Alright Alter, time for a partial review since I have finally made it past the half-way point. I'm a mapper more than a player, so I'll start there.
ATM, I'm only a few attempts into the Outer City map, which is currently my favorite. I believe it was some shots of that map that caught my eye originally.
Now to sum up what I've seen with one word: AWESOME!!! The maps are sprawling designs of genius that really capture the mood and idea of Soulcrusher. It would seem that you've left almost no corner untouched. You've blended 3D floors with classic Doom flow and designs to make some mind bending routes. The use of dynamic lights really accent the whole thing which really helps draw you into the game. The texture use is excellent and really helps Soulcrusher stand apart from other mods out there. I have to say, I really feel like I'm running through mega-corp facilities. Now the Outer City map, which originally drew me to this project is easily my favorite design wise. Immediately on start I was convinced I was in a city. Street lights, city-scape skybox, brick buildings, and streets full of enemies, it was all there. I really liked the graffiti too, excellent touch!
The weapons are intriguing. Maybe I'm just a bit to used to being Gordon Freeman, but I found I was able to make it through most encounters with only the shotgun. The incendiary shells and the, I'm guessing since it caused awesome explosions, attached grenade launcher seemed to be just about all I needed. The alt-fire on the pistol did make it useful for taking down groups of low level enemies. I never really found a use for the actual grenade launcher. The plasma rifle, guessing again since I was usually too busy shooting to read corner text, was useful against cyborgs and the strange Terminator-esque things that would get back up. The alt-fire railgun was nice but the delay usually meant I missed and just wasted ammo. So, all in all I'm a bit torn on the weapons.
Before I start, I do realize that you aren't done with the enemies yet and this is only a beta. I liked the police, both variants, although they did seem a bit easy. I suppose those are your Zombieman/Shotgunguy equivalents. Jumping Pinkies...different, not bad, just different. Quick shotgun blast and I moved on. The Terminators were usually the bane of my existence. I can't tell you how many times I would take one down, go running by and then suddenly get shot in the back. But quite the opposite from bad, I like them. I like the fact that they get back up sometimes and other times you manage to blow their head clean off! Then there are the cyborgs, baron replacements? A serious challenge those are. They jump around and fire a blue spread that can be hard to dodge. Again though, shotgun takes care of them pretty quick. Then there are the reused Doom badies. The flying revenants???????? Flying revenants?????!!!! Yeah, I'm not quite sure what to say other than you've beefed them up and took them down. Just treat em like a revenant. Then the mancubus that fires rockets, plasma, and I think one more but I can't remember what. They're too slow in my opinion. It was too easy to just fire off a rocket and duck behind a corner while it retaliated then repeat. Then I met the fast aracnotrons(please forgive my misspellings - that doesn't look right to me
)....all I could think of was King Arthur yelling, "Run away!!!!!" But I couldn't because they can keep up. But they don't have a lot of health and a couple of quick pops with the shotgun did them in. Now I'm not quite sure but I thought I saw a Pain Elemental spawning some sort of Lost Soul replacement. The LS replacement I did meet and destroy, and it also exploded, so no doing that up close to it
. Then there were some strange mutant things I just popped and ran on through. And of course there was the white Doom Marine guys with sonic weapons. I know those have a name, I just don't remember what. Overall a good mix of enemies, some enhanced Doom enemies, others not. I look forward to the the finished lineup.
I've been through one boss battle, and a battle it was. Both the shotgun and the rifle got used extensively to take this guy down. The arena was perfect too. I really loved hitting one of the jump pads and launching myself across the room while shooting down at the guy. There wasn't a whole lot of cover unless you went up, but I do realize that you aimed to keep players moving through that.
Let's see, anything else? Yes, the shop system needs to be implemented more fully. Although I do have to ask, if you're a guy going on a rampage through some mega-corp's facilities, why would you stop to shop and better yet, why would anyone want to sell anything to you? It might be too late now, but I think I would have reorganized the game setup so that you basically returned to a home base kind of map between missions. There you could have a shop, or a whole market area since I remember you mentioned a resistance group in the story. And speaking of the story, I do have to recommend a bit of spell-check. I looked past it but it can really break immersion for some people. Also, I like the beserk stim idea that increases damage. Very Bioshock
I'm gonna give this 7 out of 10 seeing how this is still a beta. I think if you give your enemies a major overhaul altogether you will really have something here, Alter. Wait, you already do! This is really cool! Keep working on this!!!