Armageddon and The Road To Neushwanstein, by Barry Christian

These are Barry Christian's later sets, both of which I played through many years ago. I still remember highly enjoying both of them, and TRTN in particular is at least somewhat of a classic. If Wolfenstein Forever is released by the author, I'm certainly looking forward to it. But how do you think these (currently) latest sets of his do quality-wise?

(I did not like The Six Depths of Terrorism or any of his previous sets nearly as much as I liked his last two.)

The first 2 of Barry's sets WLF3D_60 and The Lost Fortress both had a lot of bosses and I didn't like them very much.

The next 2, Domination and The Six Depths Of Terrorism, were well designed but didn't have as much decoration as the later sets. I find them nearly as good, they just look a bit bare at times.

The final 2, Armageddon and The Road To Neushwanstein, I like the most. They are both well designed and the decoration looks about right. Armageddon is probably the one I like the most. It seems more 'commercial' than TRTN.

From what I saw in an early beta test version of Wolfenstein Forever, it looked as though it would be as least good quality as Armageddon.

Schabbs wrote:The first 2 of Barry's sets WLF3D_60 and The Lost Fortress both had a lot of bosses and I didn't like them very much.

The next 2, Domination and The Six Depths Of Terrorism, were well designed but didn't have as much decoration as the later sets. I find them nearly as good, they just look a bit bare at times.

The final 2, Armageddon and The Road To Neushwanstein, I like the most. They are both well designed and the decoration looks about right. Armageddon is probably the one I like the most. It seems more 'commercial' than TRTN.

From what I saw in an early beta test version of Wolfenstein Forever, it looked as though it would be as least good quality as Armageddon.

I never even tried the first two sets. Lots of bosses = quick way to turn me off a set.

Anyways, I can see and sort of agree that Armageddon is actually very slightly better than TRTN, despite being the earlier release. It has more theme variety, more sense of progression, and the ending seemed a bit more epic - portal to the distant future, and such. The average design quality of individual maps is probably near equal, I could even make a case for TRTN being slightly more consistent on strong design styles, but the theme variance would easily push Armageddon a notch higher.

That said, TRTN did have a very interesting final level - also Level 58 was notable. But it wasn't divided into unique "chapters" like Armageddon. Some of Armageddon's maps, like the pipes and that really "gross" section following it, succeeded at somewhat less "orthodox" design styles IMO. And then there were the science labs too, plus the epic end portion of course. All built around a volcano.

Thanks as always for your own personal take on the two - and also for the heads up on Wolf Forever.

Thread bump here...

Looking back on these and having recently replayed them, I think Armageddon and the Road to Neuschwanstein each had their own strengths and weaknesses.  TRTN was where I really refined my mapping skills.  I would say the level design in TRTN is a notch above Armageddon.  It's consistently strong while Armageddon did have its weak maps.  However, TRTN pretty much stuck to the feel of the original Wolfenstein 3D all the way through.  Armageddon had a sense of variety and adventure as you moved through the game.  It was definitely the more creative set and because of that, a bit more fun to play through.

Wolfenstein Forever is kind of a hybrid between the two.  The game will be divided up into blocs like Armageddon to give it a little more variety than TRTN had, but the feel sticks close to the original Wolf3D and SOD.