Review: House of Portals: Pre-release

Screenshots

House of Portals is a 10 level wad inspired by a game named "Realms of the Haunting", by Wim Vanrie. What you will find in the pre-release though is the first three levels, The House, Homophobia and The House. You see, you actually return to the house to further explore the "portals" which take you to alien places. It's all explained in the storyline, so I suggest you read it before you play, or you might just have no idea what is going on.

According to the story you've been chosen to "enter the country house and face the dangers within it". They weren't kidding. It's packed with imps that keep on appearing from seemingly nowhere. Out of coffins even. There are also a lot of pistol, shotgun and chaingun troops waiting for you, but you won't really find any of the tougher monsters.

At first the level design and architecture appears roughly average. But as you play through the levels they get better, and you really feel like you are exploring some old haunted house. You see all the kinds of stuff you would expect to find in a house - tables, chairs, sinks, beds and toilets. But then there is the more interesting stuff like snooker tables, kitchens and a swimming pool complete with a usable diving pool. And you guessed it, linedef 242 makes an appearance.

Texture use is good enough to recreate a house, and there were no major mis-alignment problems to speak of. Lighting is exceptional in some areas, but average in others. One of the final rooms in The House is very spooky with just enough light to see your nose, and imps coming out of nowhere. Most of the doors are not your usual Doom doors, with tricks used to make them either swing open, or slide to the sides. The result is that you get doors that open with turbo speed, and cannot be closed.

Perhaps the best aspect of the wad is how you return to the first level, after entering the second. This all fits in with the storline which sees you exploring the four portals hidden throughout the country house. At first I wasn't sure what I was missing in the second level - but once you kill the 'leader' of that world, who incidentally has the power to 'raise the dead', so you can guess what monster it is, just return to the start of the level to go back to the house.

By this time you will have collected the yellow key and you can take it back with you and explore more of the house. At first I thought it would come across as an exercise just to increase the number of levels in the wad, but no, it's quite well done and interesting to play.

On Ultra violence the levels are not too hard, but be sure to save often because it's easy to get a little careless and those chaingunners can make short work of you. Also, it is a long time before you get a reasonable amount of armour, making bullets twice as annoying.

This Pre-release should definitely warm you up for the full House of Portals when it is released. I'd like to see some dead bodies in the house when you return the second time, but other than that I have no major complaints. Keep up the good work Wim Vanrie.

Overall: 8/10

Reviewed by Chief