Operation Eisenfaust: Origins Level 5

Level 5 was the first Boss level in the mod and the 3rd level I made for the project. I started with the idea of having the Boss be located in the central section and having the player having to kill all the guards surrounding the Boss before then taking the Boss on to retrieve his key and move on. I had really enjoyed the use of the directional sprites that had been added in to mod, especially the wire fences, so they became a pivotal part of this mod. It's the most open level I made for the mod and is relatively easy to navigate, especially if you don't get into the secret areas too much.
Being a Boss level I wanted to make the Boss area well guarded Also, seeing that the Boss was armed with a missile weapon, that I wanted it to be dangerous for the player to battle the Boss due to splash damage and explosive damage from other items in the area. This is a good idea, but I probably didn't realise at the time that it was going to be more damaging to the Boss than the player!

Some other elements I tried to include here were patrolling guards, although of course they all come running as soon as you fire a shot, as well as 4 distinctly different areas the player must progress through in order to get to the end. They were the ovens area, the offices, storage and admin areas. Very little changed from the levels original design with only really secret access to the trucks area being the main thing added later on, as well as other aesthetic changes. I liked the openness of this level especially that there are guards all around you taking pot shots at you, as you would expect of walking around in the open.

The Boss section was reworked as the splash damage was killing the Boss too easily. This was reworked multiple times and, other sprites were removed and added, including exploding drums and a whole pile of hanging bodies as they were just giving the player free coverage and helped make it easier to kill the Boss. Unfortunately we were still unable to get the Boss battle right and if you position yourself right (as shown by Balames87 in his playthrough) then you can defeat the Boss with very little effort.

I feel this is far from the best level in the mod but it does have a concept different to most of the others so that it works well enough. If I had my time again I'd certainly be reworking the Boss section a bit better so that he doesn't kill himself. I am happy with the guard placements in this level and feel that they often surprise the player, especially the turret guys and big machine gun dudes who prove to be quite damaging if you aren't careful.

I'll try to include some other little things that you may not of seen each level I review also, so here's the original 'Get Psyched' screen from Sonder;

Here's also some more trivia you might find interesting;
- There was originally other collectible treasure items in the mod but as this was a concentration camp setting we found it to be rather unbelievable that treasure items would be hidden throughout, hence the creation of books as treasure items.
- The weather theme progression wasn't worked out until quite a few of the levels had been made meaning that multiple levels were changed for either no snow to snow, or day to night etc.
- There is some difference between ceiling light colours used in certain levels based on Ron or my preferences rather than a uniformal design.
- 3 other people made maps for the mod that Ron and I chose to not use as we felt they just didn't fit with the others that had been made or the direction of the mod. One made it in as a Bonus level after being heavily re-edited.
- We initially made some screenshots of wall, ceiling and floor combinations that each mapper had used so that each other had a reference point for some uniformity, here's one below;

You can download Operation Eisenfaust: Origins HERE.

You can watch Balames87 play through of Level 5 below;

Operation: Eisenfaust Origins Level 4 & Level 6

Level 4 of Eisenfaust Origins is one of those levels of which I do not remember much in terms of creating it. Obviously when I see the level I recognize it, but otherwise I couldn't tell you much about it. Which is why I will discuss two levels in this post. Since Dean did the mapping for level 5, this means that I will talk about levels 4 & 6.

As I said, level 4 is a level I remember relatively little about. It's just 'one of the levels'; nothing remarkable happened during its creation. It's another prison level, and there are relatively few aspects of this level that truly stand out. As such, I see it as more of a filler level.

The only aspect that stands out for me about this level is the amount of backtracking required. You find one key on one side of the level and then have to travel all the way to the other side of the map. And that is pretty much the whole level. As such, I consider it to be one of the more sloppy levels. At the time though, I wasn't so against backtracking as I am now. I think it hampers the playing experience, as you constantly have to go back across a level where all the action has taken place already. It is fairly useless, and it's why I strive to let my levels be more connected, as to avoid unnecessary backtracking.

The same goes for level 6, really. It was the first level where I utilized the rain, and since it featured dogs, I called the level Rain Dog; a reference to the Rain Dogs album by Tom Waits (which is fantastic). The level is relatively big, yet at the same time, like level 4, it feels more like a filler level. It's not bad, and it doesn't have nearly as much unnecessary backtracking as level 4, but at the same time it doesn't have anything special about it. It lacks an element that stands out, something that levels like 3 and 5 do possess. For me, at least.

And for a level which has the word Dog in its title, the amount of dogs in the level is relatively scarce. In fact, dogs are the enemies that we utilized the least. The reason is simple: they are relatively challengeless, being easy to kill, and there are only so many ways in which you can use them. You can combine them with other enemies, but since it only takes one shot to kill them they can be taken care of with relative ease. And then there is the other option: place them in a large pack of hounds. This can be challenging, especially in large open areas where they can attack you from all sides. A good mapper, using interesting enemy placement, can create a challenging scenario out of this. However, that scenario gets old fairly quickly.

All in all, these are two levels which I personally wouldn't rank amongst the top levels of this game. They can provide a nice challenge, but at the same time they lack something special that would have made them stand out from the other levels.

You can download Operation: Eisenfaust Origins HERE.

You can watch Balames' playthrough of level 4 below;

And you can watch Balames' playthrough of level 6 below here;

Review: MIS - STEP

Details 
Title: MIS - STEP
Creator: Harry Mass Snr.
Dos Version Released: 
Length: 4 Levels
Level Format: Episodic (Episode 1)
Story: Original
Graphics: Original
Sound: Original 
Special Features: None
Dos/SDL: Dos

Initial impressions: From first impressions this is obviously an old school mod and boy does it show it's age. I've always been a big exponent for honouring the older style mapsets and mods but upon playing this one I've been forced to rethink a little. Wolfenstein 3D is 22 years old now, older than some members of the Wolf 3d Community, obviously things change and expand and improve over time. So how do I rate and review this mod? On it's merits against other mods produced in the 1990's or against today's standards, which hardly seems fair. The only conclusion I can come up with is to hope that my experience of playing and reviewing mods from all era's will allow me to decide whether this is a good mod or not, and, for mods of it's age, how does it compare? The Answer to both is, not very well...

Gameplay: The maps and gameplay is extremely simple. The maps are very small, the number of guards is very few and there is little to no decoration used and little to no wall variance used. There is no more than 10 rooms in any of the 4 very small maps. Each map uses only 1 or 2 wall types in each level so to compensate the maker has overloaded on Bosses... sigh. From my experience this is a common style from early mapsets and one that, thankfully, doesn't get much recognition or respect today. The Bosses aren't overly difficult but if you want any health or keys at all, you are going to have to either kill a boss or search for secrets as there is pretty much none anywhere. Oddly enough though, there is way more ammo than you'll ever need because each enemy drops a 25 ammo box! Why? I don't know, stupid question with no realistic answer really.
On Level 1 you are supposed to kill a Boss to get his key to continue but if you just go to the room to where the gold key door is and start shooting it usually opens for you and you can continue and finish the level without having to kill the Boss.

Mapping: Extremely basic. I know there have been a lot of advances in Wolf and today's mappers can do so much more but even in older sets the mapping could, should and was, much better than this. I've played other Harry Mass Snr. mods, and while they are somewhat basic, they certainly had more to them that this did. I'm not sure if this is his first or last or whatever but there's seriously no more than a couple of hours of mapping combined here.
The maps consist of very basic squarish maps, most rooms have little to no decoration, in fact the one's that do have decoration in them generally don't have many, or any, guards in them for some reason. All health and keys are hidden but treasures and ammo are oddly left out in the wide open.
One of the other factors I didn't like was the use of some of the old school 'tricks' and that is hollow-walls. I personally just never saw the appeal and upon playing this I'm still bereft of an understanding why they held some popularity.
One of the maps is no bigger than 15x25 yet it contains 3 Bosses, why? Who knows, for some reason mappers thought this was a good way to map back in the day...

Likes: There has been some slight changes to the mod at least. Changed ceiling colours, a marginally edited title screen and the ammo volume and sprite has been changed. Some credit is due for modifying as it was a pretty scary thing way back when and not often done.
 
Dislikes: There's plenty to dislike in this one. The maps are small and not challenging. There is little to no decoration, way too many bosses, you have to search for hidden keys to move on sometimes and there's just no real effort to produce anything beyond a very basic level in this mod.
The exit elevators aren't even a room, they are just a wall switch behind the elevator door, this look and seem rather silly and thankfully I've never seen them in any other mod.

Ratings
Dean's Score: 2/10
Difficulty: Harder then original due to excessive Boss usage.
Best Level: None
Worst Level: All

Wrap-up: Not just a badly out dated mod, a mod, that I believe, would of been very bad in it's day also. There's very little appeal here to play this, in fact I'd suggest you'd pretty much have to be a hardcore Harry Mass Snr. fan to play this, only ever once.

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.