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Death 'n' Decay - Review by Slyfox

Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 1:16 am
by Slyfox
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Wow Cool Wow
Project Background: - Welcome to Death and Decay, a monster/weapon replacer mod. If you liked Hard Doom and mods of that type, then you might like this mod. If not, it's still alright, this mod is a bit different compared to the others.

- The very first difference is that your character will constantly be evolving and improving in terms of both the stats and weapon efficiency. You'll come across max health/armor bonuses, backpacks that will increase your ammo capacity in a stacking fashion, upgrade crates that give you certain powerups or end of level rewards that give you anything from a simple stat boost to a really epic vortex of blades that cuts anything on their path.

Content:
When I says theres quite a bit a content, I mean theres so much that I actually have to use the template to its full use by splitting it into 3 separate topics.
(The Shop/Stats)
This wad features a shop, that allows you [upon leveling up of course] to purchase weapons using gold from slaying monsters, perks from leveling up, accessories dropped from certain monsters, weapon slots, and manage temporary weapons. Each of the stats are relevant to your survival, so there aren't 20 stats that are useless and one stat that you spam because its simply just better.

I enjoyed this simple interface [even though I had the wrong flags for it at first so I kept trying to make it work for like 10 minutes] And its really easy to decide what you feel would add to your survival. I usually dumped my points in health until I realized that splitting between health, armor, and then making the shop cheaper was the easiest way to progress through the wad with increasingly less difficulty.
(The weapons)

The weapons are insane. Theres a couple of familiar sprite, but some of the weapons are really satisfying when fired. I fired the soul-reaver weapon, and damn you can tell just by hovering over it that its power is nothing to mess with. You fire it, and it launchers a large projectile that launches souls in the direction of the enemy, slaughtering it in mere seconds. Now before you come in guns a blazing with 'but sly that means the weapon is op omg wadafuck', its price tag is that of a Bugatti in this game.

Theres so many weapons to use, both temporary weapons, shop purchased weapons, and even the standard weapons around the map. All of them feel good to use, and although some weapons look a little off with the rest of the arsenal's sprites, they seem to compliment each other rather nicely. Simply using just one weapon throughout the game isn't gonna take you very far [I'll explain why in the monsters section].
(The monsters)

Boy oh boy, these damn monsters can take you out quite quickly. Some of them are rehashed from some familiar places, but most of them work differently then their originals. Theres also some bosses I've never seen used before, and my curiosity usually left me to a swift death by their arsenals. These monsters maybe harder than complex doom's but they're also some that are straight up unique to other monster replacers wads I've seen out there.

Now I suck at survival, so it's pretty obvious I got my butt handed to me several times trying this wad in Alien Vendetta [bad idea I know] Sometimes even the grunts feel like they can one shot you if you're not careful. They aren't impossible to beat however, the weapons you obtain and other perks you get along the way makes these monsters a piece of cake once you reach that high enough level. That doesn't mean to underestimate the higher tiered monsters though, regardless of what you have they can still pose a hefty threat to your wellbeing.

(Competitive)

So recently I tried this wad on fnf with team last man standing and I gotta say, its pretty damn buggy. Some people were starting off with some weapons missing, and a lot of the weapons in general seemed render other weapons useless [silvergun, soul reaver, and that double rocket gun were the only weapons I saw being used; the ssg is practically useless]. I don't think the balance for competition is nearly as good, most likely do to it being balanced for survival in the first place..? I don't know, but its wonky.

Rating:
Fun Factor - 10 / 10 - I played it 2 hours straight on stream for Ivan, even though I died I had a blast the whole way through; and that was in single player
Balance - 7 / 10 - Monsters are on steroids, but you get those injections later on in the game to compensate; competitive-wise? not so much.
Creativity - 8.5 / 10 - I see a couple of rehashed stuff here and there, but I also see some awesome new sprites and abilities monsters have that made me feel like R667 can be avoided with the right modder.
Replay Value - 9 / 10 - With the leveling system and the sheer amount of monsters, weapons, and other customizable things in this wad, you can easily play this for days on end without it feeling slightly stale.


7.5 / 10
Would pick over any of the popular survival wads to date
In case you'd like to watch me screw around in the wad!