valkiriforce
Forum Regular
Posts: 926
Registered: 02-10 |
I was looking forward to your guy's playthrough of Interception, until I heard most everyone's final thoughts on Memento Mori. A lot of people have become desensitized by modern mapping standards to really appreciate the quality this was back when it was released. Compare this with the likes of Maximum Doom and you'll see this was clearly something to be hyped about back then. Memento Mori is a great megawad FAR better than most have been nowadays. If people enjoyed Ultimate Doom or Doom II I can't really see how they wouldn't like this, at least in some way. For me, it's not so much aging as it is something that I ultimately prefer over some of the most community-hardened efforts that are overzealous in their hype and quality. The problem I have with overly-detailed maps is that they feel like maps that could have been in a higher-quality game in general. It looks like a Quake III map with Doom sprites in them and it looks ugly and out of place. I wanted to play Doom maps, not Quake maps.
Overall, Memento Mori will always be one of my favorite megawads. It was my first surprise outside of playing the IWADs that showed me how dedicated the fans could be in both sound and design. The soundtrack was very well done and it was a nice surprise to find original tracks in a set of custom levels created by fans. Granted, I can understand the people who didn't like some maps (like MAP10 or 12) but ultimately I felt the good parts outweighed the lesser parts of the WAD. I've learned this generation has become a little spoiled with some of the more obvious solutions to map progression. Memento Mori had a lot more puzzle to it and it felt very accomplishing if you've ever been able to find every secret or even progress through certain parts of the megawad. It became a thinking man's action game that said something about the thought that went into the mathematical design. No, nothing to this day comes close to Memento Mori in my book.
On another note, I didn't feel it was the greatest thing when I first played it. I enjoyed it but didn't fully appreciate it. I hated Jens' levels and then some. I was convinced after a while of the quality given some time; Jens obviously at this point has become an influence to me. MAP28 is probably the single most awesome map in existence (and I'll be honest, I was convinced over time by the likes of such reviews as this and this). In other words, a lot of my appreciation came over time and familiarity; and now I find it to be the most enjoyable WAD experience I've had besides some other notable works.
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02-01-13 16:44 
