WAD Review of STAIRS.WAD By Cameron Newham. (cam@iinet.com.au) Copyright (c) Cameron B. Newham, 1994 ===================================== Title : STAIRS.WAD Author : Jason Whittington Email Address : jawhitti@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu Misc. Author Info : Description : This wad was created with a (slightly customized) version of DEU 5.0/5.1, and the final level was compiled with BSP. It features some nice looks and some moderately difficult secrets. THis WAD replace E1M1 but you are free to use it as whatever level you like. It is fun as single player, not all THAT hard, and was designed with an eye for DEATHMATCH play. As such, all weapons are present, as well as a lot of "goodies". It is comparable in size/difficulty to E2L3 I think, and I invite any reviewers to review this wad and post comments on it. ====================================== Well, it's not quite Sunday, but I thought I'd start early and review this weeks WAD. Who knows - I might review another one tomorrow. I happened to see Stairs just after I'd uploaded my own WAD, so I grabbed it and had a play around with it this-evening. On to the review: I played stairs on "Hurt me plenty" difficulty, but viewing in Deu afterwards I discovered that levels have not been implemented. It's all or nothing. Stairs starts out in a techwalled room - no doorway in. I've noticed this in other WAD's (and my own first few suffered from this) and really, when one thinks about it - how the hell does that marine get there? It's always nice to put a door in (one that can't be opened) to give the idea we've just entered the place. Ahead of me was a large door which led to a passage way with some pesky soldiers and imps. I climbed some stairs and came to a nice window with a view of a rocket launcher (totally unreachable from where I was - so close yet so far!). Having found no way to get to this weapon of mass destruction I proceeded along a bit further and to encounter computer walls that shoot fireballs. Now, having a shoot through on an apparent solid wall is not my idea of believability. Certainly, having a shoot through computer wall is a long way from believability - but that's my opinion and I digress. Dodging back down the stairs I headed off to another section, killed some more pesky soldiers and then backtracked to the fireball wall area. I found some stairs I hadn't seen before and headed down to some of those large dead thorn trees. Hmmm - I spotted the first example of how this author has produced a nice level plan but spoilt it with lack of attention to detail. Unfortunately the stairs' rises had too large a spacing and the use of a bitmap texture with too small a height. This leads to "pink gap" on the texture - you get little bits of pink appearing where the Doom engine is trying to fill in the space where there is no texture. I also noticed misaligned textures on the sides of the stairs. I completed this area of the level and moved off to another area I had not been able to get into because of the lack of a key. This was an outside area with some more steps sporting pink gap. One of the doors here also has it because it has had textures defined incorrectly. Having blasted some pink apes and sargeants with my trusty shotgun I proceeded down a wooden corridor. Once again the effect was spoilt - a panel of "startan" glaring out from the wooden sides of the passage. At this point I was wearing a radiation suit - which unfortunately ran out before I reached the acid. It didn't matter as I could easily cross the acid danger without staying in it too long. Once again I found an example of lack of attention - a section of floor that automagically raised into the ceiling and beyond! Loading the saved game and standing on this caused it to lower infinately into the ground! It would appear that the author hasn't tested this part to see if it works. I found some teleporters that led of to secret areas with lots of goodies. Here too were badly placed textures - the teleport floors were misaligned. Teleporting back I proceeded further to a room with computer walls (incorrectly aligned) and into another area with a baron. This area has an upper texture undefined and hence sports some nice (fortunately minor) HOM. I fought my way through several other rooms and arrived at a nice area with imps firing fireballs over great distances - this was a good effect. The lone cacodemon bit the dust (or is that acid?) and I exploded several imps and sargeants with barrels. Once again, the full effect of this area was spoilt by badly aligned textures, many of them glaringly obvious. The lone sargeant guarding the exit switch didn't argue with the small lumps of lead that filled him and that was that. Overall I found this WAD nice to play. It was, as the author claimed, not too hard to play. It is a shame that it didn't have any of the rough edges taken off before it was released. Hopefully the author will play test and examine his WAD's more thoroughly before releasing them in future. I would only recommend downloading this WAD if you've got the time. I didn't play it in Deathmatch but I have a feeling it wouldn't play any better than solo as it lacks enough multiple paths for doubling back and ambushing. On scales of 0 to 10. Layout: 6 Textures: 5 Difficulty: 7 Level Logic: 8 Funness 6 On Cameron's overall scale of 0 to 10, stairs.wad scores a 6.4. - Cameron (cam@iinet.com.au).