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:
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
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:
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
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:
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