Illusions Of Home

A Doom megawad that was released two weeks before Thy Flesh Consumed came in what is now known as The Ultimate Doom. The mapset contains 27 amateur levels where quantity is emphasized over quality. Aside of E1M3 and E3M3, both of which are outdoor maps with plenty of indoor areas to enter and explore, every level just consist of boxed rooms with tiring nonsense level design. Misalgined textures are prominent in every level, making the whole mapset look more unprofessional than it already is. Some walls have missing textures so you'll notice plenty of HOMs at several points. Many secrets are mandatory in order to complete many levels, and what's even worse is that some wall textures are aligned to look like a normal wall but actually aren't. There are walls you can walk through to access more secrets, but again, it's rarely clear on what you are supposed to do.

 

Since quantity is the main focus, several levels are filled with glaring errors and other oversights, possibly as a result of poor playtesting. E1M3 has the normal exit at the start of the level, normally you're supposed to find a switch to open the door. However, you can already open it just by pressing "use" on the wall, meaning you can skip the entire level with ease. E1M6 has a zero-tagged GR door, so shooting it in vanilla Doom will cause the map to break unless you shoot it just enough times to "fix" it. E1M7 has 17 secrets, but only 16 are present on the map, and one of them can't be scored as a sector is too thin for the player to stand on. E1M8 has no map exit, not even a sector with Tag 666 despite a Cyberdemon being present (after all, this was released before The Ultimate Doom).

 

Episode 2 feels like filler as several levels can be finished rather quickly and some barely have any enemies to fight. E2M3 has the same issue as E1M7 where one secret is too thin to score. E2M7 has two secrets you can't score because their surrounding lines will teleport you to another destination. There is no possible way you can teleport on top of the sectors despite there being teleport destinations on them. If you also so happen to be at the level exit, you can't leave because there is no teleporter to do so. E2M8 doesn't feature a Cyberdemon funny enough, instead you press one switch to lower a wall and cross a line to finish the episode, This goes back to what I said about episode 2 being filler.

 

Episode 3 isn't much better in map quality, other than just testing your patience. E3M2 has a secret exit that will lead you to E3M9, but this will cause you to skip E3M3-E3M6. E3M4 cannot be finished as the switch that is supposed to reveal the exit has an action to close the sector, not open it. The closed sector blocking the exit doesn't have any textures, so there are plenty of HOMs. E3M7 has a red keycard that is flagged as "Multiplayer Only" (and not present on easy difficulties), meaning it is impossible to finish it on single-player without cheating.

 

Overall, a mess of a megawad with nothing of interest. The abundance of boxy rooms and dull enemy encounters makes going through all 27 maps a chore, especially when some maps feel like they don't serve a purpose. Best to play a few good maps elsewhere.

Four levels dated April 1995. E1M1 is an undetailed, rudimentary level with unpegged door tracks and wonky textures; only 15 baddies. It's embarassing even for April 1995. E1M2 is similar but polygonal rather than square, and it has a swastika of barrels. E1M3 is an improvement, a rudimentary town-style map, but it's far too little, too late. E1M9 is a mazey nothing that again seems obsessed with swastikas.

27 levels here (not 4, as someone sayed here). Was #1 at D.Moeller's TICREV01 with negative score of 19%. Actually it is quality-over-quantit y bunch of beginner's levels mostly with flat and primitive design. E3 contains most largest and hardest maps, which can be quite harshy on -fast. Also this wad was playtested badly and some maps are broken: e1m6 has zero-tagged GR door, e1m8 has no exit, and e3m7 has coop marked RK. 1/5