FATAL
June 23rd, 2007, 02:31 PM
The Hub.
Author: Bob Larkin.
Thehub.wad (479kb)
http://www.doomwadstation.com/descent/thehub.zip
Port: Limit Removing.
Single Player and Cooperative.
April 2003.
1 map.
Reviewed by Danimetal using Doom Legacy v1.42 in software mode.
Score: 6.5
Bob Larkin (also known as Sematary or Brad_Tilf), apart from owning the "Doom Wad Station" site (wich runs a lot of reviews) is also a level author you may have played some levels of. Ever played or heard about "Bloodworks"?. Well, that monster featuring very tight gameplay and all kinds of 3d effects beyond the Doom engine is Bob Larkin´s work. This time, and as a submission entry, we´re taking a look at other of his wads, namely "The Hub".
What do we find in "the hub"?. Well, it completely depends on what you´re looking for. If your deal is with impressive architecture and 3d effects as seen on other works by the author this is not your place. Also, if you´re looking for a quick play that will let you go after a few minutes you´re mistaking with this again. "The hub" offers just another kind of approach to things: balanced gameplay with tight moments, big environments, traps and frequent backtracking.
With this kind of offer, you´ll find that the map is bound to be lenghty. It´s not an 1-hour-ride but we could talk about a medium sized map that will have you proceeding with caution until you easily reach the 20 minutes of gameplay. If you like this approach to mapping you´re surely going to have a lot of fun with this map: it involves exploration, conservation, balanced fighting and some desperate moments. This should make for a nice gameplay value, but it can happen that you don´t like the author´s approach to battles, item location or puzzle solving. Personally, I would have liked this wad much more if it packed more action and didn´t force the player to be conservative with ammo and health: this kind of gameplay setup tends to create a feeling of hardness and unfairness that I generally dislike but, anyway, it didn´t take a lot of tries (three, I think) to finish this wad and it was completely playable for me so I can´t complain. It´s not as replayable as I´d like though: once you play through it you´re unlikely to go back exploring for puzzles: it´s not a linear map, but every area and fork is simple and linear on itself so it´s hard that you´re going to find something that you didn´t before.
As said, the map offers challenges in puzzle solving that involve a little switch hunting (that you won´t find to be hard at all) and some tight fights. Puzzles are the force behind this map: you move on to new sections as you solve the puzzles in previous ones. This process involves some backtracking that can be surprising, as previously cleaned areas are riddled with monsters again. The puzzles deal with opening doors, lowering floors and activating lifts: that´s nothing that you can handle. As for traps, aside from monster teleportation and ambushing, you should be quite careful while walking around or you could find a crusher that you weren´t warned about (that was a cheap moment)... Other health consuming hazard include monsters: massive hordes of imps, lost souls and demons in certain rooms and then the usual number of Revenants, Cacodemons, Barons of Hell, Hell Knights and Mancubi in strategic spots... To be honest, I expected this wad to feature absurd numbers of Revenants and such, and it surprised me a lot to see that it wasn´t like that: strong monsters are bound to appear (and sometimes in groups) but this wad doesn´t suffer from cheapness: there are moments in wich the player will find himself fighting large numbers of monsters, but there´s always a way to get safe cover and blow the whole horde away: it even happens with the Arch-Vile moments, who offered little problems to me. Don´t get fooled anyway, this ain´t an easy wad: tight ammo and health can make your battles harder that you would expect and if you find yourself fighting demons and imps with a chainsaw or your bare fists you´ll know that you could have done better.
It´s not unlikely that you´re going to find yourself in the situation previously depicted: ammunition is quite tight (specially at the beginning of the map) and though you get some shell boxes and weapons right from the start you´ll start spending them soon. When submitting, Bob Larking gave some advice about being conservative with my ammo. It came up to be useful: it´s not like this ammo is extremely tight on that matter (I´ve played harder ones) but you wouldn´t want to throw away your ammunition unless you know you really have enough here. Then there´s the health problem: I recommend you to mark in the automap every single health item that you don´t pick up: backtracking through the prison area in search of stimpacks is something that I will remember of this wad!!!. On the top of everything, there´s the monster choices that we mentioned before: they make up a nice way to spend your ammo and health if you´re not cautious and use the cover provided.
What about our eyes?. Other works from the author are very pleasant for the eye and, certainly, "The hub" doesn´t start bad regarding visuals: some kind of completely infested base (with a nice fake-3d staircase and round pillars to be seen on the start) is set before our eyes. The theme switchs to hellish caves, winding brick hallways and rocky prisons and each of them has a definite look of its own. Sadly, each section has also a different level of quality for its look. For example, the winding brick hallways generally look undetailed and misaligned, while the rocky prison has a very nice work of lighting. In the same fashion, "The Hub" that gives name and sense to this level, looks pretty bare and undetailed. Definitely, this wad could have been used more work in the architecture side (take a look at the editor to check that): there are moments in wich you say "Nice" but there are some others that are just plain blocky or even random. I expected a lot more from this wad on the visual side, to be honest.
Also to be honest and to finish with, I expected more from this wad. It´s not like this wad offers poor quality or little fun but everything on it is something I´ve probably seen and played before in a very similar shape. Plus, I´m not quite fond of the theme and the gameplay choice... If maybe the map would have featured a more inventive architecture or structure it would pay a lot more to go advancing through it and, thus, interest would be kept. Still you can try this map for a nice challenge and some great moments. It´s because of this moments I say "6.5".
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8429/thehub016ne.th.png (http://img42.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thehub016ne.png)
This is what you see right from the start... Weird?.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8049/thehub026nu.th.png (http://img29.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thehub026nu.png)
Some lighting is really memorable on this wad.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/4712/thehub035wa.th.png (http://img18.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thehub035wa.png)
Still, there are some moments in the level that aren´t up to the author´s standards.
Author: Bob Larkin.
Thehub.wad (479kb)
http://www.doomwadstation.com/descent/thehub.zip
Port: Limit Removing.
Single Player and Cooperative.
April 2003.
1 map.
Reviewed by Danimetal using Doom Legacy v1.42 in software mode.
Score: 6.5
Bob Larkin (also known as Sematary or Brad_Tilf), apart from owning the "Doom Wad Station" site (wich runs a lot of reviews) is also a level author you may have played some levels of. Ever played or heard about "Bloodworks"?. Well, that monster featuring very tight gameplay and all kinds of 3d effects beyond the Doom engine is Bob Larkin´s work. This time, and as a submission entry, we´re taking a look at other of his wads, namely "The Hub".
What do we find in "the hub"?. Well, it completely depends on what you´re looking for. If your deal is with impressive architecture and 3d effects as seen on other works by the author this is not your place. Also, if you´re looking for a quick play that will let you go after a few minutes you´re mistaking with this again. "The hub" offers just another kind of approach to things: balanced gameplay with tight moments, big environments, traps and frequent backtracking.
With this kind of offer, you´ll find that the map is bound to be lenghty. It´s not an 1-hour-ride but we could talk about a medium sized map that will have you proceeding with caution until you easily reach the 20 minutes of gameplay. If you like this approach to mapping you´re surely going to have a lot of fun with this map: it involves exploration, conservation, balanced fighting and some desperate moments. This should make for a nice gameplay value, but it can happen that you don´t like the author´s approach to battles, item location or puzzle solving. Personally, I would have liked this wad much more if it packed more action and didn´t force the player to be conservative with ammo and health: this kind of gameplay setup tends to create a feeling of hardness and unfairness that I generally dislike but, anyway, it didn´t take a lot of tries (three, I think) to finish this wad and it was completely playable for me so I can´t complain. It´s not as replayable as I´d like though: once you play through it you´re unlikely to go back exploring for puzzles: it´s not a linear map, but every area and fork is simple and linear on itself so it´s hard that you´re going to find something that you didn´t before.
As said, the map offers challenges in puzzle solving that involve a little switch hunting (that you won´t find to be hard at all) and some tight fights. Puzzles are the force behind this map: you move on to new sections as you solve the puzzles in previous ones. This process involves some backtracking that can be surprising, as previously cleaned areas are riddled with monsters again. The puzzles deal with opening doors, lowering floors and activating lifts: that´s nothing that you can handle. As for traps, aside from monster teleportation and ambushing, you should be quite careful while walking around or you could find a crusher that you weren´t warned about (that was a cheap moment)... Other health consuming hazard include monsters: massive hordes of imps, lost souls and demons in certain rooms and then the usual number of Revenants, Cacodemons, Barons of Hell, Hell Knights and Mancubi in strategic spots... To be honest, I expected this wad to feature absurd numbers of Revenants and such, and it surprised me a lot to see that it wasn´t like that: strong monsters are bound to appear (and sometimes in groups) but this wad doesn´t suffer from cheapness: there are moments in wich the player will find himself fighting large numbers of monsters, but there´s always a way to get safe cover and blow the whole horde away: it even happens with the Arch-Vile moments, who offered little problems to me. Don´t get fooled anyway, this ain´t an easy wad: tight ammo and health can make your battles harder that you would expect and if you find yourself fighting demons and imps with a chainsaw or your bare fists you´ll know that you could have done better.
It´s not unlikely that you´re going to find yourself in the situation previously depicted: ammunition is quite tight (specially at the beginning of the map) and though you get some shell boxes and weapons right from the start you´ll start spending them soon. When submitting, Bob Larking gave some advice about being conservative with my ammo. It came up to be useful: it´s not like this ammo is extremely tight on that matter (I´ve played harder ones) but you wouldn´t want to throw away your ammunition unless you know you really have enough here. Then there´s the health problem: I recommend you to mark in the automap every single health item that you don´t pick up: backtracking through the prison area in search of stimpacks is something that I will remember of this wad!!!. On the top of everything, there´s the monster choices that we mentioned before: they make up a nice way to spend your ammo and health if you´re not cautious and use the cover provided.
What about our eyes?. Other works from the author are very pleasant for the eye and, certainly, "The hub" doesn´t start bad regarding visuals: some kind of completely infested base (with a nice fake-3d staircase and round pillars to be seen on the start) is set before our eyes. The theme switchs to hellish caves, winding brick hallways and rocky prisons and each of them has a definite look of its own. Sadly, each section has also a different level of quality for its look. For example, the winding brick hallways generally look undetailed and misaligned, while the rocky prison has a very nice work of lighting. In the same fashion, "The Hub" that gives name and sense to this level, looks pretty bare and undetailed. Definitely, this wad could have been used more work in the architecture side (take a look at the editor to check that): there are moments in wich you say "Nice" but there are some others that are just plain blocky or even random. I expected a lot more from this wad on the visual side, to be honest.
Also to be honest and to finish with, I expected more from this wad. It´s not like this wad offers poor quality or little fun but everything on it is something I´ve probably seen and played before in a very similar shape. Plus, I´m not quite fond of the theme and the gameplay choice... If maybe the map would have featured a more inventive architecture or structure it would pay a lot more to go advancing through it and, thus, interest would be kept. Still you can try this map for a nice challenge and some great moments. It´s because of this moments I say "6.5".
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8429/thehub016ne.th.png (http://img42.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thehub016ne.png)
This is what you see right from the start... Weird?.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8049/thehub026nu.th.png (http://img29.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thehub026nu.png)
Some lighting is really memorable on this wad.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/4712/thehub035wa.th.png (http://img18.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thehub035wa.png)
Still, there are some moments in the level that aren´t up to the author´s standards.