printz
CRAZY DUMB ZEALOT
Posts: 6842
Registered: 06-06 |
Whatever, I'll follow myk's way of replying here.
I have to choose from: Doom, Doom2, Tnt, Plutonia, Heretic, Hexen, Strife1.
Best to worst.
1. Strife1
Very coherent gameplay, and it's all a single hub. They managed to include mission objectives and characters into a first-person shooter. Gameplay can get as challenging as it can get, and level design is good.
2. Hexen
Second to Strife. It's now divided into several hubs, so there's a bit more linearity. Some pretty inventive scripts and effects for a company like Raven who later made that Hexen 2 near-flop. Classes are very fun even with just four weapons like in Wolf3d. Each hub has lots and lots of levels to keep you busy and exploring. Music is lovely, better than Strife's overall.
3. Heretic
Sorry, but this really takes Doom's cake, because it has more well-designed levels than Doom. All three retail episodes are awesome, and the two expansions ones aren't half bad. D'sparil is very tough. Also, having an inventory with important powerups you can activate when things get dire means you have more control on your survival than in Doom, so you basically live longer, as dying is frustrating.
4. Doom
The game that started it all... is on the fourth place. In any case, its four episodes value more for me than the 32-level glop that's in every other IWAD. Also, I love the music and the skies. Bad points go for some extremely easy levels... At least I can salvage them by going -fast.
5. Tnt
I like this for the good music and the distinctive Team-TNT level design that can't be replicated. Some very interesting levels within.
6. Doom2
Kinda sloppy, with joke levels like Barrels of Fun or the Chasm, what can you expect? It has some nice playground levels for testing new monsters, like Suburbs, but otherwise it's sloppy, more made for commercial purposes (but incidentally helping the community grow too). Hey, it was officially dubbed "Commercial Doom" after all.
7. Plutonia
HEY, WHAT'S THIS DOING IN THE LAST PLACE, BELOW DOOM2?! Yeah but I don't think I like its over-the-top difficulty in cramped layout. There's nothing fun about being bruised by so many people all the time in such close spaces. It's a really paranoic level design.
Interesting, barring the different Doom version choices, my IWAD preference order is inversely proportional to the PWAD count for those games. It makes sense, because people are less motivated to design new maps for something already populated with great levels.
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09-06-10 03:41 
