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Lila Feuer

If Doom II had real secret levels...

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Maybe something equivalent of Star Fox's "Out of This Dimension" something crazy and random. Or maybe some clever design/layout that is worthy of being a secret level. Or of course, a couple Episode 1-style levels from John Romero himself.

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I'd probably imagine something like the TNT secret levels, except with a more convincing super-secret holiday resort type of level than what is there already in TNT.WAD (which looked 1994 and not like the Carribean to me).

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I was never crazy about the Wolf3D maps, as they're kind of flat and boring for me (never was into Wolf3D). I'd have prefered either a revisit of old Doom 1 maps (changed in some way), or something altogether different. For example:

Null Space (surreal architecture)
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11435
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11340

Run Buddy (epic-size architecture)
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=9312

Blackgate (dark medieval-fantasy style)
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=10943

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Move 2 of the more gimmicky maps of Doom 2 (Say, Barrells Of Fun and The Chasm but there's no shortage) to the secret slots and replace them with solid normal maps.

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I think it would be really cool to have something resembling E1M1 and E1M2 for the secret maps, as a homage. The Wolf3D maps are just bland IMO.

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I don;t hate the Wolf maps since I love Wolf3D, but homages to Doom would've been nice with, as TomoAlien said, maps resembling E1M1 and better yet E2M8 to replace Grosse.

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purist said:

Move 2 of the more gimmicky maps of Doom 2 (Say, Barrells Of Fun and The Chasm but there's no shortage) to the secret slots and replace them with solid normal maps.


Yeah I think Barrels of fun would have been a good secret map, along with tricks and traps.

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I suddenly have an image in my head of one of the secret levels offering some strange voyeuristic window into the Icon of Sin, except that there's no way to actually get to it.

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purist said:

Move 2 of the more gimmicky maps of Doom 2 (Say, Barrells Of Fun and The Chasm but there's no shortage) to the secret slots and replace them with solid normal maps.

In fairness, I can't really think of any Doom 2 maps much gimmickier than 31 and 32.



To answer the topic, maybe a Commander Keen-themed map with dead hanging Nazis? Okay, now I'm just being silly. The real issue here, of course, is that fantasizing about Doom 2 without the Wolfenstein levels means fantasizing about a world in which DeHackEd is even more limited. How could you? How could you?

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DeathevokatioN said:

I'd go with Heretic styled levels, would be pure sex.


I've always wanted to see this sort of map done by American McGee for some odd reason. It was the first thing I thought of.

I always forget about Map31 and Map32 when people discuss Doom 2. Frankly, my playthroughs these days usually consist of me going straight to Map16 simply because I care for those flat bastards so little.

esselfortium said:

The real issue here, of course, is that fantasizing about Doom 2 without the Wolfenstein levels means fantasizing about a world in which DeHackEd is even more limited. How could you? How could you?


Good call.

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esselfortium said:

In fairness, I can't really think of any Doom 2 maps much gimmickier than 31 and 32.


That's true but in the scenario the OP illustrated neither of those maps exist. I picked those two gimmicky 'standard' maps because I don't think they'd be badly missed and I'd like to see them replaced.

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MAP31 was good for being a homage. But why 2 maps from Wolf3D? They could have done much better job on MAP32.

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I've always hated those levels. And I always loved the original Doom secret levels. Just some straightforward extra maps (and more of them) would have made me happy.

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The Mansion and Club Doom.

...Fark, now I'm going to make an auto-loaded patch wad that "permanently" adds those two. >_>

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Xaser said:

The Mansion and Club Doom.

...Fark, now I'm going to make an auto-loaded patch wad that "permanently" adds those two. >_>


I'd have to go with Mansion and Marshes. Club Doom wouldn't work without it's crazy music.

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I like secret levels to be unusual in some way. Gimmicks (like Commander Keen) are OK but not essential.

My favourite example from Doom 1 is Fortress of Mystery.
Warrens is another good example, as is Marshes.
Wolfenstein or Grosse would have been good on its own, but not both together.

I think the Military Base, the Mansion and Fear are bad examples.
Although they are fun to play, they are too ordinary (a casual observer would not guess that they were secret levels; We only know because we reached them through secret exits.)

Club Doom is a bad example because it is just crap (really. Just imagine it without the soundtrack or lighting effects.)

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esselfortium said:

The real issue here, of course, is that fantasizing about Doom 2 without the Wolfenstein levels means fantasizing about a world in which DeHackEd is even more limited. How could you? How could you?

I actually don't mind the Wolfenstein levels, I'm just playing along in this forum game. :P

But yeah, I agree the secret levels from the PSX Doom II would be pretty cool, too.

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finnw said:

I like secret levels to be unusual in some way. Gimmicks (like Commander Keen) are OK but not essential.


Same here. I enjoy secret levels that have an interesting twist, a much higher challenge level or something (an enemy, an item, a theme) which isn't seen anywhere else in the game. I'm always disappointed in any game to find a secret level which is just a secret level, with nothing really special about it (E1M9 is a good example of this.)

To be honest, I've always thought of Wolfenstein and Grosse as being elaborate easter eggs rather than actual levels. They're kind of amusing but there isn't much in the way of gameplay, meaning that once the joke has been made the levels are pretty pointless.

I always liked Pharaoh in TNT though. Apart from the obvious flaw of missing the yellow key, it's a fun and somewhat epic level that once again has an interesting theme to it (too bad the super secret level falls so flat in comparison...at least some steel drums or something in the soundtrack would've helped.)

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The current secret levels aren't real? Man, could have fooled me!

Anywho, I think Map31 is a great secret level. Map32...meh, could have done with something a little better and memorable. E1M1 could have worked well perhaps.

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Being that I played the hell out of Wolfenstein 3-D as a kid, seeing the levels recreated in Doom 2 was really cool. Nowadays, I'm with you guys, and kind of wish it had more interesting design. What I just don't get is why the textures are so much bigger than they ought to be. They seem almost twice the size of the originals, not in terms of resolution but proportion. I always figured it was so the cybie could fit easily through the door.

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My first-time playthrough of MAP15 have "accidentally" led me to the secret level. It wasn't surprising, however, as I've spent a tough load of about 35 minutes to get on the ledge which gained access to both the Inviciblity and the MAP31 exit - thinking that the "death jump" is really essential to finish the level. On the other hand, finding the blue key was rather of a sufferous experience, so I didn't even get it.

The Wolfenstein level, however, made my way to the original exit for sure. Of course, this has led to miscounting them levels from so on, until I've taken a peek at the automap on MAP18, which convinced me that it isn't MAP19.

But, speaking about those homages, they weren't as bad for instance as they have became for me later (Wouldn't have happened without reason, I'm gonna speak about this, too!), they were just OK as having some SS' and Demons replacing the original enemies. The non-Wolfenstein secret on MAP31 was fine, too.

But what else should I mention about them? As both of them based on original Wolf3D levels, they have became pretty dull for me and unable to be understood - why the heck they couldn't be "normal" levels with only references in them? This would have made its mark, most like the cruelty against them Keens.

Not even speaking about Germany. German kids are supposed to play through only 30 levels continuously without any roundabouts! If they were normal levels, the programmers could simply either censore or remove the offending parts, in contrast of resulting in the deletion of two entire - well, not so great - levels (I don't know whether the secret exit curve is deleted from MAP15, too, but it would be much better if it wasn't there either, provided both secret maps are removed.), and making Doom a step more linear to Germans.

Curse me or whatever you say against me, I'm still feeling empathy for Germans. Making homages which inflict other nations' history is snass.

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Cell said:

I don't know whether the secret exit curve is deleted from MAP15, too, but it would be much better if it wasn't there either, provided both secret maps are removed.

The fact that map31 is absent causes the secret exit to behave like a normal exit. This is actually something that you can change with dehacked, as fraggle worked out (end of post). So change that dehacked entry to (say) map33, and you'll get "German" behaviour.

(I've attached the file referred to in that post, since the original link to it is dead.)

dehstuff.zip

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Grazza said:

The fact that map31 is absent causes the secret exit to behave like a normal exit.

I was talking about that one. Finding a secret exit just to lead you onto the same level which the normal exit does is way irritating.

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