ESP

ESP is a very unconventional  wad. I can't really say if it's really good or not , but I can say it's one my favourite wads. TimeOfDeath has an unique style and this is why I had a lot fun playing his maps.

 

This wad differs from all standards and offers a totally different conception of what a Doom wad can be. It will especially please players who are looking for a very strange but at the same time rather hardcore adventure, because other mappers know how to differentiate themselves without offering a confusing gameplay: Obsidian, Dobu Gabu maru and many more.

 

TimeOfDeath is a very good mapper and can draw very ingenious layouts. ESP has a lot of varied maps in the sense that there are large maps as well as small ones made in a hurry, semi-realistic maps as well as totally abstract maps....

 

On the other hand, if we disregard the slaughter and quite arduous gameplay of his maps, ESP constitues a huge source of inspiration for mappers who would like to integrate more strangeness into their maps, without including all the extremes ideas of ToD maps: strafe 50 mandatory jumps, deadly holes, , very obsucre progression...

 

Also, even if I spent a lot of time on this wad, I have to admit that ToD doesn't seem to always take his maps seriously. Some maps he published under the name "Anigav" refer to actresses (Nina Dobrev , Cassie steele...). Peter Perv private Place (map 29) has some questionable secret pictures, some maps are so abstract that they no longer look like to something (Map 10 , 14, 33) or some maps have a far-fetched scenario (Degrassi , Nina Dobrev 1 and 2...) 
However, most of them offer an interesting adventure, especillay "Cassie steele" which is one of my favorite maps of the megawad.

 

Best maps :

- Map 01 : "Degrassi"
- Map 21 "The Room Below"
- Map 25 "Nina Dobrev 2
- Map 12 "Brookhaven Hospital
- Map 19 "Cassie Steele"

Worst maps :

- Map 10 "Forest of undesirables"
- Map 07 "KSP"
- Map 31 "Nostril Caverns
- Map 30 "Bump"
- Map 18 "64 Lemons map 03"

 

Here is a link of my saveless demos done on Ultra-Violence :

 

DEMOS

 

I remember playing this when it first came out. What I don't remember is what led me to not save it in my collection of WADs to play through. When ESP2 was released on the forums, I decided to go back and play through ESP before I tried my hand at ESP2.

 

Well, now I remember why I didn't save ESP in the past.

 

These are some very hard levels. While many of them consist of slaughtermaps, I found more often than not the reason these maps were difficult is because they're navigational nightmares. It's Eternal Doom levels of "where the fuck do I go" and not the good kind. It gets irritating to clear out a room full of monsters then spend the next 15 - 20 minutes figuring out what to do or where to go next in order to move on.

 

Some levels seem broken as well though this could be because I was using GZDoom with compatibility settings set to Boom. I don't know if it was intentional to use a rocket jump to reach the yellow key room in map 21 but that was what I did in order to finally get up there. Map 30 doesn't work at all in (G)ZDoom because of the need for thingrunning but even then it's the most puzzle oriented of the maps. There's a YouTube video of map 30 being done and that's well beyond my abilities. Map 33 seems to rely a lot on platforming but even then I was lost as to where to go.

 

Some levels have inescapable traps and/or pits, which I'm not a fan of. Anti-shout out to map 15 (Drown in Blood) for having not one, not two, not three, but a lot of fake paths that will crush you to death if you choose them.

 

I know it seems like I'm coming down hard on this megaWAD but I did enjoy it. Just not in the usual sense. I did cheat. I used God mode and eventually used sv_infiniteammo 1 just so I could observe the construction and flow of the levels. Despite the fact that this megaWAD isn't my cup of tea (and I don't think it's gonna be for most people either), the amount of time and thought and work that TimeofDeath put into these levels shows. They're not randomly constructed and the monster placement isn't just blobs upon blobs of monsters. There's a method to the madness and admittedly I only slightly understand it due to the fact that I'm an average player. I feel like one needs to be on the skill of level of TimeofDeath to fully appreciate what he's made.

 

Ultimately, this feels like a set of maps made for him. And you know what? That's okay. I'm glad he shared these levels with us for us to try out anyway, even if most Doomers will get roflstomped by them and/or need some absurd overpowered gameplay mod like Russian Overkill to progress.

Maps have some decent design and textures.  But definitely the description should say "very hard maps", the level of difficulty is just ridiculous, if having thousands of monsters on a single level wasn't enough, you have to solve extremely hard puzzles to open doors and stuff, and some of them just doesn't work.  Definitely had to cheat on the frist level, is just impossible to beat it from pistol start.

This is pure gold

NHot my cup of tee.

interesting..but many doors are not opened. Some graphics are broken in gzdoom.

screw everything else, this should've been WAD of the year 2014. pure brilliance and nice choice of MIDIs.

I died.Now I'm haunting this level.Decent map.

Fools! Women! Mortals! I shall destroy every map on UV without breaking a sweat! Here, watch me go on UV - shit, I'm dead. Hang on, that was just a test, this is the real thing, LET'S GO! *A brief time passes* Well, I fucking died more in five minutes of this than I did in three months of N+. Excellent for fans of super-hard maps, but ridiculous for anyone below Tatsurdcacocaco.

Yeahhh...l love it...please more monsters...

Monsters... so many... monsters.. . -Fellowzdoomer

i died

map01 music sounds like it was composed by a monkey having a stroke. 5000 monsters on one map. 100000000/5

2000 monsters on the first level.

If you are a die-hard fan of (@ UV) as many monsters as possible per quare inch, no adventure, no strategy, but like Rambo just banging your ass off with the BFG, then this might be your wad. Don't expect something else. It's not even remotely my cup of thea, but as it does require some specific skills and slaughtermap fans presumably will love it: 4/5.

Nice maps, but I died 50 times per minute :-/