DOOMATHON entry #6/20
List: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Mariofan717/list/doom--quake-campaigns-ranked/

As Noah Caldwell-Gervais pointed out in his Quake video that got me in the mood to start this marathon in the first place, I'm probably one of very few people who had ever experienced these missions packs prior to the release of Nightdive's remaster. Between the two, my memory of Scourge of Armagon was notably more vivid after six years, and that's because it's an excellently paced set of levels that almost surpasses the base game with delightfully out-there theming that's accompanied by a far less restrained soundtrack that thankfully makes no efforts to emulate Trent Reznor's bone-chilling contributions.

The first episode is more or less Quake 2's aesthetic executed within Quake 1's level structure, even introducing a weapon that's basically a more enjoyable version of what would end up as the Hyperblaster. It's everything you could ask for from a classic FPS expansion - at least until it starts overstaying its welcome a bit and introducing a bizarre new enemy type that will inevitably instakill you before you can even see it at least a couple times.

Adding on to my earlier Quake 2 comments, the titular Armagon even bears a striking resemblance to its Strogg amalgamations, and the final boss fight with him is a pure combat trial much like in those games. Given the relatively small gap between the two entries, I'm not sure if these are even coincidences, but given how fast id was pumping out games at this moment in time, I'd imagine that they were. For anyone who didn't know these levels existed, they're including in the remaster along with all other official content and I'd highly recommend them.

Cross-posted on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mariofan717/status/1748127455016284319

Episode 1
3,5/10 - Length
10/10 - Price
5,0/10 - Performance/Bugs
4,0/10 - Gameplay
2,5/10 - Story/Experience

Score = 5,3/10

The Scourgeof Armagon starts of strongly with an action packed, military themed episode ala Quake II. Personally I loved this and I hoped it kept this feeling throughout; But unfortunately it doesn't. This mission pack is also significantly harder than Is this a positive or negative? That's up to you.

That being said, The Black Cathedral has to be one of my all time favourite Quake levels, and the secret level, on the edge of Oblivion, was an absolute blast to play and gave me Doom vibes.

The new enemies are somewhat interesting, if unnecessary. The best has to be the scorpion, which is woefully underused compared to the other two; the enemy mines give out cheap deaths aplenty, and the new "imp" enemy feast upon fallen foes and rarely does much else; I really have to wonder what the point of it really is. The new weapons are far more interesting, I love, love the new laser gun, and so did others apparently as they added it to the Quake 1.5 mod.

Ultimately I would recommend this pack to any Quake fan, as it's definitely worth your time.

Scourge of Armagon is a must. Definitely. I mean, a lot has been said about how Quake’s fantastic gameplay was kinda degraded by it’s flawed level design (you can read my review on Quake, where i basically agreed on that idea). This mission pack, released a year later, is a more than succesful attempt at redeeming those flaws.

There are many things to say here. First of all: Aesthetically, they decided to bring some thematic cohesiveness throughout the episodes. That’s why the first one is essentially a tech base episode, and the second a medieval one, while the third is pretty much a mix of both. Secondly, i think they administrated vanilla textures in such a masterful way that they basically destroyed the “Quake is too brown” meme.

They also incorporated some very interesting evironment interaction, with certain exploding walls, demolishing structures and such. I also like the vertical design some of these levels have, especially those where you have to go from a higher point to a lower one, somehow resembling a slow descent to hell, which is somehow a very proper metaphor.

In terms of gameplay, some people seem to claim that a few levels get too cerebral or complicated at some point. While this might be true, i have to say that, in my case, i never really got lost wandering around in circles trying to find an exit after killing 100% of the enemies. That actually happened to me many times in the original Quake, instead. It’s a very overwhelming and exhausting feeling, and is one of the reasons i didn’t like many of the original Quake maps.

Probably some of those complex moments are mostly found in the third episode, which is in many ways the weakest (with the exception of HIP3M1 and HIP3M) but despite that, these levels just flow very organically, and with very little backtracking, just the perfect amount of it.
The balance is just great. You’ll have a lot of deadly encounters and traps filled with enemies in a Plutonia way. Yet, you can rest asure that the game will never get skimpy about giving you enough resources to face those encounters.

You’ll also find new weapons and enemies. The new laser canon was a very interesting addition, i couldn’t really say the same about the other two weapon additions. As for the enemies, i understand that the function of the Centroid is esentially having a chaingunner (should i say nailgunner?) added to the cast, but it’s design (a large scorpion) just seems way too unrelated to the both the grunts and the lovecraftian creatures. The gremlins are ok, not really a problem. Spike mines can be a real bitch at times. And then Armagon, i think it was nice having a final boss you can actually fight, but that Q2-Cyborg design also felt pretty unrelated to the rest of the lore.

All in all, i see myself replaying this one even more than Quake’s original game.

Favourite Maps: HIP1M3 (The Lost Mine) /HIP3M1 (Tur Torment)

Worst Maps: Althought the third episode seems to me like the one with the weakest maps, i wouldn’t call them bad really.

I've always really liked the original Quake but never played any of the expansions or sequels. NCG's latest video essay got me really curious about these, so I thought I'd start checking them out (I will probably not be playing Quake 3 or Quake 4, though).

This is the very first Quake expansion, developed by the now-defunct Hipnotic Interactive (later known as Ritual Entertainment), probably best known for their 1998 shooter SiN. I thought this was a pretty decent set of levels that put a lot more effort into telling a coherent linear narrative than the Quake base game did. This really lacks the atmosphere and pervasive feeling of dread that base game really excelled at, in part because Trent Reznor did not do the music or sound design in this.

I really don't care about any of the new weapons or enemies. The proximity mine gun is of pretty limited usefulness, and I frequently forgot I even had Mjolnir. The laser gun is pretty good, though, I like doing ricochet shots. I also don't really care much for the new enemies. The gremlins in particular really stand out in stark contrast to id's original enemy design, they just look and move so much shittier than anything else in the game, and their ability to steal your weapons and multiply just doesn't really add anything interesting to the gameplay.

Curious to check out the other expansions, as well as Quake II. I'll probably be playing this sporadically over the next few months.

Este dlc hace trata de hacer exactamente lo mismo que Quake, pero le acaba quedando todo peor.

El diseño de niveles no está al nivel del juego base. Si bien destacaba en el anterior que me gustaba que, pese a ser laberíntico no te perdías en ningún momento, aquí justo lo contrario. Esa desorientación y peligros ambiéntales como lava o rocas que te matan de repente hacen que sea menos disfrutable.

Las armas y lo enemigos nuevos no aportan absolutamente nada interesante, y el cambio en la banda sonora lo vuelve algo mas genérico.

Me ha aburrido bastante y no creo ni que continúe con el resto de dlcs

Wow, this was quite the mixed bag. Episode 1 was excellent, and far exceeded the base games levels IMO. The new weapons and enemies were a ton of fun and the Duke 3d like level design of Ep1 combined with Quake's gameplay goes together like peanut butter and jelly.

However, Episode 2 is a slog. Filled with dickish and unavoidable traps. Like those fucking floating mines that will usually one shot you and often SPAWN BEHIND YOU. It's bullshit. They're not challenging in any way, it's just a tedious bore quick saving over and over again until you memorize where they spawn.

Thankfully, ep3 evens out a bit more. And while the final boss is a bit of a pushover (just like Doom 1's bosses), it's nice to even have a true final boss fight unlike the vanilla games final "boss" which is more of a weird combat puzzle than a straight-on fight.

Over all, Scourge of Armagon is a unique experience. Quite different than the vanilla game. If you love the vanilla Quake experience for exactly what it is, you'll probably hate SoA for how different its design approach is. I, however, felt it was quite refreshing when it wasn't being dickish with its traps.

At the end of the day, SoA has much higher highs than the OG Quake eps, but also much lower lows (which is exactly what I said about Vanilla Quake when compared to Doom's, now that I think about it lol.)

Aviso: Dessa vez eu decidi parar para baixar o Quakespasm para rodar o Quake original.

Como eu falei na minha review de Quake, eu acho ele um jogo que tem inúmeros problemas que me tiram do sério, mas curiosamente elogiei o level design de Quake, e bem, depois de jogar essa expansão minha opinião sobre o jogo base só começou a ficar mais negativa quanto mais eu parava para refletir sobre Quake. Mas antes logicamente eu cobrirei essa expansão aqui, e como ela é.... Éééé... Competente, isso eu digo.

Primeiro quero falar das adições dessa DLC, primeiro as três armas novas, o Laser Cannon, o Grenade Launcher que ativa quando o inimigo estiver próximo, e por fim o martelo do Thor (que me fez pensar o quão mais aturável os inimigos seriam se o protagonista fosse o Thor da Marvel), no papel elas são interessantes, especialmente esse último, mas no geral essas duas últimas armas são meio inutilizasas por assim dizer, o Laser Cannon é basicamente o Super Nailgun que ricocheteia na parede (provavelmente) e é provavelmente o melhor dos três apesar de ser bem básico, o Grenade Launcher alternativo ainda não supera o Rocket Launcher, e a Mjolnir acerta vários inimigos ao mesmo tempo, mas gasta muitas células de energia, que são meio escassos do episódio 2 em diante. Que tal os inimigos? Três novos, os Centroids (não confundir com Metroid), os Gremlins e as Spike Mines, os dois primeiros são adições interessantes, mas o Centroid é tão pouco utilizado durante toda a expansão que não vale muito a pena comentar sobre ele, enquanto os Gremlins, podem comer cadáveres de inimigos para criarem clones e roubar sua arma equipada, mas no geral muito raramente isso realmente se torna algo muito grande, nunca aproveitando totalmente seu potencial, enquanto os Spike Mines, apesar de raros, são inimigos irritantes e colocados nos piores lugares possíveis, as vezes aparecem até do meio do nada e te matam, mas é aquilo, estou falando de Quake, um jogo que já cometia inúmeros crimes de level design que só pioram cada vez mais e mais a cada episódio. E falando em level design, a coisa mais importante de qualquer boomer shooter... É ok, as vezes é bom, as vezes é ruim, eu acho que as fases são as vezes meio longas, mas isso o jogo base já cometia de crime, meu episódio favorito é o primeiro, é as vezes desafiador mas não no nível de tu querer matar um level designer na base da espingarda, as vezes pode ser injusto tipo armadilhas que te matam insta, mas não é excessivo igual nos dois episódios seguintes que as vezes vem a merda de uma Spike Mine e te mata insta (quem diria né), mas mesmo nos episódios seguintes não é muito que nem no jogo base (E NÃO, EU NÃO ESTOU FALANDO SÓ DO EPISÓDIO 4 DO JOGO BASE!!!), eu curto como o jogo encoraja mais uma gameplay rápida mesmo, e algumas fases eu até curto bastante tipo o HIP1M3 (HIP de Hipnotic, devs dessa expansão que foram torturados para trabalharem em shovelware lixo de celular), e falando nessa fase, algo que aprecio nessa expansão é como eles tentam expandir mais o escopo da engine de Quake, adicionando a possibilidade de mais inimigos na tela de uma vez só, por melhor ou pior que seja, e ainda tem interatividade no cenário tipo explosões e pedras caindo, até no final tem uma semi-cutscene que é provavelmente o meu highlight pessoal do Scourge of Armagon, e falando em Armagon, o chefe final é um chefe de verdade e não seja lá o que for Chthon ou Shub-N-Wordurath eram, mesmo que ele ainda seja fácil (único perigo são as bombas que causam um dano colossal). O único assunto que tenho ainda para falar é a trilha sonora... Ela é ok, a do Nine Inch Nails era melhor, aqui é um metal mais tradicional mesmo e nada da atmosfera sinistra do jogo base (a melhor coisa), mas ainda tem seus momentos.

Enfim, continuando o que eu estava falando antes, depois de jogar Scourge of Armagon, eu comecei a perceber mais problemas de level design e comecei a ter uma opinião mais negativa ainda sobre o jogo do que eu já tinha antes, o fato de que o jogo base abusava de inimigos tipo Fiends e Spawns que geralmente sempre eram botados em locais tipo perto de lava, combinado com um arsenal muito fraco que causa nada de dano, eu me impressiono como o pessoal acha Quake o melhor jogo de FPS, quando pra mim a única coisa que pra mim realmente salva de eu achar um lixo são coisas que ou outros jogos depois começaram a fazer ou Nine Inch Nails, e fiquei surpreso com Scourge of Armagon, que apesar de ter alguns dos problemas que Quake já tinha, ainda achei até que legal, melhor que o jogo base? Com certeza, não muito melhor, mas ainda é melhor.

6/10, talvez eu até diminua mais ainda a nota de Quake para 5/10, eu peguei pesado demais com Star Wars Dark Forces.

A solid expansion. I loved the first episode which was on a miltary base and felt very much like Quake 2 but after that it goes back to the gothic design of the base game. I found the levels to be a bit more interesting overall. The weapons are fun too like the laser rifle and freaking Thor's hammer! The OST also was a lot better and had some really good tracks I was bobbing my head too. Overall, a solid campaign.

All DLC I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-dlcs-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

There's some cool architecture combined with generally better theming between episodes (episode 1 is mostly military focused, episode 2 goes to weird medieval fantasy castles, episode 3 is more rustic like the original game is), but otherwise Scourge of Armagon thoroughly misunderstands Quake's flow by assuming that more enemies equals a fair challenge. Too many buttons and keys tend to activate things on complete opposite ends of the map when the original game did a far better job of looping the player back around to where they needed to go. The two new weapons feel pointless with a proximity mine launcher in a game whose AI is too primitive to even bother planning ahead for and a laser rifle that just ends up being a nailgun that can accidentally kill you in tight corridors. The music is also just obnoxious, replacing the creepy ambience of the Trent Reznor songs with generic rock that becomes grating and repetitive fast. Really not worth bothering with.

(Played via the 2021 remaster from Nightdive)