Counterattack

Ok, this is not my style. I usually hate these overly detailed, large-scale-adventure style maps.

...But I love this. Excellent design, which is as good looking as it is complex, neat ambush-heavy philosophy, and a pretty good difficulty curve (the last map is a slaughter map, which, again, is not my style, but it's better than most)

As for the -1 star... as mentioned before, it's no my style, so maybe it's not the Wads fault, but spending so much amount of time in the same level can get a bit repetitive. There are a few other minor flaws here and there, but they are exactly that: minor. This is a must-have wad. Do yourself a favour and play it.

Really fun and good music, lots of interesting fights and 2 new enemies.

Great, detailed, adventure style maps.  Very fun and engaging, puzzles aren't too crazy.  Some slaughter-style encounters, but not too extreme.  Mechadon really has a way with the vanilla texture set, too, I've seen textures used in very unexpected ways for detailing, really interesting stuff.  Check it out ASAP.

Awesome level design, good fights, just the right ammount of pick-ups.... just play it, what else have i got to say

Done with these settings:

- GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4, complevel 9.

- Ultra-Violence.

- Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. Actual pistol start in map 31.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

An excellent creation. This is undeniably a great example of inventive grand-scale layout design, where the author brought us extensive geometry variation and clean architecture with only stock textures, something different from the traditional 90's scheme most known from older releases, not precisely a better or proper usage of them, instead innovating and also inspiring in my opinion. The detailing is a big plus, not only to keep the player out of any sort of interference with movement, but also to add an extra ingredient that makes encounters more tactical and engaging, such as when darkness controls the area, and not to forget those astonishing fitting skies, seriously that dark blue one in map 01 is beautiful to contemplate. Of course, fitting music too, more on the environmental side though. 

What accompanies the impressive art these maps are is the style of progression, in every context possible. These are non-linear above all, which means that rooms and setpieces are generally interconnected via multiple accessible openings and/or pathways, where you can get your resources at many different points of the maps. Mandatory keys can be found in no particular order too. What I liked the most, in this specific context, is how getting lost was never a real problem, since the maps encourage the player to explore every sector for important things and somehow arrange their own route, something I personally enjoy a lot, and it was easy to get back on track. I'm sure this might call someone's attention: there are no cryptic switch hunts here. On another side, in the context of monster placement and combat, there's a mix of everything, whether you get incidental ambushes, small number of roamers, lock-in traps in darkness, heavily populated arenas in a slaughter(y) tone, crowd controlling, fun with barrels, all combined with the theme of the maps make for very interesting key and filler-ish encounters. Of course, you are busy at least 80% of the time, that depends on how you approach each map, but a very important touch is the freedom of choices, like instead of jumping off a ledge to explore a sewer that could sandwich me between spectres and archviles, I could take a nearby lift and find some other powerful resources and combat in the middle, to eventually approach the sewer from another entrance, without trivializing the fight that much. There are a few surprises in some of the maps, in the form of custom enemies, one is the turret, which shoots plasma cells in a faster rate than the arachnotron. Although I wasn't a fan of it at first, mainly because it was too hard for me to not get hit even with circlestrafe, its best usage came later, when it functioned as a proper turret. I won't spoil the biggest ones though, all I'll say is that those new creatures are no joke, seriously, take them with respect, specially the secret one, don't be fooled by its aspect. 

Secret-wise, hidden arenas are always welcome, secret passages that give you an advantage over certain places (such as to give sneaky archviles a taste of their own medicine) are always welcome too, chains of secrets of course too. While most of them are pretty easy to find, some required an expert eye to spot the hint, that I lacked, or to understand a certain gimmick, like shooting switches that reveal for one second, which took me 230 bullets to finally trigger the secret ffs... But in general, multiple secrets in non-linear maps are always welcome. My favourite has to be 04, but to be honest all the maps were really fun.

Overall, I obviously recommend this to anyone, it has a great replay value, that's a success. I hope one day Mechadon manages to complete Vela Pax and Supplice, those look tempting too. My rate is 9/10. 

When I first played around in Mechadon's earlier work "Vela Pax"; I was, like many others, simply FLOORED by the sheer scale of this doomer's mapping prowess.

His other maps, like on BTSX, were also exceptionally good; but these maps were/are on another level of map design.

In terms of sheer creativity; Mechadon shows what is possible, with a vision and determination; and with just stock textures to boot!

With Counter Attack, it's more or less the same sort of vibe that was on Vela Pax but a little more streamlined and "compact" if you can even say such a thing about maps like these...

It has some similar looking areas to Vela Pax, but it's mostly different and of it's own, and absolutely just as awe-inspiring.

This is pure inspiration. Thanks Mechadon.

Mechadon must be some kind of a wizard because the map pack I just played through was pure magic. 

Absolutely amazing. The detailing/architecture, the atmosphere, the gameplay, the music selection.. everything is spot on here. Each level takes at least 20 minutes and you can expect to get lost a bit but at no point does it feel boring. I love maps like these.

That was 2 hours well spent, fantastic WAD.

holy shit i got lost, and i fucking ENJOYED it. now there's some pretty amazing combat in each and every one of these gargantuan maps too, but you'll definitely need a guide if you want to get through these maps and their secrets too. so much fun still.

Absolutely amazing, from the challenging combat to the map detailing.  Worth every star I can give.

Very impressive adventure maps.  I like how the levels unfolds like a geometric strip-tease.

Somehow these maps manage to feel absolutely huge and nonlinear without drastically creating confusion for progression, and this creates a lot of replay value. Combat is varied and traps inventive. Astonishingly beautiful detailing.

This is a masterpiece.