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Temple of the
Marshes for Doom 2
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Summary |
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More Screenshots |
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Advanced engine needed : Boom
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Overview
As you can tell from the author's description, this is supposed to be an atmospheric map with "exploration" in mind. Unfortunately, the map never really followed through on the idea. You begin in a big open area where there is health and some ammo scattered here and there. As you approach the temple, the front entrance opens up for you and the game is afoot. There are some bad guys strewn here and there in the big open area outside the temple but nothing that isn't easily dispatched. Once you are in the temple there are two directions you can go - left or right (naturally). It appears that the author forgot, however, that using a port allows one to jump over small walls and that unfortunate miscalculation plays an important part in this map. Which leads us into the design element (after a couple of screenshots of course)
Design
This is actually a pretty simple and basic map that unfortunately seems to have missed the "atmospheric" part the author was looking for. When I was accidentally able to actually exit the map without killing hardly anything I was a bit disappointed. So, naturally, I went back in and did it again. As noted previously, however, the author didn't take into consideration the fact that you can jump in maps so some of the mechanics were wasted and didn't prevent me from doing stuff I really shouldn't have been able to do. Also, there wasn't a ton of detail here which was unfortunate because if there had been more of THIS in the map, it would have been far more interesting:
That was, unfortunately, the most compelling design element in the entire map. The map design also didn't lend itself to great gameplay either...
Gameplay
There were a few decent battles within the Temple (I'll talk about the temple in my final thoughts) but if I got caught out on the first go round, I was easily able to defeat the creatures that were thrown at me on the 2nd take. It's a shot in the arm for the difficulty that there were a few decent battles involved but I honestly wasn't too happy when a Revenant was attacking me and I was trying to fire back and it simply disappeared, forcing me to keep going back at him and open myself up to return fire coming from an enemy that was fading in and out of existence apparently. Although, some people may find that pretty interesting. I just find it annoying. Let me see what I'm fighting. Regardless, the majority of the menagerie make an appearance in this map - sometimes to good effect, sometimes not.
I was honestly left disappointed. While the map itself isn't a total loss (if the designer happens to see this, please expand on this map) it can be salvaged. This was a good effort but not a great effort. I would have liked to have seen the author remember that modern ports allow jumping so if you're going to design something that you don't want people getting by, please make sure they can't jump over it. I was SERIOUSLY disappointed when I went for the invulnerability sphere and nothing happened - and I mean that literally - NOTHING happened. There should have at the very least been a minimal battle leading to something that required that I have that invulnerability - but nothing. I'd like to encourage this mapper to continue working at the craft but they aren't there yet, unfortunately. Perhaps you'll feel differently than I do after you play (if you play)
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