WAD Review of WARHOUSE.WAD By Cameron Newham. (cam@iinet.com.au) Copyright (c) Cameron B. Newham, 1994 ===================================== Title :WARHOUSE.WAD Author :Mike Barker Email Address :s19788@hp.rmc.ca Misc. Author Info :Send Comments! Description :Imagine that a large, abandoned, warehouse in your home town has been overrun by nasties. It is up to you to save the day! You must first fight your way in from outside, make it through the outer offices, and then finally into the warehouse itself. ====================================== This is my first review of a WAD. Please note that there are possible spoilers ahead, although I'll try to give nothing away. I hope you enjoy reading this review. Having read the rather interesting description I sat down on Sunday afternoon, ready for a game of Doom in the local warehouse. I fired up Doom and selected "Hurt me plenty" - after all, I wanted to be able to write this review in a reasonable time and not be beaten to a pulp! Initially I was quite impressed - a stone courtyard surrounding a large building with several enterences. I secured the area, cleaning up the patrols that lurked outside and blowing a large cluster of barrels away. I then entered the building. It was dark! Dark in every room! This was my first encounter with the overall darkness of the warehouse. Sure - abandoned warehouses are dark because they have no power, but this one was populated by badasses. A little light here and there would have been nice. I entered at a point that led into several small rooms connected by sliding doors. I soon cleaned these out and reached my first serious check. I needed a red keycard to get any further! Nowhere was this card to be seen. I searched the darkness for clues but to no avail. No gleam of red was to be seen. In desperation I had to apply iddt, which I *really* didn't want to do. There it lay hidden away in a section that I would never have found. Wad authors please note this in future - never never leave a player needing something and provide no clues. Id never did that with their levels. Eg: E1M2 - you see the chainsaw but have to work out how to get to it. Seeing it narrows the search area down. Providing no clues (slight wall texture differences/being able to see the goal, etc) means a lot of needless work for the player. If you do feel the need to do this, at least make the item non-essential for play. After retrieving the red key I proceeded. It wasn't an easy task. This level is built with platforms overlooking the storage area of the warehouse and there is no place to snipe from. Battered and weary I staggered out after downing the last Imp. I was also baffled. There a blue keycard lay - on top of a platform. No switches, nothing. How could I get it? Well I staggered off to the exit and discovered what I thought was one last nasty suprise. Having dealt with this attempt on my life I ran around a bit more and after some time discovered the blue keycard to be accessible. I was a bit non-plussed with this. In a way the blue card is too far away from the action and it's not obvious. That is, perhaps, more my personal opinion. After obtaining the key I was lowered into hell itself and had to deal with several more evils. I also discovered a plasma rifle - after I had killed everything! Not only a plasma rifle but a whole cache of health and armour bonuses. I think, perhaps, this would have done better at some other point in the level - after all, I didn't need any of it. As far as texture choice and placement is concerned, this WAD does quite well. There was, I felt, a bit too much "startan" for the the building - maybe just because, as a default for the Deu editor, I've seen one too many panels of this texture. Overall I found this WAD fun to play. It was also challenging, even on the lower skill level. I would recommend warhouse.wad to anyone wanting a generally challenging level. On scales of 0 to 10. Layout: 8 Textures: 8 Difficulty: 7 Level Logic: 6 Funness 8 On Cameron's overall scale of 0 to 10, Warhouse.wad scores a 7. - Cameron (cam@iinet.com.au).