3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

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Catastrophe
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3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#1

Post by Catastrophe » Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:24 am

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Uptight DM RC4 created by the Uptight DM team
Project Background: Uptight DM is a deathmatch mappack which has been worked on for well over two years now. It contains a total of 32 maps for all your fragging pleasures (although map27 appears to be unfinished). It also comes with an optional weapons add-on which just tweaks some existing weapons and re-sprites them.

Content: The maps of Uptight DM usually vary in theme, some of them can be similar to UDMX maps, while others are obviously themed along the lines of Greenwar. The non-inspired maps are also varying, while a good amount are tech bases, there are hellish maps, outdoorish maps, volcanic ones, and even one crudely drawn in mspaint which seems to be a tribute to Bojan. There's enough diversity in the mappack that everyone reading this review will at the very least enjoy one.

The layouts of the maps are all excellent. Most of the spawns are fair and you can find SSG's within three seconds of spawning on essentially all maps. My only nitpick is that BFG switches, teleports, lifts, etc, on certain maps should be more obvious. It is quite frustrating to not be able to figure out how to get the BFG in a deathmatch session. If there needs to be signs spelling out "BFG" like in Onslaught 3, so be it.

All in all, I feel this mappack is heavily underrated and some may put-off some people from the weird name and titlepics, but it is an excellent deathmatch mappack which deserves recognition.


Rating:
Fun Factor - 9 / 10 EXCELLENT!
Balance - 8 / 10 Not being able to find the BFG really sucks on some maps.
Creativity - 7 / 10 Maps were unique as far as DM wads go.
Replay Value - 9 / 10 You can easily pour hours into this on a DM session. And come back months later for more.

8.25 / 10 - JOIN A SERVER RUNNING THIS

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Samsara created by TerminusEst13
Project Background: Samsara is a mod that adds various protagonists from 90's shooters as playable classes. It contains a total of eight classes, all from different games. The mod is essentially universal and can be played on any gamemode with an arsenal of settings to make it fun for everyone.

Content: The classes for Samsara are all unique in their own ways and are fun to play. Their playstyle's differ from class to class so you may find a class or two that are not as fun compared to the others, which for me was the Security Officer (Obviously the class is fun to others, though). They all have different stats, weapons, and even items. Some of the classes are tweaked to such a degree that their physics is different from everyone else - which really shows how faithful the mod is to the games they derive the classes from.

The best part about Samsara is just how versatile the mod is, seeing as how it can be practically played on any gamemode with settings that can be tweaked to change whatever you don't like. On top of which it can be played on practically any mapset which doesn't involve ACS - though since Zandronum now supports up to 32,000 scripts, I wish it had a small update so it can be played with newschool wads. Personally, I enjoyed playing this on all gamemodes with my favorite being Team LMS.

The few flaws Samsara has is definitely balance. Quake is OP in competitive modes, while Security Officer is OP on non-ssg maps, and Parias is OP in BFG maps. Unfortunately with a mod of this caliber balancing all the classes AND being faithful to the games they originate from is practically impossible. I think it would've been a better idea to rebalance weapons for different gamemodes, but that's a lot of work which some people might not even care for. Oh well, one can wish.


Rating:
Fun Factor - 9 / 10 Playing multiplayer with this is crazy fun.
Balance - 7 / 10 Competitive modes are iffy.
Creativity - 10 / 10 Has a bunch of features I have never seen. Great work.
Replay Value - 10 / 10 You can basically replay a megawad 8 times because of the different classes. Awesome.

9 / 10 - MUST PLAY

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Complex Doom Invasion v0.9 created by Fr Blood
Get it here
Project Background: Complex Doom Invasion is a mappack that adds Invasion maps specifically designed for Complex Doom and the popular LCA add-on. Aside from the maps, it contains new monsters, new weapons, new items, and even new bosses. It uses its' own spawning system where the game is basically Survival Invasion with shared lives.

Content: The maps in Complex Doom Invasion are surprisingly well-made. All of them are nicely detailed and are large enough to give the whole "invasive vibe". They are detailed just enough so that it doesn't lag and more or less plays well. A big issue with the maps is that they lack any indication as to where to go. There needs to be a clearer indication of where the action is after each wave ends.

The mod also adds and rebalances a bunch of monsters which can get quite overwhelming. Like, there are just so many variants of monsters you just don't know which monster does what. It's like playing a fuckin MOBA not knowing what all the characters do, and how much damage everything does. With the clusterfuck of monsters comes the damn gibs. There are way too many corpse actors in this mod that don't disappear or go away. All the maps are unplayable beyond wave 4 if if there's a large area filled with corpses. Like holy shit, I am surprised nothing has been done about this.

Oh man, the bosses are on a league of their own and are just plain bullshit at times. A specific example is the giant Azazel where it RANDOMLY spawns high damaging lightning everywhere with no warning to move out of the way. By random, I mean it literally just drops lightning from the sky in an instant. That's not challenging, it's literally just hoping RNG is in your favor every time it attacks.

The new weapons are actually decent and are satisfying to use. Though again, it suffers from the same problem with the monsters where you don't know which weapon is more powerful than the other. Each weapon needs to have a message that clearly states what it does, and how what its DPS is so it's clear which gun is superior to the rest.

Another subject I need to touch on is the spawn room. Whenever you die you are sent to a spawn room, which allows you to go back to the main stage at the cost of the team's pool of lives (which are refreshed each wave). Dying can get pretty boring so the spawn room has a monster spawner for fun and cameras to watch other players. The problem here is that the cameras do more harm than good. There amount of cameras in the spawn room makes the room way too laggy. Maybe like 1% of the players in the server use the camera, most people just f12 anyways. Oh and also you can die in the spawn room because of the monster spawner, so there is absolutely no point in keeping those atrociously laggy cameras.

All in all this wad is a clusterfuck. There is too much shit going on at one time. There are un-aligned messages on your screen all the time, an extreme amount of projectiles flying everywhere (you don't know if they're fired from a friend or foe), and you are constantly dying and lagging in the spawnroom.


Rating:
Fun Factor - 7.5 / 10 Fun when it wasn't laggy.
Balance - 4 / 10 CLUSTER FUCK
Creativity - 6.5 / 10 It's just rehashing things we've already seen.
Replay Value - 7 / 10 Definitely replayable as it comes with hard-mode. But being bombarded with lag upon connecting to the spawn room sucks so much.

6.5 / 10 - TRY ONLY IF YOU LIKE COMPLEX DOOM

Last edited by Catastrophe on Thu Jan 07, 2016 5:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#2

Post by Neo » Sat Jan 02, 2016 2:56 am

The few flaws Samsara has is definitely balance. Quake is OP in competitive modes, while Security Officer is OP on non-ssg maps, and Parias is OP in BFG maps. Unfortunately with a mod of this caliber balancing all the classes AND being faithful to the games they originate from is practically impossible. I think it would've been a better idea to rebalance weapons for different gamemodes, but that's a lot of work which some people might not even care for. Oh well, one can wish.

I enjoyed this game mode alot but this is spot on as in terms of balance. Something ive always noticed is the heretic dragon claw is much more powerful compared to a doom guy minigun or most automatic weapons in the game modes.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#3

Post by Shane » Thu Jan 07, 2016 4:14 am

Well a shame uptight gets a review now, when it was so close to being finished till my computer shot up. Anyway which map is 27? A name should do I think, I have vague memory over all the maps. Also a slight bother on my end, but even though I lead the project I'd feel better with "uptight dm team" as every participant had as much to do with the project as I did

And the weird transition gfx and title pic were my homage to the famous 32 in 24 series, I don't have magnificent mspaint skills so it's my way to cope
Last edited by Shane on Thu Jan 07, 2016 4:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Catastrophe
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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#4

Post by Catastrophe » Thu Jan 07, 2016 5:28 am

Shane wrote: Well a shame uptight gets a review now, when it was so close to being finished till my computer shot up. Anyway which map is 27? A name should do I think, I have vague memory over all the maps. Also a slight bother on my end, but even though I lead the project I'd feel better with "uptight dm team" as every participant had as much to do with the project as I did

And the weird transition gfx and title pic were my homage to the famous 32 in 24 series, I don't have magnificent mspaint skills so it's my way to cope
Sure I'll rename it to Uptight DM Team. And also idk, map27 seemed to be using the default brown db2 textures with one sector.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#5

Post by Darcia » Thu Jan 07, 2016 8:27 am

" Complex Doom Invasion v0.9 created by Fr Blood"

Your wrong Complex was made by Daedalus.
Last edited by Darcia on Thu Jan 07, 2016 8:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#6

Post by Ivan » Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:02 am

Shorter reviews look lazier compared to before. It sounds as if you just wanted to be done with the review of those.
=== RAGNAROK DM ON ... uh... dead forever? ===
=== ALWAYS BET ON ... uh... dead forever? ===
=== Who wanta sum wang? ===
=== Death and Decay - A new Monster/Weapon replacer ===

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#7

Post by Slyfox » Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:08 am

Feel like the 3 reviews in one is lazier looking than a short review in general; A shorter review usually goes over all the major aspects of the wad regardless, the rest can be seen by any player curious enough to read the review and download the wad in the 1st place.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#8

Post by -Jes- » Thu Jan 07, 2016 11:31 am

Short and to the point. Good reviews, keep them coming.
Contrary to above posts, longer reviews tend to needlessly reiterate several points beyond need.
Darcia wrote:Your wrong Complex was made by Daedalus.
The Invasion addon that was reviewed here was made by Fr Blood, so hold your tongue.
Last edited by -Jes- on Thu Jan 07, 2016 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#9

Post by Ivan » Thu Jan 07, 2016 11:57 am

-Jes- wrote: Short and to the point. Good reviews, keep them coming.
Contrary to above posts, longer reviews tend to needlessly reiterate several points beyond need.
Darcia wrote:Your wrong Complex was made by Daedalus.
The Invasion addon that was reviewed here was made by Fr Blood, so hold your tongue.
At this point it may not be a review and just call it an "overview" or "teaser" as that's what it is. No details.
=== RAGNAROK DM ON ... uh... dead forever? ===
=== ALWAYS BET ON ... uh... dead forever? ===
=== Who wanta sum wang? ===
=== Death and Decay - A new Monster/Weapon replacer ===

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#10

Post by Darcia » Thu Jan 07, 2016 12:12 pm

I have loaded complex doom and at start of game it says Daedalus. You mean Daedalus is not complex doom creator?

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#11

Post by The Toxic Avenger » Thu Jan 07, 2016 2:36 pm

You're not loading the invasion mod that was made by someone else then

Catastrophe
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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#12

Post by Catastrophe » Thu Jan 07, 2016 3:58 pm

Darcia wrote: I have loaded complex doom and at start of game it says Daedalus. You mean Daedalus is not complex doom creator?
Complex Doom is created by Daedalus, as you can see I've reviewed it here. Complex Doom Invasion however, is made by Fr Blood and is an addon mod to Complex Doom.
Ivan wrote: Shorter reviews look lazier compared to before. It sounds as if you just wanted to be done with the review of those.
You are right when you say I've wanted to get some of the reviews out of the way for quite some time now. I'll try to be a bit longer on my next 3-in-1, Uptight DM was too short.

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RE: 3-in-1 REVIEW #1: Uptight DM, Samsara, and Complex Doom Invasion

#13

Post by fr blood » Thu Jan 07, 2016 6:46 pm

Thanks for the review I appreciate it !

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