The Dark Mod FM Review: Lord Dufford’s

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): stumpy
Date released: 2010-03-31
Theme: City/Mansion

When I played this fan mission for the first time, I hated it. Loathed it; despised it. Call it what you will.

Reading through the briefing, punctuated with spelling and grammatical errors, I didn’t hold out much hope for this one. And looking through the objectives didn’t make me feel much better. It felt silly. It read like a Monty Python sketch, and I knew that this mapper was probably just as “under the influence”.

Starting at one of the city gates, I headed off towards the area with the barrels on the one side of Dufford’s Castle, where the ale was delivered. This was one of the entry points. The objective is to find out what happened to the Lord who resided here, as a favour for one of his fellow noblemen. But I felt guilty about not having explored the rest of the perimeter, so I eventually went back and took a tour, doing a lap around this rather huge map. On the outside, the city looked good. Apart from a rather cheaply designed and lewd Inn sign, a bit of effort was put in, and I could feel the atmosphere, surprisingly.

Feeling more satisfied, I continued on in to the manor itself. This is where I started to gradually develop disdain for this FM. Overly large areas; needlessly wasted space; empty rooms without reward; plain textures; too much emphasis on lockpicking. Only a few minutes in, I went to the main menu, and uninstalled the mission, opting to play another instead.

But after having completed most of the other missions, a few weeks later, I came back. I always end up coming back and giving it another try, like a failed relationship.

I wasn’t any more impressed with the level design, which looked somewhat unprofessional, and looked like it had been hurriedly pieced together without much forethought – sort of like a big box had been set down, hollowed out and rooms just placed in it in order to take up space. I’ve seen other mappers do a lot more with a lot less. There were some unique additions like the waterwheel, however. I’ll give that to this author – he does try out new approaches, even though he’s made only three FMs so far that I know of, the others being “The Illusionist’s Tower” and “House in Blackbog Hollow” – the latter being his best by far.

But there was a reason behind this incomplete feel given by the author, stumpy. This FM was not supposed to end up being released to the public – it’s more of a test level, and it shows. It could have used more polish, some proofreading, and a lot of beta testing, to say the least.

But once I started to focus on the story and the objectives and not on the flaws with the design, I started to get into it. Things really start picking up when you reach the first floor, and enter Chaz’s room. Out of all the rooms in the manor, this had the most appeal. This is where you start along the trail which will lead you from clue to clue so you can progress through the mission. The clues aren’t all that obvious and you’ll stumble across some by accident, but still.

Entering the sewers below the streets yielded some surprises, and upon getting back inside the manor, I started to understand why there was the need for such seemingly unnecessarily large areas. Because there’s a lot going on in the centre and underneath the manor. Plenty of secret rooms, hidden staircases, and vaults awaited. More than halfway through the mission, things were getting good, finally. And in the end, the story tied up quite nicely, with maybe one or two loose ends, inaccessible areas, and the promise of more to come. Nothing better than a few unanswered questions when all is said and done.

Lord Dufford’s bears similarities to another mission – and no, it’s not Lord Bafford’s Manor from Thief: The Dark Project, despite the name. LD tries to emulate what makes “Heart Of Lone Salvation” such a great FM, what with its plot twists, awesome storyline, and its unparalleled uniqueness; inventiveness. But it fell flat. I only really started to enjoy this FM more than halfway in, and that’s rather a shame, seeing as it had potential – great potential, but it just came out half-baked in the end.

Pros:

+ good effort on story, characters, fantasy writing.

+ plenty of secret areas and surprises.

Cons:

- level design, particularly those large, empty rooms. Those were an eyesore.

- needs more beta testing, polish.

FM score: 6/10

The Dark Mod FM Review: The Rift

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): Baddcogg
Date released: 2010-08-15
Other info: Summer Vertical Contest ‘10 entry
Theme: Haunted/Underground

Starting off, this seems like just another “break in to a mansion and case the joint” kind of mission. You collect your thieving gear and get ready to exit via the window when you hear and feel a tremendous rumble coming from the earth.

As you drop down on to the street below, objectives change: forget going to some old doffer’s mansion – let’s investigate that hole in the ground instead. If you’re interested, you can still nip across the road and frob a few coins and gems from a table set outside some unpickable doors – this may or may not be the mansion you were going to visit this night. You’ll have to mind the guards and Builder along the way though.

So getting back to the rift that opened up after the earthquake: dropping down a bit, you’ll immediately notice that this must be a vertical contest 2010 entry. But instead of opting for the usual tower-based mission, Baddcogg went for an underground mission instead – a different way of looking at things, and it still counts, technically. You end up in some abandoned mines which have been sealed off for goodness knows how long, and it’s inhabited by bloody spiders. The big ones are especially brutish; the smaller ones don’t seem to be textured at all, they just appear grey – I don’t know if this is just on my PC, but I recall seeing some screenshots long ago that showed the same thing. In any case, spiders rarely crop up in TDM FMs, so it’s not a bad thing to see them here. You’re better off hacking them with your sword, although the big ones you might want to snipe with a couple of broadhead arrows.

Hover mouse over pictures for captions, if available.

A bit farther down and you go beyond the mines and in to something akin to The Lost City from Thief: The Dark Project, except this is scaled down a bunch. It reminds me not only of Thief, but the better bits of Dark Messiah of Might And Magic as well. Within the building’s walls there’s a nice secret area or two to be found, and if you were worried at some point about not finding enough gems or gold to finish the mission, worry no more, for it is all here for you.

This mission isn’t easy to ghost. A lot of the light sources are inextinguishable, like crystals or mushrooms. Flaming zombies are less likely to notice that they’ve been doused than say, a guard with a torch, thankfully. The two occasions that I’ve played this mission, I ended up running for my life from the entry to the underground building, up the stairs and out again. I found being spotted by the zombies and spiders was therefore too common. The mission isn’t hard, but don’t expect to get a perfect stealth score without a lot of trial and error or patience. This is more Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider than your typical sneaking mission.

I was a bit disappointed not to find any belchers (you know what they’re really called). I was sure as I descended into the depths that I heard sounds that resembled these beasts. These ominous sounds did add a bit to the atmosphere and made me sit on the edge of my seat for a bit.

There are also some bugs – one game-breaking one that I should mention as well. After retreating from the mines on my first playthrough, I got back to the starting area and the mission didn’t end. I had to restart, tried a higher difficulty level, and got through. The only thing I did differently apart from changing the difficulty, was discover the one secret area.

Apart from all this, the mission’s not too bad. A bit on the linear side if not small, though, and involves simple backtracking to get out again. Perhaps a cave-in and having to find another route out would have been in order to make it a tad more interesting or challenging.

Pros:

+ Something a little different in theme.

Cons:

- Bugs

- Linear gameplay, and backtracking.

FM score: 7/10