Hanging Gardens

"In this garden of depraved beings... "

 

So, Hanging Gardens has been finished, played through GZDoom 4.0.0 on UV difficulty. So what do we have here? Well, Hanging Gardens is an arena styled map with slaughter gameplay set in a tropical location. It features new textures, effects, music, and one new enemy, a deadlier version of the regular Baron with increased health and more threatening attacks. The monster count goes a little over 400.

 

Considering that it's only one map there's actually not much else to add than that, it's very short and straight to the point considering it replaces MAP01, which also means that it's fairly easy as well, so most players would be able to enjoy it. The biggest shame here would be the unrealized potential. Hanging Gardens was originally meant to be part of one episode-long wad, but the author decided to abandon the project, this gorgeous, fun map being the only thing that was ever made, thankfully seeing the light of day and not getting canned as well. One is left to wonder how would have the whole package looked like considering the high quality of HG, but that's something we're never going to find out.

 

Definitely worth checking out. One thing to pay attention to are the compatibility settings. Despite the gameplay style involved, it does not seem to work correctly with Doom (Strict), which makes passing under various pillars and small bridges very difficult. It appears to work correctly with the Default setting. And hopefully, you have a decent PC to handle the map because it is a bit graphically intensive with all the new effects, textures, and dynamic lights. Emphasis on decent. Now pick up your weapons and fight.

Awesome little map. Challenging but fair. Ammo and health balance is really nice. Layout is intuitive (would make a fun deathmatch map if you ask me actually) and the architecture, while rather simplistic, has a charm that i like.

Fucking awesome. 5/5. -Lutrov71

Great map. Love the custom boss.

A great map for those who like "run around huge shaughterhouse untill everyone is dead" type of gameplay.

Absolutely stunning!! From the map layout to the monster and ammo layout. It's all perfect. Just the right amount of health too. 5 stars no question. -TRRobin.

Wow this was awesome :)

5/5 great map, looks good and plays good. The difficulty is at a perfect spot between hard and easy. WE NEED MORE MAPS LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

Beautiful map.Am re-downloading to play again.

Great looks (esp the new sky), great layout, plenty to slaughter and tough to boot. Bit unforgiving at the start but once you get going it's a blast. It's a real shame the episode didn't get made.

Fantastic Babylon hanging gardens. The map is pretty, although you neeed a fast machine. Good sky. 5/5

This is perfect. Rare occasion when 5/5 is really pure 5/5.

Great map with good fights. Blood and gibs were also satisfying.

Map lagged for me because I have a slow PC, but I idclip'd around and I must say this map is beautiful. I would say if you made an episode it would be worthy of a cacoward. Nice job. 5/5. -dbsw57

A delightfully tropical slaughtermap. My only complaint is that it's already over!

here´s 5 stars for the marvelous map, now continue making the episode, pretty please?

Eh, I hate to be the voice of reality but this is nothing special at all. It's not bad but it's far from that undeserved perfect score that everyone's throwing at it. This map requires no real thought to pass; infighting does a lot of the early work for you, and once you get the BFG then victory's pretty much guaranteed. 3/5.

Well, it's looks like a epic map at all, but I can't found any reasons for it should be a 5 stars wad, first, ammo isn't enough at all, I don't know it's because I'm playing UV or something, but it give me a bad feel starting at all. Then I see a lot of ammo in everywhere...WTF? After get BFG and it's become easy. Can't found the way to get red key so I RJed to that. 4/5 -playerlin

Great! I absolutely love the looks of this level - sand-colored stone, trees and blue sky, vivid colors and brilliant light. And it's fun to play, too! (I could've sworn the music was from Jazz Jackrabbit, though - but hey, either way, it's Epic Megagames.) 5/5! - ZZ

Quite tough to start out on UV (after a few beers, I'll concede) but once you've worked out a breaching strategy it's not too tough. Tons of supplies laying around to keep you going through this great looking map. I feel a bit let down that there wasn't a few maps leading up to this one, but that's not to detract from the map itself! 5* -Phobus

Damn, this was really awesome! Please make more maps!

Great graphics design, kinda slow in Gzdoom, good fights, but just a single big arena map. 4/5 - Optimus

Excellent! 5/5

I thought the lighting was sub-par in this map and could have really used some more shadows other than that nice map 4/5 - Pottus

skillsaw, definitively youre the mapper of this year 5/5