The DWmegawad Club plays: STRAIN

[gaspe]

MAP07 - En Route

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

A short spaceship map. Visually is really good, and there's a really nice usage of the texture. Layout is pretty symmetric, but both of the key locked sections have something different to offer. Gameplay encourages a more slow and cautious approach due to all the hitscanners and the low ammo we have at the start. Pretty good, but the best of Adelusion in this wad comes later.

[Pirx]

i was going to post my impressions on the first 5 maps of strain yesterday, but then, after trying map06, i decided it's better to go to bed :p

tbh, i don't remember many of strain's maps clearly, but then i instantly recognized a lot of places while replaying it now.

since everyone has already seen the new enemies: i'm not a fan of most changes in strain, because imo the defaults look and work better.

the fast imp: its speed is offset by the fact that it freezes in its throw animation.

the demon is a meelee monster who can't meelee and mostly acts as an obstacle, so giving him more hitpoints only makes him more of an obstacle.

making the lost soul work like a mini-cacodemon is better, especially its sounds (something like a rattlesnake or xenomorph). but then why must it look like a clown?

however, i like the double fists. the animation looks awkward, but they stun lesser enemies, and with berserk it's rip and tear. also the slightly faster pistol and shotgun.

pistol start, uv, gzdoom with mouselook


1 - barracks

simple starter map, base style, only zombies and imps. i replayed it only to go straight for the berserk pack and tear through them.


2 - outskirts

a dark blue sky and flat buildings made of brown bricks and 2-3 red brick guard houses in between, where monsters lurk in the dark and look pretty cool with glowing eyes. i would have liked a rocket launcher at this point. the roads between the brick buildings are connected by a series of bridges. it took me some time to find the switches which activate them because they're hidden in some niches and there's little variety in the brown structures, except for the water part. the soulsphere at the exit trolled me, i exited without grabbing it. btw, i set the music volume loud because of the bobby prince music mix.


something funny happened:




3 - downtown

strain's version of d2m12, flat brown buildings again. ok, quake was the big thing back then, and this map is has its shades of brown. and imps, the regular and the speedy variant. shotgunners and low health are more dangerous. there are secrets with lots of stimpacks. overall rather confusing.

with smooth doom it's apparent that the fast imps are arachnotrons, so i had to take it down from the config:




4 - industrial zone

far more texture variety than before, the strain texture set put to good use: a dark brick wall (or rather grimy concrete blocks), black & yellow warning stripes create a believable decayed industrial environment. the map is compact and interconnected. there are some of these clown souls, and the marine chaingunner is introduced. he seemed less aggressive than the original gunner, but perhaps it's only my impression. i expected the ambush at the exit and had the chaingun ready, but luckily the fast imp is less dangerous than one thinks when seeing him move. by far the best map yet. i would have preferred a more industrial music.


5 - depot

a depot without crates, very plain architecture. a starting room where you can let the imps come at you one by one and punch them to death. one-time secrets with red armor and soulsphere if the stupid zombies don't block the way.not really eventful until the end, so it's better to save ammo for this.


6 - launch control

didn't finish yesterday, being fed up with bumpy corridors (it's this up and down of the view port that irritates players, probably more pronounced if you use mouse control), as if monotextured corridors alone weren't enough, and imps of both varieties. tried again today. progression is unintuitive, i don't feel like bothering with this map again.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP07: En Route
7:10 | 100% everything

So first things first: A year or two back I posted in the "Find a Specific WAD" thread looking for a map that took place on a spaceship where you start by a Hexen-style portal, there are areas of the ship to the left and right of the start area, and you can see the other sections of the ship through the windows across the gulf of space. Only now do I have my answer! Hooray! I originally played this back in my Doomsday days (10 years ago, maybe?) and something about the progression broke Doomsday so I had to cheat to make it further.

Anyway, the map made an obvious impression me. Visually, it looks very cool. I love the overwrought detailing. Gameplay-wise, it's short and sweet. I actually died twice without saving. The first was while being surrounded by demons and holobots. The second time was past the blue key door where I got perforated by chaingunners below my line of sight. The layout is actually pretty bland, and the action is limited to basically clearing a single room at a time 4-5 times over, but I still like this one.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP07: En Route

A pretty little spaceship map that serves as a nice breather between corridor-crawler MAP06 and... well, whatever might be coming up next. It's interesting that we've ended up with the enclosed environment of a spaceship feeling less cramped and claustrophobic than the facility it's launched from. I'm generally not a fan of putting large numbers of hitscanners below the player's eye level like this because it feels like an attempt to enhance their threat mostly by manipulating a UI quirk - the sense that I'm fighting the UI elements as much as the monsters takes me out of the game quite sharply.

[Capellan]

Map08
When I played this map in the late 90s I hated it. On this playthrough though, I find that there's stuff to like. At least up until you get the red key, where it seems like the author's imagination ran out.

The start of the level is quite visually striking (not pretty, but evocative) and I see in DB2 that it has a nasty little surprise on UV. Once you leave that area you enter a region with lots of use of height and of windows from one structure to another. I like this part as you start under pressure but gradually seize control of the zone and eventually have the chance to stroll along the parapet once held by the enemy.

But then you get the red key and things are not so good. The compblue maze is not too bad at first, thanks to windows giving crossfires. But the bland architecture and repetitive encounters begin to be a bit tedious after a while. This compounds if you are foolish enough to venture north after you have the blue key – beyond the two blue doors is a more maze with the added "thrill" of unmarked teleport lines. And, it should be noted, no rewards worth justifying the excursion.

The yellow key wing is also pretty dry stuff, though mercifully short. Unfortunately you need the yellow key so you can enter the most boring part of the map: the House of Deaf Super-Imps. Pop round corner, SSG super-imp. Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat and repeat. At least once it is done you only have the crusher room and the self-cleaning chaingun marines to deal with.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP07 is where, when I first tried STRAIN about 2 weeks ago, I took my first death. It's probably the best map in the set since 4, with good progression ammo and monster-wise, nice visuals, and a fun sequence break I managed to pull off in my demo to take the edge off the holobot battle. I forgot to deal with the exit issues, so the demo ends with me standing outside the doorway with the bars down. Considering I pistol start every map, I think it's close enough.

One thing I don't like is how trying to grab the gear at the start teleports you into a damaging sector. Putting the items on a raised platform would be a better idea. I don't know how I got the megasphere either, besides running really fast and going back there a second time to try for it.

After this, all my demos will be FDAs only, or will include 2 demos, the FDA where I die, and another where I live. This one is not an FDA.

taken with glboom+ and the strain wad and deh separate: http://www.mediafire.com/download/1laz891uwsqj4dr/strain_map07.lmp

EDIT: I wanted to respond to organgrinder's comment about the hitscanners. Yes, there are a lot of them. Using a lighter UI can help. Check the HUD settings in your favorite source port. Prboom+ and zdoom-based ports have tons of options.

I came to Doom a little later than some people (custom wads only last year) so I don't use the classic status bar. You miss doomguy's face, but at least you can see what's killing you from below. In 07's case, freelook isn't a big advantage. It's all about the interface, or lack of it.

[gaspe]

MAP08 - Hangar

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

Pretty good level. The landing places with the control towers, the hangar and the buildings that resemble somekind of reception structures make a really good setting that fits very well with previous spaceship level and the story. Clearing the first areas will also reward you with many ammo. I agree with Cappellan on the bluecomp maze. Along with imp-house is the weakest part of the map. I don't know but im pretty sure I have seen something very similar to the eye decorations put on the outside of the imp-house.
Maybe you didn't noticed but it's introduced, very stealthy, another enemy: the BFG zombieman. It's like the classic zombieman but it shoots BFG blasts.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP08: Hangar

Aha! a big map that I can actually enjoy, and a music track that complements it quite well. a very sprawling base-type map here. there are a ton of hitscanners though, so some slow careful watch on where they are can prevent some nasty damage accumulation. the big hangar to the north might prove troublesome, but if you are smart you can get one of the former humans to use the lift to reach the other side instead of finding the switch (which although isn't hard to find, stumped me the first time I played). Not to mention, the switch inside that weird trapezoidal courtyard past the lift lowers a lift to the extreme side! These two switches made me hate the level when I first tried it.

but I found the rest of the level to fare rather well. That mazey area to the left is gonna hurt some people, with some tricky linedef traps and monsters warping everywhere. that one secret with the light visor isn't gonna help in the maze, interestingly enough, since the walls inside are all black. I liked blowing up the barrels in the blue key room (you can do so at the bottom of the lift, to save a lot of trouble. It is very rough to get 100% kills in this area though, due to the specific closet openers. The yellow key room, plus the library section behind the yellow door, were okay. The crusher room was alright too, if you can avoid what triggers the crusher and find the hard-to-get invulnerability secret, it's effortless. As is the exit room. Overall, a pretty good level, possibly the longest one in all of STRAIN. I take the longest time getting through this one, but it's a good map for me. Although the demons are starting to piss me off by surviving full head-on SSG blasts, me switching to chainsaw seems to work out for the better.

[mouldy]

MAP07 - "En Route” by Anthony Czerwonka

This map has an interesting look to it with the new textures. The drop down into the robo-revenant pit (or whatever those things are) was fun, I think that would have served as a better introduction to those monsters. Some stuff I didn't like: the stupid bait-and-switch goodies on display that teleports you away instead (and gives you damage?), and the lack of health early on that left me pretty crippled and dying from hitscanners invisible behind various midtextures. The view out of the windows revealed what I thought was a weird sparkling cave, but I think that was meant to be a star-field, which looks a bit poor if so. The progression had moments of confusion, but thats par for the course by now.

[Suitepee]

NOVA 2 is vanquished. Expect STRAIN livestreams soon...

[vdgg]

Jon Landis, I recently played eob1.wad (to be found on DSDA or KMX E XII's site), which is a good compilation of his early (even '94) levels. Great looking for '94 and highly innovative on the plus side, very unintuitive on the minus side. Plenty of instant death traps like "if you choose the path to the left, you go further, to the right, you're crushed".

Also, music author, MAP14 from strain has his best music tune IMO. At first I thought it was Tolwyn's... This means it's good.

Now, onto his maps.

MAP05. Notable for the one-time secret and the final chaotic fight. This repopulating of the building was very annoying for me during speedruns, I found out silent pacifist (not shooting in certain areas) prevents any monster teleportings. Sergeants outside are not dangerous when you have 200% health, 300% armor.

MAP06. I anticipated hatred towards this map. I hadn't liked it first, but it kept growing on me. I even dedicated a thread on a very clever megasphere secret:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/68700-jon-landis-magic/

(BTW, megasphere gives you only 200% armor, not 300%)

The soulsphere is not broken, gaspe, watch Heretic's demo at DSDA.

The map is essentially more modern !pipe!, but much more mature... No instant death traps. Monotonous, but has some strange feel to it. Not the best map from the set, but I like it now.

[4shockblast]

Map 07: Kills: 7%, Items: 0%, Secrets: 0%, final time: 2:24 (0 deaths)

Kills: 98%, Items: 57%, Secrets: 50%, final time: 5:05 (0 deaths) (no glide)

Cool map, short and more action-oriented as a nice break from the previous map. First FDA I eventually saw the exit bars looked like a 32-unit glide and decided I'd finish the map that way with a painfully slow glide (sorry I don't usually play in a standard resolution :P). My second "FDA" actually completes the map (the first time I didn't go beyond the first two rooms. Some cool-looking areas, decent, although easy, gameplay, so it doesn't take long even normally. Also cool to see another megawad with no tag 666 on map 7.

Another trick I did in the non-glide FDA was a linedef skip at the megasphere to get it earlier, made everything even easier. Speedrunner instincts are strong, heh.

FDAs here.

[Demon of the Well]

Here I am again, straining to keep up early in the month as usual (no, please, don't get up). Let's try to make some progress....

Map 03 -- Downtown - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Hmm, I rather liked this one. It's certainly not pinup calendar material by any stretch of the imagination, but it plays pretty well, especially considering it's unabashedly built after a fashion that we tend to lazily use as shorthand for 'mediocre map' these days, e.g. lots and lots of corridors connecting tiny little box-rooms with very limited height variation at play. Despite what the map's name may initially suggest, the actual resemblance to 'The Factory' that others have remarked upon is quite pronounced, to the point that some of similarities are presumably intentional winks/nods as opposed to mere coincidences. That being said, the map is distinctly Helmbergian in aspect, as those who've played his other maps can surely attest; as essentially a loose collection of discrete, self-contained boxes stuffed to the gills with features, it bears more than a passing resemblance to 'Karmacoma' from the original Memento Mori (for example), though of course on a significantly smaller spatial scale, which makes all the difference in how playing through it feels.

Despite the generally tight, claustrophobic character of the many hallways and rooms comprising the different buildings in this decidedly sleazy, dismal 'downtown' neighborhood (STRAIN's depiction of future Earth is certainly rather dystopian, heh), it fields a relatively hefty monstercount of 165--monsters appear in clots and gangs, stuffed into rooms and crammed into corridors every way you turn, to the point where they sometimes seem to be literally seeping out of the woodwork, and given the generally constricted surroundings there is very little room for tactical variation in terms of how you handle most of them. The twist is that not a single one of them has more HP than an imp, which of course changes the feel of the action quite a bit--if they were pinkies or nobles or other mid-tier enemies the above would certainly be a recipe for quite the slog, but since the opposition is comprised entirely of weaklings you can usually tear through them like a buzzsaw through ricepaper, racking up sizeable killstreaks in a matter of mere seconds in some areas. While there's very little depth or challenge to this kind of combat, there is something inherently, viscerally satisfying about killing so many enemies so quickly, so decisively, and so consistently over the course of the level. I feel like it hits a sweetspot with its trash monster deployment, just persistently piling them on in such small spaces that it borders on endearing absurdity in a few spots, ala the hilarious pointblank shootout against the sardine-packed nest of miscreants guarding the yellow key; in a sense Helmberger successfully uses spectacle (of a sort) to compensate for a lack of real variety. This being the case, of course, that the map is fairly short is probably in its favor, so its relative lack of combat variety doesn't have time to overstay its welcome.

I would be remiss not to mention the debut of the special 'strain' of imps, of course. Of the WAD's various monster/balance changes, I find these odd fellows to be some of the most palatable, as they naturally fit in very well aesthetically with the stock stuff (if anything they probably could've used a subtle recolor or something like that) and have a very reasonable, balanced blend of attributes. They are essentially smaller arachnatrons in that once they begin attacking they stop and fire a continuous stream of projectiles until you can break line of sight for more than an instant, but their physical differences make them more of a general-purpose monster than the 'trons in some ways--the low HP (same as a standard imp near as I can tell), small hitbox, and faster ground speed makes them easier to use en masse and in tighter confines, trickier to keep track of in close quarters (if you flinch them with a bullet or a partial shotgun blast or the like they tend to zip around to weird angles before attacking again) and of course they still serve decently well as perched artillery. I actually rather like the way they're introduced here, two packs of them converge on you through the alleys and hose you down with fireballs if you hang around plinking around at the first gangs of zombiemen.

Anyway, pretty enjoyable map, I thought, its satisfying bloodiness and little touches like the secret red key/soulsphere bonus quest carry it comfortably despite its simplicity and uncharismatic appearance.

Map 04 -- Industrial Zone - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Here's an Adam Windsor period piece, with all of the trappings one might expect from that description--diminutively scaled yet highly functional compact layout (with a vaguely representational slant), a welter of traditionally signposted smallscale secrets, 'monster salad' enemy placement that uses a wide variety of singly-placed foes to cover every part/plane of a room, etc. Hell, there's even the characteristic complementary chainsaw.

This level's opening moments benefit in a significant way from STRAIN's ammo-bankrupt player start state. The shotgun is a scant few feet away from you when you begin, but it's also smack in the middle of a room controlled by enemies placed both high and low, and not having the traditional 50 starter bullets to take some of them out behooves you to make a dashing grab into the the thick of things to claim the boomstick, sets a tone where you have to keep moving to avoid being smacked around from multiple angles, which in turn wakes up a steady drip-feed of opposition to naturally draw you from skirmish to skirmish. Again, the enemies are generally all lightweights (although pinkies reassert themselves as temporary meatshields here) and so there's a pacey sense of romping through the action early on, although things wind down to a more straightforward crawl pretty quickly once it's time to start plumbing the depths of the nukage-processing system. Outside of the first few moments ammo and other supplies are non-issues, so the back end of the map is something you can more or less sleepwalk through, offering a palatable if unremarkable serving of 90s-pitch incidental combat. I did rather like the dick move at the exit, though, and the stock of bullets conspicuously dished up right beforehand is a nice subtle bit of tactical instruction on how best to deal with that situation for those perceptive enough to take note (and take note we should, trust me that this is not going to be the only time this exact same thing happens in STRAIN).

The level is also notable for debuting the chaingun zombie and the 'doppelganger', or lost soul replacement. The chaingunner is simply a reskin, apart from his new duds he's functionally identical to the classic former human commando (incidentally, this is also pretty close to what the player character actually looks like in STRAIN, as opposed to the classic green-armored/less burly Doomguy model). I think he looks okay, I kind of like the helmet. The doppelganger, by contrast, is essentially functionally a flying imp that does the lost soul dash attack after launching a single, slow-windup fireball. I can't say I feel like this monster adds much of value to game--its half/half offensive isn't a very interesting or effective attack combo unless you're totally cornered, and it's also rather tacky-looking (simply a very gaudy, high-contrast/high-saturation recolor) to boot. The last straw is the unbelievably goofy chipmunk-chattering it does while attacking, though, don't get me started on that. Sadly, from what I remember this guy is more characteristic of STRAIN's enemy modifications than the generally tasteful super-imp, IMO, but I guess we'll have to see what everyone thinks about that generalization as we move forward.

Another small thing I wanted to mention about the map, if you'll indulge me in trotting out a popular game design theory buzzword for moment: I feel like the map perhaps has a bit of an issue with what they call 'conveyance', or the framing of aspects in the game world in such a way that the player can intuit their functions just by looking at them. A lot of the progression here relies on interactions with the environment that modern players may find not to be telegraphed very well, e.g. the choice of lift textures in some places or the deceptively obvious way to access the red keycard; I remembered about the keycard, but I was stymied for 90 seconds or so looking for the lift that starts the blue key leg, and shit, I've played before! To tell true I don't feel like the map is really held back to any debilitating degree by this stuff--I mean, it's small enough that working out where to go through simple experimentation/backtracking alone is hardly a herculean task, and if you're too damned apathetic to try pressing spacebar a few times when you get stuck you probably belong in a different game--but it is a subtle quirk that dates the mapset a little bit, something that smacks of the 90s for me. This will probably not be the last time that players will need to make a bit of an adjustment for STRAIN's slightly muddled resource pack, but coming early in the game as it does, I do recall it as one of the more pronounced instances. Incidentally, while the practical architecture looks good enough and I kind of like the green-leaning color scheme, I would say that in terms of texture selection the level is a bit more cacophonous than it needs to be, especially in spots where the new stuff is juxtaposed with stock stuff (e.g. around the little buildings). This is also somewhat characteristic of the unique STRAIN 'look', independent of my feelings on the matter it'll be interesting to see what others make of it.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 05 -- Depot - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Now this is an odd one. Basically it's a couple of long, featureless corridors flanking a squat symmetrical building, with a barren yard between. From an aesthetic perspective about the best thing I can say for it is that it's thematically coherent (concrete and sand and rusty metal all around); it doesn't provide much to look at, and is perhaps little too functionally abstract to seem like it suits its name, although there is a hint of representationalism in the 'console-operated' latches sealing off the mostly featureless side corridors. Presumably what STRAINguy is doing here is rerouting power to boost the range on the piddly little depot's personnel matter transporter, but in game terms you just hit a switch in each of the two corridors and then more or less intuitively wander back into the depot (likely drawn by the new wave of enemies that appears there) where you hopefully notice the dinky little exit pad has been revealed.

If you come in with a stock of arms and ammo from previous levels, this map is probably not really worth talking about, just a case of walking forward through the drab surroundings while periodically holding down the trigger on your weapon. From a fisticuffs-start, though, it's rather a different story--on UV skill at least, there is literally NO ammo to be found in the map other than that dropped by former humans, and seeing as how the player starts with nothing but fists this naturally lends the action a strange item-based 'puzzle' aspect. The solution is basically to coax the zombies early on to let you into the soulsphere/megasphere 'secrets' (not that it takes much coaxing, they practically trip over themselves to hold the doors open for you), and then use these items to crassly tank through the rest of the crowds of stupidly milling undead refugees initially occupying the depot using kung-fu and hurtful language instead of bullets in order to build up a stock of ammo from their dropped clips, and then to use that stock to steadily work through the rest of the level's opposition, periodically restocking in dribs and drabs as more zombies are killed. The balance is still rather tight if you go for maxkills (and due to the way the level is laid out, it's kind of impractical not to go for maxkills), but there should be enough ammo to get the job done provided you don't miss your shots very often.

There's something decidedly 'oldschool' about the experimental gameplay here, even by the standards of STRAIN's own time--outside of its ammoless gimmick it has no real notable features or virtues. I certainly don't hate this map, but it's hard for me to really credibly talk it up much, either, I guess it probably falls into the 'more interesting than good' category by a country mile.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP07: Well, at least it's not a Dead Simple clone! I admit that I only realized it's theme at the very end, and thematically it was a very tight level (lots of good midtex use!). Gameplay is a bit of a dud though, with only the pinky (reddy?), Lost Soul, and Floating Eyebot room being the only interesting encounter—everything else was just killing hitscanners in open spaces, which isn't that fun for me. There wasn't a final battle on the map to speak of either, so it remains nothing more than a showy setpiece in my mind.

[vdgg]

MAP07. Wow. I say it is the best looking level of the entire set (one more Adel level will be close). Short, generous secrets, gives opportunity for berserk and chainsaw Tysoning. Funny how the YK appears. Weird exit setup relying on spechit overflows (?) A bit to simple gameplay, but OK.

MAP08. Long and good looking, but I don't enjoy playing it too much.

I never knew about the BFG zombieman. I thought it was introduced in MAP19. Shows limitations of Dehacked. Ideally, it should drop BFG's and look like it's holding one...

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP08: Hangar
38:24 | 99% Kills | 100% Items | 100% Secrets

Not much to say about this one. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty long, and not particularly memorable at that. The most memorably part (for me) was heading out from the second helipad and going for the blue key door, and... ambush, weird lift sequence, bizarre green room. Very unexpected and atmospheric. After that, the level gets kinda dull (I agree about the dumb imp-house) but the crusher house was at least fairly interesting. I was expecting a little more to the exit area, but nope, that was it. Didn't feel like going back to track down the single baddie I missed. Also, I didn't see any evidence of a BFG trooper; was that in this level?

[vdgg]

The end of the pitch-black maze, just before the teleporter out. Stand still and watch... In Doom Builder it is shown as "Spectre"

[vdgg]

Salt-Man Z said:

Two odd things that stuck out in MAP06: In the final room, why was the upper-inside texture of the southeastern teleporter in flames? Seemed like it was a signal for something, but I couldn't discover what.

This is the only teleporter that leads to a soulsphere and, in addition, the switch releases the holobots.

MAP09. A big warehouse. Recycled from an older WAD. Next, please.

[gaspe]

vdgg said:

The soulsphere is not broken, gaspe, watch Heretic's demo at DSDA.

I know it now, thanks to Salt-Man Z's previous comment I saw what I was missing.

And the BFG trooper you can recognize them as many times you will hear the BFG blast sound if they die while they start to shoot.

[4shockblast]

Map 08: Kills: 98%, Items: 90%, Secrets: 33%, final time: 23:19 (1 death)

Another exploration-based level, pretty good start, although it somewhat wanes toward the midsection. Visuals are fine all around, but gameplay-wise I found this most fun when I was under pressure from being surrounded by monsters early on, particularly from the sniper gameplay characteristic of city levels like this (my only death was at the start). The blue maze section was cool at first, but ended up getting somewhat tedious as it went on for too long (at least I got a megapshere out of it). The yellow key area likewise ended up being a lot easier and less interesting than I expected, and the library past the yellow door boiled down to a bunch of corridors. The crusher area was a bit of a surprise at first, but it was easy enough to deal with anyway, although the end room was a good return to the start gameplay with a surprise from the chaingunners and flying circle enemies (I should probably find out their name, heh). Ultimately, though, it was still an interesting map to explore and the gameplay was decent enough that I didn't get bored, so I still enjoyed the level.

FDA here.

[Capellan]

Map09
This is another map that has grown on me from its original impression. My only real complaints are the dark super-imp cages as they're a bit tiresome to clear out, and the lack of a blue key ambush ... that room feels like it would have been a great venue for some cacoswarm action, but it doesn't deliver it.

On the plus side though, the old flying tomato monsters finally make their debut in STRAIN, with the red key ambush being their main moment to shine. That's a fairly fun little fight. The map also make good and liberal use of the holo-bots.

I also like the map's colourful texturing and its liberal use of non-orthogonal lines. It's by no means perfect in the details – check out the ugly alignment issues with the aforementioned super-imp cages, for instance – but each area tends to have a distinctive theme and some notable landmark to make it memorable.

I think the yellow key should either have been cut from the level, or more monsters should be released into the "green pit" and "lift" chambers when you grab the blue. As it is you have to backtrack through a mostly empty level to go get it. But not a huge thing since the trip isn't long.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP08: Hangar
96% kills, 1/3 secrets

Oh, this is good, I'm starting facing a box in my face. Too hard to just turn the player start?

It's got a bit of that old school "author was just making it up as he goes along", especially the side areas. While the center has some obvious "hangar" design cues, the side areas - blue maze, weird green area housing the yellow key and wooden imp house - feel a bit random. Gameplay isn't bad for the most part, though it can get a bit grindy with the constant monster repopulation, especially those that take awhile to clear out (such as the rainbow lost soul brigrade in the northwest hangar or all the demon warp-ins on the landing pads). Speaking of which, while it hadn't really affected me before, this map made me dislike the modified demon health... it's basically enough that (usually) won't die to one SSG blast, and just barely survive, so that just means the player, if he wants to be efficient, needs to use one SSG blast then switch to the chaingun to finish them off. That doesn't really add anything fun to the gameplay, just makes killing them a chore. I suppose it makes the chainsaw a better alternative, but its not always a good spot to use it.

Anyways, I digress. The map isn't bad despite being somewhat schizophrenic in design, while the gameplay was a bit forgettable there were a couple cool moments (like the fake-out blue door in the southeast, or the crusher room) and the maze wasn't as bad as I feared.

[40oz]

MAP08: Hangar ughhh over 20 minutes spent in this stupid map. Very symmetrical, little armor, hitscan hell. You die a lot in the first couple minutes if you're not very careful. The revenant replacements are becoming a pain at this point. Haven't quite gotten comfortable at shaking those slow turning missiles.

MAP09: Cargo Bay Definitely remember this sweetie from Dystopia 3. One of the most attractive automap layouts I've seen in a long time. Gotta love those angles! This is the token STRAIN music I think about when I think of STRAIN too. Also pretty nice usage of the textures. When I was making the texture pack for Mutiny I tried to avoid looking at the textures in the wad to avoid copying directly off of it, and just tried to remake what I know from memory. As it turns out, STRAIN still has a lot of cool textures Mutiny could use :P :P :P

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/7016824 = part 1 of my playthrough, covering maps 01-15 plus both secret maps. (UV, continuous)

STRAIN is kind of unorthodox/weird, and reminds me a bit of Icarus: Alien Vanguard, but so far it's been fun enough to play.

The first 6 maps or so had some tricky progression, and one thing I noticed fast was that STRAIN sure likes to "troll" the player with armor/health/item pickups, yet at other times happily hands over a soulsphere there or a megasphere yonder. Otherwise the levels have been fun to play (bar the super dark guard nests in map 02 where I couldn't see the hitscan enemies), with creativity and fun abound!
The custom enemies have been fun so far (flying enemies that use slow Revenant attacks and arent annoying: heck yeah!), although I'm not impressed with the custom HUD whatsoever. The "plasma gun" replacement doesn't seem too impressive.
Music has been nice, and always nice to hear some Mark Klem tracks. Architecture and visual design has generally been top-notch, and parts of it reminded me of I:AV or the spacier maps of other wads I've played recently.
I couldn't figure out how to access the super secret map properly (getting to the Soulsphere area that seems key to it), so I noclipped progression but otherwise played the level out as normal.
The Ruins had a nice theme transition; reminded me of MTrop's Coffee Break map 10.

Hope the BFG is pretty sweet when I find it for next time....

[mouldy]

MAP08 - "Hangar” by Rich Johnston

Quite a sizeable adventure, has a nice mixture of areas. Nothing to complain about here, I had fun working my way through it. A little confusing at times, but most of the time I just stumbled on the right path anyway. The slow revbot missiles are funny, they allow for less cover and more dancing which is an interesting change.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP09: Cargo Bay

I know where this map is from! Yeah, if you've played Dystopia 3, then this map is very similar. Not that great of a map though. I hate the pits at the beginning. The big cargo bay is pretty cool though. There's a few backtracking moments, like after getting the blue key, and the big blue door leading west doesn't seem to offer anything substantial. after the right blue door, you have to press those terminals, so the yellow key shows up. The red key trap was okay at most. so really, this map was alright but not amazing. I remember it well, though.

[gaspe]

MAP09 - Cargo Bay

Kills: 100% | Items: 94% | Secrets: 100%

Basically Dystopia 3 - MAP04 with Strain's monsters. Visually is really nice, with another great texture work from Adelusion. Action is pretty good overall, with the RK fight that stands up as the most interesting battle of the map.

[Capellan]

Suitepee said:

I couldn't figure out how to access the super secret map properly (getting to the Soulsphere area that seems key to it)

Man, screw map31's method for getting to map32.

Spoiler

The map wants you to cross six unmarked walkover lines in a specific order. It would have been a 2 minute job to make the order not matter, but Landis was too lazy/incompetent/trollish (take your pick as to which applies).

Now admittedly they are repeatable lines so you can brute force the order by traversing the map via dozens of different routes until you get 'em all, but it's face-punchingly stupid, and I prefer my face unpunched.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

I mostly agree with what people have said about MAP08: it starts strong, and wanes as it goes on. I just consider the end a return to form after the awful blue and yellow key areas. I thought the chaingunner/holobot setup was pretty good. I died there in my FDA, then took a complete demo afterwards where I actually survived. Here's both in a zip file, labeled for your convenience. You all know how I record these by now: https://www.mediafire.com/?za6s1ko77jutq3n

40oz said:

MAP08: Hangar ughhh over 20 minutes spent in this stupid map. Very symmetrical, little armor, hitscan hell. You die a lot in the first couple minutes if you're not very careful. The revenant replacements are becoming a pain at this point. Haven't quite gotten comfortable at shaking those slow turning missiles.
...

If you want hitscanner hell play TNT. STRAIN is nothing compared to that. I just got done replaying it today and I'm never touching it again. Special FUCK YOU goes out to maps 08, 09, and 19. I don't understand what John Romero saw in it. The only maps I really liked were Dario Casali's. Plutonia here I come.