Stardate 20x7

And after a couple of agonizing hours, lots of deaths, and anger the sequel to Stardate 20x6 is finished at last, also done on HMP just like its predecessor.

Starting with an introduction to the wad just like I did with all the others, Stardate 20x7 is a challenging wad with the color purple at the center which sets the overall tone, mood and atmosphere. It features a new menu background, a few new sounds for some weapons, some new enemies, new textures, and a new soundtrack.

The majority of the levels in the wad are very challenging, which is also its main problem. The kinds of challenges you face when playing the wad are neither fun nor enjoyable most of the time. The first levels, or rather half of them, have cruel enemy placements and traps that force you to take damage at best, or die all the other times. Worse yet, there's a lot of resource starvation in these levels which offer you only the minimum for survival. You rarely, if at all find yourself with a higher percentage of health/armor and ammo when proceeding to the next levels, and infighting doesn't help much most of the time either. You will also resort to the Berserk and nothing more on quite a few occasions thanks to this, often against tough enemies. Thus, the gameplay in the sequel is radically different from that of 20x6 which provided both fun and challenging gameplay, whereas the sequel lacks the fun element most of the time and wants to keep you on the edge of your patience. In fact, it can be said the only thing the two have in common is the theme, and nothing else.

The new enemy introduced is a purple, flying Baron who attacks the player with fire and lots of homing rockets. He is only seen once during normal play near the exit of a level, his attacks being very difficult to dodge, and seems to have around the same health the standard Baron has. He could've been used in more (and varied) instances than just one, but I imagine an efficient and interesting usage of the enemy would be no easy task considering how deadly he is, and tough. He could easily be a mini boss if used wisely.

The difficulty curve is basically nonexistent, or if there actually is one, works backwards. The wad starts very difficult and only after finishing the first 4 levels it becomes more tolerable when the style changes a bit and the resource starvation ends, along with the merciless encounters. Finally, some fun can be experienced. Similar to its predecessor the final levels are more slaughter oriented with the final map being slaughter with almost 1800 enemies. Another problem is that the first few levels are also difficult to navigate. They feature some interesting puzzles and some platforming sections but it's extremely easy to get lost in the levels and spend quite some time figuring out what you're supposed to do or get back on track without circling the areas you've already been through plenty of times. While most of the levels are architecturally beautiful, there isn't anything that really stands out or catches your attention like the predecessor did with some amazing sights from outer space when you found yourself outside, although some traps will surprise you with their creativity, such as a room in MAP02 (if I'm not confusing the level) where you need to run quickly or carefully in order to reach a switch that gives access to the rest of the room without alerting every Hell Knight around you and die immediately as a result. After that you'll find yourself in a world of hurt considering that there's not much space to walk until you clean up the mess a little, and lots of Arch-Viles are placed at the exit and staying out of their line of sight is difficult. There's also a Cyberdemon with you at the party to make your life more difficult.

There isn't much else to add this time, so to sum things up if you're familiar with HR2 the first levels are kinda similar in terms of difficulty and gameplay style, from my POV anyway, minus the mediocre, boxy design while adding resource starvation. I would honestly not recommend 20x7 to anyone. It's without a doubt targeted at veterans or very skilled players in general, but frankly, I genuinely doubt even they would have much fun playing this, or not the first few levels anyway. Even HMP which is the recommended difficulty due to the balancing is ludicrous. I've seen some videos of the first few levels on UV and I... don't even know what to say, I'm almost speechless. I can't understand how would anyone have any fun playing them, especially on UV. I would totally recommend the levels from MAP05 onward and pretend the previous maps don't exist instead. If you expect the sequel to use the same formula seen in 20x6 but improved, while also bringing something new to the table you're going to be very disappointed, it's not what you're signing up for, so unless you want to experience the duology and not just stop after completing 20x6 I can't find any good reason for why you should play this. My thoughts on 20x7 are negative, it barely gets 3/5 stars from me purely for being interesting, good looking, and features some good or ingenious traps, encounters, puzzles, and solid second half.

Sick wad.

This one is VERY hard.  I think it's harder than the first one (20x6).  The fights felt a bit more frustrating than 20x6 with lots of arch-viles and cramped fighting.  I tried lower difficulties but I still had lots of trouble progressing.  On the other hand, the maps are very pretty and very nicely detailed.

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Think of Stardate20x7's HMP as everyone else's UV.

I'm really not sure what to think, really, because I have no idea what's the author's idea of "everyone else's UV", but I think it's not the same as mine. The description consists of telling the player over and over again to play this on HMP, not on UV, and so I did. The maps will either punish you with wailing revenants, arch-viles and other monsters that crush you from all directions in a wild orgy that even this new Westworld show would be jealous of, or, you will be stuck trying to figure out which piece of the level that looks the same as every other piece of this level has opened up after you have crossed over an invisible linedef or pushed a strange button. I look at all these beautifully crafted sectors and think how mapper has put lots of effort into pressing CTRL+D and dragging vertices and aligning textures and then I can't think of these levels as nothing else but not fun to play... for me. This probably means that I'm a piss poor player and that's okay.