The DWmegawad Club plays: STRAIN

[mouldy]

MAP15 - "Subsidiary Power” by Chainsaw

Great map, had fun uncovering all its secrets. I found the secret exit before the normal one, and even assumed it was the normal one I had found. Well you can never tell with this wad, sometimes you find some secret door and then discover its the intended route. So back I went to find the alternative way out, and had a meeting with a new enemy, some kind of super baron. And still there were a bunch of enemies I hadn't killed, they were all hiding in a weird hellish passageway that wasn't there before. Full of surprises this map. I especially enjoyed the occasional monsters exploding through the walls. From reading other comments it seems I was lucky to find the secret rad suits, i'd never have made it through the nukage otherwise. I just figured there had to be some stashed nearby and humped a few walls, but not sure they needed to be hidden like that.

[40oz]

Stupid hint: That awful nukage maze can be made through without rad suits if you step on the "blinking light" sectors, those parts of the nukage dont hurt.

[mouldy]

MAP31 - "Secret” by Jon Landis

Puzzly puzzle map, not the most interesting to look at. I guess this is what they call "the banality of evil", a doom rubik's cube of switches and unfolding mono-textured corridors. With lots of punching. I'd not realised until now how powerful that double berserk punching can be, I only really needed guns for the barons, and by then I had the plasma rifle, which looks like a prop from 1970s Doctor Who it has to be said. Puzzles all solved and monsters all killed, the super secret exit found, and on to the next map I go.

MAP32 - "Super-Secret” by Holger Nathrath and Anthony Czerwonka

Great choice of music. A whimsical little puzzle/arena, it killed me a few times. Firstly the opening spew of shotgunners which seems to demand you grab the invul, and then a few deaths to the mega-barons which I've now learned not to deal with at close range. Fun stuff, and suitably silly.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP15: Subsidiary Power
21:40 | 89% Kills | 68% Items | 75% Secrets

I'll admit to liking this one, if only for nostalgic "oh yeah, this map!" reasons. The progression is confusing as heck, and I found the secret exit long before I found the normal one. I do love how every time you reenter the starting room, one of the walls has blown out flooding the room with baddies. The demonlord is cool, too, and unexpected. I'm guessing all the stuff I missed in the secret area in the nukage maze, which I only know of because of IDDT, but I wasn't running back in there without a radsuit (I used up all the available ones.) Also, what's up with all the cell ammo everywhere? The secret area must have a cell-powered weapon, because I've been full of cells for a few maps now, and haven't yet gotten a weapon with which to use them...

[purist]

13

My favourite level in quite a while and particularly welcome after the last couple. Here STRAIN really tries to kill you probably for the first time with serious intent. The level had a nice gloomy deprecated base theme which is a bonus since I would have taken the well overdue action alone. I played 3 maps together this time and some of the details are lost on me but I do remember dying in one trap involving a trap causing a crossfire and then returning to the area to find it was still a tricky battle armed with foreknowledge. I think this is also the level with a huge clump of zombie men, which I took great satisfaction in gibbing.

14.

I identified this level as by being from the same author as MAP07. I've not checked if I am right as I write this but the mid texture usage is certainly consistent with the space ship level. I was sure early on that I would notice this map but it turned out pretty well. The corridor blocked by the 3 coloured key bars fooled me into thinking this was going to be a non linear key hunt but the keys must be found in a specific order as one leads to the next. The presence of multiple switches is also something of a red herring because they generally trigger something near enough by that you can't really miss it. Last thing to mention is the mini cyb, it's unfamiliar sight sound and volley of rockets put the frighteners on me! A nice new enemy, remeniscent of the cybruiser.

15

Another decent level wiith some dangerous moments and more appearances of the mini cyb. I didn't always find it clear what I was doing but progression was rarely a problem due to the repopulation during backtracking, usually with the appearance that the infernal latecomers have literally torn through walls to get to you - really nice little effect. The level also makes good use of darkness to add a bit of uncertainty and a nukage maze that would have been more of an irritant if I hadn't happened accross 40oz's tip. I ended the level thinking I was a bit lost and stumbling into the secret exit. I never normally find secret levels but I've been doing pretty well at secret spotting in STRAIN.

I'll have a pop at MAP31 another time.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP15: Subsidiary Power

This one doesn't have quite the same sense of fun as MAP14 or other recent levels; I think what it's mostly lacking is a sense of logic to its progression. The bombs/exploding walls are an interesting visual touch but in terms of how the player moves about within the level it feels more like you're being told "You've gone as far as you can down this particular path, head back to the hub and see if anything has arbitrarily changed." Which isn't an ideal way to keep the player motivated and maintain a strong sense that their actions contribute to their advancement.

Likewise, the secret exit didn't feel particularly secret at all to me. Maybe it's just a case of coming into this with a different set of expectations than the level designers was working from.

MAP31: Secret

Liked it; didn't unlock the MAP32 exit, due more to impatience than anything else, but I think in this case the limited texture selection and austere aesthetic works well as part of a sense that you're unlocking a puzzle, a mechanism, rather than navigating any kind of identifiable space no matter how abstract.

[Capellan]

Map16
You get a warm welcome in this map, and I'd say that from pistol start you're definitely better off evacuating the start zone ASAP. Not just because you have nothing with which to fight back, but because there'll be a chance later on to use crushers to kill most of the opposition here.

I like the concept of the main marble hall here. It's not executed well in terms of texture alignment and the like, and it's much more plain than a modern take on the subject would be, but it's a strong central image for the map – as evidenced by the fact that as soon as I saw it I was "oh, this level".

Alas, not much else of the map is notable from a design or layout perspective. There's a wooden corridor section (too small and linear to be a maze, at least), a big square courtyard of big squares, and the southern section where what looks like a relatively easy to find secret actually turns out to be required for progression. Bad level authors, bad!

Gameplay wise the debut (for me) of the Demon Lord is I think well handled: you've got the central pillar for cover but the area is small enough – and his attack pattern fast enough – that you have to stay on your toes. Good way to introduce him and get players ready for how dangerous he can be (not sure how map15 handles it). I also like the final fight with its generous helping of super imps and holo-bots.

Egregious error time: it's impossible to get 100% kills because the level's final teleport trap doesn't work. The 'sound pipe' to carry noise to the monsters is actually blocked off. On the other hand, said trap is just a couple of barons so it is frankly no loss from a fun perspective.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP32 Super Secret

"And now for something completely different" makes quite a lot of sense here, although it's not as slaughtery as other wads that come after it, it provides a nice combat challenge. a silly tune accompanies it too. the shotgun guy armada at the beginning might actually not be that tough, if you're patient like me you can wait until they all come in. plus I had a lot of invulnerabilities and soul spheres on the red key platform, so there really isn't any trouble. the grey baron makes an appearance in this map. I hate him though since his attacking animation seems to skip frames making him hard to predict exactly when the fireballs leave his hands. One huge problem in the exit area is that one imp was flagged deaf in a teleport closet and two closets near the red armor never opened, and don't even have tags on them.

MAP16 Living Quarters

Rather nice realistic style map here. beginning is a scrambler that is easy on continuous if you blast rockets at the imps. not too much in the way of puzzles, but a few switch presses seem a bit confusing. the long cave that eventually gets the yellow key has an interesting scenario with two lion switches, where one triggers a crusher up ahead while the other one just opens the door. that crusher may or may not be useful if you have or have not killed the enemies behind the cages at the start. the red key ziggurat is a bit interesting as well. noticably, the NFG and grey baron both make official non-secret map appearances in this map, for those who haven't trounced into the secret maps yet. the exit room has one bugged teleporter ambush that don't work, plus there's an odd texture in the far left corner, representing the sound tunnel apparently, but not enough to get the monsters behind it to awaken.

Novaroid's a pretty good song though.

[gaspe]

MAP16 - Living Quarters

Kills: 90% | Items: 84% | Secrets: 0%

Quite hectic pistols start on making you looking for ammo, but after you get in other areas it will become maybe too much. We get the opportuniity to crush 2 waves of imps, and maybe a mini-cyber too. Tricky encounter with the Demonlord at the red key courtyard, you don't have a nice arsenal to fight him and trying to get the hitscanners take care of him is not difficult but it's easy to lose a lot of health quickly.
The encounter at the plasmagun was really good. I forgot to talk about the new plasmagun, the NFG. Visually I prefer the normal one. The NFG does more damage, and the ammo reduction is fair. What I don't really like is that "cooldown" time to wait before shoot.
At the last room I run into the exit skipping all the enemies. I didn't even search for the secrets here. There's nothing so offensive in this map, I just wanted to get quickly to the others.

Capellan said:

(not sure how map15 handles it)

It is at the normal exit. There's a corridor where you fight in sequence an Hell Knight, a Baron and after you reveal the Demonlord. Progression of the same recolored enemy by health and damage. You can just retreat to have cover at the entrace of the corridor and spam it with rockets. I quess they wanted to surprise the player with its attack, hard to dodge on that tight place.

[Magnusblitz]

40oz said:

Stupid hint: That awful nukage maze can be made through without rad suits if you step on the "blinking light" sectors, those parts of the nukage dont hurt.

Ya know, I thought I noticed that parts of it weren't hurting, but I couldn't replicate it and at first I thought there was some weird attempted deep-water effect, but then realized it was just different heights with missing lower textures. Didn't think about the lighting effect replacing the damage...

MAP32: Super-Secret
99% kills, no map secrets

Another good secret map, featuring a bunch of encounters spread across an expanding arena and a nice waltzy tune (one of those ones everyone's heard but can't name, had to look it up myself). The shotgunner teleport onslaught at the start is probably one of the toughest fights if you don't think to use the invuln right away. The hell knight ambush is another toughy, but the map eases up after that. Not much else to say... didn't get 100% kills because two enemies in closets near the red armor never unleashed (and looking at the map in DB2, doesn't seem to be a way for them to escape either).

[SoundofDoomDoors]

It's been a while since I typed comments out in advance. I'll be back to 1 a day for the rest of the month tomorrow.

MAP15 was okay. Getting the secret exit meant I didn't see all of it, but what I did was mostly positive. First, what I didn't like: the pitch-blackness in the rocket launcher ambush. I credit 2 or 3 deaths to not being able to see what I was doing in there. In hindsight, you can flip the switch a second time after grabbing the RL to turn on the lights. I only wish I'd figured it out sooner.

Now for what I did like. From reading here, I knew there was a nukage maze in th. I also knew there were optional biosuits to help out with it, but not where. I found them, but that's not the good part. The thing I really liked about the maze was all the barrels. There were so many gibs in that section that I took back many of the bad things I was going to say about the RL ambush as I was playing through it.

FDA of 15: http://www.mediafire.com/download/hfapy329lc25afp/strain_map15.lmp

MAP31....ugh. The usual knocks against Landis' other maps apply: boring, symmetric corridors everywhere, can't seem to use more textures than he can count on his fingers, et cetera. I generally like tyson maps (chalk it up to me loving the doom comic), but fighting stronger monsters like the cacos here takes a lot of the fun out of it. I picked up the red key before what turned out to be the regular exit, and I think the door I found that calls for it leads to map32, but I can't stand this map. On to the next one, and good riddance.

FDA of 31: http://www.mediafire.com/download/pjjrsevru0dqsnb/strain_map31.lmp

Map32 being (partially) by Adelusion almost feels like I'm being rewarded after the bad level before it. Unlike the maps Czerwonka made by himself, this map is simpler in concept, with waves of enemies being released into a fairly plain central area. I enjoyed it because of things like the mad dash for the invulnerability at the start, the well-placed vile behind the barons, and the new enemy all working together to keep things interesting. The hitscanners at the end were a snoozefest after all the great things that preceded them, but I don't weigh that as heavily. This was also the first time I got to use the plasma rifle. I want the old Doom gun back.

P.S: That's a Strauss (Johann) waltz playing in the background! I recognized it while I was playing. In my mind, it's associated with the old Roller Coaster Tycoon games' merry-go-round, which would play a medley of those pieces of his on an organ whenever you placed one in your park. Maybe the nostalgia made me enjoy the level more. EDIT: It's called the Blue Danube Waltz. If you've seen 2001, you've heard it before. After I posted this, I went back ingame and listened to confirm that's what it was. I was kind of occupied the first time I heard it.

FDA of 32: http://www.mediafire.com/download/vs8667a7hzsxl7h/strain+map32.lmp

[Demon of the Well]

Map 13 -- Ruins - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Going into this I somehow recall thinking it was one of my favorite STRAIN levels from the last time I played the WAD years ago, and it did still leave me with a positive impression this go-round; it feels quite fresh at this point in the mapset, in more ways than one. Obviously there's the matter of its comparatively abrupt theme change towards a weathered-looking bricks/metal outpost of some sort, quite a contrast with the tech/industry-themed levels that tend to dominate in the mapset. Interesting that while the setting is supposed to be a bunch of grimy, half-subverted, devil-infested ruins, the overall look of the level is quite a bit cleaner than that of many of the tech levels, somehow less oppressively dingy and dour. It occurs to me that the change in the skybox is probably disproportionately responsible for this, given its striking prominence in a few scenes after being more or less totally absent in the subterranean map 12, but I would also attribute this to much more disciplined texture selection (yellow key crossroads excepted, the choices in flats in there are.....quite something); Rotramel here demonstrates that there's no reason the STRAIN assets and IWAD assets can't look relatively natural together, simply a question of being more mindful of material mixing and color contrasts than many of the other mappers are. Structurally it's pretty simple and functional, although there are odd little patches of unobtrusive detail here and there, ala the sawtooth ceiling effect in the RK arena, or the rivulets of blood running down the sides of the post with the more severely mutilated carcass impaled on it in the opening chamber. Capellan is right when he points out the rather shoddy texture alignment (particularly noticeable with the custom stuff), but for me this was a case of forgive/forget, I was just happy to see a more coherent overall theme. And the music, unholy shit, it's great! Totally agree with the sentiment that this is one of Klem's most criminally underrated tracks.

Plays fairly well too, short, fastpaced, and bloody, with lots of scope for brutally efficient rocket usage and multikilling SSG blasts and the like. There's also a vague sense that the WAD is ramping up to its next phase of intensity, with the YK crossroads trap being probably the most dangerous thing in STRAIN up to this point, and the less pressing action making up for in simple bodycount what it may lack in complexity, e.g. that big goofy clump of zombiemen just before the snaking corridor to the south. Some of the progression is a little bit clunky (why make the player go up north and hit a random switch in order to lower a little gate to get into the RK arena if no other in-game event is tied to the switchpress?) and the item placement doesn't always make a whole lot of sense (the redundant backpack secret Magnusblitz mentioned, the equally redundant second RL, etc.), but these are very minor foibles in what is generally a fun map, harmless really. My one real complaint is that I agree that the mini-cyber's not introduced very well (pretty much any monster deserves better than 'you're a turret'), his diminutive size means it's not even really clear what he is when he starts firing at you. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I'll say that I don't really like the mini-cyb (or 'Minister of Pain', excuse me) in general--just too aesthetically silly for me, I must admit. I guess in functional terms he's kind of similar to the rocket zombies from Obituary or the like, but simultaneously more effective and LESS entertaining because he can't kill himself.

Nevertheless, still a cool map.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP16: Living Quarters

Now this is an odd one for me, a blend of manufactured areas with a medieval or Hellish cast slotted into what's ostensibly a progression of techbase maps in the manner of E2M5, but with outdoor areas and caves that remind me for some reason more of Heretic. The opening is a very 'hot' one, though it's easy enough to scramble to cover and take the monstrous hordes out more at your own pace. Pacing and design overall emphasise traps and ambushes, and I was caught off-guard by the Demonlord's sudden appearance and took a nasty hit point-blank. On the other hand there aren't really a lot of memorable fights outside of that, rather a steady stream of low- to mid-tier enemies swarming constantly out of closets and darkened corners to harry your advance.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP31: Secret
19:28 | 100% everything

This is essentially Switch Hunt: The Movie, but I liked it anyway. Find a switch, hit it, run around and find out what it did. At least the map's footprint is small enough that running back and forth (a lot) doesn't get too tiring. Finally found the plasma gun, and was surprised to see its multi-angle sprites; didn't realize that was a thing you could do with dehacked. It's a neat weapon, powerful in short bursts (you don't have a lot of ammo) but takes a second to recharge. Nice change from the OG plasma gun, which is basically just an upgraded chaingun.

MAP32: Super-Secret
13:52 | 99% Kills | 100% Itmes | 100% Secrets

This was a blast. Not particularly challenging on continuous, and most of the traps were of the "here's a bunch of dudes in front of you" variety. The most challenging part was the small room full of nobles. I missed 2 monsters that I never saw: IDDT shows them (presumably) hidden in alcoves by the red armor minister, but they never showed themselves. Oh yeah, and the Blue Danube Waltz as the soundtrack was great. :D

MAP16: Living Quarters
25:40 | 98% Kills | 100% Items | 50% Secrets

Over the years, this is one of the few maps that immediately came to mind when I thought of STRAIN, so I like it just for nostalgia reasons. Not much else to say, other than that I missed out on 2 secrets and 3 monsters, even though I got all the items, including 3 (?!) supercharges.

[vdgg]

For complentionists, quoting from stuvmax.txt

* - on map 16 Only 98% Kills are possible.
** - on map 30 Only 48/57 Kills are possible.
*** - on map 32 Only 82% Kills are possible in doom2.exe-format.
! - Bonus demo. Only 99% Kills are possible in boom2.02-format.

[Capellan]

Map17
This is my third playthrough of STRAIN, and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when I got to the actual "Promenade" section of this map. Good grief, what a tedious bit of level design that is. "Walk down this perfectly featureless corridor until a barrier drops in front of you and a monster closet opens behind", over and over and over again. I'll grant you that the courtyard at the end of it actually has a pretty fun encounter (though I squandered a lot of rockets with terrible aim), but before that it's all these tiresome, bitty little set pieces.

At the end of the promenade is ... a cafe, I guess? With a red key. At which point you get to run all the way back down the boring corridor of boringness to the level exit. Because it would have been too easy to just put the level exit there, or something.

Prior to the promenade ... eh, the level has a nice start room visually speaking, but the gameplay is that same stop-start "everything a discrete encounter" kind of feel, with no fluidity or flow to it. Some bits are tougher than others (I got hammered in what I call the "cross fire courtyard" since there are lots of hard to see hitscanners at work there), but none of it is very interesting to play.

[4shockblast]

Map 15: Kills: 73%, Items: 81%, Secrets: 100%, final time: 7:27 (3 deaths) (total time around 17 minutes)

Map was alright, I didn't really enjoy all the fights too much, SSG was given a bit late, I think. Three deaths, first was from taking too much damage at start, second in slime maze, third due to unlucky hell knight shot. Despite the death, the slime maze may be the most interesting part of the level in my opinion; at least for first playthrough, frantically running through it searching for the radsuit was a nice change of pace from the rest of the level. Found the secret exit (really not that hard), it was kind of underwhelming in my opinion, the redwall/skin hallway leading up to it looked pretty bland; likewise, the room with the row of computers looked pretty empty and pointless. It is always interesting to see a more extensive secret area, though.

Map 31: Kills: 67%, Items: 80%, Secrets: 50%, final time: 7:49 (3 deaths) (total time around 13 minutes)

Lots of corridors again, like map 6 by the same author. I don't like this one as much, though; I'm not sure if there are secrets I was missing or areas I was visiting in wrong order, but a lot of the Tyson action here bordered on unfair from first playthrough. Of particular notability was the baron fight with barons coming in from both sides of a corridor, which naturally resulted in one of the deaths on the map. That's not to say I didn't enjoy this map at all; somewhat bullshit challenge ended up being fun overcoming, and it was interesting to play with low health a lot of the time. Regardless, unlike previous maps with some corridor action, this one consisted almost entirely of them as far as I could tell, so even though I somewhat enjoyed it for one playthrough, it ultimately fails by being far too bland and similar, so it doesn't have much replay value for me.

Map 32: Kills: 82%, Items: 98%, Secrets: 100%, final time: 6:11 (9 deaths) (total time around 18 minutes)

Decent secret map (I didn't find the exit to it last map but since I'm FDAing it doesn't matter). Certainly has some fun arena ideas to it, with different areas opening in the same room as the level progresses. Nine deaths not because the level was super difficult (it wasn't that hard at all, actually), I just wanted to try rushing as much as possible after I died once because I wanted to see how aggressively it could be played. With a better developed route, it could probably work with a lot of aggression, but my biggest issue was that the map simply had too many bullet spongy enemies. The barons, the new baron replacements (cool attack but way too much health), and the demon horde all end up merely eating up bullets without providing much extra challenge, which isn't the sort of action I'd want from an arena-based map. Nonetheless, this map managed to create some good chaos, so it was still decent to play, but it is definitely not among my favorite maps in Strain.

Map 16: Kills: 89%, Items: 78%, Secrets: 25%, final time: 15:27 (0 deaths)

OK map, nothing really stands out to me, nothing really bad about it and nothing really great about it. Berserk makes me take monsters too aggressively often, so I often lost a lot of health in this map. It wasn't too difficult, though, and there was plenty health so I didn't run into too much trouble. The new noble makes an appearance here too (first appearance not including secret maps), it wasn't too effective, though. I spent a lot of time trying to set up the lifts so it got stuck afterwards, but by that point there was more than enough space to fight him even if I didn't do that (I just thought it'd make the fight more funny :D). Pretty good midi, though.

FDAs here.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP17 Promenade

one of the more lovelier Landis music tracks I've heard. a pretty odd level though. a lot of fodder monsters, especially in the white marble area where the exit is. pretty odd that it's at the midpoint of the map, where a lot of enemies reside. after them is a caged area with some mini cybs that is a lot more claustrophobic than it seems. the most notable aspect of Promenade though is the "Hall of Troll". As you hunt for the red key to leave the level, the hall closes as more and more setpiece fights get thrown at the player. It's pretty neat, and for me doesn't outgrow itself too much (well, except for that one where the wall simply closes and you just have to open it up again without fighting anything). I do wish for a teleporter back to the actual exit, instead of heading back down the long boring corridor again without any extra combatants around, but it was quite neat.

[gaspe]

MAP17 - Promenade

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

Pretty good map, but with some flaws too. Here the building give more the feel of a residential area, or something similar. I like those marble textures. The white marble is designed well for the hitscanners. On the actual promenade: a long corridor where sometimes a door will stop us and we have to clean the area before we can proceed. The best one was the one with the damaging floor. I think this part would have benefited of some more interesting gimmick, and not to be just a straight line.
At the end there's a really cool fight in the courtyard. I like the bar at the end of map, it's a really nice touch.
Taking the exit requires to redo all the corridor. A teleport to avoid it or repopulate it a bit would have been better. I don't understand why put so many secrets when all that remains to do is just exit.

[mouldy]

MAP16 - "Living Quarters” by Charlie Patterson and Eric Roberts

This one looks a bit odd to me. The outdoor sections are too bright, and there's a weird mixture of textural themes that makes it hard to figure out where this is meant to be. Gameplay is ok though, a bit pea-shootery with only shotgun and chaingun to speak of, but a nice scramble at the start, and I enjoyed the lifty courtyard. Standard mystery switch stuff going on again where you have to hunt through the map to find out what you just activated. Nothing totally offensive though. Just looks a bit rough around the edges compared to some of the other maps.

[40oz]

MAP14: Engineering Hate it. Very linear, full of 64 width paths, narrow hallways, puzzles and layered traps. It's like the guy expected the player to tip toe through this thing, or he just doesn't even play his own maps. The rocket launcher is difficult to make use of, and the cubicle farm in the first fight is the most annoying thing I've ever played. Its nice to see a berserk pack for once though. You'd think with the double-fisties you'd be punching things more often. It really beats down those hell knights and darkies good.

MAP15: Subsidiary Power The theme of attaching cool music to junk maps is starting to grow on me. The fisty-start is starting to burn though. Lots of weapon switching in the beginning of this map to conserve ammunition. And of course there's two shell boxes just before the exit to finally give me that nice cozy safety net of shooting wildly just before i exit the map and fisty-start the next one. gj.

MAP16: Living Quarters Pretty okay map. It was a little confusing in the parts where textures were doors in some places and not doors in others. I liked the other parts of it. Intro to the new super hell noble was pretty cool in how you were trapped in that tiny square with him. STRAIN still doesn't let up on the shit ton of hitscan monsters though. They just fucking love their shotgun guys and chaingunners. Getting a lot of mileage out of that new shotgun though which is nice. The exit room with the horde of holobots was corny though. I still haven't gotten up to speed on how to shake those creeper missiles. I guess you really do need to find a wall to hide behind and just wait for it. Also soulsphere secret in the exit room stinks. Thanks for nothing.

MAP17: Promenade "mmmmmm! you know what players like? getting pecked to death by wimpy hitscanners XD"

What does this stupid nerf gun do? A plasma gun with 6 shots? gee thanks. Theres some pretty severe ammo famine once you get to the long-ass hallway of death. After dying a bunch of times I managed to sneak by with little damage after abusing my patented evasive pussy maneuvers on every single hitscanner I encountered. A backpack would have been crucial for all the ammo absorbing monsters and the berserk pack and rocket launcher were long overdue if you ask me. The abundance of damaging floors and very little health + the strongest defensive monster placement I've seen in STRAIN yet made this map a bitch. I did think that little trap where it tempts you to shoot at the archviles feet was really cool though. And at least I discovered that the Super Hell Baron can infight with other hell nobles, which makes them less tiresome to deal with. I gotta admit, I'm taking a liking to these new monsters though. The mini cybies are extra fun and have an interesting infighting relationship with chaingunners and hell barons. The Super Hell Barons are pretty scary too with no lead-in before they attack, which can lead to some mean fireball-hell situations though. The exit sign is an exit switch in this map which made me laugh. It was pretty hard but I couldn't wait for this map to be over.

I seriously don't remember not enjoying this wad so much :X

[Pirx]

11 -

great music, listening to it made it easier to play through a confusing map. It's ok but linked through a lot of knotted corridors. The icing on the cake was the force field keeping the blue key out of my hands, so I had to find the switch controlling it, then backtrack again to the cargo room. The invisible bots are much better than the regular version, barely visible against dark concrete even with today's ports and high resolutions. There's strain's first archvile in the end, but too busy with useless zombies to be a threat.


12 -

nice to see a direct continuation at the start (as the map had been split), but it's the weaker half. I had a chainsaw start here as I found the ssg only later, tucked away at the end of a corridor, but the enemies cam be easily outmaneuvered or made to come at you one at a time, even the 4 cacos, or the first baron sawed while he's fighting the bots. One can find rockets but no launcher. It's a mix of various themes, techbase textures and nearby clay bricks. The rest is boring corridor shooting and switch hunting, spending a lot of shells on barons and these red demons that take 2 ssgs to die. These last 2 maps took me a lot of time.


13 -

a short, fun map, nice to see that one after the slog before it, despite the clashing medieval stone theme with red rails. Some ruins near the techbase, hence the name. You get the rocket launcher early, which makes it fun to blast through groups of low to mid tier baddies (I laughed at the group of 1 imp and 4-5 zombuies with their back turned at me). The red key secret gives a substantial boost so one can tank through the rest of the map, even more as there's also a megasphere in the archvile cellar. 3 keys to get for the exit.


14 –

the start can only be described as annoying with zombies behind low walls, plays better with autoaim. There are various rooms looking like server racks and control panels, with the usual colorful cacophony of strain textures, unfortunately populated by lots of barons eating my shells like popcorn and leading to door & corner camping. The mini-cyber is a neat idea, although he dies quickly and doesn't stand out much. Interesting how it took 4 authors to produce a weak map, or was that because it had 4 authors?


15 -

simple if you go only for the normal exit, a bit more for the rest. No wonder many complained about the funny nukage that hurts only in places, at least blowing up barrels here makes it less of a silly maze.
A lot of boxy tech rooms later, I liked that molten door frame, the big warning stripe elevator however is giving me a headache. In the end you run into 3 baron-like things: knight, baron, and that demonlord shooting 5 baron balls, a bit much of this type imo.


31 -

berserk power x2, I guess that led to the pinkie having more health. Anyway, tearing your way through them like this is awesome. Too bad the map itself is made of boxy rooms and monotextured, ribbed corridors... jon landis can be easily guessed. Sigh. Why was it so hard to make a decent map for ripping at tearing with twice the power? Also, the plasma gun: making it more powerful is fun, however, it looks like a toy. Didn't have thetime and patience to find the super-secret exit (pretty scientifically hidden, from what i'm reading here).

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP16 was okay. I actually liked the pistol start. It was tough, but not cruel like 11's. The only truly threatening enemy you face before the ammo supply eases up is a single baron. Everything else can be dealt with (early chaingunners) or ignored (demons). The 2 easy secrets I found in the opening minutes being fairly obvious helped too. If I had been playing continuously, I probably would have laid into this map for how boxy parts of it are, but the pistol start kept me busy and having fun. An SSG would have been welcome!

FDA: http://www.mediafire.com/download/e8mk4mklcy1ld8j/strain_map16.lmp

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP17: Promenade

I found this map interesting right up 'til the point where it turned into a long wooden corridor full of traps that aren't traps because the very layout of that section announces their presence, like a bad stage magician who isn't quite so far gone into the realms of deliberate and showy incompetence that it comes out the other side of 'bad' and into 'entertaining anyway.' Up to that point you've got some well-designed outdoor arenas and other open playing fields to enjoy. The transition from the end of this level into the start of the next - "Huh? I'm back where I started?" - is an interesting twist, but the meat of the level I had to chew through to get there felt more like a chore than anything else. I also wasn't crazy about the big arena battle at the north end of the big corridor just before the red key bar; it feels as though it lacks the scale to be the big infighting-heavy brawl it yearns to be, and the inclusion of so many hitscanners feels like the map author doesn't want there to be a "smart play" option to get through that section mostly unscathed.

[4shockblast]

Map 17: Kills: 100%, Items: 96%, Secrets: 33%, final time: 18:23 (2 deaths) (with rerecords, failed FDA)

I have faint memory of this map, specifically the damaging floor section in the long hallway. It almost feels like I played it myself, even though I never played Strain. None of the map is particularly great or that fun, but it's at least tolerable until the long hallway of traps comes in. In that section, I'm forced into a lot of hiding because I am given little room to maneuver around enemies; as an example, the hell nobles trap wasn't really challenging or engaging as it was easily cheesed with corner camping from below the nobles and not really playable aggressively with the arsenal and health I had. The entire hallway is also visually very bland, and even the various traps that open up are not interesting to look at. The damaging floor section killed me on first playthrough, and at that point I had to go do something else and I didn't feel motivated to restart the map, so I ended up taking the failed FDA and finishing the map with rerecords. At least on second playthrough the damaging floor section was alright, and it seems like with good planning, it can probably be done with minimal health loss, so I guess it's not unfair (still annoying for a section like that to be this late in the map). Courtyard area at least managed to be a nice chaotic ending to the map (resulted in one more death), but overall the map was not interesting both in terms of gameplay and visuals, and I didn't enjoy it much.

FDA here. Includes original failed attempt and the two rerecords.

[Capellan]

Map18
This map starts in the same place as the last level, but delivers a subsequent journey that I found much more enjoyable. It's still full of STRAINisms of course: a colourful and often odd combination of textures for a start, as we veer from Hexen to high tech in the blink of an eye. Also some less than obvious level progression: the teleport on the "steps" that ultimately lets you get the yellow key being the most obvious moment of "wtf?".

Author David Rotramel isn't satisfied with just the usual STRAIN oddities though: he also adds in a very inconsistent approach to secrets. I found at least 2 things I would consider to be secrets, neither of which were marked as such, though he does have some other places on the map marked as sector type 9. Odd.

Ultimately this is a pretty linear map – the order in which you do things is mostly inflexible, though it does have some optional excursions – with mostly low key gameplay. The most damage I took at any one time was from the demon ambush which opens access to the red key, and I don't think I ever dropped below 100/200 in the whole map. I did quite like the look and feel of parts of the level though. It may be eclectic but it's also visually interesting.

The polydrone makes an appearance here. It's a flying chaingunner basically, with the wrinkle that its corpse is on fire and can burn you if you stand too close (done by giving the corpse object a melee attack I imagine). I'm not thrilled with it. First because I'm not keen on another hitscan monster being added to the menagerie – Valiant's arachnorbs seem like a much better option – and second because it is the fifth "new" monster which is visually just a retouched sprite (plus the strain imp and BFG trooper, which aren't retouched at all but at least have some reason not to be, since part of their threat comes from the fact they look like lesser monsters).

[Sui Generis]

vdgg said:

...
Demonlord. The toughest Strain monster is good, by itself. What I dislike is
- now we have THREE baron-like creatures with different colors. Barons of hell should be nonexistent.

Heh, perhaps the barons should've been made fast like the super imps.

MAP32 - "Super-Secret” by Holger Nathrath and Anthony Czerwonka
Very simple arena type level. I didn't find the encounters very interesting. The Lords of hell did cause me some grief with their sprays of fast moving projectiles. I found myself backing off and rocketing them to combat them safely. The NFG was freely available after the last level and came in handy against the close-quarter hell knights.

I really don't have any strong feelings about this map. It's a simple map, with the novelty of strain resources, but it's in the super secret slot. *shrug*

(I can see this being a different story from pistol start though)

MAP16 - "Living Quarters” by Charlie Patterson and Eric Roberts
I'm paying more attention to every new non-tech map. Somehow this map didn't make a very strong impression on me when I played it through continuously and I was a bit so-so about it. I didn't mind this map with it's unusual start, but it seemed a bit so what. The morass of imps near the beginning perhaps didn't make the impression on me it was supposed to. Being a continuous player I chose to mow down the starting room cross-fire imps straight away, which likely wasn't the author's intent.

I decided to replay the map from fist start and I think it was significantly better. The cross-fire is easy to avoid given that the chaingunners face the wrong way, but the low ammo situation mandates a bit of scraping around and the bland corridor-ish building in the north-west full of red demons followed by baron is a potential ammo (and time) sink if you don't use barrels to assist or leave any for later. Happily after this the berserk is provided and ammo becomes plentiful. From this point on I found the map to be reasonably fast-flowing, with the level folding neatly back on itself at the canal and it was quite fun.

I would criticise and praise the mass imp crushers however, as though they are a briefly amusing (and endearing) diversion they can significantly slow down play, especially if on the second one imps start to wander under in dribs and drabs, causing slow crusher motion. Also the whole winding, dark cavern is a bit unnecessarily cramped. I found all four secrets on this map, but for some reason I missed 2 monsters on both play throughs.

Pretty decent level all being said.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP18 Relay Station

this starting area will likely be seen a few times, but it doesn't hold much interest apart from neat design. as for this map, it's again, pretty basic techbase with new textures around. there's one weird blinking hallway which I thought was cool. most notable, however, is the new enemy, a cube that replaces and acts like the spiderdemon except it can float and its corpse can burn you if you step on it. it's really my personal favorite of the monster replacements. again, a bit uninteresting for a map, especially with the backtracking, but it feels like a normal STRAIN map.

on the other hand, one thing that confused me would have to be that one wall near where the blue key was. misaligned and lit up better? yes, but hard to just pick out. the fact that it has the yellow key behind it and is necessary for the blue key is even worse. Even dumber is in the yellow key chamber itself, to get the key, there's a specific stair step that teleports onto an elevated block of nukage, which for some reason is not damaging unlike the nukage below it. from that block you get the key. the more I thought about it, the worse this map became.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/11428678 = part 2 of my playthrough, covering maps 16-30. (UV, continuous)

3.5 out of 5 from total STRAIN gets from me, a wacky experience with the odd frustration but mostly good fun. Reminded me a bit of Icarus- Alien Vanguard at times, a bit of Scypek2/obake at other times, and at other times I saw some weird 90's level design choices!

Nice to see the megawad end on a somewhat easy IoS fight, which is the best type of IoS fight.
I think I broke 'Reactor' with compat settings or something, since it was meant to have spawns but it didn't for me, thus making the map easier.
Liked the visual design and details throughout STRAIN, and the custom enemies were neat....although they did go a bit Demon Lord spam ALL THE BARONS crazy near the end to some extent, which wasn't always appreciated.

Fun fun fun overall, and now onto doing my long list of requests!

EDIT: First time I've seen a custom enemy be able to damage you after death, with the Holocube damaging you if you walk over its fiery corpse. Wouldn't mind knowing how that was achieved....

[purist]

31

I wasn't in the mood for this level at all. Doom isn't running well on my laptop anymore meaning it will sometimes hang when the music loops or other times not load up at all. It was particularly annoying this evening especially as I only had a short time to blast through a few levels. So, a puzzle map comprised of dull corridors complete with speedbumps was not what I was looking for. It isn't actually the worst offender of its type progression isn't too badly hidden and it's a small enough map that you can beat it through trial and error if you wish. Challenge from the monsters though is none existent playing continuously though. I only ever took damage when I was unlucky enough to get snagged on them damn supports. When I hit the exit switch and saw it was taking me to MAP16 I was actually relived, which is not a good sign!

16

There was something quitessentially old school about this one that makes clash