MARSWAR V3.01

Mars War has great level design, perfect soundtracks, and is overall a fun experience. This is without a doubt my favorite megawad and I would highly recommend it to pretty much anyone (unless misaligned textures REALLY bug you)

This is probably the best megawad of the '90s. You will find here all that is considered bad about doom mapping, but at the same way, you will find tons and tons of creativity, and also, a strong message in the process.
Really, '90s can't get better than this at least in the storytelling department.
The gameplay is fun for the most time, but some maps suffer from being a little longer than needed, making them tiring.
The story is neat, driving the player through semi-realistic and high abstract locations made up with tons of interesting and contextuals details that advance the story forward. Really good usage of what Doom engine can make in it speechless way.
As i said, some maps are longer than needed, and also, near the end, the ramps up in difficulty is obsene, even in the easiers difficulties.
But from the storytelling side, this is five over five.
A real achievement on what and amateur can make with just passion and humor.

Thanks Nathan Lineback for your satirical rant agains MS.

The Good:

  - Lots of everything to assist you on your journey

  - Lots of secrets, most of which are rewarding

  - Some huge maps

  - Decent puzzles

  - Great choice of music - none was annoying

  - Hardly a slaughterfest, even on UV, but not exactly a breeze, either

The Bad:

  - The first 2 or 3 Maps are simple – in fact, they are simple to the point where they are annoying

  - That Map (28 User Interface) with all the red, triangular elevators. I see the Tron "feel" of it, but it still annoyed the hell out of me

  - Final Map could have been more original

In Short:

I didn’t think I would like this WAD as I played the first 2 or 3 Maps. And you probably will think the same thing. But get past those, and you have a pretty good WAD here. I loved the button that turns out all the lights thus making the Map a living nightmare for doing so! LOL!!! I won't tell you which Map it's on so have fun! :P

Nothing fancy here. Most of the atmosphere and Mapsets are pretty average by today’s standards, but I’m sure it was the cutting edge almost 10 years go. More importantly, the game play is fun, and to me, that’s all that matters. Great 90’s nostalgic feel. Well done for a one man job! :)

4 out of 5 Stars

Done with these settings:

- Crispy Doom 5.3
- Ultra-Violence
- Continuous combined with pistol start mindset.
- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

A strange, okay old one-man megawad with a long story included. Basically, the protagonist is part of a worldwide terraforming organization whose objective was invade Mars, they sent a spaceship with him inside. Troubles happened and he had to work it out on his own for several years, running out of oxygen and supplies. Rest is your job to survive, and if you care, the background of the maps is thoroughly explained in the text file. By the time I played the wad, I opted to ignore the story, but you don't have to do the same. Mars War has as many themes as basic Doom II resources allows, including spaceships (from where everything starts), tech bases, bunkers, underground caves, and other ambiguous environments. The peculiarity is that the visual themes appear in alternation rather than like a classic thematic progression, which seemed a bit disorienting at times. Texturing and detailing are generally a take-it-or-leave-it. Sometimes the looks are very bland, which is due to the a lot of monotexturing and misalignment combined with full brightness and boxy design in many of the maps. Think of huge walls of, for example GRAYTALL, to get the idea, or any other textures you might not like. However, I will admit the bits of surreal architecture helped some parts to look memorable in a good way, like a giant kitchen sink or the chambers with floating crates. I get that the author tried to tease people with Microsoft references, but that was not of my concern, in fact I liked the tricks with lifts resembling bar and pie charts, once I got the joke. The labelled textures, on the other side, seemed like silly memes. It was hilarious to find a big "DOOR" text on a door, that sort of things aren't common these days. All of the maps contain different midis, some gorgeous songs and tracks while others quite noisy. The one in the super secret map was the best by far.

The levels have a sort of gradual progression as monster species go, with the biggest demons appearing in particular boss-like situations. Figuring the correct way to exit is part of the regular gameplay of the wad, specially in the larger maps when becomes a maddening task, so as feeling constantly exposed to, mainly, hitscan attrition. There are a few instances of pressure from mixed groups of enemies here and there, and some interesting ideas like a zoo of monsters and infight simulators, but what will mostly keep you alert are the chaingunners and shotgunners, usually sneaking in resource compartments or from higher positions. Well, and the death traps. Teleporting in the middle of a round of zombies was devilish enough but dying my way through chains of nearly inescapable crushers was a tad obnoxious. Or the inverted case, you get sandwiched between the raising platform and the ceiling if you don't time perfectly your escape, which is the gimmick of map 20. Kudos for making an average player rage, heh. Anyways, the pace isn't necessarily slow in spite of the hitscan preponderance: health supplies exist aplenty, weaponry is available pretty soon in every map, with some exceptions, so I can only believe pistol starts are enjoyable with proper knowledge. 

Secret-wise, usually they are very easy to spot. If you're familiar with 90's wads, it just takes a good eye to catch the hint, but sometimes you're down to trial and error, since the author had a fetish for punishing unwary players (yes, death traps). I like that there are plenty to find and some lead to hidden areas for extra kills and stuff, keeps the exploration side more engaging. For favourite maps I'll pick 16, 21, 29 and 32 for their cool concepts. Maps 15 and 17 would also be in the list because I love city maps, but the visuals are garish. The rest vary from acceptable to mediocre or boring. 

Overall, it's quirky, rough, perhaps provocative for some people, as I could see around here, and still got me immersed until the end. Not sure if I would recommend this outside of nostalgic reasons, it definitely didn't aged so well, but unless you're opposed to the creativity of mappers from the past, this might worth a quick check. It's not going in my list of favourites, though. My rate is 5/10.