The DWmegawad Club plays: 99 Ways to Die & Troopers' Playground & Talosian Incident

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

If a chest-burster comes out of a revenant, does it break through the ribcage or crawl around it?

Questions man must know the answers to.

[Salt-Man Z]

Finishing up TTP:

 

MAP06: Deep Down Below

24:59 | 100% Kills | 93% Items | 60% Secrets

This is a pretty memorable map from Requiem, not sure why; but when I got back into Dooming, I used Doomsday, and Requiem and AV would both crash after a dozen levels or so, so I got to know the first handful pretty well. This map just stuck in my brain for whatever reason. And it's fun. Lots of corridor-crawling, tons of enemies to fairly easily mow down. The secrets had me stumped (hunting for the last couple up about 10 minutes of my play time.) And I always enjoyed the way the entry room slowly built up. And the red key puzzle, of course, LOL, what a great troll-job.

 

MAP07: Three 'O Matic

18:39 | 100% Everything

Another fun one. Relatively easygoing, until you step inside the blue door, then it turns into a run for your life. A couple of pretty dickish chaingunner traps here, too, grumpy face. 😠 But overall a pretty fun adventure. The single cyber at the end is kinda anticlimactic, and then the actual exit room comes as a surprise. (But those cacos/PEs outside the window seem largely pointless.

 

MAP08: Star Control

21:46 | 96% Kills | 97% Items | 100% Secrets

A nice, grand map. I never did find out how to access those sealed teleporter (?) doors, and I couldn't backtrack past the blue door to explore more. I did skip the red key (floating up on the invisible walkway in GZDoom) to play it like it was intended. I do remember my first play in GLBoom+, wondering if something was broken when I saw the key down underneath my feet. A lot of fun.

 

MAP09: Deliverence?

1:06 | 24% Kills | 100% Items | 100% Secrets

Oh man, did I hate this map the first time I played. I took too long figuring out what to do, and then tried to time my rockets when the shutters we open; got blasted in the back by two dozen bad guys every time I tried it. So frustrating. This time, I just ran around, grabbed up all the rockets, then parked at a window and let 'em rip. Level over after a minute. (Still was almost killed by the dudes behind me; I was down to 20% when it ended.) Pretty underwhelming, but also nice and painless (when done right!) for an IoS map.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2018 by Salt-Man Z

[Salt-Man Z]

And now for The Talosian Incident, which I have not had the pleasure of playing before. GZDoom/UV/continuous/saves/keyboard-only.

 

MAP01: The Transport

4:09 | 0% Kills | 100% Items | 100% Secrets

I am immediately reminded of Icarus, what with the big silver ship. The silent ship intro is a fine idea, but it doesn't quite work here, since there's really nothing of any import to do besides hit the armory and then the exit (and if you're pistol-starting, you only care about the latter.) There's a blue key that pointlessly unlocks a couple of doors, and a secret chainsaw that I guess will come in handy later. But otherwise, there's nothing really see, other than some marines and a revvie in suspended animation. I actually played this one twice, since the first time I stumbled across the exit right away, and the floor dropped out and I wanted to go back and see everything, so I started over. One thing that surprised me was seeing the entire automap visible from the start. I hadn't realized that such a thing was possible (though I read on the wiki just now that it's simply a matter of flagging linedefs to always be visible.) That's a nice little touch; one assumes you'd know the way around your own ship...

[Spectre01]

The Troopers' Playground - Final Thoughts:

This wad was alright. I don't really feel like it stacks up to some of the bigger '96 projects, namely the MM series. Some custom music would've definitely helped, as I feel it lacks its own personality. Certainly a more enjoyable and smoother experience on continuous, but otherwise there's little in the way of impactful scenes or memorability. Overall rating: 2/5 - It's OK.

[gaspe]

The Talosian Incident

 

MAP01: Not a conventional map, an introduction level that serves for a narrative purpose. You can explore the various areas of your spaceship, find some weapons, a revenant that was being transported? Also there are few hibernated marines, I guess? The ship looks good overall, with the classical choice of silver. The lighting was well done and there are some nice details, though it would have been better if they made some actual chairs instead of using those squares. I remember that I liked the music in this wad, it's very minimalistic. Quite like the wad, for what I recall it stay with a very simple style.

[TheOrganGrinder]

And onward to The Talosian Incident, settings as before as always.

 

MAP01: The Transport

 

There's not a lot to say about this one, which is (for those of us playing on continuous) largely an opportunity to scoot about picking up armour, weapons, and ammunitions before getting stuck into the WAD proper.  It's an interesting choice, to dedicate a whole level to scene-setting and storytelling, one that I suppose makes the most sense in the context of a WAD that doesn't span the full 32 levels available anyway - it's not as though there's any kind of cost associated with building atmosphere like this.  What it does, it does well.  On to the next!

[Memfis]

Good luck with The Talosian Incident guys, it's probably the most depressing wad I can think of, mainly because of its lifeless music and monotonous design. Every map makes you feel like the world is dying. T_T

Edited May 12, 2018 by Memfis

[Roofi]

2 minutes ago, Memfis said:

Good luck with The Talosian Incident guys, it's probably the most depressing wad I can think of, mainly because of its music and monotonous design. Every map makes you feel like the world is dying. T_T

 

Yep , that's why The talosian incident is awesome. I love maps with a depressing atmosphere.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP01 The Transport

 

For all of you to know, Talosian Incident is an ATMOSPHERIC and somewhat story-driven wad. So what you may see here is not a whole lot of carnage. I personally think that's all fine and dandy, but don't expect to be slaughtering numerous enemies at once. Speaking of which, our first level is a full-fledged interlude of atmosphere, on a ship, where you can get a purloined kit for the upcoming level, including one secret. The one kill I see is a revenant that is actually not killable. Now, we will be seeing this place again sometime near the end.

[Rene Mori]

And so, we begin Talosian Incident with interesting and thrilling beginning.

MAP01 - "Quite easy start"

We start this megawad with fairly decent slaughter map. 

Spoiler

Just couple chaingunners/sergeants with 4 revenants, it's alright I guess, but I'm not huge fan when wads are starting on a such easy note. Comon, bring some challenge!

After that we can enter armory and what a pleasant surprise is awaiting us inside!

Spoiler

Look, 2 fiery boys were waiting for us to come! What a nice gesture from these fine gentlemen.

Then we come down into the dark hallway, almost got spooked to death right there. 

Spoiler

These goddamn specters, they never end.

Ah, this next one I really like, quite a nice preview of what awaits us. I like this kind of suspense.

Spoiler

And we finish with a nice small encounter, though I wished there was more room to navigate around, not a huge fan of claustrophobic rooms.

Spoiler

So in overall I rate this 2/5 on a difficulty scale, could be slightly more engaging. I can't wait to see what next chapters of this story are going to show us.

 

Edited May 12, 2018 by BioRenegat

[gaspe]

5 hours ago, Memfis said:

Good luck with The Talosian Incident guys, it's probably the most depressing wad I can think of, mainly because of its lifeless music and monotonous design. Every map makes you feel like the world is dying. T_T

 

Can you imagine playing this in 97' when Requiem "the last megawad for Doom" was released and people thought the Doom scene was dying?

[Catpho]

Oh hey, im here. Seems like Talosian will be lenient on me, so i'll give it a go (when this freedom lasts that is :P)

MAP01 - “The Transport” by John Bye

A requiem for Doom... And most doomers were moving to the flashy and much more advanced (at the time) Quake. John Bye apparently sense the community was dying, so he gathered the finest of his age to make one last tribute (which would be a very somber one if it werent for me and a whole bunch of people writing this today).

And, from the first level (and a buncha reviews), im picking up vibes that this mentality will be the central theme. Minimalism will be a star too, as the spaceship is very simple in presentation, although the lighting is stylish. The music shares all the above characters (its super hard to hear it however, i needed to silence everything else). This Aliens TC approach definitely worked, there's a lot of tension built up through the uncertainty thats looming across the empty, static halls (the monsters and actors dont move!).

Atmosphere build up? Checked.

Some screenies:

[tmorrow]

map02: Desolation, by Malcolm Sailor
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

Leaving the ship our hero starts at the base of the Transport, the underside beautifully detailed. Staring out at a desolate landscape of the 3rd planet of the Talosian system, it's time to duke it out with some of the local denizens.

A chainsaw and berserk pack are provided for some hand on hand combat ala tyson style. With so much room to move, the fights are pretty easy. Hell, just sit back and let the buggers fight it out. You do get a super shotgun and shotgun later on for the final leg of the journey through some bloodfalls.

While the outside views of the landscape and sky were pretty, what I liked best was the sinister trip through the caves lined with floating skulls. The excellent use of lighting kept me alert and expecting traps with each step.

[Capellan]

MAP02

For a mapset that states its purpose as bidding a fond farewell Doom, the levels haven't felt very "Doomy", so far. This one is rather too thinly populated for its size, for instance, with lots of wide open vistas where not much is going on. No doubt this ties into the atmosphere that the set is trying to create, but I'm not sure it's really working.

 

The highlight here for me is the dark 'floating rock' tunnel, which is quite visually striking until you reach the end, and the lights go on. That reveals things to be rather drab and brown after all, and things are not much enlivened by the anaemic ambush that also occurs at this point.

 

[Magnusblitz]

Onward to The Talosian Incident!

 

MAP01: The Transport

0% kills, 1/1 secret

 

I certainly have no problem starting off with a monsterless, atmosphere-driven map, and I do like the lighting and music (Capellan, no music? What's wrong with you??) The areas are recognizable enough (kitchen, beds, armory, bridge, reactor) though I do wish there was a bit more detail going on, or at least more sign the ship was beat up. No idea what the revenant is supposed to be.

 

MAP02: Desolation

94% kills, 0/1 secret

 

Gonna play continuous, if the armory in the empty first level is any indication.

 

Another one which I think garners a lot of atmosphere from the music, which would fit perfectly for any sort of sci-fi movie where the protagonist crash-lands on a strange alien planet and has to hoof it across some desolate areas. On its own, visually it's not much, but does just enough to get the job done. Combat here is forgettable. The dark tunnel is kinda cool though, I agree.

[Spectre01]

The Talosian Incident

So, apparently this is supposed to be a sombre, atmospheric wad. The opening story text was certainly good at setting up the story, as far as Doom lore goes. For maximum enjoyment and immersion, I will be playing this continuously and only dropping saves at the start of each level. GLBoom+ in 8Bit Software Mode, let's roll! 

MAP01 - “The Transport” by John Bye

A moody stroll through an empty ship. Surprisingly, there is no sign of structural damage or wires sticking out... Everything appears in a squeaky-clean, shiny metal aesthetic; reminding me of map02 in Icarus. Some points of interest are: The voodoo dolls in what's supposed to be a cryogenic sleep chamber. The equipment room which gives you all the basic gear and armaments. The secret Chainsaw in one of the living quarters. And, of course, the radioactive reactor room, harnessing the power of FIREBLU. Now that I'm all set, let's move on to a map with something to shoot!

Edited May 13, 2018 by Spectre01

[Spectre01]

MAP02 - “Desolation” by Malcolm Sailor

After leaving behind the ship, you find yourself in a mountainous region of the planet you've landed on. There are no hitscanners here, so this map is perfect for Berserk-punching everything down. The spaces are massive and monster density is very low, which makes for a nice exploratory stroll while bashing some Pinkies and Imps. The atmosphere really worked for me here, and stretches without any combat only enhanced the experience. The dark tunnel before the Berserk, the main area pictured above, and the bloodfalls near the exit were all very memorable. It's also nice to get two Backpacks and an SSG, although even the Barons were no match for the mighty fist. Love the midi too, great stuff. 

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

MAP02: Malcolm Sailor made it. 'Nuff said.

GZDoom 2.4.0, UV, continuous, saves

 

Screenshot:

0/5 misaligned texture.

 

Probably my first ever Tyson run, this map favors melee combat over ranged entirely, with the acquisition of a chainsaw early and a berserk not long after that. You will receive the shotguns later, but you don't need them with sufficient skill. The most dangerous monster set up is probably the cacodemon pair, since they're the only mid-tiers in a singular group. Combat is sparse, but this is made up for with an atmospheric romp.

 

Being a Malcolm Sailor map, it's solid for sure. It's overly large and empty, but it creates a sense of desolation, so it works in the map's (and story's) favor, in spite of the fact that I bypassed the plot completely. That said, the architecture which does appear is simple, but has a practical beauty about it. A little switch hunting needs to be done, ultimately, but it's easy enough that it doesn't impact the map in any real way (imaginary, however, is a whole different axis).

 

Terrible mathematics jokes aside, this is a fairly strong map for its time, but its combat is less than I prefer, personally.

[DavitW]

MAP01 - The Transport

This is one of those atmospheric maps but unfortunately it builds up to basically nothing as there's no enemies to fight here. The map's got a bit of creep to it but for the most part it's just bland and ugly, being mostly grey with very simple architecture. Aliens did something similiar better and that came out in 94.

 

MAP02 - Desolation

This map puts you in a valley style map where you'll pretty much only have the berserk fist and chainsaw to get through the enemies, most of the enemies hare are fairly easy to kill in melee though such as imps,demons and lost souls. still some of the fights can be a challenge so hopefully your fisting game is on point. The map's got atmosphere which is what we're going for in this wad and the bloodfall at the end was pretty cool but overall it wasn't too terribly fun to play through which is personally what I look for in a doom wad.

[Catpho]

Unholy, is that Memfis liking a post? Huh, turns out he does use it after all, just incredibly uncommon.

MAP02 - “Desolation” by Malcolm Sailor

Malcolm Sailor reached dizzying heights after the "Chord" series, becoming one of the renowned authors in the 90s. In fact, he only considers the last 3 "Chord" wads to be good works from him. Hopefully these maps will prove him wrong. 

From the silver space ship (beautifully rendered for 90s standard) we emerge to a strange new world, and it looks freakin barren. Rocky landscapes painted with a broad brush, the roughness still seems to be the trend but not in any way bland thanks to plenty of visual highlights like the dark tunnel, the bloodfalls and texturing choice that goes well with the gloomy, melancholic sky. Reuses John Bye's track from the title screen, and while it fits the level im not a fan of hearing the same music track after just 1 level. Another thing to note is that there seems to be a connection between the levels, something you mostly had to piece together yourself in 90s wads. Shows it true devotion to the "feel" of the mapset.

Malcolm Sailor's most acclamed works usually have a penchant for high difficulty gameplay. This one employs a melee fest/scavenger gameplay, but unless you are really uncomfortable with punching and using the chainsaw, this level got nothing on ya. An interesting spin tho, considering this is the player's first exposer to demon killing in this wad (considering first encounters in other wads still has pistol or shotgun action somewhere, or im not using berserk on map01's too much).

Solid effort.

Some screenies:

Also, ive got a shot in noclip:

Spoiler

 

Edited May 13, 2018 by Catpho

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP02: Desolation

 

This one rather earns its name, with its wide and sparesely-populated spaces and moody music drawing the player in with a sense that this isn't some great invasion (whether the player's role might be invader or defender) nor is it some thrill ride of a fast-paced shooter; it's an infiltration, or a mopping-up exercise, as the player creeps through the tunnels and chasms of what is without a doubt an utter wasteland.  Spaces are larger than gameplay demands, rendered on an immense scale for atmosphere's sake, and this might be annoying or even dangerous if the level was populated with hitscanners chipping away at you over vast distances, but instead the lion's share of the bestiary here consists of imps, demons, and spectres, with a handful of lost souls and a brace of Barons of Hell rounding thing out.  As with the introductory level, the slowness, the stillness of it is nice and sets a tone that differentiates it from other Doom WADs of its era or even now, to a significant extent; slow, atmospheric crawlers are not a niche that's frequently mined.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP02 Desolation

 

My mind is rather desolate at the moment, but this one is easy to remember. Spacious, easy enemies (no hitscanners even). It actually really reminds me a lot of how I made NOVA 2 MAP04. I can imagine almost everyone hating a map like this too, because "wah there's no danger" shut up I don't need to be in dangerous situations to have fun in a doom map. There's a bit of switchhunting in the main area but the map overall is easy and worthwhile without much hassle. Not a bad thing.

[Roofi]

Map 02 : Desolation

 

 

Difficulty : Easy

Death(s) : 0

FDA : yes

 

DEMO

 

You leave your huge silver spaceship to venture yourself in a vast desolate canyon.

 

I guess that The talosian incident was designed for continuous play even if the maps stay doable on pistol-start because the gameplay of this level focused primarly on Tyson mode. I found it kinda annoying and uninteresting to be honest but it was at least not hard thanks to very wide areas compared to the low numbers of ennemies and also the absence of hitscanners. You can find a SSG and a simple shotgun but the ammo was too scarce and except some barons , the bestiary used was pretty weak.

 

Orange skies are lovely in general and this one is not an exception to the rule. The canyon was simplistically made but it fits perfectly with the quiet music and the emptyness feeling that the wad provides to us. The layout was not too weird because I remember that some maps had a lot of mazy corridors . I like also how the mappers use things instead of putting more details in order to make a more living map. The floating rocks indicating you the way in the very dark tunnel give a mysterious tone for instance.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Roofi

[gaspe]

MAP02: The view of the ship from the outside was cool, and the other nice part are the waterfalls of blood before the end. The rest pretty much is very bland but it convey a feeling of desolation, indeed,  of an alien wasteland where the interesting touches visually are done by the usage of decorations like torches and floating skulls. Gameplay is easy and simple, going intentionally with the melee seems a good things to spice up a bit the fights.

[Capellan]

MAP03

If you ever needed a map to illustrate modern Dooming gameplay "don'ts", this level pretty much has you covered. Mandatory secrets, illusionary walls, massively tall areas where you can get infinitely talled or hitscanned by monsters you can't target, brightly-lit areas that painfully expose how empty and plain most of the level is ... the list goes on.

 

At no point in playing this did I really feel like I knew what I was doing. But thanks to the automap highlighting different wall types, I stumbled across the blue and yellow keys in relatively short order, from which point it was a very simple trot to the exit, blithely ignoring the monster crossfires as I went, since the layout meant I was generally not very vulnerable to them.

 

Memorable, but certainly not what I'd call good. I'm pleased that the author's name isn't on any of the other maps in the set.

 

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP03 The Cliff Top Fort

 

Here it is everyone, the first actually bad level, and probably the worst level in the set. Not even familiar with the author. The spacing is even bigger this time around, but there's lots of 90s bad things about this map. It's nonlinear, which may be a plus, but it's quite easy to get yourself lost in this one. Teleporters may or may not help. Two keys, I believe both are needed, are in secrets, both secrets involving fake walls too, which is really bad. The blue key is in TWO secrets, and is actually in a silo and behind a fake wall, while the yellow key is in a silo that rises up pretty fast so you can enter the fire to reach it, but it's annoying as fuck waiting for the thing to come back down. The curved circular things may have been novel, but they are just so plain here and obviously are not gonna be well-liked. The whole exit segment also sucks, a bright hell cave with an easy path to follow before going right back to the silver base thing. Oh, and a berserk pack is out of bounds too, but only on the lower settings.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP03: The Cliff Top Fort

99% kills, 4/4 secrets

 

The progression in this one is absolutely atrocious, bordering on those old adventure games of obscureness. I had cleared a large part of the level, finding key door after key door after key door with no actual keys, before finally looking at the silo at the right time and noticing one side was blinking differently than the others... yup, blue key in a secret in a fake wall, what fun. At that point it was fairly smooth sailing to get the yellow and red keys (despite being hidden in more 'secrets') but figuring out what to do with the red key also gave me some trouble. Start humping those walls for hidden switches or fake walls! Combine that with underwhelming design (maybe the curved areas had to be so plain because of having so many linedefs to make the curves? I dunno) and other weird bits (why so many invisible minimap walls?) and yeah, this one is pretty dire.

[Capellan]

22 hours ago, Magnusblitz said:

I do like the lighting and music (Capellan, no music? What's wrong with you??)

 

I always play with -nomusic.  Perhaps because I played Doom for several months before I even had a soundcard and got used to it without music, but more likely, because after I did have a soundcard I got very tired of the e1m1 music given how many wads were in that slot.

 

It should also be noted that I turn the music off or way down in every computer game I play. 

 

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

GZDoom 2.4.0 can't seem to find the files it needs on my computer to play midis, which is strange because ZDoom 2.8.1, QZDoom 2.0.0, and GZDoom 3.x can, so I use the changemus command to play some of the mp3's I've got, but in this one I've decided against it, so I'm doing a no music run, also. It seems to fit the mood fairly well.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

MAP03: Just Skip This Shit

GZDoom 2.4.0, Ridiculous, continuous, saves

 

Screenshots:

The location of the mandatory blue card secret.

 

The location of the mandatory yellow card secret.

 

Mandatory secrets. Boring gameplay. Boring aesthetic. 'Nuff said.

 

I should totally patent the eight word review.

Based on what the others said, the author of this one didn't build anything more for Talosian Incident, which is a godsend.