by Xaser » Tue Apr 02, 2013 11:10 pm
Hmm, I had a go at this, and I have to say that the gameplay isn't really there. The trouble isn't the fact that it's wave-based, but that the waves themselves pose no real threat and are often-times filled with large groups of single monsters, meaning no interesting enemy dynamics exist. That and several of the monsters chosen appear to be poor fits for the arena itself, leading to a lot of cases where the opposition is either too sparse (vulgars underground) or too thick (cacodemons at the stairway). It seemed as if things were going to pick up by the start of the valley segment (with the first appearance of the suicide bombers), but the fight ended up being a one-trick pony, spawning bombers in front of the player repeatedly with nothing else coming from the sides. I felt as if I could have just stood still and held the fire button and still get through well over half the fights.
The most troublesome areas are the large places that spawn suicide zombies and demons in a group (e.g. the pagoda fight). There's not really any synergy with this combination, since the demons are no threat at all in such a large space and the bombers are easily picked off at a distance partially because of their relative lack of speed but also because there were no other threatening monsters to distract the player. I've got fond memories of trying to dodge Werebulls in Sam only to have a rogue bomber sneak up behind me -- now that's good enemy placement. Hell, even a pack of nothing but Werebulls worked just fine because those guys are really dangerous by themselves in big open spaces. The same can't be said for most monster types used here -- it's just mindless cannon fodder, especially considering how easy it is to dodge everything.
It may be worth playing through some monster-heavy mapsets like Deus Vult (2) or Combat Shock 2 to get an idea of how to effectively use hordes of enemies in Doom, if that's the intended approach. The closest to the mark thus far, I think, was the use of Fallen in the dreamworld arena. Though that particular arena dragged on too long, IMO, the Fallen themselves proved to be a nice creature in such a setting since they produce a lot of fireballs for the player to dodge. I'd actually say that replacing all instances of Cacodemons with Fallen would be a good step in the right direction, since it makes things less meatshield-y (which caused things like the stairway fight to drag on for ages) and more dodge-y. Though not an end-all solution to everything, of course, it's a start.
Regarding the visuals, it's pretty but not my cup of tea (personal preference mostly; I'm a pixel addict). I do think the lack of lighting contrast is very pronounced in some areas, though, particularly the valley segment after the caves. The Pagoda surroundings are lit completely uniformly, for instance, which takes away from the hill-y look that's intended. The maps are also highly linear and the swamp dragged on for too long (mostly because i'm not a fan of the speed decrease), but the former at least is fine so long as the battles themselves are tightened up.
(well it´s a intel hd 3000 )
