Crimson Canyon

The Good:

- Lots of ammo, etc to keep you alive

- Continuous MAPS (which I like)

- Decent music

- Plenty of switches that don't keep you guessing what each does

- Not a slaughterfest, but will keep your trigger finger busy

- Some very clever secrets thrown into the mix

The Bad:

- The Crimson Canyon Map (Gawd, I absolutely HATED this Map) - this should have been the best MAP in the game but it was disastrous.

- Lots of cramped levels.

- WAYYYYYY too many Hell Knights.

  This WAD had so many that I wondered why this WAD wasn't called "Hell Knight"

- Very little puzzles

- Most secret's "treasures" were unrewarding

- Monsters that appear from thin air

All in All:

For the year this WAD was created, it's got good eye candy. I really got into this WAD until I hit MAP 07. After that, it kinda went straight downhill for me because of the cramped hallways. MAP 12, the last level, was very anti-climatic due to lack of any kind of boss. The whole project just felt abandoned.

Cacoward worthy? Not by today's standards. Perhaps back in the day. Type of WAD you'll soon forget but worth a play.

3 Stars out of 5.

One of best sets of maps I've ever played. Perfect balanced combat at UV, nice layouts and monster count in good numbers (could be higher though). Would love to play a megawad made by J S Graham!
 

Done with these settings:

- Crispy Doom 4.2

- Ultra-Violence.

- Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

An ok wad, for a lack of a proper word. Consistent execution, appealing visuals, but partially uninteresting gameplay, to sum up my general impressions. On the theme side, the marine was sent to an asteroid in order to do the dirty work. You start in a sort of military base, casually infested by ex-soldiers, arrive to a power station, traverse some sewers, the named crimson canyon, several cramped tech rooms in a space ship, until you arrive to the gate where you must shut down the demon infestation, or something, for story lovers the author wrote a full single text file. So in terms of visuals, there're a lot of new textures, such as stock walls painted to dark grey, which doesn't look so bad, extra computer panels, different red bricks and lava textures for the canyon maps, and much more. Nothing extraordinary, I did like the new additions though, particularly the flames in the way they were used (until their usage became repetitive, you'll see...). The interesting side of the visuals is that, assuming you've read the plot, you'll understand the cohesiveness between the maps, they thematically end in map 10, and the last two maps are extras. Finally, the soundtrack was quite nice to hear, at least the ones that weren't a bit repetitive. I loved map 02's track, it reminded me to BTSX1 first track, and if a midi brings me back to a mapset I loved, it's a huge plus personally speaking. 

The action is what some people would call "grindfest". Basically, monsters come in packs, usually appear in front of the player, or teleport in somewhere one by one. Ambushes and hordes of the same kind of monster are the most frequent, particularly packs of zombies that will be gift you with plenty of ammo, not that there scarcity is a thing in any of the maps, even if you're pistol starting you'll stumble upon ammo in narrow passages that can't be avoided. Figure in continuous how embarrassingly common was that... At times, you'll find hitscanners easy to grind from the other side of a corridor, at others, only projectile-based in complete open spaces, which only makes them look tiny and disoriented. At least once in every map there's the old-fashioned pinkies + chainsaw combo, which I always took gracefully, even though it's often labelled as "boring". As you can read, the combat is on the grind side, not real threatening in earlier maps, but maybe that can sound appetizing to you. I still found a few fairly challenging parts in later maps, in comparison to what the majority of set provides, where number of monsters is in compliance with the cramped area, less "nonthreatening grind" in other words, like being caught in between a bunch of hell knights coming from every narrow corridor. The 10 maps that compose the story basically play similar, with progression being naturally linear, but with a lot of backtrack in between (I recall only one map providing a teleport back to a recently opened area), so it's easy to keep track of what you're doing. Exceptions are the canyon maps, although if you're in the mood, there are many apparently "glide-able" gates, good for when you loose interesting in killing stuff. The two extras also appear in the Claustrophobia 1024 series, I think, they are absolutely straightforward and too awkward to play to be honest, no idea why they are in this wad... Despite the sort of combat here, the story maps can serve for a casual not-so-hard experience to new players, or when you feel like mowing down zombies and grabbing their ammo, that is funny to me from time to time. One little thing, in some maps it is possible to be unable to max them, due to broken teleport lines in several monster closets. It happened to me in map 03.   

Secret-wise, not hard to find them all except for the ones behind random unmarked walls. One of the most common is a secret in every map that contains a special thing, usually opened after doing some progression, don't forget it if you're playing on continuous. There is one secret in map 07 that only rewards you with pointless backtrack, if you happen to find it, well, I am sorry for you.

Overall, it was ok, I was in the mood for something like this so I enjoyed it, more or less. I would recommend it only if you love anything from what I said above, or just for the music, honestly. Regardless, not bad. My rate is 6/10. 

The gameplay is dull, way too simple and repetitive (oh hey, three Hell Knights again. Yawn. And two more. And then, two more. Snore), with a lot of tiny groups of monsters in overlarge, mostly empty areas. The visuals are boring as well, with a lot of nearly indistinguishable areas. Pass.