Hell Ground

Hell Ground is a really damn solid WAD. It's got atmosphere dripping out of every pore, the music and sound effect changes are welcome ones for me, and the level and combat design are a lot better than I was expecting them to be. Some of the levels can get a bit long and needlessly confusing (lookin' at you, "Mystery of Hell"), but it's not that big of an issue.

Alright, let's stop beating around the bush - "Warp of Time" kind of wipes the entire rest of this WAD. The rest of Hell Ground is really damn good, don't get me wrong, but to pretend like "Warp of Time" isn't easily the most notable thing about this levelset and the only reason I'm bothering to write this review would be disingenuous and silly. "Warp of Time" alone dramatically raises my overall rating of the WAD. It is, put simply, one of the greatest Doom maps ever created. It's a masterclass in pacing, setpiece design, signposting, visuals, worldbuilding, and good ol' fashioned ATMOSPHERE. It shows that Doom can be so much more than simply shooty-shooty bang-bang if you invest in your presentation enough. Seriously, if you haven't played "Warp of Time" yet, it makes Hell Ground worth the price of admission all on its own.

OVERALL RATING: 8/10

FAVORITE MAP: MAP04 - "Warp of Time" (obviously)

LEAST FAVORITE MAP: MAP07 - "Mystery of Hell" (exasperating)

HARDEST MAP (for me at least): MAP07 - "Mystery of Hell" (seriously why is this level so confusing to navigate)

MAP YOU SHOULD PLAY FIRST IF YOU WANT A SAMPLER: MAP02 - "Blood Runner"

* Hell Ground Review *

Pros

- Maps are very visually gorgeous. Architecture is smooth and Gothic themed. Bravo on this!

- LOTS of combat. Challenging, yet this WAD is not a slaughterfest. More on this in the “Cons” section.

- Music is great, except Map 6. Oriental music just does not go well with this Map.

- The best map is the final map, Map 7 – Mystery of Hell. It is HUUUUGE. Set aside your entire afternoon for this map. It has 15 secrets and you will not find them unless you have all day.

Cons

- Absolutely hated the sound effects.

- You’ll get the BFG 9000 before you will get the Plasma Rifle if you fail to find the Plasma Rifle’s secret beforehand – in the previous Map.

- Although not a slaughterfest, many enemies appear out of the ground just about every time you utilize the “Use” button. Many combats were close quarters – of course, AFTER the monsters appear from nowhere and/or the ground.

- Map 3 (Paranoia) starts you off in a small room with 4 firing Chaingunners that suddenly pop up from the ground, each in a corner. Good luck with that.

- Level 4 (Warp of Time) is a nightmare. I have played literally hundreds of WADS and I've never once “IDCLEV’ed” a map. But I did so after completing approx 75% of this map as I had enough of it.

- Level 6 is just plain useless. You “free fall” for 30 seconds. Then walk (a virtual) 10 miles.

All in all, I just didn’t have fun with Hell Ground for all the reasons in the “Cons” section. I have no idea why so many praised this WAD, let alone what it’s doing in the 2009 Cacowards. I've seen much better work from the author, Alexander "Eternal" S. (aka Deadall).

It was the "suddenly appearing" monsters and the horrible sound effects that annoyed me the most, not to mention Maps 4 and 6. Considering the WAD is comprised of only 7 maps, two of these seven maps being useless is a fair chunk of the game. 

2 out of 5 stars.   ~ Dylux

I think other reviewers said it already. It's just amazing. From my point of view a must have experience.

This wad is not just about killing demons but it's also about a story which you can make yourself up while you're fighting through the monsters and solve very nicely done puzzles in these huge atmospheric maps.

Done with these settings:

- GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9.

- Ultra-Violence.

- Continuous combined with a fist start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

One of the most atmospheric wads I've ever played. The level of artistic design is impressive, the connection between the many new textures, details and layouts is worth of looking. I can't simply describe what's the ambient theme about, it's a sort of dark, rocky planet, where apparently monsters came from different dimensions to construct hotels and read books... yeah well, that's my interpretation, and I don't have complaints about the overall designing, except for the blue dimension in map 04, that was bad for my eyes. I also didn't enjoy its track, somehow it gave me the wrong vibes, but the rest of the music tracks went well with the mood of the maps. 

On a gameplay side, I could say it has its old-school/90's vibes. There's a strong feeling of adventure, given all the visual/audible effects that can be seen/heard throughout the mapset, modernized because of the time the set was made, but most clearly that mystery factor when the low count of enemies can still catch you by surprise at any time, while not being unfair, if I exclude a couple of instances with archviles. However, besides a few particular and memorable circumstances, the combat is generally low-key incidental, not as trap-based as Plutonia (despite the "Congo" rendition), but many sneaky bastards camouflaged in corners and fastpops. Said memorable cases include a battalion of barons in a switch-hunt trap, a deadly slaughter on a circular lift, a puzzle-ish big box where you release as much enemies as you want, and other situations not entirely focused on killing something. With that said, the pace of the maps vary a lot between each other, there are shorter maps where combat is the notorious side (hopefully you have fun punching the first shotgunners), and longer maps for prolonged linear exploration with intricate progression (basically, switch hunts), although I wasn't a fan of the only story-based map, simply because it felt inconclusive. About the extras that Hell Ground comes with, like meteorites, something I've never seen before in a non-ZDoom wad, very cool. Even though I didn't get a chance to test their effect on doomguy, I'm guessing they could smash him instantly. The living missiles could have been deployed in more hilarious situations, it was really funny to see an arachnotron mad at one, even more when the missile crashed and the spider kept shooting the wall lol. Similar with the dark imps, a tanky much faster version that shoots green fireballs, their usage is very limited, but I won't complain about that. A thing that didn't impress me was the ending in the last map, a bit anti-climatic and not very intuitive to solve, apart from a few monsters that had it hard to teleport in the area. 

Secret-wise, there was a huge secret quest in the last map I have a lot of fun with, where one of my favourites includes a soulsphere, which when you grab it the lights cut out and suddenly you're being observed from above D: ... The larger maps come with tons of secrets along the way, not super tricky to find nor mandatory ones, thankfully. I'm curious about the purpose of the secret in map 06, perhaps useful if you start from that map and play continuously, but who does that for only two maps?. Anyway, favourite maps, 01, 03 and 05. I'd add map 07 if it wasn't because it ended poorly imo. 

Overall, just great, anyone with a casual-adventurous mindset should definitely try this. I'm not saying I enjoyed everything here, but I'm grateful for the experience, so my rate is 8/10.