The DWmegawad Club plays: Requiem

MAP07: Hell's Gift by Jens Nielsen and Mattias Worch

Oh well, it started out good. The crossfire at the beginning is an acceptable way to ease into the action, and those Revenant/Hellknight/Chaingunner traps provided a good thrill.

The section past the blue and red skull bars, however, is an absolutely boring grind. Every single enemy occupying this simple-structured and forgettable area can be camped and cover-shot, and takes ages to kill in this way. You might argue that nothing forces me to camp, but the thing is, in terms of health preservation, it's more effective to do that than to go and throw yourself in the middle of enemy fire just because you can, and that in itself is already a problem. If it works, there's no reason why I shouldn't do it.

Disappointment only gets worse when me finishing off the last Mancubus triggers a tag 666, revealing that this is yet another remix of "Dead Simple". Look, Dead Simple was a very good level, but that's precisely why we didn't need a second one, nevermind three thousand more. Unless you're going to improve the idea on a radical level, don't bother.

Jens Nielsen, to whom we owe "The Stand" (a good map full of tricky fights), "Not That Simple" (which I loved, a complete metamorphosis of the concept for once) and "City of the Unavenged" (which I enjoyed for all its vastness and grueling nature), teams up with another mapper (Mattias Worch), and all they can come up with is yet another-Dead-Simple-map ? Well, no, that can't be the case. It honestly feels like they did this because they thought they had to, the same way some people think a megawad has to start with a techbase chapter and end with a hellscape one. Even taking into account the context of 1997 in which there weren't nearly as many megawads available as there are now, I would have told them to let that stuff go.

I haven't finished it yet since I got killed next to the yellow key, but I think I'll save it for tomorrow. I really don't feel like replaying through this level at the moment.

Now that I've had some time to get my thoughts together, here's my review of the first five levels. Playing in prboom on HMP, continuous, with frequent saves.

MAP01 and 02: Nothing to say, really. Serviceable levels, if a bit bland. MAP02 ended sooner then I thought it would, though, and the Stonehenge demons were really silly.

MAP03-Poison Processing: Fuck the first half of this map so hard. Between starting out under fire, the frequent blind drops, and placing enemies next to said frequent blind drops, I was close to chucking my keyboard across the room. The level does pick up a bit after going through the blood portal, and the swinging doors were a cool surprise.

MAP04-Fireworks: Despite a bad first impression with the Hell Knight, this was a really good level. The Super Shotty couldn't have come in at a better time. Cacos continue to be the bane of my existence, and their appearance in the final encounter messed me up something fierce.

MAP05-The Canyon: I feel like I should like this map more than I do. The opening area was a good place to recover from the final encounter from Fireworks. I found my first secret of the megawad here, the secret passage leading to the left lift. I liked the whole journey to the blue keycard, with the large nukage room as a personal highlight. Things start to fall apart with the lift ambush coming back to the main area. Two chaingunners in point blank range, with demons and imps absorbing shots for them is not my idea of a good time, and made the following encounter with the hell Knights in the blue area that much more frustrating. The part where you're teleported next to a Hell Knight was pretty dickish too. Oddly enough, the Caco ambush after getting the red keycard was kinda fun for me. The final area was really grueling to go through, though I might enjoy it more a second time through.

MAP06: nataS ot etubirT

A bit of a cramped map, built on making your way around the center structure. It’s not bad, and it certainly looks very nice. The layout flows well, the architecture is very well designed, it provides a good sense of progression through the level. The gameplay is a bit bland in spots, though, because of the way the map is set up, but nothing too detracting.

Sure, I'm up for a few maps this month. This is a set I played through as a keyboarder long ago...

Revisiting Requiem
Map 5: pistol start on HMP no saves. Exited with 100% kills, 5/6 secrets on 3rd attempt

I'm not really one to talk about the progression as I have foreknowledge, especially when it comes to finding the yellow key. Pain elemental in nukage room can be a pain if allowed to summon lost souls; patience and ambushing it is rewarded here. Ambush after obtaining blue key is the most dangerous encounter of the map and is the cause of one of my failures. Lighting is used well and actually manages to make a hellknight dangerous. Canyon is the visual highlight and being able to visit the closet where the monsters teleport from is an interesting feature.
Other than the combat after the blue key, I was never really in danger. Don't think I dropped below 50% health though part of that is familiarity. The canyon can become dangerous if rushed; it's safer to instigate infighting to take care of chaingunners. Still managed to miss a secret. Plenty of ammo to use, exited with 400 bullets and 96 shells. Secret rocket launcher is useless on this map; by the time I had it, there was nothing to use it on. Cool trophy for continuous though. Without trying, I exited at exactly 50 minutes on the game timer.

Map 04 -- Fireworks - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Would I die for this?

Hmm, well, I'm not sure I'd go that far, but this is certainly a nice little bit of firewalking here from Matthias Worch, an earlier proponent of elaborate mechanisms and bait-and-switch progression, as seen in 'Trooper's Playground' and others (incidentally, there's a TP cameo in Requiem itself, IIRC). On that front, this is fairly low-key by his standards, although you can certainly see his fascination for animate sectors and circuitous progression in features like the curved staircase in the northern portico that builds itself as you watch, or the preview into the blue skull's sanctum well before you get the opportunity to remove its protective blast shield. Sometimes maps that are very mechanism-heavy have a way of devolving into something of an indistinct blur of switch-hittery and lift-ridery and door-openry--some of Jens Nielsen's earlier maps in the original Memento Mori are a good example of this--but I've always felt that Worch had a pretty good sense of moderation in the matter, isolating his most complex constructions into little setpieces of sorts with more traditionally Doomy bits in between, making for a pleasant sense of progression where the player often feels that he is doing/accomplishing something definite as he moves forward, even though precisely what that something is may not always be immediately apparent.

"Fireworks" is really a fairly simple map of modest size, and thus naturally reuses some of its main areas several times. Comprised mostly of basic boxy shapes with little in the way of real height variation involved in its action or progression, it somehow still manages to feel like a solidly fleshed-out location, precisely because you're almost always traversing it in some new direction, on some distinctly new and different errand, and often via some new means of navigation, whether it be the unexpected teleport into the prison-cave upon getting the blue key, using the initially lava-submerged bridge to return to the main fortress, and so on and so forth. Lending this degree of articulation to what is at heart a simple spoke/key setup is no small feat, but like I said, Worch always had something of a knack for lending his installations this sort of whimsical personality--it's even in the secrets, I still like the odd one-time observational backpack secret to this day.

This map also stands out more to me now as the first point in Requiem where real, active encounter design starts to show up. No more just shooting guys placed down in your path because Doom is a game where you're supposed to shoot stuff, now most of the monsters play some definite role in regards to the settings where they appear--chaingunners try to ambush you either in a squad (the portico and yellow key traps) or from your blind side (the sneaky guys in the little murderholes acting as the second line of defense for the blue key) for a swift death, cacodemons use their flight ability and essentially unrestricted movement to attack you from unusual or inconvenient angles in situations where your own movement space is curtailed, hell knights use their higher HP to lord over smaller hallways, trying to bully you into a corner before ripping you to shreds, and so on and so forth. As in map 03, demons and specters still occupy a somewhat strange position as the apparent default filler enemy (a role most traditionally held by imps and weaker zombies, probably because they are generally the most suited to it) in those places where some filler is necessary, and this time there's no chainsaw to entertain myself with while dispatching them, but at least we do eventually see the SSG's Requiem debut, which allows you to punt them out of your way without a thought for the second half.

Speaking of, I really like the way the SSG is introduced--you've got to quickly grow a pair and make a dive for it so you can blast the sudden hell knight trio, who otherwise corner you in the nearby dead end if you try to play it prissy-like. The cacodemons rising out of the lake of fire as the player returns to the fortress later on is a nice little touch of the dramatic as well, although I never have liked that stupid-looking stuck imp on the bridge used as a really crass way to ensure the cacos wake up--teleport some more imps/zombies onto the starting landing instead, what kind of red-blooded Doomer won't shoot at them? The weird little exit-box with the skull-spitting 'rifts' or whatever they are in the walls is also memorable, although I imagine the scenario won't play out as Worch presumably intended for 95% of players--I think the second caco ambush is supposed to pressure you in there and make you afraid to just open the door and leave, but if he was going to insist on this thing with the pain elementals simply locking the player into the room with them temporarily probably would've made more sense than barring off the exit only.

Still, even where there are hiccups or a few strange decisions in the staging, this map feels much more well-rounded than any of the first three, and is an early highlight for the mapset.

MAP07: Hell's Gift
100% kills, no secrets

I'm not surprised to have a Dead Simple ripoff in the MAP07 slot, though I am disappointed.

The start actually isn't bad... it's a pretty decent challenge on pistol start, with the small weaponry and low amount of ammo provided. I herded the hell knights around until I felt like I had enough ammo to waste taking them out. Interestingly, the chaingunner/revenant trap on the blue key opens when the bars do, not after picking up the key, not sure if this was intentional or a mistake.

The second area of the map is less interesting, as the outside pretty much is a straight rip (way past homage) of the outside of Dead Simple, though the inside is different. Unlike Dead Simple, it's not fighting to get outside the building, but get in - which, gameplay-wise, is much more boring as the manucbi here don't provide any threat, just meat to be killed through windows. There's also the silly effect of the imps continually jumping on the window ledges, heh. The arachnatron ambush is dangerous if the player gets caught inside, but once they're outside it's pretty easy thanks to the plasma-blocking trees.

Overall, I'll echo Capellan in that this is pretty forgettable.

07 - basic level, the new midi and a nice garden theme makes it an enjoyable experience. The yellow key building has a pretty interesting structure with windows everywhere. Back when I played this for the first time I wasn't a map07 clone hater at all, I actually thought it was cool that they followed the tradition. So I don't dislike it.

Magnusblitz said:

but once they're outside it's pretty easy thanks to the plasma-blocking trees.

Cheat! Projectiles fly through decorations in vanilla.

Map04: Fireworks

Not that impressed by this honestly. Traps are a bit of the dickish variety where you can easily get raped if you're unawares but if you know what's going to come then most of the danger is gone. The first HK (I was dumb enough to fight him in the narrow corridor as well), the multiple Chaingunner ambushes and even the SSG fight as well, seeing as I activated the trap with the door open so I didn't have the pleasure of an easy escape from the corridor to grab the SSG. I did manage to outmaneuver them eventually but still. I hardly remember what happens after the YK is achieved except for the outside bridge with the Cacos and the final room with useless PEs. Visuals didn't wow me at any point, but they weren't terrible either. The round room with the first Chaingunner ambush is pretty cool looking with the stairs activated.

Map05: The Canyon

Well this managed to leave a very sour taste in my mouth. I never even bothered to finish this as my first attempt finished in the bridge leading to the exit by some sniping Chaingunner bullshit and the second one late YK activated RL secret in an even more bullshit Chaingunner crossfire near-insta death. I could live with that shit if the exit wasn't literally around the corner and there would be any actualy use for the launcher itself. Thematically it's a horrible mess as the visual theme changes completely from room to the next multiple times. The most glaring offender is the random slice of hellscape in the basement. Some more things I really "enjoyded" were the Spectre in an unactivated pop-up trap that still manages to bite me in the ass and the ridiculously oversized cellar cavern with two PEs rising from the bottom. I felt like my only purpose there was to waste ammo. 1/10, would not die for this and would rather not play again either.

Map06: nataS ot etubirT

A rather enjoyable experience. Cramped sure and a seemed quite complicated at first but there's something I like about the hub ...thing even if it's just a bunch of platforms and cramped rooms. The map had this puzzle feel where I push a button and then wonder what it did yet the progression didn't felt too confusing at any point. Monster count is decent but it doesn't amount to anything special. Combat's not bad by any means but not overly memorable either.

Map07: Hell's Gift

A decent Dead Simple rip-off. The BK/RK are is alright like Magnus said, although it could be less symmtric for sure. At least the author mixed it up a bit with changing the order of which the ambushes around the perimter trigger. The Manc fight in the main area is fucking horrible since you just pot shot the poor guys through the windows. The Arachs provide more of a threat and it isn't a too bad of a battle in the end. Visually it's the epitome of nothing special, just a standard garden base with very little extra detailing.

MAP05
Good, solid old school map

MAP06
Holy crap, relentless map with constant encounters up to the end, nice!!

EDIT: In that imp trap I shot that lever just fine on Zdoom with the compat settings mentioned in the first page or so.

MAP07: Hell's Gift

Oh look, a Dead Simple map. Not sure why they thought this was necessary, Memento Mori 2's MAP07 was just a map (with the best door you will ever see, by the way). So as this is a Dead Simple map, I have nothing to say about it aside from "kill some mancs, kill some spiders".

Memfis said:

Cheat! Projectiles fly through decorations in vanilla.

I was actually half-wondering if they did, couldn't remember.

Magnusblitz said:

I was actually half-wondering if they did, couldn't remember.

They do, but it doesn't make the fight any more difficult since you can corner camp the 'trons easily.

Map08 - “The Reactor” by Iikka Keränen

Oldschool at its finest. Fun map. Good semirealistic touches in a thoroughly Doom-like environment. Linear, but with a nice sense of progression, at least. Easy, often cramped, but exploratory and still very entertaining, and occasional ambushes from the back side kept me on toes. Oldschool-style placement of berserks to refill player's health every now and then. Good ideas all around. The octagonal multi-level lift was especially cool, as well as the exit self-destruct button. I liked how after getting the yellow key, it was possible to enter the yellow building from the upper window instead of actually using the yellow door. For the negatives, I got stuck in a chaingunner's lift near the very end, that was an unlucky oversight on the mapper's part. The radsuits near the exit served only a decorational purpose, which was a little weird, and the exit lift was slow and raising for too long time. And again, a shame for the map's complete linearity. But all in all, I liked the map for the pleasant combination of realism with native Doom's oldschool playability and aesthetics. 4.5/5

To temperate my review of MAP07 very slightly, I will say that the Arachnotron skirmish was a little tricky, and that at least there was one more trap following it, even tough it was pretty poor one.

MAP08 : The Reactor by Iika Keränen

Thankfully, we come back to much better things with this one. I love the « town park at night » atmosphere of the opening segment, as well as the « underground installation » feel of the reactor itself. This whole setup makes me think of early X-Files for whatever reason.

That supercharge puzzle requiring both outside the box thinking and straferunning skill was nice, as was the really long and intricate switches-and-lifts sequence making up the progression inside the complex. The later is slightly tricky in places but still fairly simple overall, and showcases quite a few mapping tricks that I find impressive even to this day, exactly as Capellan predicted. I’d be happy to see more of Keränen’s magic at work later on as long as gameplay doesn’t suffer excessively because of it.

Speaking of which, in contrast to the previous two maps, the combat in this one is really strong. You can’t walk three steps without triggering yet another stressful-but-fair ambush, some of them extremely clever. The health and ammo distribution throughout should feel just right as long as you don’t screw up too much.

On the negative side, that Chainsaw/Demon room early on is absolutely silly, as are the two Cacos that can’t move thanks to the lack of room. There is also one Chaingunner closet which trapped me when I grabbed the chaingun and wouldn’t let me back out without using noclip.

As for the ending, either it’s ripped straight from Hell Revealed MAP23, or this is a miraculous coincidence. Not that it matters, it’s a cool scene and it works well. I really enjoyed this map.

MAP08 The Reactor

so here is the second Iikka map. the main trick with this one involves the central elevator in the mineshaft-like part of the map. it's no TEETH.wad though, because you subsequently make it go down deeper instead of utilizing it to go to whatever floor you choose, as opposed to going up, although the option is there. it's still a very memorable thing when it came to the old maps, and Iikka already used it in Dystopia 3 in an even longer fashion. as far as gameplay goes, I'm not too into it. when there is combat, there are some points where I'm in a cramped sector fighting a mid-tier monster. this is most prevalent in the mineshafts. I know I have an SSG, but the combat just kinda drags. furthermore, some of the actual elevators, the same ones with up and down arrows, are pretty darn slow, especially on level 1 of the shaft and especially at the end. so I guess it's an interesting conceptual setpiece.

now, there is of course the titular reactor to all this, and it is actually supposed to be blown up to finish the map. Iikka decides to pull a damaging floor card in the areas around it, just like he did with MAP03's "freezing water". this time, he's simulating the fact that it is a dangerous zone to "breathe" or whatever (not like the hellknights in the immediate sector give a crap though, they can breathe just fine, poor Doomguy needs a protective suit).

Map 05 -- The Canyon - 100% Kills / 100% secrets
I was surprised to see Veinen disliked this so much, usually we have similar taste, and I rather like this one. Perhaps it's the power of foreknowledge?

My compliments for this map are rather similar to my compliments for map 04--I think it does a good job with encounter design where a lot of Requiem falls flat (other priorities, I suspect), and while it is again a fairly straightforward hubspoke design, it remains interesting to travel through over the course of its duration, perhaps because each spoke has a distinctly different feel, and because the level opens with some light non-linearity to ease you into the challenge/key/door/challenge/key/door rhythm. Light, but potentially very gameplay-relevant, note: try going to the northwestern ooze cistern before you go anywhere else, it can be quite a pickle, but still doable if you get clever with that chainsaw (incidentally, bonus points for again including a genuinely relevant/valuable chainsaw, one fiddly little miscellaneous metric where Requiem definitely scores well above average).

On that note, while I'm not too surprised to see that particular room/fight received somewhat unfondly--the pain elementals there are quite a pain in the ass, after all--I'll be the perverse one and say I think it works rather well, precisely because the PEs, and the chaingunners on the other side of the cistern, are such dicks--it's an untenable situation, and makes you think on your feet. McClendon locks you into this room when you enter (although he goes soft and lets you out the way you came again 30 seconds later), and enemies have superior positions (including the PEs' command of the airspace), so you've got to make due with what few advantages you're afforded--you can hide behind the switch-pillar and bait the PEs towards you before popping out to deflate them, you can hit the switch to build the bridge, snipe the chaingunners while it rises, and then use the bridge to get better angles on the gasbags (but watch out for the knights!), but my favorite is to jump into the teleporter down in the ooze, which almost always results in infighting for the chaingunners and a telefragged hell knight for you (plus a better angle on the PEs, again), always satisfying.

It's a simple setup, but it seems like a lot of thought went into its playability, and that's true of a lot of the map's action, as well--after leading you to expect a warp-in of fresh enemies into the hub after getting the first key, you can hear demonic clamor out there as you come back from the flesh-rift with the red key in hand, but McClendon pulls a fast one on you with a monster-teleporting line that sees you attacked from two angles, quite clever. Even the somewhat unwieldy topography of the titular 'canyon' area plays well, I think, although this probably really is a result of my knowing the map--the fun way to handle it is to charge down the bridge before you get stuck in the middle, dive into the last yellow-lock hatch (it's the easiest of the three to actually spot, fortunately), and then go do your little secret sidequest for Requiem's first rocket launcher, which becomes eminently useful for shelling the bridge (it definitely needed an extra case of rockets to come with it, though). Even when you play blind, though, I'll still stand behind the gameplay in this area--the group of nobles near the exit tries to keep you out in the canyon area, which of course can be a rather intractable crossfire. Not everything is sterling--I'll agree the late-instapopping specter in the soulsphere secret was ill-advised, and the gameplay at the end of the red key branch is pretty lame (hell knights in corridors just wide enough to hold them), but generally speaking I think the action is suitably compelling.

As for the visuals? Well, I don't like the main texture used on the hub's walls, or the red carpet/fleshwall/orthogonal hallways combo near the red key, but for the most part it looks just fine to me, maintaining interest largely through effectively contrasting low-ceiled, constricted spaces with more airy, vertically varied areas. The theme-shifting thing, hell, doesn't bother me. To be honest, though, I reckon I probably have something of an internal double-standard for patchwork thematics in maps of a certain age--go back past a certain year of creation, and it's like a switch in my head gets flipped that makes the particular issue matter a lot less to me. I dimly suspect this may have something to do with the stylistic flavor of older resource packs (like Requiem's), which coincidentally or intentionally tend to emulate Doom II itself in that they have a strange blend of mundane, earthy textures alongside some much more outré, color-saturate, and fantastically-themed ones, but....yeah, maybe it's still just a double-standard, I dunno. Anyway, you guys think this one is all over the place, wait 'til we get to map 12!

Map 06 -- nataS oT etubirT - 99% Kills / 100% Secrets
Yeah, that name stuck to this map really doesn't make a lick of sense. Who cares, though? It's a cool map, one of my favorites in Requiem. It's all down to the sense of progression, and of place. If you read the textfile, you'll see that the 'big grey thing' is apparently a personnel-access nexus or something similar for some kind of complex water filtration system that the hellspawn have hijacked into a jumped-up nukage dispenser because....um.....they're assholes? Anyway, it's Doomguy's job to rout the infestation and bring the filtration system back online. Of course, one gets the sense that all of the aforementioned mumbo-jumbo was something conceived as a bit of stage-dressing after the fact rather than a guiding force during the level's development (incidentally, to me one of the quirkiest minor details about Requiem is the way some of its levels have these Memento Morian 'mission briefing' blurbs attached, while others bear no description at all), but it serves nicely to add a certain sense of purpose to the heavily articulated but depictively abstract trek through the level.

Even moreso than in map 04, you always get the sense that you're accomplishing some overriding objective in this one--there's a lot of switch-hitting, but other than the bafflingly pointless dead-time in the little multi-tiered imp room en route to the blue keycard (maybe the downtime was supposed to suggest some kind of mechanical warmup period?), you're always given some visual or auditory feedback as to what you've just done, which generally shows you the next step of your journey and how to access it. I remember once on some long-past playthrough I lost track of where the blue door was and thus was lost for an embarrasingly long period of time, but for the most part it's an expertly-conducted affairs that guides you neatly through the complex setting without ever actually holding your hand, always one of the little virtues of the idtech1 era of shooters. It's extremely linear, but you hardly notice, because the setting and structure are rich. In practical terms, the layout doesn't actually flow or interconnect very smoothly (just try to backtrack--royal pain in the ass), but it interconnects visually, and thus conceptually/perceptively, extremely well--you nearly always see the next major waypoint before you actually reach it, underscoring the sense of progress, and purely aesthetic contraptions like the reveal/receiving of the yellow key give a sense that you're operating various bits of machinery (as opposed to clearing obstacles to in a video game) without making you think about it too much--it's immersive!

Action is straightforward but suitably visceral, not unlike map 03, although there is more flexibility and variety in the encounters here than in that map, e.g. methodical players who like to use vantages and clear the way ahead of time will often be able to do so via the plentiful windows and other previews into future areas, while more aggressive players can use the early SSG and scads of ammo to tear through the facility in a bloody blaze of multi-kills and CQC. The action starts to get a mite flaccid in the later wooden area, troughing out in the drab knight-corridor, but finishes on a stronger note with a nice heartstarting dick-move before the exit. In contrast to map 03, there's a more satisfying blend of incidental combat with some miniature setpieces (ala the little 'cage' trap with the impact-switch release-trigger at the start of the wooden area) to keep things decently varied, important since the actual scale of the play areas doesn't vary much (mostly smaller/tighter corridors). More than any specific detail, though, and in keeping with so much of the Moeller brothers' work, I think it's really the simple bloodiness that serves the map best--believe it or not, there are only two maps in the set that have a larger bodycount than this one.

Aesthetically, I think that the visual connectedness trumps all in this case, but this industrial/hi-tech theme does make a nice departure in an episode mostly characterized by dingier, dirtier, and occasionally Quake-lusting earthbase/fortress environments (even Thomas couldn't help himself, check out the silly-looking floor under the secret rocket launcher); those of you who played Memento Mori with the DWMC should recognize a lot of Thomas' texture preferences here, in a sense this almost looks like "High-Tech Grave II" as far as that's concerned. As far as criticism goes, I think the main area really could have done with different lighting choices (even a simple flood-fill of a lower light level would've been an improvement, I feel), since the fullbright look across several planes of that grey cement makes the installation look a lot flatter than it is, and the wooden corridors are rather drab, but...well, traversing in/around the main hub is just too cool for me to really mind, like I said. I even like the music track, a standout in what I generally consider to be a far less memorable/suitable soundtrack than that heard in the MM WADs.


I am certainly in agreement with Memfis that the little map 04-06 stretch is one of Requiem's brightest spots.

MAP08
Iikka is highly regarded as a wad author, but he had some IMO really frustrating habits as a level designer. That I still mostly enjoyed this level, despite those habits being out in full force, speaks well of its fundamentals.

Lets start with those frustrating habits: long-ass slow lifts with monsters at the end (especially ones small enough that the monsters can claw you while you're lowering). 64-wide staircases with obstructive detailing to get snagged on. Obstructive detailing in general – they're often the only details the level has. A million billion (I counted) switches. Switches with no indication of what they did or what they were for.

Now fortunately (if that is the right word) the layout of this level is sufficiently linear that there's no real arduous switch hunts in it, nor are there long searches to work out what that switch just did – either something opens nearby, or you backtrack to the big lift and find it has lowered again. I'll ignore the real-world design stupidity of a lift you can only lower to intermediate floors by controls buried in the corner of caves, because this is Doom, not the real world. I won't ignore the fact that a design habit that adversely impacts more open level layouts is a bad habit to have.

I'm struck again by how flat Iikka's texturing tends to be: there's an awful lot of unrelieved ashwall in this map (try doing a 'find' on the texture in DB2 and see how much lights up).

I'm also a little disappointed at some of the technical glitches: there are a couple of stuck monsters, and a lift sector where you can get stuck and have to no-clip out. Of course, Iikka can't be solely blamed for that: playtesting should have picked it up.

Should we talk about Requiem playtesting? It won't take long: there wasn't any.

Okay, so that's an exaggeration. I had Bill McClendon test maps 30 and 11 before submitting them to the project (he also tested the maps that would become 20, 25 and 26). I don't know what testing the other guys did before sending their levels in, but presumably there was some. Once they were on the project mailing list though, the theory was that everyone else could play them and give feedback. This … rarely happened, at least based on the amount of feedback I saw. About the only map I recall generating any conversation is map23, which we'll get to in time.

Anyway, all my complaints above aside, this is a mostly fun level. I think it does a much better job of using revenants than did map07, for one thing (it's use of mancubi and arachnotrons, on the other hand, is odd – they are almost all toothless and no threat at all). It also does a good job of mixing encounters between close and long range, and between different types of enemies. Finally, the ending – though a bit tepid action wise – is a fun idea.

08 - legendary level with impressive realism and "storytelling" for its time. It really creates a sense of adventure and makes you feel good when you blow up that reactor thing. But perhaps the Dystopia version is even better lol: http://derekmd.com/img/gaming/bestdoom/dyst3114.jpg

Hey guys, sorry for the minor interrupt, but do you think it's likely we'll be doing skillsaw's Valiant next month? I'm trying to decide when to play it and if it's looking like a shoe-in for March I'll wait 'til then.

Valiant won't get my vote because I'm not generally a fan of gameplay modifications to Doom. But I can always go back to CC2 if it does get picked.

Valiant would be a yes for me.

MAP07: Hell's Gift

Oh look, a MAP07 that doesn’t imitate….. wait, never mind.

The obvious Dead Simple homage isn’t bad here, though, as the ending area is built in a way that makes the Mancbi-Arachnotrons encounter different from the original. The first half is alright, too. It’s a short map, perfectly solid, but nothing too memorable.

MAP08: The Reactor

This is an alright map. The beginning, outdoors part is good, and the theme of the elevators going up and down a reactor that you need to destroy is a welcome trick. The linearity of the level kinda fits in with this, but the gameplay can be pretty dull at times, due to the elevators going so slow.

If the club is going to play Requiem then I'm in, late or not. I play casually with Prboom+ on UV, continuously with liberal use of savegames.

I should state before hand that I love Requiem. It is one of the first megawads I played when I got into playing pwads in earnest and I like pretty much all the maps, excepting 5, 12 and 17 (I will reserve comments till they are reached.) It will be interesting to see what this feels like replaying it years later.

Map01 - “The Gateway” by Orin Flaharty
The opening level is a good looking, quick blast of a level. The exteriors with the slain corpses silhouetted against the full moon were particularly atmospheric first time I played this and I feel they still look good now. As others have noted, the level is neither substantive or complex, but this is fine by me. I'd argue that it's simplicity actually works in it's favour as it keeps the level fast-paced and encourages you to attack the level, which fits the slot and the music. The only exception to this would be the teleporting zombiemen in the 2nd room which encourages camping. Good opener overall.

Map02 - “Sacrificium” by Anthony Czerwonka and Florian Helmberger
Everything that applies to map01, applies to map02 doubly so. There's really less level in map02 than there was in map01 and the focus is really even more on aesthetics than fighting. The chainsawing of demons under stone henges beneath the full moon was memorable when I first played this level and would have been vastly moreso in '97. Nowadays it's not so impressive, but still nostalgic. Gameplay is very straightforward with two imp based ambushes really being the most substantive fights. The fact that there were two authors really reflects in the brief, bifurcated nature of the map. Presumably it was intended to be longer.

Incidentally, does anyone know what the two little side rooms at the start of map02 are there for? I've always wondered this, because as they are, they're basically pointless.

Map03 - “Poison Processing” by Iikka Keränen
Ahh map03 :). This would be the first substantive map of the wad, and the first Iikka Keranen map I ever played. When I first played this, the initial snowy canyons of the level were quite bland and led me to wonder if Iikka had been overrated. Then the first drop into the sewer part of the level came along and suddenly I understood what everyone was talking about.

Of all the Iikka maps in Requiem this one is perhaps one of my favourites. Iikka's style is very distinctive, with a smattering of vanilla engine exploits used on levels that are otherwise very regimented and linear. The slime in the sewer parts of the level improves the gameplay here. Dodging shots requires particularly more care because of the limited non-hurting floorspace. This and the blind drops into following areas mean you need to be quick on your feet and fast with your shots to take out the hitscanners, which suits the mostly low-level monster population perfectly.

The later brown parts of the level show case Iikka's 'slopes'. They are cool, but I've always found this to be the weakest part of the level. In particular the brown corridor leading to the instant move sector doors especially highlights Iikka's weaknesses as a level designer, being very simple and entirely straight-ahead shoot the demons in front of you. The only drama comes from trying to kill the sergeants and chaingunner after the teleport before they can shoot you.

Oh and as I remembered playing the map, I was ready for the sergeants at the start before they could shoot me :)

Map04 - “Fireworks” by Matthias Worch
Excellent level with good area integration and layout. I enjoy Matthias Worch's levels and the ones in requiem even more so. The technical constructs he favours always seem logical, yet satisfying to work through. The level combines good scenery and traps and there's a good, snappy pace with plenty of things to shoot throughout.

The semicircular ledge with the chaingunners on has always been a memorable part of this level for me, appearance wise. I would perhaps also join others who criticise the later part of the level with the more straightforward fights. The PE fight should allow them to spit lost souls if I remember right, but that is flawed as it allows running back. (In this instance I don't mind since you can shoot the final demon in the exit room then backtrack whilst waiting for the 30 second bars to reopen.)

Overall I think this level runs like clockwork and is very enjoyable.

Map05 - “The Canyon” by Bill McClendon
When I first played requiem years ago I did not enjoy this map, in fact I thought it was terrible. It seemed like a thematic hodge-podge with an obtuse progression and altogether much slower than the snappy pace of the preceding four.

Upon playing this today with the club, I think I was a little bit unkind. When I originally played the map and pressed the switch near the yellow key secret, I expected it should have opened the nearby silver bars, not the door at the other end of the slime pit and therefore spent awhile wondering why I couldn't progress. Happily, when playing it now I experienced no issues, so the progression isn't too bad really. I do feel I was justified about the incoherent themes though. Whilst I can see that McClendon was trying to depict increasing hellish corruption in the area after the red door, I still find the transition from metal corridors into the big red hell room is very abrupt and jarring. Also, I'm not so keen on some of those whole room flashing lights as well.

The fight through the canyon is ok although the teleporting monsters are basically a canned infight. Once they are busy you can thin out the imps on the ledges to reduce the crossfire.

All in all this isn't quite as bad as I first thought when I originally played this map so I can happily say this is one old map that's improved with age. I still consider this map to be far aesthetically weaker than the previous maps though.

I'll catch up with the remaining 3 maps tomorrow. I'm looking forward to maps 6 and 8 especially.

Map 07 -- Hell's Gift - 100% Kills / No secrets
Yes, not a very memorable map, it seems. It came back to me once I started playing it, of course, but there was very little I was able to recall beforehand, not even whether or not the map adhered to the Dead Simple format.

...and in fact it does, which is no doubt no small factor in why it's not very memorable. Jens Nielsen's distinctly uncharismatic (<--is that an oxymoron?) visual style probably doesn't help either--very flat-planed, very blocky, very austere in the detail department, very little in the way of lighting contrast (although we do get a little in the Dead Simple setpiece), and very brown (less brown than average for him, actually). Just what part(s) is Worch's contribution is difficult to discern, since the two authors do share a number of stylistic similarities (I wish they'd done more together than this for precisely that reason, to tell true), but if I had to guess I'd pick the interior of the yellow skull's building--the shuttered HK closets, little metal-plated indents for the techlamps, and the interstitial layer of bars and sills strike me as being more in his tinkery clockwork style, whereas when I think of Nielsen's approach to mechanisms I'm more in mind of something bigger and more laborious, like the handcrank starter on an old autocar or something.

Anyway, not much to say about the action that other folks haven't already said. Other than the lame mancubus battle (one of them wandered into the center for a while to troll me this time) it doesn't play too badly--serviceable (if exploitable) arachnatron battle, and decent use of limited space + limited munitions in the early going, plus one clever trap in the form of the lift on the east side dropping to set loose the heretofore suspiciously absent gang of knights/imps/commandos. Inoffensive, overall, but I'll bet you that when the time comes for me to play this mapset again however many years down the road it's going to be, I will once again find myself unable to recall anything about it until I load it up.

Map 08 -- The Reactor - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Hmm, maybe I was wrong earlier, perhaps this is Keränen's most famous/popular level in the mapset, not "Town of the Dead" (hmm.....nah.). In many ways it's his Doom mapping career in a nutshell: a lot of love and care paid to painstakingly carving out a particular structural concept (more often than not one requiring ingenious use of Doom's relatively limited complement of triggers, actions, and materials), and a lot of terribly uninspired, one-note combat. Almost everything that makes this map worth experiencing has to do with the setting rather than the action; after an unexplained jailbreak preamble, the player is led on a journey into a complex and many-layered mineshaft in order to eventually reach and destroy a nuclear reactor nestled at the foot of the mountain into which the shaft is sunk. Why you do this is never treated with at any point (all of IK's maps are completely without informational blurbs in the Requiem textfile), but this being Doom, that's not exactly a huge concern--you can make up your own backstory, if you want.

The point is that here it's very easy to do that (if you are so inclined) precisely because of how well the meat of the setting has been realized; the intended theme of a polluted mineshaft with a big power-generating contraption of some sort at the end comes through loud and clear, and I would bet that it would do so even for someone who has never seen Doom before. From the irregular angles to the wooden tresses to the little veins of groundwater and glowing nukage to even smaller details like the referential numbering of the shafts on the main lift's surface, all of the trappings are there--you don't know what it is because you read a backstory and your imagination fills in the gaps, you know what it is because Iikka shows you, plain as day. In a sense, I think this is one of his more impressive undertakings, because he communicates the setting more via the actual, traversible layout and structure than he does via decals and purely superfluous aesthetic flourishes (like the doors that swing open in map 03, for example); there are some midtex surfaces at work, and this is also the first time we see the distinctive railings and the nifty custom lift assets, but for the most part it's made out of basic Doom assets, and stock ones at that. His appropriation of the IoS death-explosions at the end still looks good even today, as well, looks like he very carefully measured the area's proportions relative to the player's viewpoint so they would fill the scene just so.

The catch is that the combat/action is poor, quite poor, even. I reckon if it's your first time experiencing the map you'll be too busy drinking in the scenery to really notice much (this was certainly the case for me, at any rate), but the more times you replay it the more obvious it becomes just how flat, dry, and badly-paced it is. The initial areas, with some sniper fire from hitscanners on the bluffs and some mid-tier beasties milling about, are serviceable, if bland (the extremely dull-looking ashwall topography probably helps in sucking the life out of the scene, in fairness); it's not until you get into the meat of the map that things start to really go south. The farther in you go, the narrower and more cramped your playspaces become, and the bigger and meatier your adversaries become, until you reach a point where you're not doing anything but shotgunning essentially immobile gobs of meat out of your way one by one by literally-fucking-ONE. The occasional revenants feel like a breath of fresh air; at least they are able to path towards you more efficiently, given their deceptively svelt hitbox. Exacerbating this roto-rooter monster placement is the fact that pistol-starters will have to spend a great deal of the map grinding through with just shotgun and chaingun--there IS an SSG, but it's secret, and hidden something like 2/3 of the way through, so it's a long slow haul before then. The extremely cramped nature of the setting means that other arcane engine-based nuisances show up from time to time as well, ala monsters that are literally stuck (the two cacodemons choking up the tunnel before the final lift), and sometimes if you're unlucky infinitely-tall imps will path themselves into just the right (wrong) spot so they can scratch away at you for what feels like hours while you ride a slow, tiny manlift down to the point where you can finally autotarget them. It's a chore, it's unchallenging, unengaging, and slow, and it's nothing but an obnoxious distraction from the setting that IK has so painstakingly wrought.

Sad thing is, it's not entirely hopeless on a fundamental level--for example, sometimes you get little alcoves that open up in the tunnels in order to mitigate what would otherwise be some silent backtracking--but when I'm fighting arachnatrons with an SSG through little shoulderwide fastclose man-doors at point-blank range, it's really hard to see the silver lining. I suppose one could fairly ask just what could Iikka have done, given the setting? Well, my gut reaction is to say 'he could have used imps and zombies instead of mancubi who are too fucking fat to turn around in the tunnels', but nevertheless, it's a point well-taken--there's really not a lot he could've done, placement-wise, with this heavily cramped, awkward, completely linear layout. And that, dear friends, is the point--Iikka primarily cares about realizing a given representational or conceptual goal; gameplay is to him a tertiary concern at best, by all appearances. I suppose how much of a drawback this is (if it's a drawback at all) depends on your priorities as a player; for my part, I am very willing to see some sacrifices in gameplay made at the altar of atmosphere from time to time, but I don't cotton to having my time wasted for no good reason, and that's what a lot of the action in a lot of Iikka's maps feels like to me.

And yeah, I'm cool with playing Valiant, if that's the way everyone else is leaning.

As a way of outing how ancient I am, I was using DoomCAD 5.1 to track down secrets way back when.

map 6: exited on 6th attempt
I still like the progression in this one. The central hub and raising bridges to open up passage to the side areas is simple yet appealing. It's possible to complete the map without the blue key though one is likely to have it anyways in the process of unlocking the path. There's a few out of the way areas that aren't tagged as secret which some will like and others will sneer at.
Combat wise, most difficulty comes from resource scarcity at first. Combine that with danger from multiple angles and the start can be a bit tricky. Even with map familiarity, I managed to die several times due to a lack of armor. One came from a trap I saw coming and still managed to botch it. Ammo is abundant later on and later sections rely on monsters in uncomfortably close quarters.
This map hit a few pet peeves. There is quite a bunch of unavoidable pickups, likely resulting in wastage. I also managed to break the map in the section where one is meant to wait for a 30 second door (this is one of the weak points of the map). Other than that, a strong showing in my biased opinion that still provides fun over 15 years later.

Map09 - “Deep Down Below” by Matthias Worch

Do you know what's uncool? This map IS the same map as MAP06 from The Trooper's Playground by the same author, released earlier than Requiem was. It seemed familiar to me, so I've checked and confirmed my suspiction.

Anyway, it's an oldschool level. Lots of brown, lots of cramped areas, lots of Barons and pinkies and other unnecessary meaty monsters in my way, posing little danger and/or skippable. On the other hand, the map was elaborate and balanced well, even if tightly at times. The map looked okay, and each place looked differently (which I liked), but none of them downright "pretty". The red key gimmick was interesting, but I felt that it could have been exploited with relative ease, I didn't even try it, though. Otherwise a generic crawler, but entertaining. 3.5/5

Regarding Valiant, I am extremely wary of any modifications to Doom II weapon or mechanics behavior, but I am curious as to why Skillsaw thought it was necessary, and I think I trust his judgment. After all, he is responsible for « Slugfest » which is a total blast, as well as Vanguard which based on Idgames ratings is apparently lauded as the best Pwad ever (and from what I’ve played of it I’m inclined to agree), as well as all kind of other admired maps.

MAP09 : Deep Down Below by Mattias Worch

This action-heavy romp takes place in some kind of underground medieval complex. It’s a neat location, and the remote techbase sections add in a bit of mystery, making you wonder just what exactly was going on in there.

Gameplay here is fast and punchy, which of course is always a good recipe for Doom 2. Except for that inescapable acid trench of course (the one with the brown bridge), those are usually irritating traps, and what doesn’t help here is that it’s particularly unfitting for the way this map is set up, you don’t want to be waltzing all over the place only to be thrust into an inescapable pit of death.

The footwork required in the red key area, by contrast, makes a lot more sense. Confession time : curiosity made me check Suitepee’s stream a few days ago, I happened upon that whole goofy red key sequence, so it wasn’t a surprise. Its works, though, and after such an elaborate segment, I’m afraid the final fight with those two Barons is a whimper of an ending. Especially since you can apparently skip it, which… meh. Pretty good map overall though.

Valiant is so great that I want to play it on my own before March, no way that I'd wait. I'm for 32-in-24-2014 for March. My other suggestions are Plutonia 2, Reverie and D2Reload.

EDIT: By the way, although I'm not into using gameplay mods, I like DEHACKED/DECORATE modifications to weapon, enemy or mechanics behavior as part of core gameplay of a wad, as long as it's made competently, and in Skillsaw's / Valiant's case, it definitely is. "Competent" means: 1. Meaningfully utilized in gameplay and level design of the particular maps. 2. Improving balance and/or fun factor. 3. Clarity of which mechanics are changed and which are not (using custom sprites for the changed things).

Valiant seems fun but I'm already playing it. and from what I can judge, every level would be labelled as Hard or Very Hard so I'm playing it on the lowest skill level. plus, modifications won't work with it. while I'm here:

MAP09 Deep Down Below

this is the one Worch map that I can definitely remember. it's actually not too notable, but it's a pretty decent level with good combat and a rather tricky red key puzzle. apparently, it's also a reworking of a Trooper's Playground level, which I have played, so I'm actually quite familiar with it. a mostly good level, but unfortunately it is possible to get stuck in at least two locations, both of which are outlined in the wiki.