Return Of Dragons

Ok, two things were pointed out to me by someone who will remain unnamed*. First off, I've been getting a little too into Nine Inch Nails, seemingly writing them into everything somehow. I promise that will stop.
Second off, that I'm in love with the idea of margin notes and those little explanation things at the bottom of pages and articles**. I can't promise I'll stop those.

Joshua Waight. This guy is a Wolf machine (like a sex machine, but with less sex and more DOS games). He just can't seem to stop bringing out and announcing new mods.

His latest released effort is in the form of Return Of Dragons, where you play a Dragon Moonbeast which is just called a Moonbeast. Here's something:

It's full powers come out on a full moon.
Some can transform at will.
Silver kills them.

Sounds like a Dragon Moonbeast is just a werewolf...a scaly werewolf.

Anyway, for this one I just gave it a quick run through because I have had a killer headache for two days (still have it***).

MAZES! CURSEEEEEEEEEE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU! PET HATE PET HATE PET HATE!

"I WILL BATH IN YOUR BLOOD!"

Why is everything I pick up drank? I picked up ammo, drank. I picked up drink, drank.

I got annoyed that he makes all these mods, but never thought of expanding some of the gameplay. Your starting weapon would look so much better if it actually shot projectiles instead of the shrinking sprite effect. Much more fun.
However, I guess he's allo-wait, my opinion, I can complain if I want!

PROJECTILESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I swear, I might actually write something more legible later...just not tonight. HEADACHE. Forgive me.

 

*Spoiler: It was me.
**I love you little explanation thingies
***ARRRGGGGH!

The Lost World Part 8 (Demo)

Oh god. Richter Belmont. I remember when he went by the name of Kyo Kusanagi, and all the Wolfenstein mods he pumped out faster than Nine Inch Nails pumps out albums*. Resident Evil, The Rise Of Jason (and the next subsequent 69 versions of it), and all the Spear Of Dreams series.
The maps were ripped off, the coding sloppily done, and the sprites taken from other games without permission. It was terrible.

As Richter Belmont, he has released a number of games under the heading of the "Lost World Saga". The games seem a lot better. Much higher quality, though still not the best.

The modder has released his first effort on the Wolf4SDL engine; a test version of The Lost World Part 8.

The game is two levels which sees you walking through a forest with relative ease; walk a fair bit, shoot the one enemy, then repeat. Collect souls which seem to make up sets, but which I never really worked out the purpose of (mainly because I finished the level by accident before collecting them all >_>).
Also it seems Richter has BJ talking to himself. First step on the way to madness if you ask me.

Well, next to fighting weird gun wielding monsters who aren't nearly as graphically refined as the weapons that have been borrowed for the game.

So I wander through a snowy maze and there are monsters everywher- WHY IS THERE AN OFFICER WANDERING AROUND WITH THE MONSTERS?!?

This is the only human character in the two level demo. What the? Well, he WAS the only human character in there...I didn't have the chance to take a screen shot before killing him. It was all so sudden. Just, "BAM LOOK AT ME IM A BAD GUY WHO ISN'T A MONS-" *BLAM*.

I really, truly, wished these two levels were a bit more entertaining. They were very un-thrilling and didn't give me anything to look forward to, except for maybe a manual so I can find out what the hell the game is meant to be about.

As a final note, I laughed when I was able to start playing Episode 2 of the original Wolfenstein. Richter, it helps to disable the other episodes when making a demo :P

*Three albums in 6 months. Wow.

Resistant

First off, love the use of a Nine Inch Nails song on the menu. Good taste son, good taste.

Second thing I actually noticed was the lack of several menu items; Where on Earth do I go to set my view size? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!
But when I got into the game I immediately saw why that option was gone; the game is made to be full screen, with no status bar apparent at all. Instead, Warthower has opted for using simple printed numbers on the left and right bottom corners to represent health and ammo. Nice.

So apparently, the objective is to kill a heap of Christianity-hating monks as they run around and shoot their guns off. Racist as this may be, but I immediately thought Taliban for some reason. God I'm a freak.

I found the game nice but a bit offputting, maybe because I'm still feeling the aftershock of WolfDX, or because I'm mildly frustrated I can't get normal Wolf4SDL to play. I don't know, but that doesn't change anything.

---

Looking back through the DHW threads, it saddens me that alot of old threads from 2006 and earlier appears to be gone. Some of the best discussions happened back then, and while they need to be trimmed to keep the server working and all that, it sucks that I can't say, go back to an old thread and have a laugh at the things that people (read: me) used to say.

WolfDX

I love this.

I decided as my first mod to try, to give Tricob's WolfDX a whirl. I really got into it.

It's my first time playing a Wolf4SDL game, so I wasn't sure what to expect apart from "HO HO HO THIS PLAYS ON VISTA WEEEEEEEEEEE". Maybe some improved handling? Smoother play? I had no idea.

So, loading it up, the first thing I noticed was the menu in a way, seemed smaller; like it didn't take up the whole screen. That was interesting.

When I loaded up the game, the actual game screen seemed larger; much larger.
The gameplay for WolfDX was pretty fun for me. I absolutely loved the idea of putting items on tables, and the hint bubbles were a fair unique way to get across new game features and such for the first level. The new features managed to improve the game, But it still felt alot like Wolf3D...in a good way.
For the record, if you're reading this Tricob; I hate mazes. I spent at least 10 minutes roaming the massive maze, collecting treasure, eventually stumbling upon the gatling gun, and so forth, before finally finding my way out. EVIL!

The wierd thing is, halfway through the maze, the game's colours went haywire, and everything was rainbow. The only way it seemed to overcome this was to either minimize and maximize the game (although the colours eventually warped again), or to go to the menu then back again. I'm not sure if this is a Wolf4SDL problem with my computer or if it's WolfDX, but it was interesting none the less.

Anyway, if the full version is even as slightly entertaining as this, I cannot wait.

IT IS TIME!!!

YES! I have the new (old) computer:

Check it out! Here it is set up on my desk alongside my laptop. It's a little cramped, but still :)

Yes, I read Questionable Content. Yes, I have pink curtains. Yes, I rock.
Unbelievably awesome. Anyway, Once the computer is cleaned of all the useless shit on it, be prepared for some ACTUAL WOLFENSTEIN ON THIS THING.

TIME TO GET THIS PARTY STARTED.

Yet another pointless post about progress to getting to writing about Wolfenstein again and I don't think I can make this title any longerrrrrrr

*Cough*

So, I've moved back to the Mother's domain. At the end of the week, I shall have the fabled computer capable of playing Wolfenstein and all your mods, so stay tuned! I'll get back to it once it's all set up.
I'll probably finish these uneventful posts off with a picture of the computer once it's set up.
Didn't really need to post this, but I really feel I need to get back into the habit of posting a bit more often.

Onto a mildly more Wolf-related topic, it's interesting to see how much the Wolf community is evolving. I've only been visiting the DieHardWolfer occasionally, but despite the community growing smaller, it's great to see the way the ability to mod the game is growing and that the game is becoming more sophisticated (particularly thanks to Ripper's converting the game to SDL), and that the message board's administrators are accommodating for it. It's awesome.