Ramp2024 Reviews Part VIII

 Enjoy more reviews! Ramp2024 link.  GZDoom link.

 

Ramp2024 Reviews, Part VII

 Someone on the Discord pointed out that the levels are randomly assigned "by type" so it doesn't make sense to divide up the levels like this. Dammit! Oh well, I'll do an index post at the end.

 

Ramp2024 Reviews - Part VI

  Enjoy more reviews! Ramp2024 link.  GZDoom link.

 

Ramp2024 Reviews Part V

  Enjoy more reviews! Ramp2024 link.  GZDoom link.

Ramp2024 Reviews Part IV

  Enjoy more reviews! Ramp2024 link.  GZDoom link.

 

 

Ramp2024 Map Reviews - Part III

 

 Enjoy more reviews! Ramp2024 link.  GZDoom link.

 

Ramp2024 Map Reviews - Part II

Enjoy more reviews! Ramp2024 link.  GZDoom link.

Ramp2024 Doom Map Reviews - Part I

If you don't know what RAMP 2024 is, go here and download it, then go here and download GZDoom, install Doom somewhere and get to playing. It's great.

Review Rubric

1/2 - 1 star. Bad, a waste of time, offensive in some way. Simply doesn't run at all. I don't expect a community-created pack like Ramp2024 to contain anything in this range.

1.5 - 2.5 stars - Good but with a gamestopping bug or mistake. "Basic" maps with no significant depth. "Decent" maps with a serious flaw. By the time you get to the top of this range you're talking about the "median .WAD I would download from a ftp site in 1997".  

3-4 stars - Solid maps, simple-but-polished maps, a good execution of an idea, feels good to play.  By the time you get to 4 stars you're talking about a really cool idea, a commercial-DooM-level experience, or a highly polished  experience.

4.5 - 5 stars - Superlative, great execution, a great idea that's explored well, great ambition, total conversions that hold up fully.

My own personal preferences only ever amounts to around 0-1 star in either direction, typically if it's too hard, if it's a slaughter map or a map of another "type" that I just don't care for, if there's music I don't like, etc.  I try not to let this affect my score too much but they're my ratings so they do, a bit.

The Division (1), Tom Clancy, and the decline of conservative entertainment

Did you remember that The Division is a Tom Clancy game?

Prototype - Part IV - Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!

Picture of Karen Parker, from the Prototype Wiki

This is Part IV of my analysis/reimagining of Prototype (2009)'s story.

Part I - Missed Opportunities
Part II - King of the Gods
Part III - My Dear Sister

Karen Parker is really a baffling and frustrating part of the story of Prototype.  Just a quick rundown of what she does in the story should alert anyone that there's something really wrong here.  She first appears in a photograph in Alex's apartment, triggering memories in Zeus.  Zeus then goes and rescues her from Blackwatch.  She implies she has unfinished business with Alex and that their relationship ended painfully.  She is able to make significant progress on studying the virus working alone (!)  She explains a little about how the infection works - the only character in the entirety of the game that ever does so.

Then, Karen betrays Alex to Blackwatch for no discernible reason, and disappears from the story.

What. The. Hell.

Prototype - Part III - My Dear Sister

Screenshot of Dana Mercer, from the Prototype Wiki.

This is the third in my Game Story Reboot series regarding Prototype (2009).

Here's Part I -  Missed Opportunities, and Part II - King Of The Gods.  Remember the goal - to take the framework of the story in Prototype and make it actually worth experiencing.

Dana Mercer, in the original Prototype, is a major missed opportunity.  She is the first sympathetic person Zeus comes across.  She says that she and Alex hadn’t spoken in five years when he turned up a few months previous to the events of the game and asked her to start looking into GenTek.  She provides some leads for Zeus to follow up on. She’s then kidnapped by Elizabeth Greene and rescued by Zeus, but remains unconscious and out of the picture for the rest of the game.

Lame.

We’re going to keep only  one thing: Alex and she hadn’t spoken in five years. From there on, what we have is new.

Prototype - Part II - King of the Gods

Promotional image of Alex Mercer

So it's been over a year since I started looking at my Prototype story reboot. Whoops!  These posts do take a while to put together. Hope you haven't forgotten what I said earlier.

In our re-imagining of Prototype, we have to begin with the progenitor, Alex Mercer.  Mercer, who released the virus, is the template for Zeus, the viral being that the player controls throughout the game and the cause of the crisis in New York City.

The Prototype Wiki, and several reviews, attempted to convince me that Alex was the antagonist of the game, and Zeus the protagonist. This is a mind-blowingly good idea - it would have made a great game.  But it just isn’t true in Prototype as-it-is.  Alex's plans are not still in motion. Alex's actions do not have any particular consequences during the game other than the spreading of the plague, which is more a biological inevitability than part of something Alex wanted.  To make Alex Mercer an antagonist, he has to have a goal that’s still achievable even in the event of a viral outbreak, otherwise he's simply not a threat, nor even really relevant to what Zeus is trying to do.

Let's remake Alex.

Some Black Seven Play Aids

Snake? SNAAAAAAAoh, it's not Snake. It's Archer and Kestrel from SC: Conviction's awesome co-op mode.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are you playing the amazing Black Seven from Zero Point Information?  Probably not, you aren't that cool.  It's a stealth action game based on exceptional games like Splinter Cell, Thief and Metal Gear Solid. I've talked about it on the podcast before and finally put a game together of it on Friday. Woot!

In preparation, I created a character sheet, some status cards (which can and will be flipped numerous times during the game), and a Threat Level sheet that reminds players what happens at each threat level. I'm going to use a playing card to vividly display the Threat Level. Of course, I'll use the techno-thrill-filled cyberpunk card deck The Grid, which I recently got from Kickstarter.

Enjoy!

The Black Seven Character Sheet.

The Black Seven Status Cards.

The Black Seven Threat Level display page.

All sheets are in PDF.