drop to about 5... which for me made the doom experience a bit too hardcore. :P 4/5

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Guest

Unknown date

  
it's OK... I guess. definitely doesn't feel nor plays like old doom. can't say that I'm impressed by level design and sometimes cheap difficulty. weapons are well made and fun, new monsters tend to be cheap and annoying. I can see why some like this so much tho, and why it felt so fresh some years back ... just, I didn't find it very fun to play.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
This comment section is fucking horrible. 5 stars for execution and design, minus one for level design and difficulty (which aren't at all -bad-, but are my cup of tea even less so). -Lioyd

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Guest

Unknown date

  
what can I say? this is one of the best piece of work ever made... 6/5, but maps are kinda small :P

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  • File Reviews

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