Thursday, January 31, 2019

700 reviews

700 reviews sure sneaks up on a person. Gosh, that's a long time and a lot of words to be writing about a twenty-five year old computer game. To mark the occasion, I decided to post my review of Kama Sutra a little earlier than it would normally have been and further stepped up the timetable in the running by posting each one a day earlier than usual (e.g. two instead of three for single maps).

In review:

  • I finished my road to 2002: A Doom Odyssey!
  • I also took the next step on the road to Plutonia 2 with the review of Kama Sutra. The next phase will come a bit quicker and examine Erik Alm's works.
  • I've filled out a few of the things that I've been embarrassed to not have played: The Back to Hell E1 demo, Castle of the Hengs, and - though it hasn't been posted yet - Titan 2.
  • I actually covered a couple of mods! One of them - Samsara - used to be incredibly popular. The other is the Doom II Minor Spritefixing Project and it's more ubiquitous at this point in time.
  • I finished backfilling all of my old screenshots. I still half-heartedly think about a dedicated hosting option that isn't my DropBox account but that's a pretty scary odyssey for me.
  • Still doing review tune-ups working backward from the most recent but this is a very minor concern.
  • All of the relevant portions of Malcolm Sailor's single-player back catalogue have been reviewed though the playable bits of MSSCRAPS have not yet been posted. I'm not done with MSSCRAPS yet but I haven't figured out how I want to address the other incomplete bits.

You may or may not have noticed but I received some comments that the laser-focus precision of my Malcolm Sailor reviews were lacking in variety. I've attempted to address this by organizing my goals into a loose rotation. What this roughly looks like:


  • Doom mods, tending toward popular stuff and Cacoward mentions first
  • Community projects, beginning with the Mayhem series and then moving elsewhere
  • Speedmapping sessions, currently looking at Abyssal but I want to go back to those early 2000s Doomworld events as well
  • The Road to Plutonia 2, currently with a focus on Erik Alm's back catalogue
  • Stuff that I'm embarrassed to not have played yet, generally because I either specifically pestered someone about it or made a delinquent promise
  • The 2017 Cacowards
  • One aspect of the Road to the original Community Chest, that being Kaiser's back catalogue but beginning with Doom 64 because it is both an embarrassment to not have tackled it (I said I would do it before writing up Doom II ages ago) and also because it has plainly had an influence on Kaiser as well as others
  • Early '94-'95 material that is more suited toward antiquarians
  • Doomworld's Top 10 PWADs from 2002
  • Chris Lutz's back catalogue in another angle toward finishing off the 2017 Cacowards

Additionally I've been playing a lot of small and / or single-map releases, the connective tissue that keeps a steady stream of reviews when I'm agonizing over troubleshooting or writer's block. This has its own rotation and looks something like this:


  • Community-cherished selections from 1994-1995, which in this case was me working through Richard R. Ward's stuff
  • The run-up to the original Community Chest, currently working on Alex Parsons
  • Classic deep dive a la Malcolm Sailor, soon to be John Bye and then Mark Klem
  • Contemporary deep dive, currently looking at Memfis but probably taking a break at some point to let another author shine because there are 42 selections that I haven't played up through 2014
  • Going to be working stuff from Karthik Abhiram and Espi in here soon, too.

Lastly, I present to you the request list from last year with all of the completed and posted stuff removed. I'm not going to dissuade you from making any more, unless you are BDL, because seriously. Just don't expect them any time soon.

2017-2019, for posterity

SUGGESTIONS

Plutonia 2
Dark 7 / Dark 7 Mission Pack
Ultimate Simplicity
Massmouth / Massmouth 2 / Massmouthmas
Scythe / Scythe 2 / Scythe X
Dolphin's Dream
City of the Damned: Apocalypse
Virus: Episode One
Super Sonic Doom
Oniria 1 / Oniria 2
Happy Time Circus 1 / Happy Time Circus 2
Dark Hell
Hellcore 2.0
Claustrophobia: The Walls Close In
Junko
Grime
Elysion
Disturbia
Cheogsh / Cheogsh 2 / Realm of Cheogsh
NeoDoom
Alien Flower (RDC Freakmapping #5)
Paranoid
Sinful Discharge (Heretic)
Gulag (Heretic)
Curse of D'Sparil (Heretic)
Plutinya 1024
The Crypts
Town of Witchcraft (Heretic Treasure Chest)
Cassie Steele
The Experiment
Balls
One Bloody Night
e6y3
hellrun.WAD (Doom / Doom II)
Istanbul
Nordhell
Phoebe
RRWARD01 / RRWARD02 / RRWARD03 / RRWARD04
Scimitar
SJS1: Streets of Fear
Triad Experimental Corporation
Community Chest / Community Chest 2
Vrack 1 / Vrack 2 / Vrack 3
The Abyss
Marswar
World of DETH
Nerves of Steel
Impure Offering
1 Monster
Action Doom / Action Doom 2
Deus Vult II
Hellcore
Armadosia: The Mad Corridor
Hellfire / Hellfire: Reborn / Hellfire: Dreams
5 Years
Jade Earth
Sacrifice in Blood
The Corrupt Priest
Doom: A Megawad in Two Weeks
Infested Outpost
Temple of the Lizard Men 4


COMEDY OPTIONS

Doomguy's pimp ventures II: The More,The Merrier.
pol.wad
School Doom II
21ratmaz
AOL Girls Museum
Duke Nukem Level Conversion
ZBlood
Otakon
Doom Center
Dawn of Reality
The Ghoul's Forest 3
The Mystery of the Marie Celeste
Calgon, Take me away!
RTC-3057
Nimrod: Project Doom
Phocas Island 2
Pinochetstein GL
Doom 3: Mr. Smiley's Head Safari


PROMISES

Wonderful Doom
Claustrophobia 1024
Titan 2
Titan 1024


IT CAME FROM THE COMMENTS SECTION

Claustrophobia 1024 2: The Mystery of Too Many Maps
Bloodworks
Mitnal
The Hub
cwave.wad
The Ultimate Torment and Torture
Stronghold: On the Edge of Chaos
ZPack: Random Maps for ZDoom
Knee Deep in ZDoom
Community Chest 3
Classic Episode 2: Singularity Complex
Flashback Demo 1 / Flashback Demo 2
Urania


TUMBLR TRAVAILS

Reign of the Spider Gods
Demons of Problematique / Demons of Problematique 2
Whispers of Satan


DELAYED-SION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
(is no longer being maintained)

14 comments:

  1. I'd really like to see you review Avactor.wad (by Eradrop) wich also had a 2018 cacoward.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would not expect to see this until I am done with the 2017 Cacowards.

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  2. Really impressive how many of these you've cranked out so far, given how in-depth each article is. I know it's a long way off, but I'm looking forward to a time when you can cover all the projects I've cranked out over the years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It may be a bit sooner than you think. Look for reviews of your single-level releases first, though.

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    2. You'll want the latest version of Derceto then, if you haven't gotten it already. Renovated it with new textures and music.

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    3. I assume that it is the one available on your blog that downloads as an unzipped .WAD?

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  3. KMX, I just wanna thank you for the awesome service you are doing for the Doom community. So many megawads and individual maps by amazing authors that I would never have discovered without this blog.

    700 reviews is something to be really proud of and I look forward to the next 100!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Replies
    1. What I have already played and reviewed is the original Doom 64 campaign through Doom64 EX. Nerds who follow this blog may be curious to see that I've also done a separate write-up for Doom64 EX. I will probably get to comparing it and Doom 64: Absolution whenever I round out Doomworld's Top 10 WADs of 2003 but Absolution itself is a long way away.

      Delete
  5. Which "Hell's Arena" is ready to post?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HELLARNA / 2001 / Simon Broadhead aka "Volte-Face"

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  6. Why wouldn't you post the following reviews?

    High/Low 5
    Stomper
    Urban Brawl: Dead of Winter
    Miasma
    Blade of Agony E1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. because I haven't played any of these yet. they appear on the rolls of the 2013 / 2016 cacowards tables because I built them to reflect the entirety of the selections. when they were disseminated throughout the included articles I did so without regard as to whether or not I had completely covered every topic.

      A better question would be "Why have you not yet played them?" If you've been following along with my Chris Hansen retrospective then you might intuit that I'm going through his works in chronological order. In Dead of Winter's case, I would want to play through both Action Doom and Urban Brawl before its expanded content.

      The simplest explanation is that I'm not beholden to play through Doom WADs with any sort of order or priority. I have an internal list that I'm following to guarantee a healthy variety of authors while satisfying a broad variety of readers insofar as what topics that I'm covering.

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