Astrostein 3

it appears I have already gave a short review to Astrostein 3, so here's the long version. Astrostein 3 ends on a mediocre note, as you could possibly anticipate. some people probably wouldn't even want to start playing this after the snooze-fest that was the previous two Astrosteins, but they are missing out on a much better finale to the trilogy if they do so. Astrostein 3 retains several core aspects in the previous Astrosteins in terms of overall enemy health and weapons (the shotgun replacement is slightly sped up again), and apart from a few big enemies, perhaps the biggest annoyance were some random rocket-shooting turrets (these were in Arctic Wolf too, but were far tougher to handle) in MAP31 and MAP20. and the SS are far more numerous, making the battles in the third Astrostein considerably harder (try the beginning of MAP14 for an example).

so here we see Blaskowicz at the climax of the Astrostein trilogy, finally heading back to Earth, where the best levels in the Astrostein series actually reside. those being the first four levels, the first two (MAP10-11) are fairly short, with the second actually being quite rough on the hitscan assault. same with MAP12, which takes place on an airfield, and MAP13, the best map in the set, a city map that is appropriately nasty but fun to explore all the same. afterwards, the remaining maps go back to the WolfenDoom standard, unfortunately, loads of hallway backtracking, samey rooms, symmetric design, and it gets uninteresting real quick. I don't even know how to lower that one final wall in MAP19 for some reason. MAP20 could've been a very decent boss map, but we just have a few blue guardians plus a VERY annoying puzzle in order to expose the Hitler master computer, which functions as a defunct Icon of Sin instead of a cyborg as the story dictates. story-wise, the build-up certainly would keep you on your toes, making it a much better game than either of the previous Astrosteins. a worthwhile conclusion to a mediocre trilogy.