Author: Pascal Rouaud
Released: 21st December 2003
Rating: 99
Review by Steven Laliberté on 29th August 2008
Mmh, that's it I guess! Pascal Rouaud's Roch 8 is perhaps the most extraordinary city map ever, and definitely an undethroned resident of the Hall of Fame for generations. Roch 7 had been a quite magic achievement a year and a half before, but considering the absolutely fantastic city and the outstanding Alien Spaceship it's featuring, Pascal plainly pushes back, the 21st December 2003 with Roch 8, the limits of the map-designing!
The concept is really pleasant: a huge Alien spaceship landed into the main street of Roch 7 and you have five buildings to visit in the order of your choice, thanks to Pascal's famous unlinear keycard system, before unlocking the Spaceship entrance. Roch 8's lifetime has been so extended with up to 120 different ways! The gameplay is rather excellent, and all the intense fights of Roch 8 are supported by a profusion of respawns, and it features every class of alien and weapons for you to enjoy the party!
Within the streets, pay attention to all the superposed structures of the incredible architecture layout, as well as all the excellent detailed objects like the stupendous sprite work of art, the elaborated bus shelters or all the ultra-realistic facades spread all over. They’re all improved by Pascal's researches about texturing, since he's using everywhere very clever sets of unusual textures to render more and more realistic. The whole Alien spaceship is plainly fantastic! Such a masterpiece is quite ineffable, but nevertheless we may say that it's featuring a very appropriate atmosphere and some quite tough action within all the tremendous technical/alien rooms and environments as much elaborated as the city.
All the interiors are likewise dazzling, with a cascade of tiny details or very small and thin spriteworks in all places, so take a careful look to the impressive wainscot laying within the "Sun Museum" in construction, to the imposing little model of Roch 4's French castle, or even to all those stunning offices that witness of an unique Build craftsmanship. Anyway, keep in mind that Pascal was about to reach all the sectors, walls, and sprite Build original limitations to see the extent of such an uncommon graphical achievement.
Finally there's no doubt you'll be surprised by those new excellent and original effects Pascal invented: that interesting lift going down automatically, these realistic sprites you strangely won't automatically step on, the funny trap of the red key door, or even the teleportation you can activate with a switch! Don’t forget to check out the usual marks of a map from the ROCH series through the clear blue sky, the original animated billboard and all the excellent messages and games spread into the forbidden places; don't forget them, as the 3 secret places!
This map was one of those that initiated with pomp and majesty new standards of Duke-Mapping, and still influence nowadays User maps, so I believe you to need to reach immediately the Download button!
Gameplay Type: SP
Requires:
Duke Nukem 3D v1.4+
Filesize: 243.81 KB
Level includes: multiple difficulty settings
Download:
Roch 8 (894)
Other releases by Pascal Rouaud:
Roch,
Roch 2,
Roch 3,
Roch 4,
Roch 5,
Roch 6,
Roch 7,
Roch Secret 1
Know of any other maps from this author? Let us know
Mapping template:
Title : Roch 8
Filename : Roch8.map
Author : Pascal ROUAUD
E-mail : pascalrouaud[at]hotmail.com
Please send me any comments about this map
If you post it on your web page, please tell me you've done
it so I can appreciate...
Misc.Author Info: I'm French (sorry for my English)
Other Levels : Roch, Roch2, Roch3, Roch_sc1, Roch4, Roch5, Roch6, Roch7.
Other stuff : DukeRoch, a Windows Duke3d launcher, which also allows you
to test all Duke3d sounds and musics, browse and test .GRP
files, and more... Now includes and supports Nolfb.com by Ken
Silverman, allowing you to play in Vesa mode under NT/2000/XP.
Description : My 9th map. The 8th in the series - Roch_sc1 and sc2 will
be secret levels in the episode if I finish it someday.
Some cool effects/tips & tricks
Especially all spriteworks quite low on the floor that Duke
won't automatically step on (yet, you still can jump over them),
teleportation called by a switch, small and thin spriteworks.
Others that you may not notice...
This map has been made with no stuff, no ideas from any other
mapper. I guess that really needs to be said nowadays....
3 secret places.
If you love this map like I do and would like to know where
all secrets are, mail me to get a demo file that shows
everything (or to be sent my previous / future levels).
Tips : Like in ROCH7, the gameplay is unlinear, using the same blue card
and 5 red switch/monitor sets controlling the intermediate goal.
Of course, don't even try to kill the first minibosses at
the beginning. Just run to reach the other side of the truck.
You'll be helped by some atoms on your way.
Someone will 'help' you behind some doors that don't open and
will give you the blue keys. While you were running at the
beginning, you lost the end yellow key that you found in Roch7.
An alien grabbed it and of course he's gone back with the key,
in that thing in the street.... Now you have to retrieve it to
get out of this eighth part (or was it the seventh?).
_____________________________________________________________________________
Additional Credits To : Ken Silverman, 3D Realms.
Special thanks to my beta-testers:
Ken Silverman again who's been kind to betatest it.
: "Build" author http://www.advsys.net/ken
Rémi Boulnois : Le site de Fadeuk http://www.ifrance.com/fadeuk
Kevin Cools : Borg Nukem http://borgn.totalconversions.com
Tracy Fox : (no website) Many thanks for your support
Juha Laaksonen : Dukesivut http://www.dukesivut.cjb.net
Bob Masters : Bob's Duke Nukem SP Maps
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Chasm/7733
Maarten Pinxten : 2maarten.com http://www.2maarten.com
Antonio Rodríguez: Página oficial de Real3D http://ajgelado.eresmas.net
Mikko Sandt : MSDN http://www.planetduke.com/msdn
Bill Schaedler : (no website) Many thanks for your support
and Roch of course...
For their support to "DukeRoch":
Bob, Juha, Maarten, Mikko and Rémi again...
Jack Farnsworth III: Gloryroader http://gloryroad.freeyellow.com
Bug team members : Bug Team http://membres.lycos.fr/duke3d
Duke-N-The-Babes : Duke-N-The-Babes http://www.ifrance.com/Duke-N-The-Babes
____________________________________________________________________________
* Play Information *
Episode and Level # : Roch8
Single Player : Yes
DukeMatch 2-8 Player : Yes
Cooperative 2-8 Player : Yes
Difficulty Settings : Yes (3 skills)
Plutonium Pak Required : Yes
New Art : No
New Music : No
New Sound : No
New .CON Files : No
Demos Replaced : Yes
Done in 'Damn I'm good' by Roch himself (my nephew)
He has to eliminate them all so they don't respawn!
Shows 2 secrets only, you'll still have to find
the hardest one ;)
____________________________________________________________________________
* Construction *
Base : New level from Roch7's end sectors
Level Editor(s) Used : Build, Hex Workshop
Construction Time : some months... (on and OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
Known Bugs/Problems : please mail me if you find some.
* Where to get this MAP file *
File location : Your mailbox if you lost it and ask me.
____________________________________________________________________________
* Important Information *
Installation : Unzip ROCH8.MAP in your Duke3d directory and type:
duke3d map roch8
You may choose your skill : add /s# (#=1 to 4)
If you have DukeRoch (mail me if you don't!):
double click ROCH8.MAP and click OK.
You may change any default options (skill, fake multiplayer, etc)
Macintosh users : You know better than me!
____________________________________________________________________________
* Suggestion *
I love demos! Please, make me a favour: record one in any of my maps and send
it to me. Thanks for all those I received so far! It helps me see how I can
improve the gameplay since not one of you played the same style!
____________________________________________________________________________
* Copyright / Permissions *
Authors MAY NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels,
concatenations, or otherwise. You MAY NOT use anything from this map or from
my previous maps without my permission. Anyway, try to create something of
your own only, instead of redoing others' stuff! It's much more commendable!
You MAY distribute this MAP (Roch8), provided you include all text files
that originally came with it with no modifications:
Roch8.txt
RochPoll.txt
Demo1.dmo
News.txt
BuildTool.txt
You may distribute the archive in any electronic format (BBS, Diskette,
CD, etc)
____________________________________________________________________________