Review: Resistant

Details
Title: Resistant
Creator: Warthower
Released: 18/06/2008
Length: 13 Levels
Level Format: Continuous
Story: New
Graphics: Mostly new
Sound: New
Special Features: Textured floors and ceilings, additional guard, destructible objects, gun bobbing.
Dos/SDL: Dos

Initial impressions: Some nice coding features have helped add to the games environment well. Unfortunately the player is stuck with with a full screen view that onlt shows health and ammo, with no option to change it.
The music fits in very well with and helps enhance the over all feel of the mod.

Gameplay: The gameplay is very basic and there aren't a huge amount of guards on most levels. The most difficult thing is the very low amount of ammo meaning the player is constantly forced to use their knife. I'm not sure if this is intentional but it makes for very slow going and constant damage taking simply trying to survive.
The low ammo and health counts make the mod so much harder the further the player gets into the mod as things become more difficult, you find you almost never use the biggest gun as it uses all your ammo in a very short time and it can take levels to get back to a full compliment again.
There are 3 drab looking environments used in the game with all inside areas making the player feel like they are in a box as the same graphic has been used for walls, floors and ceilings.

Mapping: The mapping is very basic and the levels aren't overly big, especially in the start. There are quite a few secret areas in each level and even with finding all of these and their goodies inside, it is still very hard to survive and keep decent health and ammo levels. The outside areas are like huge mazes and become very annoying, very quickly, especially where enemies can attack from multiple directions and distances and there simply isn't enough ammo or health to fight. This causes the player to have to constantly retreat looking for ammo and health.
The Boss levels are a little more complex in design but still not overly well designed and can be quite mazey at times also.

Likes: The coding is the main feature of this, it sets a great look and environment to the game and I suspect this would be the main reason for why it won a Dome award.
The new guard is well deisgned but can be very damaging. The outside night sky and weather effects have also been done quite well and add to the look of the mod.

Dislikes: The mapping really lets this mod down, especially the outside garden levels which are nothing more than large mazes. The box like feel of having the same textures throughout indoor areas are lazy and most of the internal area are either 1 square passageways (as seen below), tunnels that doen't go anywhere, or 3x3 rooms.
I am confused as to how and why there are zombies and ghosts in this as there seems to be little storyline or reason for why they are there. Their colouring looks a little blurry which makes me think they have been imported from another game simply because the creator liked them in that, rather than specifically made to fit in this.
The worst componenet of the mod is the very limited amount of ammo that the player can cary (50) at any one time. This causes constant backtracking filling up on ammo and wastes a huge amount of time. I always felt 99, like in original Wolf 3d, was the right number as the player still had to be careful of their usage but wasn't constantly running out.
The lack of choice of screen size was something I was very disappointed in also. I like there being a full screen option in a mod but in my opinion it should ONLY be an option, not the only set choice. I'm a player that likes to know what level I'm on, how much damage I have reflective on my players face, which weapon number I am using and especially which keys I have!


Ratings
Dean's Score: 5.5/10
Difficulty: Harder because of restricted health and ammo limits.
Best Level: None
Worst Level: 6

Wrap-up: Some well done coding helps give this a look and feel of it it's own but it's lack of substance in a lot of other areas makes this a fairly decent let down for me. Most mods I play get better the further you go into them but this just became more and more irritating and was a real struggle for me to finish.
Others may feel differently to me about this and I sure hope that they can find something I wasn't able to. No matter what as long as the creator has made a mod to their own vision that they are happy with then I can't knock that.

Where Can I get it?: You can download the mod HERE or by clicking on the screenshot at the top of this post.

Disclaimer: All reviews are only my opinion when playing the mod and are not intended to discredit anyone or the hard work they have put into creating their mod.