Author: The Alpha Dog Alliance

Release Date: Unknown
(Note: Dates are in British format DD/MM/YYYY)

STRAIN is one of the more popular megawads for Doom 2. It's more of a partial conversion than anything else with new enemies and weapons (replacing some of the old ones) and a full 32 new maps.

To be honest, I don't rate STRAIN very highly. I didn't like it when I first played it in 2002. I don't really like it now even if my skill has improved over the years. STRAIN's main strength lies in its originality. It's not much like any other megawad out there.

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Difficulty: Very Hard (UV), Hard (HMP)

The player begins with no weapons which makes some of the maps all but impossible from scratch unless you are very skilled. Ultra Violence is extremely difficult so most players should look to Hurt Me Plenty. It's easy to run out of ammo for the only good weapon, the NFG, a plasma gun replacement. The BFG replacement looks good but is almost completely useless.

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Gameplay: Average

So, with ammo being your main consideration, how does the wad play? It has its good moments and the early levels train you adequately. The new monsters are introduced smoothly allowing you time to get used to them. The pistol, fist and shotgun have improved firing rates which are all welcome. The plasma gun replacement is awesome but only holds 100 rounds.

There's now a third type of armour, a red suit which gives the player 300 armour points. Handy, but so rare I'm not sure it was worth bothering to implement. Cheating only gives you 200 points instead of the maximum 300.

New monsters include a red demon which is a simple and crude palette swap of the pinky. They seem to be a bit harder to kill than the normal demons but otherwise are nothing special. A flying security probe which has machine guns for eyepieces are quite good and when they die they fall to the ground in flames, damaging you if you walk over them.

Super-fast Imps and flying circles are again quite crudely implemented. It's the thought that counts. It's nice to see a subspecies of Imp that isn't uber-powerful or crappily colour-changed in some way.

Son of Cyberdemon is a Knight-sized Cyber. The downscaling is pretty bad. It shoots one rocket at a time and tends to appear in enclosed areas. Are you starting to understand why I'm not fan of this megawad?

The most impressive new enemy is the Demon Lord, a palette swapped Baron who flings fireballs like there's no tomorrow. One Demon Lord will rip through four unprepared co-op players - you've been warned. I think you're supposed to use the BFG replacement to kill it. The BFG replacement is really bad so you'll be looking to any other powerful gun instead.

The wad won't work properly with Windows XP and some source ports so you need to get the fixed version from Jive's Doom Legacy Wads. Jive generously cleaned up other problems with the wad (or so I have heard). If you are using the original zip file it's full of a rdiculous number of items that you have to install and variously fart about with. There's no quicker way to annoy me than to ask me to install a Doom wad. I mean, what the hell? Jive's fixed version includes everything on just two wad files which don't need installing.

I can play a couple of levels of STRAIN before losing interest. I'd rather play Biowar or even the Talosian Incident.

Highlights: Originality.

Lowlights: Harsh, especially when facing some of the new monsters. Did anyone playtest the new BFG weapon?

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Aesthetics: Average

Visually STRAIN is no match for Requiem although it tries at times. The new textures are OK and the monsters aren't bad either. It was nice that the Alpha Dog Alliance made such an effort. The maps tend to be functional rather than pretty. Much of the aesthetical appeal is tied into the Gameplay aspect with the new monsters and guns.

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Overall Score: 5/10

Pros:
- Original and imaginative.
- The new monsters are pretty good, even if the Demon Lord is extremely overpowered.

Cons:
- Player begins with NO ammunition.
- Very harsh on Ultra Violence.
- New weapons are extremely unbalanced.
- Irritating number of files to deal with.