Blood Axe
Fortress is a single map replacement for Doom II, authored by
S3rialKill3r. While it makes no note of it in the text file,
this map is actually intended for use in ZDoom/GZDoom. But
enough about that, let's get to the review.
Difficulty: 5
Most of what you'll face are weaker monsters in tight quarters,
while you've got the SSG. There are a couple of segments where a
horde of barons or revenants (along with the archvile thrown in
for good measure), but most of that can be either avoided by
shutting a blazing fast door behind you or spraying and praying
through a "portal." It's not really a portal, but I'm guessing
it's supposed to be. It's a 2-sided linedef you walk through. I
dunno.
I did have some issues with the "portal" room, but that's about
it. Dat vanguard archvile.
Design: 5
I didn't really have any strong feelings one way or the other
with this one. The detailing is alright, I guess, but for the
most part, it just felt empty. I didn't have much indication on
what exactly I was doing shutting down a blue reactor or
activating a red auxiliary reactor. It was just key gathering,
with a script or two put in there for... Actually, I'm not sure
what the point of that was. I can't really penalize the map for
that, though.
I did enjoy the skybox used for the map. The change in
pixelation between the map itself and the skybox did bug me a
little bit, but I guess that can't really be helped unless you
use high resolution textures.
That being said, the fights were arranged alright.
Playability: 7
While playable, this map does have a minor issue to deal with.
In the room where you just got past the "portal," you can find a
teleporter that goes to a secret room. But, sadly, I was unable
to find a way out of the room without noclipping out of it. That
might be something for S3rialKill3r to look at while he
continues development on this project.
Also, MAP02 crashes GZDoom. Not sure if this was an attempt at a
Terry wad or not, but... I dunno.
Overall (Not An Average): 6
While it's a decent map, I didn't particularly find Blood Axe
Fortress to be all that memorable. Might be worth checking out
if you've got some time to kill. I do hope this project does
become something larger, so my best regards to the author.
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