Game 33: The Catacomb Armageddon

Name:The Catacomb Armageddon
Number:33
Year:1993
Publisher:SoftDisk
Developer:SoftDisk
Genre:FPS
Difficulty:3/5
Time:6 hours

Catacomb Armageddon is like Catacomb Abyss. It is at its core, the same game. You throw infinite magic missiles at things that should not be; Gather useful items; Use all those items later when enemies get tough. What makes Armageddon better than Abyss is the enemy selection. Abyss had around three paletteswaps, while Armageddon merely redesigns past enemies in the series. They're not necessarily the best, but the underlying logic is the same, so that can be forgiven. What improves is that Armageddon has the best enemy selection of any Wolf-clone. I say that having a pretty good idea of what's going to come. It has been said of Doom that each enemy is unique, you can mix-and-match them as you please. That is exactly what Armageddon has, but I wouldn't say the level design makes use of that content fully.

As I said, its like Abyss. Weapons are your magick missile, infinite, but basic, zapper, rapid-fire, exterminator, outward from player, cure. Move with the arrow keys, alt goes sideways, V does a rapid turn. You need this because you have no ability to see behind yourself otherwise. Doors are usually locked, most of the time areas are separated by destructible walls. You are a wizard, you fight the evil Nemesis, a lich. Despite the seeming existence of figures from Greek mythology, they do not exist here. I'm used to this, because I like these games, your mileage may vary.

Which leaves us with the only real difference from Abyss left, the levels. There's certainly a bit of shared level progression. Each game starts with a cemetary, goes through something underground, a water level, hell, a conflict in a crypt, and ends with you going back to the surface. There's certainly surprises here. Good ones. Even the usual mazeyness of Wolf clones works here. But I have to say that its just more great level design, not something absolutely special. No, the team of Big Jim and Mike have one more game to go before they release their magnum opus. This is just a well-made game, with nothing special beyond that.

Weapons:
Same as Abyss. 2/10

Enemies:
I made fun of a few enemies for being reskins of the Abyss ones, (who are in turn reskins from 3D) but Armageddon has a genuinely well-thought out series of enemies. I would like less demons, but otherwise I think this could stand a few more games worth of content. 8/10

Non-Enemies:
Same as Abyss. 0/10

Levels:
Armageddon still suffers from the usual Wolf-clone level design issue, but other than that, its still a very impressive selection of levels. 8/10

Player Agency:
Same as Abyss. 5/10

Interactivity:
Same as Abyss. 1/10

Atmosphere:
Same as Abyss. 5/10

Graphics:
Abyss put into a blender, except a few new items are put in, making the whole package the same. 5/10

Story:
The manual says this is basically the same plot as Abyss. Which I wrote as 0/10

Sound/Music:
Same as Abyss. 3/10

That's 37. Putting it next to Bram Stoker's Dracula and above A-10 Tank Killer. As to other opinions on this game, well, apparently there are none. That's actually interesting, because despite the difficulty, this really isn't that much of a time investment. Difficult to the untrained hand, sure. People with that problem wouldn't be finishing this game anyway, difficulty or no difficulty. Next time, the final Catacomb FPS or more Galactic Empire...assuming the game finally cooperates.