Nerves of Steel
From DoomWiki.org
Nerves of Steel is a 3-episode total conversion for ZDoom/Doom II 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, as a creative exercise (and also as a means to spite the ineptitude of the original game).
Since creating Nerves of Steel, Impie has made a number of mods based on other games. NoS is considered the first of the DOSworld series, which recreates terrible DOS shooters as Doom mods.
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 2000's, 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 6 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.
- Bayonet - Replaces the fist and deals considerably more damage.
- Revolver - Replaces the pistol and deals three bullets' worth of damage with each shot, but fires very slowly.
- AK47 - Fires faster than the chaingun and serves as the player's main weapon, since ammo is plentiful.
- AA12 Auto-Shotgun - A fully automatic version of the shotgun.
- Seeker Missile Launcher - Fires rockets that home in on enemies and pulp them on contact. One shot is capable of clearing a room.
- 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 - The most devastating weapon, which can easily kill the player if he/she isn't careful. Ammo is extremely rare.
Enemies[edit]
The entire bestiary has been replaced with modified creatures from Realm 667. The most common are the Red Moon Stormtroopers, who wield AK47s and travel in squads -- they are very aggressive and can shred the player's health quickly. The mod also features killer dogs, jetpack commandoes, cyborg warriors that flee when hurt, teleporting mutants, giant thugs with dual miniguns, and a mutant that moves fast and throws alarmingly deadly fireballs. Each episode concludes with a notably treacherous boss battle.
Levels[edit]
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Episode 1: The Cyborg Solution
Episode 2: The Mutant Hive |
Episode 3: Palace of the Red Moon |
Music[edit]
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- Title screen: Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown - "303" (E2L6 theme)
- Intermission: Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown - To Be Wild
- Text screen: Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown - "303" (E2L6 theme)
- Ending - Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown - Bar Music
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.
- In addition to the maps, all of the enemies are reinterpretations of the original game's enemies, with a few new additions.
- The TC comes with a pdf "instruction manual" which describes the story, new additions, and asset authors.