T-Rex Posted March 8, 2014 Rex Claussen delivers yet again with his reinterpretation of the original Doom episodes. After Phobos Revisited and Deimos: Slight Return, we see his take on Episode 3 in Infernos. In the original Inferno, almost all the maps were designed by Sandy Petersen, save for E3M3 and E3M7 which were Tom Hall maps before Sandy revamped them along with many others, and they've been to go with the hellish theme of the episode. How did Rex fare with remaking the episode? Let's find out. E3M1 (Hell Keep) - More monsters than in the original, with some new additions along with Rex making the map look much cleaner with his trademark curvy hallways and circular rooms. E3M2 (Slough of Despair) - Well, this is something new. Instead of a map shaped like hand, Rex's take on E3M2 is a giant spider (ala Arachnophobia from Hell Revealed). E3M3 (Pandemonium) - Rex reworks the original E3M3 to make it less non-linear, but still you can pick different routes. You don't get the BFG here like in the original, though, but still not too bad. E3M4 (House of Pain) - A cleaned up E3M4 with some different progressions. Nothing special here. E3M5 (Unholy Cathedral) - Layout is somewhat the same to the original, except that you need the yellow key in order to teleport into the central area, some more traps, and the northern area has passages that connect to the exit. E3M6 (Mt. Erebus) - A lot more spacious, and south is a tunnel to the area of water where the secret exit is. I found it a hassle to get there though, cause somehow this wad has a bug where rockets sometimes don't push you back or damage monsters. As a result, I had to use the clipping cheat in order to fall into the secret exit hole. Layout is almost the same, though both the normal and secret exit teleporters are close to each other. E3M9 (Warrens) - Now here's something different. Instead of making your way to the "exit" which triggers new rooms, you access them as you're making your way to the exit. Much like the original, it's the reworked E3M1 with additional areas and tougher fights like the Cyberdemon, the packs of Lost Souls, Cacodemons, and Barons. E3M7 (Gate to Limbo) - The area is now a huge circular domain with all the rooms neatly melded in order to form the circle and the separate area in the original is now connected. Still similar to the original, only more trickier in traps, monsters, and puzzles. E3M8 (Dis) - Holy shit! I'm having dejavu with this map! The starting half is nothing more than E1M8 of Phobos Revisited with some new hellish areas thrown in. Then you reach the arena where you fight the Barons to encounter a Cyberdemon in the center along with the Barons! Toast them and the surrounding walls of the star lowers to reveal the outside, you see a structure which holds some ammo and health for the epic showdown with Imps, Cacodemons, and not just one but TWO Spider Masterminds! What a perfect way to close the episode! Overall, this wasn't bad reinterpretation of Inferno. It may not come as close to Phobos Revisited and Deimos: Slight Return, and there were some annoyances and flaws which caused it to fall back on the wayside, but some bits were okay, and E3M8 was quite a neat twist. Fans of E3 might want to give this a try. Infernos has been out since December 2012, so you can easily download it. Get the wad here - http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom/g-i/infernos.zip 0 Share this post Link to post
