Castle of the Dead

A sprawling Satanic castle with a bunch of interesting effects and nice scenery scattered throughout, such as the impressive magically appearing fortress near the start, mixed in with segments of long corridors and orthogonal mazes.  It also, though I'm not sure if intentionally, created a feeling of the passage of time as you start out in a gloomy nighttime scene, and as you progress, find yourself going through dark grey areas and then onward into brighter tan ones with the brown Doom 2 sky, as if daybreak has come, before finally returning to the darkness towards the end.  Nice use of the Gothic DM textures as well, and the music is both cool and fitting to the atmosphere.

 

When it comes to gameplay design, the author seems to revel in cruel treatment of the player, including tons of hitscanners, sadistic traps, and sadistic traps involving hitscanners.  Not a lot of secrets or exploration either, mostly move forward, find the way blocked, backtrack to find a switch, and then go forward again.  I imagine it would take a lot of foreknowledge and planning to clear this map in one clean take without using saves since many of the traps are based around "react immediately or die" type situations.  So if you hate that type of "kaizo" gameplay you'll probably hate playing this map too.  Rather strangely, for the ultimate battle of the map, a megasphere and invulnerability are both given, making it only a matter of destroying the last monsters before the invulnerability time runs out, despite the relative stinginess of health and armor throughout the rest of the level.  I'm also not sure that it's possible to 100% the items due to the way one of the trap lures is is designed.

 

Overall, the good parts are quite good, but several of the worse areas could probably have been cut and left the map better for it, and/or the ideas spread out into two or three maps instead of one huge one.

Beautiful indeed,but the almost constant teleport ambushes and chaingun rapes got old fast.3/5 for a wad that should easily be a 4+.

I'm in two minds about this. At points it is visually stunning - the opening sequence, and the illuminated cathedral thereafter. But then it turns into an undetailed 1994-style maze, with a clever but irritating twist. There are some moody bits after that (a wrecked corridor), and also some curiously blank and empty rooms that look like ass. The level is straight like the trans-europe express. It's fun, but a bit of a slog, because it's very predictable.

Quite well worth the download. Fairly good and very challenging gameplay, plus also some neat details and architectural features. I reccomend that you go download this wad if you are looking for a fairly nice and long lasting level (this map is huge!). 4/5

A fun 25 minutes or so. Texture-aligning is poor in most places, but you rarely have time to notice. A little linear perhaps and doesn't get going until the very end (the final battle is great!) but it works, dammit! ;-) --4/5

Fun Fun Fun. Whos says linear maps are bad. This one may have been deliberately done so. You dont see the same thing over and over. Gameplay is well balanced and the atmosphere is good. Lots of neat little traps. 4/5

its very nice looking but i dont recomend playing it unles you are very skilled becaus it is very hard 4/5

For something as big and monster-filled its boring, and doesn't flow very well. More disjointed and cluster-fuck-y than smooth.

I liked it