ENG: The year is 1996. At id Software they were already thinking of Doom as part of the past. The advent of Quake was imminent, which would have as its main feature the use of real 3D, unlike what was previously shown in Doom which used two-dimensional sprites for certain objects and monsters, among other gimmicks.

Quake sold very well. It was a success without a doubt and its legacy is undeniable. However, for many people, the great FPS of 1996 is nothing more than.... A shooter more like Doom than Quake? Did people not see the future and preferred to stick with what they already knew?

Let me explain. While it is true that Quake revolutionized the genre with its advanced technology for the time, the reality is that for many people the final taste was bittersweet. The terrifying Lovecraftian aesthetics, the music made by Trent Reznor himself that accompanied that feeling, and the predominant use of brown and gray colors, were not to everyone's liking.

Duke Nukem 3D, released a few months earlier by 3D Realms, was nothing of the sort.

With the engine created by Ken Silverman, Build Engine, Duke Nukem 3D was not just another Doom clone. It was the next step. Our protagonist, Duke, was a 100% stereotype of the Hollywood action movies of the 80s. And now we had a character that spoke and reacted to the environment, an environment that now provided believable places with details that the id Tech engine would only dare to dream of. In short, this game stood out for its interactivity with the world around it. It was a game that felt alive. And that was something that neither Doom nor Quake were.

With all that said, it seems that I hate Doom and Quake and Duke Nukem 3D seems to me the Holy Grail of Video Games. Nothing could be further from the truth, id Software games have their own merits that I already mentioned in my reviews of them, and Duke Nukem 3D is not perfect, as much as I would like it to be. The second episode has no place on earth, something that made this game special and by the end it's wearing a bit thin at best.

Despite that, Hail to the King, baby!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHnPUgHaltw&ab_channel=RedDragonPalace

ESP: El año es 1996. En id Software pensaban ya en Doom como parte del pasado. El advenimiento de Quake era inminente, este tendría como característica principal el uso de 3D real, a diferencia de lo mostrado anteriormente en Doom el cual usaba sprites bidimensionales para ciertos objetos y monstruos, entre otras artimañas.

Quake vendió muy bien. Fue un éxito sin duda alguna y su legado es innegable. Sin embargo, para mucha gente, el gran FPS de 1996 no es más que... ¿Duke Nukem 3D? ¿Un shooter más parecido a Doom que a Quake? ¿Acaso la gente no veía el futuro y prefería quedarse con lo ya conocido?

Déjenme explicarles. Si bien es verdad que Quake revolucionó el género con su avanzada tecnología para la época, la realidad es que para mucha gente el sabor final fue agridulce. La estética lovecraftiana tan terrorífica, la música hecha por el mismísimo Trent Reznor que acompañaba esa sensación, y el predominante uso de los colores marrones y grises, no fueron del gusto de todos.

Duke Nukem 3D, lanzado unos pocos meses antes por 3D Realms, no era nada de eso.

Con el motor creado por Ken Silverman, Build Engine, Duke Nukem 3D no era un clon más del Doom. Era el siguiente paso. Nuestro protagonista, Duke, era un estereotipo al 100% de las películas de acción hollywoodenses de los 80s. Y es que ahora teníamos a un personaje que hablaba y reaccionaba al entorno, entorno que ahora propiciaba lugares creíbles con detalles que el motor id Tech solo se atrevería soñar. En definitiva, este juego se destacaba por su interactividad para con el mundo que lo rodeaba. Era un juego que se sentía vivo. Y eso era algo que no eran ni Doom ni Quake.

Con todo lo dicho, parece que detesto a Doom y a Quake y Duke Nukem 3D me parece el Santo Grial de los Videojuegos. Nada más lejos de la realidad, los juegos de id Software tienen sus propios méritos que ya mencioné en mis reseñas de los mismos, y Duke Nukem 3D no es perfecto, por mucho que me gustaría que lo fuera. El segundo episodio no tiene lugar en la tierra, cosa que hacía especial a este juego y al final se va desgastando un poco a lo mejor.

Pero que mierda digo, yo voy a seguir con Duke, caretas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHnPUgHaltw&ab_channel=RedDragonPalace

A decent game from a studio that has put out stinker after stinker. Even so, with this probably being the game of theirs that has the best moments in it, it also has some of the worst. Of course the themes of the game are handled badly! David Cage is barely even human. He doesn't understand what makes a good story good. And of course Kara's entire plot is just an excuse to have his favorite "pretty woman in peril" trope. I've seen it all before.

What I did not expect was the genuinely awesome buddy cop between Android and Human. Connor and Hank are great, and their scenes together feel the most believable and human of any of them. And from what I understand, that is almost all attributed to Clancy Brown and Bryan Dechart's improvisation during filming these scenes. And apparently they had to fight tooth and nail to keep those little moments in the game because of David Cage who did not understand why they would do such improvisation. Ridiculous french man tries to self sabotage his own game.

It's one of those games that you play it, you have a good time, and then the next day you start to think about it and it all falls apart. If the game was all Connor and Hank? Possible 10/10. But with the Madison Paige 2.0 bot having one of the worst story moments I've ever seen, and Jesus bot Marcus as the leader of the robot civil rights movement, Detroit disappears SO FAR up David Cage's ass and miles away from anything that was initially likeable about it.

That Star Wars game is gonna SUUUUUUUCK.

I had a really good time running through Sigil. These are the style of Doom levels I like with an emphasis on environmental puzzle solving and navigation, rather than strictly monster closets and ambushes.

Romero's brand of Doom feels less cheap and more interesting than levels designed by the other members of the original team and that personality comes through here.
This expansion focuses on switches you have to shoot to change the level, which works really well! There is engaging gameplay in searching for the switch you need to progress as well as in preparing yourself and a plan of escape for the level change and possible assault you will face when you shoot it. I am definitely not good enough at Doom to just blast through these in one try, but the trial and error and learning of the level was satisfying for my play style (failure and save-scumming).
Some things Romero loves to put in don't work quite so well for me. These levels have quite a few narrow walkways and ledges to navigate, which doesn't really feel hard or satisfying, just tedious.

Playing Doom is, of course, kinetic and even with the lack of a wider monster roster in this original game, feels great. The relatively low number of enemies lets the game focus on putting you in interesting situations and having interesting level exploration. Romero is obviously more interested in the level design levers he can pull here -- he only uses a couple of Cyberdemons and Spiderdemons in the whole set. It isn't about killing more and bigger demons, it is about finding your way through these spaces and exploring them completely. Approaching Doom level design in this way lets these levels feel unique and meaningful in a way that I find many levels in even Doom II don't achieve.

If you like Doom, Sigil is a cool set of expansion levels made by the man himself. Play it!

AD is a testament to the skill and passion of the quake mapping community (❤️) but it's also a monument to excess.
2+ hours , 250+ enemies, and 25+ secrets per level is just too much. no map concept can survive that kind of overexposure.
for my money (lol) something like the snack pack or the 100 brush maps are better examples of quake level design: short and sweet and not as concerned with spectacle or polish.
AD is super worth playing, if for no other reason than because it's an important cultural object, but i do not enjoy it.

I’m only beginning with this exploration of fan-made Doom wads, and i finally sat down with the widely acclaimed Alien Vendetta, considered by many as “the most influential wad ever”

The first 10 levels were a very exciting experience, and i guess those are the only maps of this wad i see myself replaying in the future. As for the rest of the wad, i have to say i felt disapointed, and even completely unpleased at times.

I don’t have enough background to understand properly in which manner this wad has been so influential for the Doom community. All i can see is that this Wad had a thing for extreme difficulty, which could go in two directions:

1. Difficulty in terms of exploration, which means that certain maps are just so complex they’ll keep you going round and round trying to find the missing switch or key, ending up being a pretty dull, tedious and frustrating. The typical examples are Map 11, and Map 20, the famous egyptian-themed “Misri Halek”. Both of them took me a bit more than an hour each to finish. In the case of Map 11, i think that difficulty is mostly due to a really bad design, but in the case of Misri Halek, it’s definitely a desired effect, since no human on earth can ever dare say that Misri Halek is a badly designed map. It’s just that it’s artistic ambition ends up going against gameplay. And i wanted to play Doom, not f***ing Hexen.

2. Difficulty in terms of combat, which is pretty well represented by this wad’s obsession in throwing in some slaughtery moments in probably most of it’s maps. This is not really a problem by itself, since a very specific slaughtery moment at a certain point of a map could be a very exciting challenge, one that enhaces the overall quality of the map. The real problem here is the actual slaughter maps, from Map25 onwards. And also Map32, which is also a slaughter map but since it was the first one that i played, i had enough patience to deal with it. From Map 25 onwards i just lost my will, and i just turned on the cheats in order to get through the next level, just to find out that it was another slaughter map. I just don’t understand that style of maps, and what’s so fun about them. Pretty sure it wasn’t the first one, but i’ve read somewhere that AV is actually the one that popularised slaughter maps. If so, i guess that part of AV’s influence isn’t really a positive thing. Anyway, my information could be completely wrong, and of course my dislike for slaughter maps is just me.

In conclusion, the first third of the WAD is definitely the most fun and consistent. Second third starts to get a bit tiring, despite some memorable moments like map 20 (which still has a pretty questionable gameplay). The final third is also a combination of forgettable maps, with the infamous slaughter maps which are absolute garbage if you ask me.

Favourite maps: 04. Seclusion/ 08. Beast Island/ 09. Castle Gardens/ 10. Toxic Touch /23. Blood Sacrifice/ 31. Killer Colours

Worst maps: 11. Nemesis/ 25. Demonic Hordes/ 26. Dark Dome / 27. Stench Of Evil / 29. Fire Walk With Me / 30. Point Dreadful

And of course Misri Halek deserves a honorable mention, probably one of the most memorable maps ever done.

If Dusk is colorful Quake, then why someone decided to bring us brown Dusk?

Jokes aside, Few games can approach minimalism the way HROT does. Simplicity is the basis of almost everything here: No strange mechanics, weapons that everyone are familiar about, level design that is open but without being too complex or large. The colour palette is as minimalistic as it gets. And the story? Minimalistic is too much to describe it: There’s no story at all. Not even a minimum backstory to serve as a an excuse for the action, which is what usually happens in this kind of games. Here, no story at all. Just pure action and atmosphere.

Aesthetics are a very important thing for me when it comes to videogames. At times, they might even do the trick for me even when the gameplay is not that great (which is not the case of HROT, whose gameplay is excellent). That’s why i like to play games done in GZDoom: Even if the mechanics are always the same, sometimes i just want to see some nice things and hear some nice sounds and all of that. My first impression with HROT, wasn’t a very positive one. It’s not that i straight out disliked it’s aesthetic, actually i found it very attractive: Sepia is essentially the colour of everything that’s old, the colour of the memories, and therefore, it was a very sensitive choice considering this game was supposed to be inspired by the nostalgia of 80’s communist Czechoslovakia. HROT is supposed to look like an old photograph, and i find that even poetic (specially for a boomer shooter). But on the other hand, a part of me was seeing a brown Dusk, suspecting that this whole minimalism would end up becoming pure monotony. Thankfully, i was completely wrong actually. I don’t think i have the exact words to express how or what made the aesthetic not only sustain and keep me hooked but also how it managed to surprise me at many times. I guess it must be mostly due to the subtle changes in themes and general mood throughout the episodes.

So i played the first episode expecting some kind of spooky or even depressing mood, but truth is, i felt none of that. I would even describe the first episode as a comfy gaming experience, meaning of course i enjoyed it pretty much. Until Episode 2 for sure, which is where the heavier horror elements start playing a role, just like in Dusk’s Episode 2, because even if Dusk is entirely built around horror tropes, is in the second episode when you deal with something more akin to the typical survival horror experience. And then the Episode 3 is the one featuring the most surrealistic and absurdist elements, just like in Dusk’s episode 3. Also, despite having some dank humour all around the game, i think this third episode is the one featuring the funniest and most bizarre ones.

Weapons are pretty damn good, they are actually pretty similar to the ones from Dusk. And there’s even a crossbow, which i forgot to use during enormous chunks of the game, just like it happened to me when i played Dusk. There’s something very interesting about weapons here, and it’s their sound. Weapons in HROT don’t sound as explosive as they usually do in this genre. The sound design applied specifically to the weapons is another thing that could be described as minimalistic. Most of them are even pretty quiet. But defying expectations, they are incredibly satisfying. I think it is quite an achievement to design weapons and making them super fun to use without being all over the top, which is something that has become quite of a norm in this genre.

In conclusion, i loved this game. I wish there were more games like Dusk. I-i mean like HROT.

Pros:
- For the most part, this was an excelent Wad.
- I really dig the epísodic structure. That was actually one of the reasons why i liked the first Scythe so much. Scythe II goes further on the idea, dividing the wad into more episodes but with fewer levels. It works great in my opinion, and as far as i’m concerned, this has proven to be influential in some other modern wads. This is probably the most positive influence that Scythe and Scythe II had left in the Doom community.
- The later maps, aesthetically, are probably some of the coolest depictions of hell in any Doom wad.

Cons:
- From map 22 onwards, the wad is almost exclusively composed of slaughter maps. I dislike slaughter maps intensely, therefore, the wad is completely useless from this point onwards for me. Anyway, i felt like IDDQD-ing my way through these levels, just to confirm that i cannot understand why on earth this kind of maps exist. Even less, why are they so popular within the Classic Doom community. Of course, i was aware that this wad was going to feature some of these maps, but still, i hate the trend that this WAD (alongside Alien Vendetta) imposed for the following years of filling the last third with pure slaughter maps.
- Nazis are a pretty bad inclusion, honestly. Excesively overpowered. I have to recognize, anyway, that the concept of map 15 is still well executed, and could probably be cited as an early precursor of Survival Horror-inspired Wads. Those flying Barons are probably terribly hard to kill too.
- Map 14 is a complete abomination. Excluding the Slaughter maps, this is not just the worst map here, but also one of the worst Doom maps i’ve played in recent times.
- I kinda dislike this wad’s obsession with mancubi at times.
 
It's a bit sad how the last third kinda watered down my whole consideration for this wad. Even more: Everytime i go through a couple of slaughter maps i end up feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed, to the point of not playing another Doom wad for months.

From what I understand you fuck a bunch of penguins and from there they go to the doom scale, yeah the doom scale. They jump in the doom scale, yeah the doom scale, and then appear on the doom scale, yeah the doom scale. So you gotta stop the penguins by using a weapon, for example: a key right? NOOO the doom scale, yeah the doom scale. Baseball bat, how do you get the bat? You gotta get the bat. (Heheh-heheh!) You gotta collect letters that spell the word BAAAAAAAA. Where do you find the letters? Inside THE DOOM SCALE.

[PSP Version] To think it all started here. The series has definitely come a long way. I can't say I connected with the story or the characters because they weren't really all that deep, and I never really expected them to be. But it was neat enough coming back to see how it all began, even if I played a later version of the game. And all the new dungeons and things that were added into the PSP version were all pretty bad in my opinion. As in overly difficult and not fun.

Anyway, it was a decent enough start. I look forward to moving on to better and more interesting games in the series. Hope the next one isn't considered to be one of the worst, or anything!

God, I love Nuts & Milk. I can't get enough Nuts & Milk!

I even showed my friends my Nuts & Milk and now my friends love Nuts & Milk so much too that they can't stop either! Then they invited me over to their house and showed me their own Nuts & Milk! It was a blast!

I'm obsessed. Whenever I'm away from Nuts & Milk I'm thinking about Nuts & Milk. Hell I'd taste Nuts & Milk if I could. Yes, I love Nuts & Milk THAT much!