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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Unholy Realms & Zone 300 (simultaneously!)

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'Ungod' is the one with all of the lacquered green/white tiling, right? I think in that one you've got to kind of avoid the cyb until near the end, although it's been years and years since I've played. Anyway, few Vile Flesh maps are really difficult, although when pistol-starting some of them may require you to find some secrets (which is sometimes hard) to easily maintain an ammo balance that allows for straightforward attainment of maxkills (though there's usually a way to do it even without if you can figure out a good route). Another thing worth mentioning is that while Vile Flesh has some minor puzzle elements and its maps are quite extensive in places, it has nothing parallel in obscurantism to the maps by Jim Flynn or Bob Evans that appear in Eternal DooM, or anything comparable in size to the largest of Chris Coleur's behemoths, these probably being the biggest stumbling blocks to completion of the WAD that most folks who make it past the first few maps encounter.

UR Map 27 -- Serpentine (Violence) - 104% Kills / 100% Secrets
Ah, the Skillsaw map. These are always easy to recognize, both from the arenas (I almost think it's not so much the way he builds them as the way he places them) to the winding paths to the generally imp-crazed proceedings. I guess this one represents 'Wrath' in that it's.....violent, and you kill a lot of stuff, or alternately are killed by said stuff? Yeah, I got nothing, this time.

Looks good, though. The red-hot fire/lava style is actually one of my least favorite of all Hell themes, truth be told, but this one is pleasing to behold if for no other reason than that it features a grand sense of scale and space in its main lava crater, where enemies sometimes look like tiny ants in the distance....I've always felt that for all of its relative simplicity, the idtech 1 engine and its functionally 'infinite' draw distance really does this kind of expanse a lot better than many engines vastly more advanced than it is. Also somewhat notable here is the use of the lovely flesh-tech textures to accent the various side areas; I saw these put to a similar (and similarly effective) use in a recent Darkreaver map, and it strikes me that I wish I saw them more often, since I reckon they work well in all light levels and have all manner of interesting uses. The music was again rather arcade-y, which usually fits Skillsaw maps pretty well. I did see one strictly visual error, that being that the scrolling face texture used on the doorway-style teleporter that gives you access to the top of the pillar-running section in the final area doesn't look right, given how poorly it tiles vertically.

As far as action goes, well, it's predictably fun, and like the majority of his maps, not actually as difficult as it might sound like it's going to be on paper, largely a function of very generous health/ammo placement and some very easy secrets. I reckon the reason that Skillsaw's maps are so popular with so many different tastes is that he understands that while a lot of action without real challenge often leaves maps feeling a bit superficial, it is nevertheless okay (even beneficial) to sometimes leave challenge aside for a few minutes and set up some easy massacres simply for fun (I reckon this is why he always uses so many imp-hordes). That being said, 'Serpentine' certainly isn't without danger. I think that the use of arachnatrons in particular here is excellent, as they command the vast lava cauldron like almost no other enemy type can, insuring that you often feel hemmed in and chased despite the vast amount of space and generous supply of radsuits that allow you to semi-safely play in the lava (I was quite lucky on my playthrough, very rarely suffering radsuit leak despite the amount of time I spent in the lava). There is also some decent arch-vile usage, a pair of them being the centerpiece in the only truly nasty fight in the level, that being the one for the BFG--pinkies + viles are another underused but potentially very dangerous combination. I didn't mind the repeated use of revenant clusters in the final area per se, but I do feel that the map's ending is quite anticlimactic; I expected there to be some twist on the theme at the end (probably involving more viles, I thought), but no, after you raise the last set of pillars you simply leave without incident. Pretty weak.

Flat ending aside, it's still a fun map, a good addition to the set despite its pronounced differences from Snakes' style, I'd say.

Edit: Oh yes, I nearly forgot to mention, but I also saw a pair of imps trapped in the terrain in one of the smaller lava-falls in the main area, the one near the megasphere, I believe.

******

Z300 Map 27 -- Dissect - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
I reckon this is probably the best map in Zone 300, honestly. Leaving aside the line restriction and its impact (or lack thereof) on design and gameplay, this really is new-ish ground for Paul in the sense that the flesh-hell theme is something he's hardly ever worked extensively with before, and it's a refreshing change after all of the red/vine-hells that have preceded it. I think the music track is really cool, too, indeed I'd go so far as to say that I hope PCorf (or someone else, even) reuses it somewhere down the line. Apart from aesthetic considerations, though, the reason why I'd say this is really the cream of the Z300 crop is simply that it feels most like a complete, proper map (albeit a very short one, of course), with a consistent unifying theme and sense of gameplay/combat progression throughout, as well as fairly smooth-flowing and recursive layout, rather than being 2-3 random disconnected rooms/ideas set down in a few lines and then super-glued together like so many of the others. The action itself is fine, hardly very taxing, but it keeps you busy. I spent the most time and quite a large amount of ammo on the caco/PE fight, simply because one of the PEs managed to a get bit out of hand with the soul-spawning. I kind of wish there was a final kick in the ass to go along with shooting the last eye switch, but alas, nothing's perfect.

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I went ahead and replayed "Serpentine (Wrath) (Violence on the automap)", since it's my favorite in UR, by far.

I'm rather surprised at how easy DotW found this one; IMO, it's quite a bit harder than any of Snakes's own maps. Even though many of the combat situations are such that it's not terribly hard to avoid taking damage (aside, of course, from the Arachnotrons on the open platforms at the start), they are frequently also such that making a small mistake can fuck you up hard, with health dropping from 100-to-0 in record time like some sort of reverse-Ferrari. Then, those Revenant caves at the end are just straight-up evil, and by far the hardest part of the level, IMO; on a normal floor, they'd be no problem, but when you factor in Radsuits depleting (and how long it takes to bring in a Radsuit from the outside area), things can get out-of-hand there, fast. It may be a bit easier if you somehow manage to save a bunch of cells for it, but I've usually used all of them during the Pinkie/Vile fight at the BFG, leaving me only one BFG shot for that area, forcing me to rely on rockets in an area where space is at a premium.

YET ANOTHER EDIT: Visually, in addition to the awe-inspiring scope that Demon of the Well mentioned, I love the color contrast between the red and the dark grays/blacks. There's a surprising amount of metal in this hell, but the dark metal looks amazing with the red rock and lava. Also, I like how the dark lighting in places is used to create more of that same color contrast without changing the texture usage, and I really like how the flashing lighting is used to affect the action in the blue key arena.

Anyways, despite the bugginess (imps stuck in the pathways as Demon mentioned, and I really do wish that the lava was only 15%, leakage sucks), this map kicks all kinds of ass, and is easily the highlight of the wad (and, really, easily the best map to come out this year, I'd say). I wish that Skillsaw would return to fulltime mapping- or, at least, finish Vanguard.

Oh, and that music rules.

EDIT: Yeah, "Ungod" is the keyhub-shaped map with the green-and-white tiles. I wouldn't have minded getting killed by the Cybie at the end so much if it weren't for the fact that he's preceded by a million years of shotgunning nobles in the most tedious manner possible. It's like the Zone 300 exit meat extended for an entire giant level.

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MAP28 Unholy Demise

*Regular Run*

Hey, you gave me all these clips and a chaingun, so I used it! Killed the imps with it. But the cacos outside have to be annoyingly placed where an SSG shot will make them go far back for me to hit 'em again. Not by much though, thankfully. The archie before the red key took me by surprise the first time, so I formulated to preemptively BFG-smack him the instant he teleports in. Whaddya know, his corpse flies far to my left the instant he got hit. Just a funny glitch I wanted to share. That other RK trap was pretty basic, and I really hate seeing zombies on a level this late in the wad. Outer courtyard was pretty bombastic and somewhat Twilight-Zone-like in gameplay, there's even a spiderdemon the instant I get my key. Pretty weird level alright. Final Time 2:58.

*Reality Run*

Handled with care with the imps, had to kill one caco, preemptively hit archvile. How to deal with the RK trap: well, just grab key and run back, then pick em' from a distance with that trusty chaingun. Courtyard was kinda messy, but at least there's no painelemental on this difficulty. I shoot two barons, then move to the opposite side when fighting the archvile, since I don't want any resurrected barons. Spidey fight went like this, rockets, then SSG, taking care with his hitscan move. The final room I had to kill the mancubus, then BFG-smack the last archie so he wouldn't be resurrecting the fat slob. Final Time 3:27.

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Zone300 MAP28: Unholy Demise

I was gonna laud the start, with the Unholy Realms-style mix of immediate imp threat and the cacos slowly coming in the windows from outside, except... the cacos can't come inside! Seems the windows block them. Very disappointing... the next two areas are good (though the red key ambush is easy to run away from and use the stairway as a choke point). Yellow key area was good, and that Spider was a great surprise. Thankfully the Arachnatrons helped me out again by taking the Spider's attention while I ran out the rest of the level. Unfortunately the yellow door hides only one room and the exit. 3/5

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Today, 2 UR maps + 1 Zone 300 map.

---


Unholy Realms MAP24 - "The Keeper's Castle" (Greed?)

From the view of a continuous player, the map wasn't that extremely punishing like other maps were, although I admit I can't imagine beating the map without frequent saving/loading during the playthrough. (The previous sentence gives you a clue about what a player I am.)

Small and very good looking one. I couldn't find the one secret there, I suspect it wouldn't be even possible at the end, when a whole section of the map becomes inaccessible after you grab the red key. If it's actually true, I don't quite like that.

Gameplay: No bigger problem with it, aside from being too difficult for me to beat it without save/load. The yellow kay part is very easy in my opinion, considering all the monster-blocking lines. The chaingunners guarding the red key are unfair, they can shoot you when you are on the bridge and don't see them yet, and if you're low on health (I was), you need pure luck to not get perforated while running over the bridge. There wasn't enough health in the map for me, yet something tells me that I don't really have a right to complain.

Unholy Realms MAP25 - "The Bitter Fortress (Anger)"

You know what? I consumpted all the health and soulspheres right away and survived only tightly. Now imagine how did the rest of map play for me. I'll go HMP next time when I'll play some difficult wad.

OK. Map is definitely crafted out great at all aspects, it's just balanced out for someone more skilled than me, so I can't really enjoy it now. As long as save/load spam is considered a valid gameplay strategy, though, I am safe. I have to admit, I no longer try to defeat every monster or find every secret in the maps, I just want to exit somehow. I am desperate. But despite everything what I've said, I am very looking forward to see and play through the rest of the megawad, at least to experience how it turns out towards the end.

One thing: As I am playing in Zandronum (=ZDoom based port), I am able to activate the switch before blue key without crossing the linedef before it which opens a revenant + imps trap.

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Zone 300 MAP25 - "Hellucination"

I like the two-color theme, although I am pretty sure it isn't entirely original idea and that I've seen that somewhere else too. This map seems to be reusing ideas. The progression is nearly the same like in Z300 MAP09, and certain encounters resemble Z300 MAP32. I don't see those like a fault to complain about, though. The map is nice and definitely has its own atmosphere. And compared to Z300 MAP09, it's better. Chainsaw start was enjoyable, I didn't even realize there are other weapons to grab in that area. Exit surprised me a little, pleasingly of course ;)

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Unholy Realms - Map25: The Bitter Fortress (Anger)

This was extremely fun to max. You can really go all guns blazing here and just speed through everything on your way, either killing or just maneuvering past and let them kill each other. 'Cause the opposition sure is feeling rebellious in this map and there are only certain top-priority enemies you're better off killing yourself. It's definitely less difficult than the previous map but the temptation to go faster and faster killed me quite a few times in my attempts. Enemy placement is really good, I'd say it's even pleasantly assholey, with Arachs blocking your way and firing at the most inopportune moments possible and sneaky Rev missiles following you for half a minute before hitting you in the back. I don't know what else to say really... just a very good map overall. I'll be revisiting in the future for sure. Only a maxdemo this time though since cannonball did the speed-demo already a while back. Not exactly my finest hour this one, the speed is decent but I'm basically one foot in the grave all the time. Too bad I didn't get it under 5 although I'm 100% sure I can do it with relative ease if I just had a little more time.

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UR MAP28: The False Man's Keep (Fraud)

Dunno what's so fradulent about this map, pretty straight-forward, normal gameplay. Pretty good looking, too. The fights aren't too hard, mainly imps/demons with some Arch-Viles and Revenants, with some hell knights, mancs and archantrons thrown in here and there. The bridge trap after the red door feels pretty unfair though, I'm not sure if there's any way to open the door and get off the bridge before 2-3 revenants teleport behind you, and there's no way to avoid rockets on the bridge. I ended up blasting through with the BFG but still eating a rocket in the teeth, taking me down to about 30/0. There's health in the next room, but nothing after that, so I sped away from the blue key trap to the end. 3/5

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Magnusblitz said:

UR MAP28: The False Man's Keep (Fraud)

Dunno what's so fradulent about this map, pretty straight-forward, normal gameplay. Pretty good looking, too. The fights aren't too hard, mainly imps/demons with some Arch-Viles and Revenants, with some hell knights, mancs and archantrons thrown in here and there. The bridge trap after the red door feels pretty unfair though, I'm not sure if there's any way to open the door and get off the bridge before 2-3 revenants teleport behind you, and there's no way to avoid rockets on the bridge. I ended up blasting through with the BFG but still eating a rocket in the teeth, taking me down to about 30/0. There's health in the next room, but nothing after that, so I sped away from the blue key trap to the end. 3/5

If you're fast, you can trigger the lowering bars and squeeze back under them to the start area before they're done lowering, and then just clear everything that warps in from some safe spot. Then, when you actually cross it later after the bars raise, run back to a safe spot when you hear the Revs teleport in (use plasma to stunlock the first one to run past him safely).

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Zone 300: Map 28 - UV, pistol start

This starts off pretty intense with you up against a horde of imps & some cacodemons shooting from behind you, then it all goes downhill from here. Killing the cacodemons was rather slow because I only had shotgun ammo & it would send them flying all the way back against the wall. The fight for the red key was bad, I had to run back up the stairs because of the Arch-vile, so I just killed everything from there. Once I opened the red key door I just stood there in the doorway killing everything. The Arch-vile & 2 barons didn't cause me any trouble because the arch-vile just stayed near the yellow key & didn't chase me into the open area where I killed the barons. The spiders killed each other, I only fired a single rocket for that entire battle. Since I had so much rocket ammo everything behind the yellow key door was dead within seconds of it opening.

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UR Map28 - "The False Man's Keep (Fraud)": Knox’s personal penultimate map is also, in my opinion, his best. This blackened brick bastard of a brawl features a numerous amount of smart yet vicious fights & traps that will have you squealing with anxious delight. There’s almost a perfect balance of everything here, from monsters to ammo to health to radsuits to powerups. No one struggle sticks out as the best or most memorable part, as surviving within the inch of my life after every encounter is good enough for me (the finale had me running around at 2% trying to BFG the final AV tho). Always warms my heart to see damaging sectors used well. Absolutely splendid.

I’m bummed that THESE SECTORS are still damaging since it doesn’t seem like it’d be, and feels like a cheap way to lose some health (especially if you want to look around the corner).

Z300 Map28 - "Unholy Demise": It’s quite fun to play a map where you just mow down large hordes of monsters. There’s a pretty good mix here and the RL his tucked away deep into the map, forcing you to utilize the SSG and infighting as much as you can. Lotsa resurrection going on too, although the yellow key AV is pretty much confined to his cubby as long as you loop around it to get him to walk to the back. Alright.

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MAP29 Den Of Torture

*Regular Run*

More cool music. It really is difficult fighting cybie when I'm trying to conserve much needed cells. Even worse with yet another caco/PE horde as I approach the blue key and several archviles. Had to leave at least one of them in the exit room alive becuase the megasphere secret requires a jump up there (or I'm missing something). I actually had to kill the cyber with rockets and SSG, and he manages to hit me in the face once (also lol at his "bodyguards", fucking zombies this late in the game, at least cybie can kill them just as I can). I only would use the BFG on archviles, again keeping one alive to jump to the megasphere. I even kept some cacos alive. Really tough and nice penultimate level! Final TIme 2:41.

*Reality Run*

Still no holds bars with the cyber, it got rather hectic with it actually moving closer towards me. But I conserved ammo efficiently this time. Oh, and I chaingun the revenants and SSG/rocket the demons, arachnotrons, and mancubi. I still kill the archies with cells, but this time didn't get my megasphere secret. Final Time 4:41.

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dobu gabu maru said:

I’m bummed that THESE SECTORS are still damaging since it doesn’t seem like it’d be, and feels like a cheap way to lose some health (especially if you want to look around the corner).


I knew I forgot to mention something... yeah, having those sectors as damaging was really lame, especially since I didn't have a radsuit nearby and wanted to know if I needed one (grabbing one from across the map). Couldn't even look around the corner without taking damage. I dunno if it's because there's lava on the ceiling, or it's just an error, but yeah, annoying.

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Map27 "Castle Royale"



Another Hereticy track, though not as much as the others. Rhythmic drums with a lot of tom rolls and such and lots of harmonic minor. Accidentally double layered the drums when I did the whole step up finale at the end, but decided to keep it as it sounded interesting. TNT01 did something similar, if I recall correctly.

Map28 "Out of Darkness"


Obvious D_TENSE ripoff is obvious. Black Metal again inspired me a little bit with this one as well, going more melodic than what the original "Getting Too Tense" did. Not much else to say about this one for me.

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UR MAP29: Snakeskin Treachery

Good map, very fitting for a MAP29 slot. I like the balance here between the dark metal and brighter flesh snakes here, and the lighting and music really help tie together the oppressive feel. Lots of big fights, plenty of Cybers, Arch Viles and a Mastermind, but nothing too slaughtery, thankfully. The only fight that was really underwhelming was the blue key trap, as the monsters trickled in very slowly (so slowly that I actually moved to get the key a few times) and down a long corridor with tons of rocket ammo nearby just asking to be used. And, like many encounters, I ran from the Cyber/AV fight at the end. Can't use infighting there! Strong map. 4/5

Zone300 MAP29: Den of Torture

It's a pretty-looking map, which of course means it will be a short one. While it still feels like a chunk of a larger map, this is one of the better ones, IMO. The cyberdemon fight is decent. I did run after that, because I didn't think I had enough ammo to kill all the cacos/pain elementals (200 bullets, 40 shells?) Dragged the AV outside the blue door and locked it behind me, perforated the chaingunners and ran to the exit. The last two AVs are just asking to be ignored. 3/5

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UR Map 28 -- The False Man's Keep (Fraud) - 104% Kills / 100% Secrets
Leaving aside the unknown quantity that is map 30, I'd say that this is probably Snakes' best E3 map, with a design that's surprisingly non-linear given how small and compact it is, and a couple of neat battle concepts, particularly the recurring struggles on the bridge.

The setting this time is a small, intricate iron fortress located in a part of Hell (or the Icon's imagination) so awash in fire and brimstone that its walls have become permanently blackened by millenia of accumulated sooty residue, the final physical form of countless burning damned. The actual base texture used on the majority of the structure--horizontally-striped dark metal siding--is actually quite plain, even bland, so it's mostly down to lighting, small inset details (banners, demonic rune-cubbies, spots of red carpeting, etc.) and the shape of the structures themselves (e.g. the weird staircase on the other side of the bridge) to lend the level its aesthetic feel. As far as evincing a 'Fraud' theme goes, I'd say the level actually does a decent job of that, although it's done almost entirely through gameplay rather than through aesthetic.

Yes, the Keep is full of nasty deceptions (read: traps). There are some small-to-moderate scaled brawls (mostly outdoors) as well, but it's the traps that give the thing its character. The big one is the trifecta of dirty tricks on the bridge; the first one makes you jump and maybe panic if you've not seen this type of scenario very much in your Dooming career (though it actually appears in a less pressing form in map 24), the second one makes you jump again because it it's surprising that it follows so immediately on the heels of the first, and then the third, later one stacks the deck by adding an arch-vile to make previous strategies less viable. Of course, any seasoned swindler will tell you that the best cons have multiple layers.

For all of the stuff like that, though, I think I quite agree with whoever it was that said this doesn't seem as hard as the textfile makes it out to be; indeed, I'd say map 24 is quite a bit tougher. I only actually died once, and that was via the sneaky baron forcing me into the yellow skull room before I'd cleaned it out, rather than on the bridge. The secret invulnerability sphere helps immensely; I discovered it on my second attempt and decided to use it before throwing the switch in the room with the terraced steps on the other side of the bridge, a decision I think was probably the right one. It might have also been useful in the last outdoor brawl upon taking the blue skull, but that really wasn't so hard, given all of the health still available out there. That's really what makes the difference in difficulty between this and 24--Greed was (fittingly) miserly as hell with supplies and so killed me a fair few times through attrition (and I had to leave one of its cybers alive when I did make it out), but Fraud is quite generous, and so there's room for many mistakes as long as you can avoid insta-death.

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Zone 300 MAP26 - "Valley of Brimstone"

Played from a pistol start, this map offers an experience as no other previous Zone 300 map. You feel the toughness. But as long as you don't let the cyberdemon hit you, you are quite safe. The toughness is in the limitation of your arsenal, compared to the opposition you encounter. As I said, something not seen in Z300 so far. The one secret is straightly obligatory.

Be sure, I enjoyed the playthrough. Simply constructed, encounters are mostly not that well crafted out, but the boss foes save the day there and make the map interesting.

MAP27 - "Dissect"

While the previous map felt a bit like a "filler map", this one was much better in this regard. The structure is more complex here, although I admit it could have been more, but I am aware of the limit of 300 lines. Going down the corridor for a first time is full of monsters that are present probably just to fill it up. I am already used to such encounters from pcorf's maps and don't find them thoroughly bad, as long as they're later accompanied with better thought encounters too. And that happens in this map, and I am pleased. It was even fun to replay those several times, as I died in this map several times and had to replay from the beginning. The music is a remarkable, um..., remark of this map too, I really like it. Damaging floors are spicing it all in a good way, I am glad for it, as Unholy Realms tend to do the opposite (no damage from floors).

MAP28 - "Unholy Demise"

It was a shame that the first cacodemons don't fly in through the windows that would make for a nice challenge that even I would manage, I guess.

The best battles come in the first half of the map. Unfortunately, these can mostly be completely avoided, as I see it. The second half has just a few moments that don't pose real challenge and only takes time, but not too much of time so they don't get tedious to me - yet. I felt I was finished with this map quite quickly. The layout isn't anything original or innovative, but I actually came to a conclusion that such a structure is great, and many great maps use this exact structure (1, 2, 3 ways there and back, with ambushes). They only tend to expand it a lot, which isn't possible in Zone 300 that much.

The exit hole itself could use a better marking of being an exit, in my opinion. At least use more "badass" hell textures. That isn't a complaint or anything that bugs me, just my honest feeling and a recommendation.

Good map, although I admit I'd rather see and feel some more difficulty/pace/theme progression towards the very end of the megawad. I find the mapset as a whole enjoyable anyways.

MAP29 - "Den of Torture"

I take back what I said about progression in the last paragraph. This map as a penultimate map gave a strong impression since the very first moment, like a penultimate map should do in my ideal world :) I mean, that "dark" feeling...

The cyberdemon was actually easy, I was able to SSG him down on my first encounter with him. Good challenge though. The following battles went well with the general atmosphere, but they didn't surprise anyhow as I expected.

Ha, chaingunners! I can't remember when did I see them last time. Pcorf doesn't use them often. Honestly, when you already decided to use them here, I'd suggest doing it better. This was rather cheap placement, just four of them in a turning corridor.

The ending from the chaingunners further is a letdown of some sort, but I admit I like the idea of AV-jump-accessed megasphere secret. I got it on my fifth or so attempt. Okay, maybe sixth or more. But I liked it. I've never done something like that in any megawad, to bother trying purposeful AV-jumping for an item, but this one just seemed too glaringly obvious. Thank you for this particular moment.

Other secrets on this level are good too. Despite the critics I wrote, my overall feeling from this map is very positive. Because I'm willing to overlook particular letdowns and praise the general atmosphere, which caught me from the beginning and although it didn't culminate as I expected, the feeling stayed with me to the end.


I decided to play Zone 300 this far first, because now I felt it's a more comfortable play for me than Unholy Realms, for the reason of "acceptable difficulty". I may let my UR playthoughs and reviews for later, but not too much, as the month is already getting to the end.

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UR Map29 - "Snakeskin Treachery (Wrath)": Joshy’s contribution is the most in line with Knox’s style IMO, as he keeps the levels confined, packed and reuses areas multiple times. This is definitely the hardest map too, and almost unbearably so at times as it forces almost near-flawless precision from the player just to survive. The two most obvious instances of this are at the start and end—picking up the SSG and running from the horde to the left into the bloody trenches is well and good, but the three chaingunners in the corner as well as the three in the right section repeatedly chewed me down from 100/200 to nil. Even using enemies like the caco in the corner doesn’t assuage the struggle as there’s always a couple of stray bullets that hit me eventually. It felt like clockwork to get a good footing and pray I outlasted the red commandos.

And if that was probabilistic, beating the red key trap was like winning the lotto. I must confess I didn’t play around with it enough, but having four AVs warp in ahead of cybies was quite vexing since there was little to no recourse in how I tried to tackle it. I wound up firing two BFG shots before triggering the trap, having the AVs warp in to a green explosion as I soon high-tailed it out of there and nimbly avoided the cybers.

Other than that, the map is a lot of fun. There's a huge amount of cybers that thankfully doesn't get boring thanks to infighting and a ready BFG halfway through, and some parts are quite tricky to try and conquer (that revenant curve in the library sure has some nasty teeth). Good visual sense here too.

Z300 Map29 - "Den of Torture": My favorite map out of E3. It’s tough as nails despite the low monster count, wielding a neat layout with a good use of damaging sectors and some demanding maneuvers from the player. Keeping the cybie alive is key until he outlives his usefulness after the caco fight. Putting AVs behind doors may be seen as cheap or trite by this point, but I had a bunch of fun trying to work out how the hell I was going to survive this.

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Unholy Realms MAP26 - "Village of the Unblessed (Heresy)"

I like this map. The most of all E3, probably. Do you know why? I was able to survive the start. I was able to survive at all for a surprisingly long time. This just delighted me, but also a question emerged in my mind: How is this possible? Why is this late map this much less cruel than the previous few, as well as practically all E2? But for me is important what is here and now. Therefore, I was just glad.

Levels of this open-chaos type have already been seen in UR earlier. This one is probably the biggest of them all, but also the one giving the least direct threat. There's a lot of obstacles you can use for your advantage to avoid revenant missiles and archvile's fire. And you won't even be forced into unfair situations here, unlike other UR maps. For me, it's all pleasing.

As I carried a lot of cells from previous levels, and also grabbed quite a few here, I could deal with all those pain elementals. Yet I admit, I skipped the very last encounter, because after several deaths that occured eventually, nothing motivated me to stay in the map (the one not found secret wasn't enough motivation). A massive revenant ambush in the end was expectable anyways.

Unholy Realms has many maps with layout designed to make your way harder. This is an example of a map which's structure helps you out. This is very praise-worthy from my view. If only all the other difficult maps did so too.

Only once in this map happeden that some archvile was released somewhere when I didn't even suspect anything, please no.


MAP27 - "Serpentine" (map by skillsaw)

Snakes! I came to the conclusion that the thing I dislike about Unholy Realms the most is the hardcore punishing style of yours! Whenever I play a map not from yours, I feel the difference strongly, and I am more likely to enjoy the map even if it's punishing, because it's punishing in a different way and also provides some other pleasing aspects as a complement.

After a longer time with Unholy Realms, there is finally a next map which I can call a truly astonishingly enjoyable one. I really dig the concept. It is not just extremely fun to fight enemies in this map, but I find to be extremely fun to be just moving around there and exploring various parts of the map. Even after I reached exit, I decided to return to the map to see more of it, something I barely do in any hardcore map by Snakes. The fast pace set by the music went pretty well with this map's theme and execution.

I like the employment of the risk of leaky radsuits here. I don't find it annoying at all, even though the leaks took my life several times. Great gameplay mechanic and a way to spice things up!

As much as I like the cliffs and drops and ledges and serpentines all around, I also like all of the three main obligatory setpiece superbattles. You know which ones I mean. Blue key ambush, pinky+archvile fight in a hole, and the final revenant blast-age! Well set up, really everything! I AM IMPRESSED ONCE AGAIN!

So...

Apologies to Snakes, but all the late maps of yours kill me, while the maps from other authors keep me alive. Because your maps provide me with a challenge and the fun falls into the background, which is more and more apparent as I advance through the megawad. But styles of Valkiriforce and Deathavokation and Khorus and Skillsaw appears to be bringing the fun aspect in front of everything else, and that's why I could enjoy Skillsaw's map even though it's a horrible kickass slaughtermap.

I hope you (everyone reading this) see my point of view. Still, Unholy Realms is great as a whole. I can see and appreciate how all of the maps are professionally crafted out and great in many different aspects. I admire all of the maps I saw, and was astonished by their quality and wished I'd be ever able to create such quality myself. I admire all of you great mappers! Just... my preferences are clear now, I guess.


EDIT below: No, I am playing on UV and I just don't have on it. I admit I regret choosing UV, but in no way I would dare to make it (the difficulty) a point to complain. It's just me.

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What skill level are you playing Unholy Realms on, scifista42? One complaint I've heard about some other WADs in this sort of Scythe-esque idiom (particularly Speed of DooM) is that they fail to implement skill levels in a very meaningful way (and in fact, according to some, this was apparently also true of Kama Sutra from last month), such that there's little effective difficulty difference between UV and HMP and so on. If you've been trying different skill settings and finding that they don't vary much that would arguably be a significant/useful point of criticism for the WAD, especially considering it's still technically in a beta stage.

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I can't speak for the first 28 maps, but map 29, rather ironically given the named example in DotW's post, is totally night-and-day between UV and HMP. UV is nigh on unplayable; HMP is a casual stroll in the garden.

No idea if the other maps follow that example.

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Haha, I thought map 29 on UV was just right, maybe a liiiitttllle overdone at the very end, but still fine overall. Looking at it in HMP I see what you mean though, there certainly is a significant difference, maybe even a liiiitttlllle too much of one.

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I actually never made it to the end war pain on UV; furthest I ever made it on that difficulty was the Mastermind + assorted shit warp-in.

If Joshy had found a way to add a few hundred Chaingunners in the open and a mandatory secret or two, the Library + Stomach area would have been a nearly perfect compendium of everything I hate in a Doom map (aside, of course, from those first two Arachnos, which are fine).

Pop-up on a solid surface right in your face? Check.
Hallways too narrow to strafe? Check.
Enemies you can't shoot at because of height differences? Check, including an Arch-Vile.
Arch-Viles with no cover? Check, especially the two that appear once you hit the "sphincter switch" if they decide to move before firing (if they fire first, you're OK, but if they move to the center first, you die.).
Crusher abuse in frantic fights? Check.
Fights where you need the monster AI to decide to cooperate? Check (If those Cybs can't piss off nearly all of the barons, you're screwed).

And then the map even has a Spiderboss, bumpyfloor, a Zerk at the start that's only useful for health (bad for flow, IMO) and a must-kill Cyb that appears in an area where it can't actually shoot you, just to make sure it touches every last pet peeve I have. AARRRRGH!

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Zone 300: Map 29 - UV, pistol start

This map was mostly good, but the ending was bad. Grab the SSG & kill some demons, run up stairs & get some infighting going. While that was happening I got the secret rocket launcher. I didn't want to fight the cyber yet so I hit the switch to lower the lift & was surprised by a Arch-vile, I barely escaped up the lift only to run for the blue key which released a caco swarm. I decided to fight them off in the starting area, the cyber killed the pain elementals & arch-vile for me. Ran back upstairs opened the blue key to find another arch-vile I got him to kill the cyber for me & I easily killed him after that. The 4 chaingunners were a little annoying, but not that bad I killed them easily enough. What I didn't do was even attempt to fight the last 2 arch-viles, makes this the second time I left a map from this wad without getting 100% kills.

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I'll go ahead and say that the original version of Map28 was a good deal tougher around the bridge and blue key fights. So much so that even dew told me to tone them down a notch. It's pretty amusing how much difference a pair of pain elementals can make.

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UR Map 29 -- Snakeskin Treachery (Wrath) - 107% Kills / No secrets
Should be 'Betrayal', shouldn't it? Whatever, it's a pulse-pounding map, certainly the most difficult by far to this point in the mapset. I think I agree with Dobu that Joshy's style is the one that most closely matches Snakes' own, but I reckon that has more to do with structure and particularly scale than it does with actual encounter design.

A lot of the hallmarks of Joshy's style are here in abundance, most notably close-range multi-cyberdemon setpieces (and a scarcity of truly open spaces in general), two-pronged teleportation assaults, and.....mostly harmless spiderdemons. From the panicky 'which way do I go!?!' start to the last gunshot, each major fight in this is tuned to cause rapid and gruesome death, certainly one that requires quick reflexes. I simply don't agree with the assessments that it's unfair, though, as each scenario has one or more tactics that can reliably defeat it with practice--the start requires nothing but speed, the vile on the overlook in the library can be readily distracted by the imps that begin in front of him if the player leaves them alive, the 'revenant curve' can be tackled by sticking to one side of the narrow trench and staying just out of punch range to the nearest skeleton at all times, the baron/cyber melee can be bested by staying southward early in the fight to draw the baron pack away from the north wall (which in turn opens up the room for viable circle-strafing), the initial two topside cybers can be destroyed by baiting them (from the safety of the area outside of the the yellow bars) to wander down to the entrance area, then quickly circling around behind them through the outside area to the north to get them to funnel through the big skull-stairs for some prime BFG shots, and so on and so forth. The final battle is a bit dicier if you try to play it heroically, but you can flee from it/camp it to some degree if you really need to (not that that's any fun); when I replayed the map for this writeup, I took a cue from someone else here and devastated the early viles by firing BFG shots at the far wall as I grabbed the key, before they even appeared.

For all of this 'wrathfulness', though, the thing I really like about the action is that it's paced well. It's not just stress/adrenaline and nothing else from start to finish; there are also some 'breather' battles that allow the player to regain his/her composure, most notably the initial teleporter wave/indigenous population of the blue/yellow skull area, or the aforementioned outdoor spider mastermind, which more often than not falls victim to its own spawn. There are a couple of small missteps in that the stragglers from the two-pronged teleport attack after the mastermind tend to take an obnoxiously long time to appear, and that the cyberdemon on the small tower is really nothing but a timesink, but for the most part it's fun stuff.

Looks good, too. Apart from the token vines that we all knew Joshy would probably use somewhere, the theme is a morbid, bloody flesh-hell base with a veneer of masonry, like a great mountain of festering entrails supporting a stone gatehouse. There's a nice juxtaposition between the shoddily-lit interiors and the fullbright of the outdoor area under the glaring infernal sky. The snakeskin trim around the skylight in the entrance hall doesn't look right to me, and the texture used on the side of the lift out of the cyber/baron pit looks jarringly out of place, but other than that I quite like what I see here. As to 'Wrath', well, the mounds of corpses and mutilated flesh speak for themselves, there.

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a joshy map ey? I like joshy maps.

here's a demo: http://www.mediafire.com/?gwgwe7w7szgjqyb

I'd call it a nonchalant max, but 2 enemies fail to teleport in and I have no idea why. I didn't learn the map well enough (recorded this demo after just going through it once with saves), and I feel like I probably broke something by straferunning across that one gap, not sure what the intended route is, actually.

Anyways, fun map. I really didn't think it was that difficult. Almost every trap can be cheesed or camped, and there was way more cell ammo than was needed. btw I gotta give props to the 2-cyb/baron crusher room, that was ridiculously fun.

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Nah, straferunning that gap seems like it's an intended feature to me (hell, it may even be mandatory, I never tried to go back the way I came). Even if it is an accident, it's a happy one....I used it to outflank the cyberdemons that start out standing around by the exit. The two enemies that didn't show up for you almost certainly were part of the wave that starts when you flip the switch behind the mastermind....I had stray cacos and chaingunners showing up there well after the real fight was over, when I was just walking around to look at the scenery.

Z300 Map 28 -- Unholy Demise - 100% Kills / No secrets
Well, I guess this is where PCorf says "now it's going to get difficult." I'm not very impressed. There is a noticeably higher monster density here than in most previous maps, for sure, but for the most part they appear in heterogeneous groups in big flat boxes, and so tend to mostly dispose of themselves with a little prodding, with the player only needing to concern himself with cleanup and maybe that one arch-vile. The opening imp fight was okay, though, I guess, although I agree with MagnusBlitz that it would've been better if the cacodemons outside had been able to come through the windows. Pleasant music again, at least, sounds very much like something from E2 or E3 of 2002:ADO.

Z300 Map 29 -- Den of Torture - 102% Kills / 66% Secrets
Certainly a better map than 28 was, more or less on par with map 27. It's also one of the best-looking maps in Z300, a testament to the power of lighting choice to lend a lot of feel to even very simple/plainly-textured structures. The action is more thought-out than in map 28 as well, with effective use of revenants as snipers and a sneakily-placed arch-vile and some gasbags to throw a monkeywrench into your plans if you try to skip the cyberdemon. In reality it's easier to just simply use the large glut of shells given to you at the start to SSG him to death from the outset, but of course it's more stylish to dodge him and get a lot of the other enemies to fight him. I saw no reason to try for the obvious vile-jump megasphere, hence the 66% secret ratio. Really, of all the places in the WAD to include one of these, this was probably the poorest choice; it comes too late to be of any use in the map it's on, yet is also largely irrelevant to continuous players, since there is a soulsphere that must be taken or be forever lost in the start room of map 30, as well as an easily-accessible blue armor in its main area.

Z300 Map 30 -- Eternal Core - 4,300% Kills / 100% Secrets
Very straightforward Icon/Baphomet/Demon-spitter/whatever term you like map, pitting the player against an inexplicably photo-negative adversary. The twist here is that lining up a shot on the demon's weak spot is quite easy--you just quickly flip three switches and can then stand still and fire at him from the designated place--but he takes far more hits than usual to bring down, guess the Romero-head object has been placed just on the fringe of the rocket-splash range. The idea is to find the secret invulnerability sphere (not hard once you notice there are radsuits down in the lava) and use it to just stand at the firing point and launch rocket after rocket into the big guy's forehead, ignoring the bombardment of projectiles from his little buddies. Oh, and I guess there might or might not be some kind of significance to the sphere's visual effect making him appear snow-white, maybe like an arcade-y 'weak state' signifier, but it's hard to tell. The demon-spawning mechanic is prone to temporary malfunction here, in that there are several spawn points where arachnatrons become instantly stuck due to lack of sufficient room for them on the walkways. Novel idea, I guess, but can't say I'm really impressed by the execution.

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Zone 300 MAP30 - "Eternal Core"

Simple enough idea, so this time pcorf didn't have to save linedefs much. Icon maps tend to be simple, and I like the fact that there's no high lift in here. The tougher character of the boss is better. I could pretty much do the whole map with just BFG and rockets, it was still a danger though. For some reason, random number generator was in a bad mood and most of the enemies I got were mancubi and spectres, along with some cacodemons who disturbed me while shooting the brain. Also the risk of falling down to lava and losing health, which happened to me twice and I tightly survived with 11% HP. But I did the whole map without dying. Enjoyable fight.


Zone 300 overally

I've got a great time and fun with this mapset. The concept of a strict architecture-wise limit motivates to think harder how to deal with your possibilities and create an actual quality, and pcorf, you did it well! I said it once a long time ago, but the limit you've used - the amount of 300 linedefs - was chosen really well, as an effective balance between constriction and remained possibilities. I also admire the speed in which you've produced this work. Good music too, specially and mostly the tracks used early on in the game.

Suggestions I'd give pcorf after playing Zone 300:

  • If your map works with an idea/concept, don't be afraid to exaggerate it a little more. Then your map will give a stronger impression to the players, which I guess is good.
  • You can afford to provide tougher and tougher challenges in later maps. I actually found some of the late maps played from pistol start easier than the first ones which I played continuously. Ideally it should be the opposite.
  • Make some more use of strategically placed chaingunners, as long as they are not unfair.
  • Also, specially in later maps, employ the powerful weapons more. Not just high-tier monsters, that's certainly right, but players would also like to access and make use of their beloved plasmarifles and BFGs, when they are advancing further and further. Count with it even for pistol start players.
  • And then there's a certain problem with ammo. You understand - when in the map, I often feel I have just right amount of ammo. But when I exit the map and start the next one, I suddenly have too much of it. Please, try to balance things out well. It doesn't mean just to decrease ammo counts, but it means to balance ammo/monsters so you aren't struggling while playing the map, but you reach the exit with just a little ammo. I know it is difficult, though. But at least don't do that thingy when you place a box of shells right in front of the exit switch. It's pointless. Continuous players will have super-ammo-abundance anyways. Better would be, if the amounts of provided ammo continuously decrease as you're approching the map's exit.
I like your mapping style a lot, both the style of the architecture and of creating a gameplay. The difficulty is mostly fine with me. From this point of view, I enjoyed the E1 and E2 parts of Zone 300 the most. I'd definitely be interested to play a sequel to Zone 300, or other further work from you.

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MAP30 Eternal Core

Enter teleporter, press three switches, shoot the brain multiple times with rockets, that's it. It's not that easy once a big monster blocks your path and slows you down though. But it's fine for me. One of the switches is directly behind once you teleport. Oh, and there's a secret down in the lava where an archie guards an invuln with his life. Final Time 2:36.

Final Thoughts:

Um, the endgame text says I went through 9000 linedefs. Looks like the secret levels were forgotten (and one of them is more than 300 lines :P). Oh and "crubles". I just hope that the endgame text was fixed in the idgames edition :).

AND as for the wad overall, I do like it a lot. Been a fan of pcorf's work since TWZONE, (yes, Twilight Zone) this one is no exception. Zone 300 has things in it that are reminiscent of his other wads like the "orthogonal corridor" in MAP05 and MAP17 which I have seen in other wads by him. It was a short, fun, difficult-but-not-stupidly-annoying experience, and that is something I've always enjoyed in megawads.

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