Your favorite crusher ceilings in Doom and Heretic

I've always found crusher ceilings interesting. They're unfrequent and sometimes overlooked and forgotten in mapping.
Which crushers (slow and fast damage) do you think are the best looking or well placed in Doom and/or Heretic? PWADs included.
I like the computer -and red crushers in Doom1 E2M4 and Doom2 MAP04 crushers. In Heretic, the best crushers are in E1M2 (the red and black crushers) and the dark SPINE1 -textured crusher in E1M7. The darkness in the crusher sector makes it look peculiarly sadistic and evil. The ''+''-shaped crusher in E4M1 is fun to use against monsters. Also, those donut crushers in E4M9 and E5M7 look strange and curious. Basically, I like all the crushers I meet but the before-mentioned ones are just epic.

DooMII map19!!

this crusher got me by far the most time, at least 20 times
I like the possibility to get through it at the first time if you are fast

Seeing the imp in E2M2 get turned into a puddle of blood is one of the earliest memories I have of Doom. Even though I played Doom 2 Map06 well before then, this was the first crusher that felt truly dangerous to me. Creeped me out to no end.

I've always thought crushers were a lame gimmick. Especially since in The Crusher level, the crusher affects gameplay almost 0 (hit the switch, duck behind the stairs, ignore the crusher from now on).

But just last night in Momento Mori 2, probably level 17 or so, where there were small round crushers in the corners of a hallway. They looked like pistons or some kind of mechanical "thing" that could actually exist instead of a ceiling that moved. They're the best I've seen.

Thread is unfair to crushing floors.

Crushers are awesome! They add this kind of arcade-like platforming feel to the game which I totally like. Kind of Super Mario Style. That`s the same reason why I like stuff like jumppads and traps in FPS games. It`s just a perfect addition for me.

E2M2 crushers are probably my favorite. I like crushers because they are the only really threatening obstacle in the game (besides barrels of course), and can be increasingly threatening depending on how you use them, such as the ones on Steel Works in TNT.wad, or UAC Ultra MAP04.

Damaging floors for example are just annoying and it's difficult to use them in a way that makes the gameplay fun, without say, using them in conjunction with conveyor belts or something. The only use I've found for them is that they can make pain elemental fights pretty tough by keeping players from getting all up in their face.

Crushers I feel are indeed under used and under appreciated. I like the idea of them quite, and the ones on E2M2 are probably my favorite, probably because they've saved me a few times. (Ran through them blasting imps, a little low on health and very low on ammo. See Pinky coming up through crushers avoiding pretty much all of them. Decides to just kill it rather than run, but then it finally gets caught in the last crusher and killed. Saved some ammo for later. Not a huge story, but I felt it was rather gratifying or something.)

Snakes said:
Seeing the imp in E2M2 get turned into a puddle of blood is one of the earliest memories I have of Doom. Even though I played Doom 2 Map06 well before then, this was the first crusher that felt truly dangerous to me. Creeped me out to no end.

This is also one of my earliest Doom memories, at least of the registered version. I remember playing it at a friend's place on his warezed copy, so it would have been either 1994 (when I only had the shareware version) or 1995 (when I had Doom 2).

Except instead of being creeped out, we were highly amused that we could get the monsters to follow us in and mooshify themselves. Especially the lost souls, which we didn't expect to leave puddles of blood and guts...

I love crushers. I actually wish there were a few more environmental hazards to use. I really liked Quake's traps and wish Doom had a few more.

Doom 64 had some satisfying crusher moments.

Nilla Doom, MAP07, Tinman's Folly. Use3D put in these cool platforming sections where you have to run over the gaps on several walkways that are separated by crushers. They block your jumps and more importantly can trap you on a particular platform until they come all the way back up again, limiting your maneuverability.

The Marshes, a level from PSX Doom has 2 - one is easily avoided, but the other is combined with a teleporter trap. Step on the wrong teleporter pad and you find yourself stuck in a tiny irregular-shaped room with a switch. You hit the switch, thinking that a door will open, but the whole ceiling comes down and flattens you. Pretty fiendish, especially if you've already killed the Cyberdemon and got the exit open.

ASD said:

Doom1 E2M4

This one. It always seemed evil and sinister, like that entire room.

Really? To me, it simply looks like a big-ass computer trying to physically crunch you.

The red one over the yellow key?

Oh, I thought you were talking about that room with zombies and cacodemons that sinks in a little, and has a green armor and some small green marble columns. The one you're talking about is really fun in the Doom 3 Deimos Lab remake, it can crush the Hell Knight replacing the Baron in no time.

Snakes said:

Seeing the imp in E2M2 get turned into a puddle of blood is one of the earliest memories I have of Doom. Even though I played Doom 2 Map06 well before then, this was the first crusher that felt truly dangerous to me. Creeped me out to no end.

exactly this one. getting through them for the first time was an adventure. stopping after every single crusher and discovering the secret room with the chainsaw and the souls made it even more rewarding.

ASD said:

The ''+''-shaped crusher in E4M1 is fun to use against monsters.

It's the first one I thought of, but honestly, it's damned annoying to get monsters under it. They either hit the corners then wander the opposite direction, or bump into it when it's down and continue moving around. The other 4 pillars in the room give you very little room to maneuver them into it in the first place, then when you finally do, it takes 2-5 crushes to actually kill them, which means you have to repeat the process all over again since the thing's so small that they rarely stay under it for more than 1 crush. It's hard enough with one monster, but since they almost always come in hordes and block your from leading them underneath in the first place, the thing's virtually pointless.

printz said:

Really? To me, it simply looks like a big-ass computer trying to physically crunch you.

It's clearly a malevolent possessed brick floor trying to pin you to the ceiling helpless.

What E2M2 did for crates, E2M4 does for crushers.

For the first time, crushers seemed so deadly to me that I was suprised when I survived being crushed with iddqd.

.

doom e2m2 and heretic e1m7 crushers are really cool (and the last one filled my adolescence of rage searching to passing it lol)

Not a huge fan of crushers. I don't find any of them particularly memorable or worthy of being singled out as a favourite.

Bad Dream, maybe.

Do Hexen crushers count? :P
(that was a joke btw)

But if I were to stick to Heretic and Doom, I'd go with the crusher on E1M2 of Heretic. I dunno, I have fond memories of that crusher in my childhood.

^Ditto on the Dragonclaw crusher.

I played Hexen before Heretic and even Doom (I played everything out of order) so I'm most "fond" of the crushers in Hexen, the wall shooters, the dangerous heights etc. I thought that stuff used to be so cool as a kid.

Now its really goddamn annoying when you fuck up and wind up dead because of the aforementioned traps.

Well, if we're going to include PWADS in this conversation, any and all crushers of Void struck me with more fear than anything that comes to recent memory... Come to think of it, no wad could be quite so scary whilst having such calming music.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Thread is unfair to crushing floors.

e2m4 'nuff said.