This is a review of one of The Dark Mod’s (a mod for Doom 3) fan missions. It may contain traces of spoilers. You have been warned.
Author(s): PranQster
Date released: 06-10-2011
Theme: City/Pagan
Download FM here
PranQster, to date, has made one FM, and I’ll say right from the start, that it’s a great one – all ready featured on my list of favourite TDM FMs available to date.
It’s called The Siege Shop, and the very beginning is misleading. You start off in the sewer, and after a minute or two of trying to squeeze in to the narrow pipes on either side of you, you eventually get the idea and climb up the ladder to the surface. After opening the door, you are greeted by a sight completely opposite to what you were expecting a few minutes earlier (perhaps a mission similar to “Special Delivery”).
You enter a cobblestone courtyard and are attracted instantly to two things: the horse (in a non-sexual way of course), and the hot air balloon. This is what you must use to get on to the rooftop of the siege shop, as the drawbridge over the moat is up. And knocking out the balloon operator isn’t enough. You have to jettison him from the craft, otherwise you’ll be too heavy to make it to the roof – very clever bit of programming, and realistic to boot.
I was impressed so far.
Hover mouse over pictures for captions, if available.
Another thing that I found was a nice touch was being able to steal arrows from the quivers. Most of the guards you encounter here are armed with bows and the not the usual swords. So you can get at least a dozen broadhead arrows by pinching them from the guards’ quivers, and you can also obtain special arrows from the quivers in the guards’ quarters on the upper floor. Very handy if you forget something in particular from the buy screen before the mission started, such as not enough water arrows, for instance. And this is good seeing as there are plenty of extinguishable light sources in this mission.
On the floor below this, I heard some funny banging noises and I assumed that it was just somebody in a workshop with a hammer – this was after all, a siege shop. I was certain that some degree of construction must take place here. But another floor down and I, like some others who had played this mission, was flabbergasted to see something moving towards me. It lit up the floor in front of me with an inextinguishable light and made a terrible racket. Even though part of my form was caught in the beam as I desperately hugged the wall, I wasn’t noticed by the contraption – this steam beast had no eyes. This was the first time so far that I’d witnessed any sort of robot in a TDM mission, and I was understandably taken back to those days of Thief II: The Metal Age – the fear of coming across any one of Karras’ dreaded Builder’s Children.
Overall, this mission boasts originality, and like I’ve mentioned above, there are some nifty things that this author put in to make it an unforgettable experience. A very good effort for his first map, indeed.
Pros:
+ Level design.
+ Very inventive and original mission, this.
Cons:
- A few bugs.
FM score: 9/10
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