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
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