Nerves of Steel
From DoomWiki.org
| Nerves of Steel | |
|---|---|
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| Author | Mike MacDee |
| Port | ZDoom |
| IWAD | Doom II |
| Year | 2015 |
| Link | The Project Download Page |
Nerves of Steel is a three-episode Doom II total conversion for ZDoom developed and released by Mike MacDee (Impie) in the summer of 2015. It features 18 new maps and a totally replaced roster of weapons and enemies. It is a remake of the Rainmaker Software game of the same name, which Impie recreated as a creative exercise in improving upon the poorly regarded original and to, in his own words, "spite the ineptitude of the original". It is the first of the DOSworld series, which recreates widely panned DOS shooters as Doom mods, later followed by Operation Body Count.
Contents
Story[edit]
The player controls one of two "Tunnel Rats", military operatives who specialize in the infiltration and subsequent destruction of heavily fortified bases. The setting is an alternate history version of the early 2000s, when Southeast Asia is taken over by a maniacal Japanese dictator known only as Aniki, who threatens to continue his plans of conquest until he is stopped. The Tunnel Rats—Gale Torrez and Bobby Storm—are sent to each of Aniki's vital bases to cripple his army and ultimately assassinate him.
Episodes[edit]
All three episodes feature futuristic bases set in different environments. Episode 1 is comprised of brick buildings in the heart of Osaka which hide sleek cyborg factories. Episode 2 takes place in the jungles of Vietnam, where many of the bases are disguised as run-down wooden forts. Episode 3 is set in Aniki's samurai-styled palace in the Ryukyu Islands, and is the most lavish of the three. Each episode is six maps long, and each map is a reinterpretation of its counterpart in the original Nerves of Steel.
The player can choose to play as Gale or Bobby for each episode. The choice is purely a matter of gender preference, as both have identical stats and equipment.
Weapons[edit]
Nerves of Steel completely replaces the player's arsenal.
- .357 magnum revolver
- Replaces the pistol and deals three bullets' worth of damage with each shot, but fires very slowly.
- AK47 assault rifle
- Fires faster than the chaingun and serves as the player's main weapon, since ammo is plentiful.
- AA-12 auto-shotgun
- A fully automatic version of the shotgun.
- Redstone seeker
- Fires rockets that home in on enemies and pulp them on contact. One shot is capable of clearing a room.
- "Pineapple" hand grenade
- Explodes after three seconds, or on contact. Can bounce around walls to hit unseen enemies.
- Plasma repeater
- A highly damaging energy minigun that takes a moment to rev up.
- Nuclear missile launcher
- The most devastating weapon, which can easily kill the player if they are not careful. Ammo is extremely rare.
Enemies[edit]
The entire bestiary has been replaced with modified creatures from Realm 667, serving as reinterpretations of the original game's enemies.
- Ashura inu
- Fast, low health killer dog enemies that utilize a melee based bite attack.
- Red Moon patriot
- Brainwashed slaves of Aniki, they are low-tier fodder enemies with melee based attacks. There are both male and female variants, though both have the same stats.
- Hazard worker
- Similar to the Red Moon patriot, albeit slightly tougher, this is another melee-based low-tier enemy that attacks with an electric cattle prod.
- Red Moon stormtrooper
- The most common enemy, these enemies utilize a hitscan attack with a constant rate of fire. They have low health but often travel in squads and shred the player's health quickly. Upon death, they drop their AK47 assault rifles.
- Hellion
- Lab-grown infantry units with pyrokinetic powers that usually attack in huge mobs. Visually, these monsters bear resemblance to the arch-vile though their fiery attack is projectile-based, unlike the archvile's line-of-sight attack.
- Wraith
- Melee-based mutant nightmares that utilize their teleportation abilities to close the distance between theirself and the player.
- Toshiba turret
- Small, stationary turrets that unleash a devastating line-of-sight attack when the player walks into their field of view. Due to their small size, these are often hard to hit and hard to notice until it is too late.
- Shinobi force
- Special ops soldiers that function as a tougher variant of the Red Moon stormtrooper. The lack of constant fire from their hitscan attack is mitigated by their higher health and more damaging attack. These enemies are also quiet and can sneak up on the player from the shadows. They come in male and female variants but there is no statistical difference between the two. They drop their AA-12 auto-shotgun upon death.
- Cyborg enforcer
- Fallen troops reanimated by Aniki as cyborg killers. These enemies serve as mid-tier enemies and use a projectile-based lightning attack. They often are encountered in pairs and will retreat upon taking damage.
- Zero guard
- Jetpack troopers armed with assault carbines and shoulder-mounted pulse cannons that utilize a strong hitscan attack.
- Arachnorb
- Flying mutant hellspawn that utilize a plasma-style attack.
- Goroze
- A giant chaingunner that attacks with a pair of miniguns.
- Red Moon terminator
- The latest cyborg project and an upgrade to the cyborg enforcer, this enemy launches a similar projectile attack but also uses a continuous fire hitscan attack similar to the chaingunner. It serves as the boss of the first episode.
- Arachnorb queen
- A larger and deadlier variant of the arachnorb. This monster utilizes a homing missile attack and also shoots a flurry of green lightning projectiles. It serves as the boss for the second episode.
- MuTank
- A giant cyborg tank that launches two high-damage rockets at a time. Second only to the Red Moon terminator in hit points, they serve as a mini-boss for the third episode.
- Aniki
- The final boss of the game. He commonly fires off a trio of rockets but also will fire red homing projectiles and a trio of projectiles similar to the cyborg terminator. In addition to these attacks, Aniki also has the ability to become invisible and to create weaker fake versions of himself.
Content[edit]
Levels[edit]Episode 1: The Cyborg Solution:
Episode 2: The Mutant Hive:
Episode 3: Palace of the Red Moon: |
Soundtrack[edit]All tracks are taken from Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown.
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Other notes[edit]
- The villains in the original game were North Korean, but Impie changed them to Japanese due to a lack of Korean voice samples. The enemies speak in the voices of various untranslated fighting game characters.
- The TC comes with a PDF "instruction manual" which describes the story, new additions, and asset authors.
