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2.5/5   Core combat is a strength. It's brisk and easy, and you'll be using the SSG to double-kill imps, pellet-slap mancubi's bellies, and get a firm grip on boners in your area. Apart from that, I found the experience lacking. Visuals, though okay, suffer from alignment issues. Wandering back to the exit door, far from its requisite key, accounted for a good chunk of my five minutes playing. 

Lakeside might also be named Loopside: every major area appears on your itinerary no less than twice, no backtracking. Don't want to pick off cliff imps in the start area? Pouring bullets into a fatso too slow? Ignore those Bezos. Come back with a bigger weapon.   Though the whole arsenal minus the BFG appears at some point, I ended up replaying this and restricting my options to the berserk fist and the carefully rationed plasma rifle. Naturally that implies a lot of punching, with the motley cast -- 89 monsters, many punchable, many not -- offering a slate of tricky, fun Tyson challenges. To get a max this way, navigating a pair of hectic infight-baiting scenarios is pretty much mandatory. I loved it. It makes good pugilistic practice. There is even a {spoiler}demon to fist.   This is a speedmap, also a positive! Speedmaps have two big traps to avoid: the first is outright sucking, the second is having no ideas and half-baked content. Once they do both, I usually like them.

In Bricked, Rhys does nothing offensive. Over 10-20 minutes of play, depending on pace and completionism, you can expect fair and balanced combat, and a gradual ramp-up through the arsenal and bestiary, starting at the bottom and settling before the BFG and big bosses come out. I'd describe the dominant theme as "stock brown," with help from assets like computer panels, the silver starbase cluster, and CEMENT (the bathroom tile suite).   Having played many user maps, I've seen a lot of all of this before. It's okay, but little stood out. I liked the fighting most in the larger spaces, which allowed me to go out of my way to get numerous factions infighting. Interactive triggers like lifts and stairbuilders and optional switches are more common than average, and they are used smoothly (which is important, because extra machinery is simply a detriment if it's awkward and inscrutable).   Note: though the tally lists eight secrets, two are errant flags on a window sill. 

Played at UV with keyboard only (as I always do). EPIC II is a very good megawad with challenging gameplay and very beautiful textures. After MAP 19 there're a lot of tough encounters, mostly with wave of chaingunners and cyberdemons in tight spots as well as frequent usage of archvile in all maps (with MAP 29 having 87 archviles at UV!).Thankfully the author gives enough ammo and powerups to deal with them, so it's fair game. However, a complain I have is in 3 or so maps the author uses teleporting cyberdemon to create artificial difficult to the player and in my opinion it's dumb enough to warrant the loss 0.5 less star. My final score is 4.5/5, but doomworld rating system doesn't allow this so I'm gonna rate it 5 stars. I will certainly replay this one and would recommend UV difficult only for advanced players.

Solid wad with a purple color scheme and new enemies.  Music choices are enjoyable, difficulty starts off low and ramps up considerably towards the end.  MAP07's end was a total beef wall, though.  Make sure you find all the secrets in that one if you want to stand a chance.   All around, no bad maps in this wad.  Four stars.