DARKGATE.WAD

Yeah, I got about three levels deep before tapping out.  I especially like how the monsters in all the traps are blind. Screw this one. 

Doomers these days have varying levels of patience. I know I have some of the worst when it comes to quickly finishing areas and moving on, which is why I prefer shorter levels most of the time. this particular map, a Maximum Doom map by the way, is one that completely tested my patience.

 

this is 8 levels long, from E1M1 to E1M8, and is sort of a proto-slaughtermap episode replacement. every map here has at least 200 monsters, and the layouts of each say that they are compact in size. so the action would be pretty good and fun right?

 

WRONG

 

while it's fun to kill all these enemies, this is honestly horribly balanced. on the first level, you only really get a shotgun and a chaingun, and it took me a while to get just one armor too. is that the worst part? I can actually enjoy the challenge of such a gameplay scenario so no. what's problematic about each and every level in this wad is that when you're not killing enemies, you're just sort of fucking around. in other words, you're switch hunting. but this is the worst kind due to lifts that have zero indications that they are lifts, as well as switches that have zero indication of what they did. not to mention some walls are triggers, when they really don't have any indication that they really do anything. oh yes, and mandatory secrets and backtracking. I would like the combat more if it gave more weapons too, not one plasma gun or BFG in sight, and all that backtracking just...fucking...headdesk. there's no reliable way to even speedrun this, to the point where I wonder if the author ever realized that other's would tire the fuck out over it. "these are the easy ones" this has all the hallmarks of a bad Maximum Doom map.

 

it's amazing how varied my Maximum Doom experience is so far. there are some really fun maps, mediocre but quick maps, and some long and nasty ones. I'm honestly trying to avoid reviewing any maps from there but i'll make an exception for this particular one since it's just unbelievably bad.

Ok these will drive you crazy finding the hidden areas. Still this was the hardest challenge I found back when I played doom wads a LOT. I made it to the 8th map and it just totally kicked my butt. Lots of save games and retries just to get that far. Expect to spend a LOT of time clicking on walls looking for hidden areas.

Guys! Don't download this piece of.. To author: Practice... 2 star for rise your rate and aspiration of mapping good wads. Seriously!

These maps are horrible. They basically boil down to: Switch hunting finding switches in secrets switches that look like normal wall textures using switches to open doors/lifts that look like normal wall textures doors not opening properly being suck in lifts that have no lower switch switches that look like normal wall textures using the BLOOD flat to hurt you in one part of the map and then in another not to no detail