Spoiler: note: this mod has no maps, the maps in these screenshots are from WOS.wad (Open)
Complex Doom ... The name is pretty misleading, because gameplay-wise, this mod is pretty simple. It's a "replacer" mod which adds effects, reskins the weapons, and replaces every monster with a harder one -- most of which come from the Realm667 Beastiary. So it's basically another HardDoom, in that regard.
But before I unfairly compare this mod to another one, I suppose I should comment on some things that are specific to this mod. For example, the portable health and armor bonuses. For some reason, you seem to pick up a lot of these. You'll be low on health and go to use them, because you'll think that they're portable stimpacks, only to find out that they heal like 5hp at a time. Which doesn't amount to squat considering that many monsters' attacks will do like 50 points of damage at a time. And it's stressful to have to take your hand off the mouse during a potential firefight and hit the enter key just for a small HP or armor bump, since doing so can actually fuck you over. I suppose you can just bind "useitem" to a mouse button or a key closer to your left hand, but whatever.
The HUD is pretty nice, it's that "Doomguy Visor HUD" that's been floating around the ZDoom forums for a while now. The only problem is, you need to hit the minus key and reduce your screensize by one in order to see it. Which means that when you're done playing this mod and go to play something else, you'll have the default Doom hudbar down at the bottom and you'll need to bump your screenblocks back up to 11 again ... Unless you like the vanilla HUD bar, that is.
The effects are pleasing to the eye. Most of them are ripped from other mods but some look unique enough to call "original". Except for the Nashgore. Honestly, I got bored of Nashgore by 2009. (Incase you don't know what Nashgore is, it's that really generic flying blood that you see in everything nowadays. [pic]) Any time I see it in a mod nowadays, I cringe. It's basically like the author is telling me "I don't know how to make decent-looking blood effects on my own, so I'm just going to copy+paste Nashgore in here". But whatever, I guess it's better than Brutal Doom's cartoony blood splashes. Oh but speaking of Brutal Doom ...
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This mod does contain a few resources which were also used in Brutal Doom. Which is fine, since SgtMark didn't make them himself anyways. The shotgun sprite (which was made by Mike12) is also in BD. It's a nice sprite and I don't mind it. The plasma gun, however, is also the BD plasmagun, which looks really dumb IMO, and there are so many better plasma rifle sprite alternatives out there that Caco could have used. Anything looks better than a hairdryer with caution tape on it.
Most of the other weapons are nice, though. Some require reloading while others don't, which is kind of an inconsistency, but I can understand why this was done since I did the same thing in Super Skulltag. Reloading isn't used for "realism", instead it's used as a balance on weapons which would otherwise be nonstop rape-machines, such as the automatic shotgun and the railgun. The only thing that bothers me is that the ammo in the clip counts UP as you shoot instead of decreasing, much like that abomination of a mod known as AlandoGuns. I have no idea why the author chose to do this since it confuses players, and it's just as easy to code in-clip ammo that counts DOWN. Oh also, this mod makes use of PreferredSkin (aka having your player sprite change to show what weapon you're carrying), but then again pretty much every mod nowadays uses that.
When it comes to the monsters, don't expect any surprises -- except for the BFG zombie that replaces the shotgunner, which totally blew my ass away in the FIRST MAP of the Whispers of Satan megawad. That was an unpleasant surprise. But other than that, most monster replacements are pretty predictable. Imps get replaced by either brown Devils or Dark Imps. Pinkies are replaced by either BloodFiends or "MagmaFiends", aka BloodFiends that breathe fire. Cacodemons are replaced by Abaddons. Barons are replaced by Bruisers or Afrits. Mancubi are replaced by either Hectebi or Acubi, and VERY RARELY, Behemoths, which are flying Mancubi that will rape your shit. So basically, every monster is from the Realm667 Beastiary with minor edits made in terms of balance ...
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Gameplay feels identical to HardDoom. Not much else to be said here. Expect to spend a LOT of time being pinned down, usually with low health. If you join a server that's hosting this, it will usually always be survival. But if you choose to play it offline in singleplayer, you will NEED to use the console command for damage factor scalar ("sv_coop_damagefactor 0.5" is what I use). Otherwise you won't get very far.
I feel as if I'm doing this mod some sort of injustice by comparing it to HardDoom, but honestly that's what it feels like. It's like an alternate version of HardDoom, or a sequel maybe (if replacer mods had sequels). You have fancy guns with smooth animations, you fight ridiculously-overpowered monsters, and there's shiny eye-candy and firey explosion effects everywhere. Nothing sets this mod apart except for the cool HUD and the pointless health/armor inventory items.
There's a few servers up with this, which usually have anywhere from 2 to 5 players in them at any given time, so I guess it has a decent amount of replay value. For now. But honestly, unless the author intends to implement some sort of unique features or gameplay mechanics, then I don't expect players to play this for very much longer before getting bored and moving on to the next replacer mod.
SCORE
Visuals = 8/10. It's very pretty, but the Nashgore's gotta go.Gameplay = 7/10. For the most part, it's pretty balanced. It's just really hard. Best played with at least 3 people. It would also be nice if those portable health/AP items weren't so useless.
Originality = 4/10. Meh. There is almost nothing in this mod that we haven't seen before. Although I will say that it's better than ALL of the other "Realm667 mashup" wads that get churned out on a yearly basis. At least this mod pays some attention to detail and balance instead of just shoving lots of random R667 monsters/weapons into one wad.
Replay value = 5/10. It does feel like a breath of fresh air compared to all of the other mods being hosted lately, but at the end of the day it just feels like another Hard Doom.
FINAL SCORE = 6/10.
Overall, not a bad mod at all. Pretty fun to play in a Survival server with a few friends. I guess it's more of a casual thing. Don't except to be totally addicted though ... As I mentioned before, this mod really needs some sort of unique features or interesting gameplay mechanic to set it apart from others if it wants to keep players interested. Until then, it's still a pretty fun replacer mod.
. I also asked a few of my regular players if they were worthless, they didn't seem to think so.
![[pic]](http://imageshack.us/a/img211/7867/screenshotdoom201212251.png){kind=link}
