Civvie 11 FINALLY Does TNT: Evilution

[No-Man Baugh]

 

Saw y'all posting and talking about these TNT shorts in his NRFTL thread and felt that they deserved their own bespoke thread

Edited April 3, 2023 by No-Man Baugh
Originally I embelished this post with little jabs at the shorts, but I scrubed if of those because I don't want anyone reading to get the impression that I genuinly don't like these new vids or disapprove of Civvie doing these shorts

[Biodegradable]

I had the same thought the other night, so good on you for taking the initiative, fam.

[Tangra]

I kind of wish he did a regular Civvie11 review for TNT. At the end, someone will compile all mini rants into one full 30+ minute video, but the final result won't have the same cohesion as the rest of Civvie's works.

[Stupid Bunny]

Honestly I’m fine with this.

 

I love TNT. I’ve been vocal about that in all the years since I’ve been here, and I’ve gone into all the reasons why, how I love the sprawly maps and weird textures and strange exploratory layouts with mostly optional areas and all the bizarre idiosyncrasies that a lot of people aren’t so into, how it has charm and character and that while it’s low points are some of the lowest in Doom (yes, I see you, Baron’s Den), when I like it I absolutely love it and the way some of the maps experiment with space and atmosphere are still an inspiration to me today.

 

All this being said, Civvie here obviously doesn’t see it the way I do, and I think he’s articulate and experienced enough that I don’t believe his aversion to TNT is just a knee-jerk bandwagoning exercise (some of his fans may be a different story).  He’s tried really hard multiple times to just not cover TNT, I had resigned myself to it never happening, and honestly as much as he’s turning the whole thing into a giant extended shitpost he’s still at least giving the maps their due, whether he likes them or not.  And I don’t think him doing a full review is going to convince the “I’ve never played TNT but lol it sucks” crowd to go play it any more than this would.  
 

Besides, now I get a little hit of some TNT fun every day for a month. It’s like every day is my birthday, instead of just one of those days 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

Nice. The format is good too, I hear shorts can get absurdly popular. Spending about a minute on every map will get to the 32 minute mark a regular video would. Minus however long explaining the format in each short takes. That time isn't lost because he'd be talking about how the iwad came to be in a full-length video. We lost nothing, kids.

[Biodegradable]

1 hour ago, Stupid Bunny said:

All this being said, Civvie here obviously doesn’t see it the way I do, and I think he’s articulate and experienced enough that I don’t believe his aversion to TNT is just a knee-jerk bandwagoning exercise (some of his fans may be a different story).  He’s tried really hard multiple times to just not cover TNT, I had resigned myself to it never happening, and honestly as much as he’s turning the whole thing into a giant extended shitpost he’s still at least giving the maps their due, whether he likes them or not.

 

Yeah, 100%. In all the years I've been watching Civvie, he's definitely not one to chase trends or bend to pressure of any kind. He follows his passions and creative instinct rather than chasing the demands of the audience or metadata results (so damn refreshing in a YouTuber these days), otherwise he would've never bothered to make his Thief series, let alone make another series for Thief 2, as they didn't do nearly as well in terms of view aggregation. He's made no bones about it when saying he thinks TNT is boring and that he has nothing interesting to say that would warrant a standard video. I think this tongue-in-cheek method where he takes the piss out of the idea of making a full-length TNT video utilising the Shorts format was a good idea on his part and the fact that he was able to find a method that's both fun for him and can appease those nagging him about never talking about that particular IWAD (at least to some degree) - while also providing even more lovely Civvie magic for everyone to chew on for a whole week - is a win-win scenario.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Biodegradable

[UltimateDecaf]

That David Lynch reference is awesome!

[Kinsie]

3 hours ago, Tangra666 said:

I kind of wish he did a regular Civvie11 review for TNT.

He attempted it at one point and even got as far as doing GZDoom cutscenes of the story (flesh ship!) before deciding it was miserably boring and shelving it. The first couple of minutes of the Doom 3 video covers it and shows some of the leftovers.

 

3 hours ago, Tangra666 said:

At the end, someone will compile all mini rants into one full 30+ minute video, but the final result won't have the same cohesion as the rest of Civvie's works.

There'll be a Youtube playlist with all 30 videos one after the other for the sake of convenience.

[Biodegradable]

Day 3!

 

 

[Xerenogan]

Oh yeah, the shorts. I saw the topic title and got excited for a moment.

[Biodegradable]

Day 4!

 

 

[SuyaSSS]

I love how he's also parodying tiktokers in these videos

[Biodegradable]

Day 5!

 

 

[Biodegradable]

Day 6!

 

 

[Shepardus]

Cursed aspect ratio aside, the format actually works pretty well in that I look forward to being drip-fed the next video each day.

[No-Man Baugh]

Yeah i was thinking about making a reply in this thread defending the TNT map of the day, but yeah I gotta agree with Civvie on this one. the gameplay of this one has the pacing of Quake but without Quake's relatively beefier and harder to drop enemies to warrant the stop-&-go pacing

 

By the way: Final Doom was released 5 DAYS before Quake launched

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

15 minutes ago, No-Man Baugh said:

5 DAYS before Quake launched

Quote

Five months after Duke Nukem 3D

Holy crap... That's insane. I haven't considered Doom wads outside of Doom before.

[Biodegradable]

Day 7!

 

 

[No-Man Baugh]

I actually liked this map, but man that starting room when pistol starting is an absolute ammo-depleted pain in the worst kind of way

 

That "monster condo" bit is the good kinda pain, it keeps you on your toes with all the imps and barrons surrounding you and having to dodge all those fireballs is really the highlight of the level if you ask me

Edited April 7, 2023 by No-Man Baugh

[Lonespacemarine]

I see why civvie hates tnt. First I thought why will he hate such a nice wad (foreshadowing because I played it in hurt me plenty) yeah I learned that the hard way in the doom 64 and doom 3 vids imagine pistol starting each map and getting hit with large open vast rooms which most of the time doesn't even need to be explored. And there was a time when i ended up fighting 7 baron of hells with a shotgun

I know the pain of fighting barons with shotguns since doom 1

 but I kept saying to myself yes he will do it one day and there our dude is making it 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Lonespacemarine
Sorry

[Biodegradable]

Day 8!

 

 

[Man of Doom]

You can definitely count me as someone who will defend TNT til the day I die, and I completely understand why Civvie's been adamant about not wanting to cover it in the past.

The ridiculous amount of disdain for Habitat had honestly reached Bitch Eating Crackers territory a good while back, plus the map designs tend to be the most interesting ones out of the "official" Doom missions packs (obviously before the Unity port came along).

But in all honesty, things do tend to just peter out during the third act of TNT, and while the level designs are extremely memorable (pretty much the first 15 maps, Pharoah, that exit from Lunar Mining Project and also Ballistyx, pretty much the entirety of Stronghold and Dead Zone, that pipe area of Steel Works, even the "drain pipes" of Habitat), the actual monster encounters are less so.

It doesn't really help that larger levels like Mill and Administration Center tend to end up on the more cryptic and confusing side, especially for first-time players.


In short, while it does make for a more interesting Doom experience, it doesn't quite compare to the recognition of classic Doom/Doom II nor the sheer treachery of Plutonia. And that results in well... bite-sized portions of a review, as what we've seen here (if you want to make a review of TNT interesting).

Edited April 9, 2023 by Man of Doom

[Faceman2000]

I don’t hate TNT because I’m a Civvie fan, I’m a Civvie fan cuz he hates TNT.

[Fairen]

Gamer whines about something it's popular to whine about, solely because it's a "rival" to thing that makes gamers feel like they're better than other gamers.

 

Frankly, when something has a hatejerk towards it like Evilution does, that's more often a sign of quality to me than something that has rabid stans who'll treat it as the greatest thing ever and flip their lids at the slightest criticism. Better to enjoy something that has fans who focus on their enjoyment of it rather than taking offense towards people who don't.

 

Plus, TNT isn't the Final Doom WAD that has the worst Cyberdemon placement in the history of Doom WADs.

[Jacek Bourne]

2 minutes ago, Fairen said:

the worst Cyberdemon placement in the history of Doom WADs.

 

And where would that be?

[LadyMistDragon]

57 minutes ago, Fairen said:

 

 

Frankly, when something has a hatejerk towards it like Evilution does, that's more often a sign of quality to me than something that has rabid stans who'll treat it as the greatest thing ever and flip their lids at the slightest criticism. Better to enjoy something that has fans who focus on their enjoyment of it rather than taking offense towards people who don't.

 

Plus, TNT isn't the Final Doom WAD that has the worst Cyberdemon placement in the history of Doom WADs.

That's not really my perception of Evilution critics, tbh, and I say that who greatly admired certain aspects of it. Maybe that's how it used to be but....most of them aren't speaking in the same tone as Civvie, who sounds more like all the haters in the oughts and probably into the 2010s too. Really, he probably did it because no one liked him avoiding it and this was sort of a compromise.

 

I think I know which one you're talking about with the latter though.....

[Lonespacemarine]

3 hours ago, Faceman2000 said:

I don’t hate TNT because I’m a Civvie fan, I’m a Civvie fan cuz he hates TNT.

🗿🗿Respect

[Lonespacemarine]

Yeah despite me liking tnt evolution

I like plutonia more because of the change in the difficulty curve when compared to tnt evolution plutonia is more fun and hard 

[Faceman2000]

6 hours ago, Fairen said:

solely because it's a "rival" to thing that makes gamers feel like they're better than other gamers

Yep, that’s it. THAT’S the issue with TNT. You caught me.

[Somniac]

I have a big soft spot for TNT (flaws and all) and I'm still amused by these videos. I would have liked to see him do a a full video on it, though.