The DWmegawad Club plays: Scythe

MAP14 - Power Outage

At start I eliminated all sergeants first before even turning to the imps that tried to kill me up close. With all the ammo I have from the previous levels, this game gets top easy. Although I died once, when a stupid hellknight threw a projectile at me, I dodged, but the projectile blowed several barrels behind me and I was dead. On my second attempt, I better destroyed all barrels immediately after seeing them.

I like the employment of several tricks with repeatable switches that don't really take effect until it's their time. The armor secret was quite rational this time, but in my opinion, the one backpack behind a crate could have been secret too. I really think the keys come too soon after I open the locked doors. In the end, there's once again a berserk in front of an exit switch - it's even unnecessary, because the previous room gives soulsphere and I can't imagine anyone to run out of boosted health by the time he reaches the exit.

I haven't mentioned this before, but I like the new dark liquid in Scythe, even though it vaguely reminds of a noise of a broken TV, looks good to me.

Many areas in Scythe feel like if they could expand on ideas, but well, it's Scythe and its simplicity. I'm also glad I am able to finish these levels so quickly, so my overall rating is positive.

Phobus said:

MAP32: Enoz Soahc
Or Chaos Zone, for those of us who aren't John Romero.

Sadly, I didn't even notice the title when I played the level.

MAP15 - Blood Bath

Last time it were Refueling Base homages, now homages to The Inmost Dens. Fortunately only texturing and style-wise homages, I don't really mind them. This map actually looked and played very pleasurably and I enjoyed the various unorthodox ways how to explore the map and seek for secrets. The flagging of secret sectors seemed unbalanced once again though, as for example the very unobvious soulsphere secret wasn't flagged at all, and the secret exit area was flagged secret in a place possible to miss. That reminds me - oh yes, finally a super shotgun! But I can't say I didn't enjoy the game without it.

So, looking forward to the secret map(s).

Capellan said:

Sadly, I didn't even notice the title when I played the level.

Frenchmen who read Spirou’s albums with Zorglub know the "zorglangue".
Esod mumixam!

MAP31 I Dunno Torn My Time: 6:53

I really don't like this one much. It's the almost the same texture everywhere which turns me off. The combat is generally good though with patience still isn't a challenge. The hitscanners in the first room do give some a run for their money, but it delves into middleweight monsters quite soon. I went the long way and attracted the enemies in the red key room before secretly teleporting back to their area. Too bad the BFG is unreachable here. Getting the red key triggers imps, which are fun to berserk, but I ran away first to get rid of other monsters. Some archvile encounters can spark trouble, particularly the duality in the cages; approach slowly. The secret exit is in that area, and you can "grab" a soulsphere over there. I got the secret, but sadistically went for the normal exit anyways since I don't have fond memories of a backwards Chaos Zone.

Catching up on yesterday...
MAP16: Burial Grounds
A low population map that relies on quite a few heavies and feels like a real step in a journey, as you climb out of a pit, raid a graveyard for some skulls and then explore the catacombs of a(n admittedly small) church before leaving. Relatively low threat, even with three Arch-Viles on UV, but a good map. Reminds me of what I was doing in Scourge, but with polish and an unfortunate neutering of traps with monster blocking lines. If only I'd been on the scene 5 years earlier with what I was doing in 2005... Might've made an impact back then, but oh well. Can't change when we're born!

And now today...
MAP17: Book Lords
I have to admit, I was expecting another map like The Lords, coming into this. I was pleasantly surprised with the dim, foreboding atmosphere and music to match and more so to find that the map was more about dancing with your SSG and plenty of Arch-Viles and Revenants. A couple of fairly large fights (by Scythe standards) have potential for danger if you're not quick on your feet, but the bookcases do tend to hang up enemies a bit and there's usually cover nearby when you need it.


Scythe is baring it's fangs a bit now!

Phobus said:

Catching up on yesterday...
And now today...

You are still two days ahead, man! :)

MAP31 - I Dunno Torn

The dark tone, texturing and music strongly induces a feel of danger in this map. No actual danger comes, unless you don't know how the archvile's attack works and how to deal with it. With the super shotgun, everything is just sooooo easy! But low bow to the atmosphere, actually. "Oldschoolness" is felt here, but anyways, the mapper managed to create something... sinister.

I disapprove the unreachable BFG and soulsphere. At least, I got 100% secrets but not the BFG and soulsphere, so I assume they are actually unreachable. If not, then I disapprove this design too. The non-unpegged doortraks also felt a little strange (some doortraks were unpegged in this map).

MAP32 - Enoz Soahc

OK, a few setpiece battles here. This is the first time I was actually forced to use a plasmagun. And not once. I admit that the last battle killed me two times, because I initially refused to use anything other than SSG, but hellknights always overwhelmed me eventually. They almost killed me on my third attempt too. Interesting map. I liked it, but I am also glad it's over. I definitely wouldn't want to play maps like this only. Too little freedom allowed to the player - which is the point of arena battles though, I guess. I am usually able to endure it when the map provides a portion of eye-candy, but this does not compute with Scythe. So, I will gladly return to more standard maps now.

For the first time I get a chainsaw in this (2nd) episode.

I'm seeing it as 13 days to go; 13 maps to go ;)

Where was I.....

Map 11 -- Sneak Peak - 106% Kills / 100% Secrets
...ah, yes. This is one of those maps I had almost no recollection of from previous playthroughs of Scythe, for one reason or another (like I said, that seems to be the case for a lot of the maps in the 11-20 stretch). I felt this one to be a bit aesthetically tacky--I've never been a big fan of the soil/lava texture combo and the dinky beige brick buildings don't look as natural here as in map 01 (I suspect it's because the misty sky is less prominent on account of the buildings sitting in a large dirt hole)--but it was fun to play. While there are several different ways to play this map even from a pistol-start, Alm starts nudging the player a little more firmly towards using the berserk pack in this one; continuous players/those unaccustomed to its use should take note, as there will eventually come a point later on where he's going to absolutely insist on its use (even if only temporarily) in order to meet with success. It's fun (and not entirely easy) to fist-crazy in this one, but there are other options depending on your route, like I said. Indeed, how flexible the overall route is in this one is probably its best attribute, allowing for a lot of mileage out of a small bit of map. The surprise arch-vile and his retinue in the lava cave is pretty sneaky and easily the standout fight; incidentally, on account of this, this map is probably more difficult/dangerous overall than several of the maps following it in 'E2' proper.

Map 12 -- A Walk in the Park - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Sort of the converse of the previous map, this one is aesthetically successful but not so interesting to play. The blood-red sunset sky lends itself well to the heavy shadow covering most of the park (an effect that Erik will use again soon enough, if memory serves), and the characteristic 'brick bonanza' scheme once again looks more natural here (although I suppose it's odd how many outbuildings there are in this tiny little park). While the park isn't large by any means, there's still more than enough room to move around in relative to the monster population, meaning that potential lucky hitscan effects are the only immediate danger. As has been said by others, the most efficient (and fun, probably) way to tackle this is simply to stir everything up at once and then sort things out when it's quieter.

Map 13 -- Subverted Base - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Can't say I was as impressed with this one as some of the other players. Apart from the the first teleporting squad of shotgunners (which is usually only dangerous if you for some reason try to have a toe-to-toe shootout) there's not much imagination or variety shown in the combat, even the final closet traps are a bit on the frontal side. A bit nondescript (though of course competent, mind) aesthetically as well......something about the perfectly L-shaped dirt trench sort of bothers me (irrationally, I'm sure). I guess I do like the way the secret area is telegraphed before the fact by the sight of the items and after the fact by the way the tunnel leading to it is clearly visible later on in the map, though.

Scythe maps 1-14 featuring custom Samsara characters by Donald. The characters are still wip but he wanted some beta testing on it, so I figured catching up with Scythe might do the trick.

The latter character was at first a bit odd to figure out, but I realized his weapon 5 was op as balls.

MAP15: Blood Bath
100% kills, 2/3 secrets

Shouldn't the Inmost Dens knockoff be a map slot earlier?

Either way, things are starting to ramp up a bit here, as combat isn't too difficult if you take it carefully but can catch the unprepared player unawares (especially the Arch-Viles). Revenants are always tough (never liked how a missile could do as much as 75% damage) but there's plenty of health. And hallelujah, finally getting the SSG and a backpack! I agree it's a bit silly to not have the soulsphere marked as secret.

MAP31: I Dunno Torn
100% kills, 5/5 secrets

Not a bad level, but let down a bit by the monotonous texturing. Granted, if you're going to repeat one texture over and over, it's not a bad choice (especially at this light level) but it's still only one texture throughout the whole thing. Getting the super secret exit is a nice cute little jump (I remember trying to have the AV blast me up before, heh). And the BFG trap is cute.

MAP32: Enoz Soahc
100% kills, no secrets

Not really that tough, except for the end. The first couple fights are pretty easy, just abuse the height difference and infighting. Dropping onto the berserk pack in the middle of four hell knights is a frustrating piece of design. Not sure how else to beat the last battle besides just holding down the plasma gun and letting loose.

MAP18: MS Fortuna
The first proper boss monster of the map set has reared it's ugly head, and it's a Spider Mastermind. We also have a faux-3D bridge, one proper secret that seems almost pointless as you'll really have to have killed everything to go get it (although with the rarity of one the weapon there, it might be worth grabbing anyway) and one "secret", plus a nicely detailed dock, with a pretty cool METAL door set up. 25 monsters, more-than-adequate supplies and plenty of cover do make this easy, though. Having stepped through the gateway that the Mastermind was guarding, I now appear to be in THE FUTURE!

So I'm quite bad at posting in here but I have been playing along. The first episode was quite short and sweet, the easiness of the maps is offset by the small sizes and constant changes of scenery. Map 9 was the highlight, very nonlinear for such a small level and good placement of what few enemies there were.

Episode 2 starts of much harder and while I'm normally not a fan of the trope in a lot of megawads of "start easy and then get really hard", the fact that it's so segmented makes it work for me. On that note I think dividing the megawad into episodes with death-exits is a fine move, I still maintain that Doom's 9-map episodes are the perfect length and that 32 is just too much to have a meaningful progression throughout. Not a problem for pistol-starters, I guess.

Map15: Blood Bath

A short and bloody version of The Inmost Dens. This is a bit trickier than the few maps before because of the three Archies and a couple of situations where quick reflexes or foreknowledge is required. The first Archie is a bit of an annoyance because of the architecture and after you press the switch to lower the RL, because of the cannon fodder barrier he most likely has in front of him. The Caco amubsh is cool, I had no memories of it and took some beating there, likewise with the final two Archies but thankfully I had just grabbed the Megasphere so getting burned a bit wasn't an issue. The secret exit is a very obvious one and there are even a few different ways to get there. A fairly fun map all in all.

Map31: I Dunno Torn

Pretty much a SSG-fest but since there has been no SSG-gameplay thus far, it does not feel boring at all. The BFG-trick/RK-trap is the highlight of the map but overall I found this quite easy. The caged AVs can cause some trouble if you don't know they are there but that's about it. The Soulsphere can be grabbed through the fence easily and I guess even the BFG could theoretically be acquired with a linedef skip but I couldn't actually perform that in my few tries. Visually the map is pretty meh with the monotone texturing and little variation.

Map32: Enoz Soahc

So it's THIS map. I had very vivid memories of this map and especially the HK tunnel, but I didn't actually remember that it was a part of Scythe. Basically contains two very similar set piece battles, the HK tunnel and nothing more. The first one is pretty easy and can indeed be cheesed a bit by standing in the sidelines a while before joining in on the fun. The second one is a bit trickier and pretty much requires you to spam all the Plasma ammo given to avoid getting completely flanked. The rest of the fight is a basic crowd control exercise with the dozen HK still probably left standing. Decently fun miniature slaughtermap overall.

BlackFish said:

[video]

Scythe maps 1-14 featuring custom Samsara characters by Donald. The characters are still wip but he wanted some beta testing on it, so I figured catching up with Scythe might do the trick.

The latter character was at first a bit odd to figure out, but I realized his weapon 5 was op as balls.

This is actually pretty cool.

I actually really liked the musical sounds. Very clear. Don't suppose you know what soundfont or whatnot is being used?

MAP16 - Burial Grounds

With all the weaponry and stuff I had, I felt so overpowered that I didn't pay much attention and eventually let the archvile in that cathedral to hit me three times. I deserved it. I survived it anyway (!!!), with 17% health.

I am glad for these more challenging ways how Scythe uses archviles and revenants in its later maps. I still don't find this challenge to be enough. I wonder if I'll actually regret choosing UV when E3 will come.

This map was short and sweet, and even made sense as a real place... well... well... at least in a certain way. There are various impressive texture combinations used. The cathedral actually looked nice and the gameplay there wasn't that bad too. A nice piece of work this map is.

Magnusblitz said:

MAP32: Enoz Soahc
Dropping onto the berserk pack in the middle of four hell knights is a frustrating piece of design. Not sure how else to beat the last battle besides just holding down the plasma gun and letting loose.

Yeah these were probably my reasons for skipping this map. I really loathe that close-quarters encounter with the hellknights in particular.

KiiiYiiiKiiiA said:

This is actually pretty cool.

I actually really liked the musical sounds. Very clear. Don't suppose you know what soundfont or whatnot is being used?

http://www.bismutnetwork.com/04CrisisGeneralMidi/Soundfont3.0.php

It's Crisis General Midi 3. You can download it from there and use the password "jasmin" (I think) to open the file.

Take note I had to raise the volume by turning down the attenuation on all of the instruments via polyphone, because otherwise you have to have sound effects at .2 while midi at 1.0, and have your speakers way up. I want to upload my version somewhere but it's a 2gb file and I'd probably have to ask permission from the soundfont author. But yeah it's a nice soundfont, especially since the guitars don't have the saxophone sound but rather something like opl.

Edit: I asked the author's permission to upload the modified version. Question is where to upload a 2gb file. Maybe dropbox after I upgrade it.

MAP13 Subverted Base
Interesting thing - while I don't remember that level at all and got surprised by the inital shotgunners trap, I've actually known _exactly_ where the secret passage to plasma rifle is. Things are getting even tougher here since you'll be battling even larger monster groups and they will come at you at even more unexpected moments. I was pretty short on bullets but still consider this level a good one.

MAP14 Power Shortage
Praise the Scythe.wad, prasie the Scythe.wad! A great level concept with an equally good execution. The base you're starting in has - as the title imples - a power shortage and most of the switch or doors aren't going to cooperate if you don't trun the power back on. Once you do it, all lights and electric locks comes to life and you can clear the undead from rest of the rooms. A very good map which benefits from even one more thing - an addition of the HELIPAD. And I consider helipads in Doom as equivalents of blocky toilet bowls you find in every myhouse.wad. We need more helipads, moar!

MAP15 Bloodbath
We're half-way through and there's no trace of our thief (maybe he flew away from that helipad on MAP14?). This map is shaped after some kind of bricked fortress/courtyard flooded by lava. It's not really mazy but has a limited playfield which forces you to approach battles in a more defensive manner. There are quite a few of revenants here but architecture gives you some cover. Oh, and one more: I thought I taw a tuper totgun!


MAP31 I Dunno Torn
It's pretty unusual for me to find a secret level but yet I did it! The dungeon-style level is full-filled with monsters - few archviles has been spoted as well. The bodycount gets pretty high here (over 100 mnsters to slaughter) but authors provided us with both plenty of ammo and health. At first, level may look large but soon it becomes pretty clear and easy to follow. Also, I knew that last archvile was going to hide behind that door, I knew it!


MAP16 Burial Grounds
A really, really atmospheric lovecraftian-like level. It starts in a canyon which hides a secret temple, it has some very imaginative cementary with strange pillars and stuff... it even has a small catacomb area. If you're familiar with Cthulhy mitology, you're going to love it. And if yu're not, then finish Scythe quickly and get yourself some HPLs novels. Either way, pure awesomemnes: 6/6 and a quality mark.

MAP17 - Book Lords

From the very beginning to the end, this map looks very nice and consistent, creating an impressive atmosphere (the beginning has no monsters). The map is very linear though and relies on SSG action. The numbers of archviles and revenants seem to have increased one more bit. Still I'd say this is kind of a relaxing map - you don't really have to worry about anything but to keep dodging and spam SSG, perhaps also rockets at occasions. With a careful strategy, you aren't gonna be forced to any specially hectic fights (although a few tricks await you along the way). I like the map. Also, it has a pleasurably simply hidden secret. :)

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee

It begins. Feel free to join me right now on my channel as I return to actually contributing towards a DWMegawad Club thread again with part 1 of my playthrough of Scythe! I've never played Scythe before, but I have a few ideas what to expect from this wad.

MAP16: Burial Grounds
100% kills, 1/1 secret

A nice looking little map, some nice canyon/graveyard areas and then a demonic church. Felt a bit weird having two of the keys so close together, but that's small Scythe maps for you. Unfortunately the church part is really cramped and the monsters have some difficulty moving through it (especially the quick-moving revenants).

MAP17: Book Lords
100% kills, 1/1 secret

One of my favorite levels in Scythe, just because the design is so nice-looking. The fights aren't bad too, as we start to get a lot of revenant/AV mixes, as well as some tricky "teleport behind the player" traps. Nothing too difficult yet, but starting to provide some teeth.

(Shame about those mis-aligned light textures though)

Ah, Scythe, of the epic 50-minute maps that only a select few can beat, a wad so awesome you need to have special powers to find and download it. Are there any more maps coming for it?

EDIT: I've just realised I'm on about Sunder. I'm just going to slink away and hide.

I'm actually reluctant to post the second part of my play through. Dylan was irritating me and I've developed a Fatherly tolerance beyond what I would expect the average person can sustain...

...but here it is anyway:

http://www.twitch.tv/purist_chris/c/3732727

This continues from MAP14 up to and including MAP19. The last of these levels I finish by myself since Dylan is cowardly deserter.

I'm enjoying these as much as I remember enjoying them before, but we suffered a bit from ammo fatigue in co-op.

MajorRawne: Heh, Sunder is supposedly still in development, but to be frank I'm not very optimistic about it ever being completed (or even growing much beyond its current state). Hopefully I'm wrong, guess we'll see eventually. Incidentally, the same is also true of Scythe X, funnily enough.

Map 14 -- Power Outage - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Yeah, I remembered this one once I saw the opening shot. It's a bit of a departure from the previous maps in style, sort of feels a bit more like a design experiment than a battle setpiece. More than anything, it actually makes me think of Demonfear in that it tries to believably represent a coherent 'real-world' setting (its tiny size and incredibly trivial combat also underline the similarity), and it works fairly well here--seeing the lights come on in the building after you hit the switch in the genny shed is a small thing, but you get a real sense of progress from it, hard to pull off in such a small map. As aforesaid, the combat here is rather paltry, but it does at least have a certain sense of cinema to it, e.g. the barrel-bonanza scene in the partially flooded warehouse. Generally I'm not very sold on blatant IWAD homages like the one that closes this out, but I've always liked the part of 'Refueling Base' featured here, so I guess it doesn't bug me as much it otherwise might have.

Map 15 -- Blood Bath - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Right, and an Inmost Dens homage, although its flow is generalized enough that it doesn't seem too excessively derivative. I guess the fact that it uses (non-damaging) blood instead of water probably makes a lot of difference in the way the setting feels as well, even if it doesn't impact the actual gameplay. Monster presence is a bit more pronounced here than in the last few maps, but it's still not very difficult given all of the juicy supplies available to a moderately explorative player; hell, I think I ended up stumbling around and accessing the secrets in the least efficient sequence possible, and still had no trouble. The biggest threat is probably the arch-vile, but he tends to get trolled pretty hard by his mob of minions that surrounds him. Secret exit here's pretty obvious, but that's okay....I like the way most of the secret/optional stuff in this is accessed by various 'parkour' maneuvers rather than by finding secret doors or the like.

I let myself fall behind here. Time to do some catching up.

Map 12
A Walk in the Park

I'm now well into the "first time playing it" maps from this wad. The map lives up to its name: an easy midnight jaunt through a park. It's a mini arena map with only 43 monsters, and no real standout encounters. The Mancubus in the sewer is kind of memorable I guess. The Revenant at the end got a lucky rocket in and I was thankful for the berserk pack to lead me in to the next map. Pretty forgettable map.

Map 13
Subverted Base

Oh, such a devious start. A pisser, but you've got the berserk right in front of you, so it's totally recoverable. This kind of reminds me of the early maps, in that you're going back and forth within a small techbase. Erik makes very good use of height and space alteration to create a challenging little map. I like how the map restocks with enemies after you get the blue key, and shotgunners popping out from behind the previously cleared corner after getting the yellow key caught me by surprise. Pretty obvious Sphere and plasma rifle secrets.

Map 14
Power Outage

Memorable opening with the shotgunners arranged on crates in front of you in a pyramid. They're pretty harmless mind you. If you've read my other thoughts so far, you'd probably have guessed I would like this map just because of the compact style. And I do. It basically offers zero challenge on continuous play though. Even on pistol start, it's a breeze - too many weapons, too much health. It seems somewhat out of place this far into the megawad. With different texturing it would have fit in better somewhere around Map 04 or 05. I like how you need to go activate the generator before the blue door to the yellow key opens up. That's a nice touch, and I think it largely works because of the map size - if it were bigger, it would just be an annoying switch hunt.

Map 15
Blood Bath

Archviles make a second appearance. Quite a few more monsters on this map than the previous few, but Erik doesn't get his difficulty from numbers, but rather encounters. And there are a number of memorable encounters here. The blue key had a tricky ambush, and teleporting in Revenants near the red key is just nasty. There is not one but two surprises in store for you as you make your way to the exit. I like how the final surprise was foreshadowed in the previous exit rooms, and then taken to the nth degree in this map. Hope you didn't leave too many dead Revenants right in front of the door.

The secret exit is pretty obvious, and it includes an SSG, which is the first one I've had so far. I also like how you can use an archvile jump to avoid having to get the blue key. First time I ran through this I didn't even open the blue key door because of that.

MAP19: AD
It is the future. Year 6969...

Oh wait, that's the intro to Balls Out. Never mind!

This is a grey map with a few notable fights (that large imp horde made me go all Serious Sam and expend all of my bullets trying to hold a line... Had to resort to the SSG. Kind of want a minigun in this game that follows the SS formula now) and a pretty linear weapon progression from shotgun through to plasma rifle. You seem to magically gain the berserk at some point and also encounter your second Spider Mastermind, which shares it's predecessor's fate of both being right at the end of the map and also walled in and therefore easily covered from. The three fights leading up to it (ignoring the red and yellow key rooms) are much more exciting and pose more threat. I like the simple, clean futuristic style and enjoyed this map a lot - particularly with the music that evoked the climax to an oldschool space adventure to give the whole thing a slightly campy sci-fi vibe.

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/3741984 = part 1 of my playthrough of Scythe, maps 01-23 on UV (plus both secret levels).

Overall so far I'm really enjoying Scythe. The "death exits" every 10 levels don't bother me at all, although the one at the end of MAP20 was poorly executed in my opinion. (why bother with a dark room full of barrels? Just let the player 'death exit' in the lava pit...)

The first "episode" of 10 levels was a nice comfortable stroll. The Lords was a bit of a damp squib in terms of an episode-ender, but fun enough I suppose.

The second "episode" of 10 levels started out difficult (especially since I tried to punch out the Archvile on MAP11 initially, thanks BaronofStuff for your suggestion!), but then also became a comfortable stroll, albeit slightly less than the previous 10 levels. The Starport's Cyberdemon reveal was disappointingly easy with the plasma at hand.

The first few levels of the third "episode" finally showed some fangs for Scythe, and it's these levels that I think will finally make me understand the difficulty of Scythe. That being said I didn't struggle too much with Solitude, Despair and Anger.

I've enjoyed the music choices and the lighting/graphical feel to the levels throughout, as well as some clever monster/trap placement. It seems that health/item placement is also done intelligently.

Can't wait to get my ass kicked in the final 7 levels next time....

MAP16 Burial Grounds My Time: 3:35

Hmm, another texture used in an outside area that I'm not really fond of. Gameplay returns to the E2 style, but the cathedral can be difficult. Can be hard avoiding the imps and the archies attack due to extra windows, plus the baron can get in the way so I lured him out. The teleport ambush after YK, I also attempted to lure them out, but the silly revenants danced on the pew for some inexplicable reason. The archie at the end, I decided to use the SSG there instead of punching. Pretty fun I guess.

MAP17 Book Lords My Time: 4:18

To me this was a memorable map. It had interesting combat, although most of it tends to slaughtering imps in places. Use of archviles was okay, none too interesting or tough. The most interesting fight scenario for me was the revenant ambush next to the SSG after getting the yellow key. Then after getting the blue key, more monsters, including lots of bookworm imps that decided to show up by then. About 80% of my weapon usage was SSG and no berserk at all.

MAP18 MS Futura My Time: 2:18

Nice visuals, but only 20 monsters on HMP. I decided to end the spiderdemon from behind the crates before heading into the warehouse to get the other monsters. Pretty boring, and another oddball secret sector.

Map 31 -- I Dunno Torn - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Reckon it would be pretty obvious this isn't a map by Erik Alm even if it weren't given away in the title. Most of the few maps by Torn that I've seen (e.g. his relatively recent map from CC4) are a lot like this one: simplistic layout, basic visuals and architecture, probably something that doesn't seem like it would be particularly good on paper or from a screenshot gallery....and yet somehow it's fairly enjoyable to play. Torn usually seems to have a good innate sense of pacing as developed through thing placement, and for the most that applies here, ala the cheeky BFG bait-and-switch. The map is guilty of one of my DooM peeves, though, that being making me clean some blocks of immobile HP out of cells in the walls (and I do mean making, since the caged viles pose a serious obstacle to accessing the secret exit and thus weren't easy to simply choose to ignore). Kind of seems like a filler map, but it's not offensive.

Map 32 -- enoZ soahC - 102% Kills / No secrets
What's the answer to this test? Is it A) Infighting, B) Infighting, or C) Infighting?

A trick question, of course, the real answer is D), All of the above. This is really just a couple of little boxes that smallish, heterogeneous hordes of monsters teleport into, and all you really have to do is survive until they thin each other out enough for you to finish the job. The split-level setup makes this quite easy in the first box, even when the arch-vile appears on the upper level; the second box is really only a problem if you panic and blow your plasma load too early; save it for the first 30 seconds or so and you'll probably have enough for it to get you out every time you inevitably get cornered in the rest of the wave. Pretty crude stuff, here....the cheeky hell knight pincer-tunnel is actually my favorite part, again the key is simply not to panic and punch through one of the two teams like Erik wants you to (it really is the fastest way, 9 times out of 10), then open the door behind them and deal with the other two at your leisure.

Map 16 -- Burial Grounds - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Another Demonfear-like level, in that here we again see a very representationalist approach to establishing setting, this time some kind of hoary old mountain cemetery and an old stone church of ill repute. Unlike the last level in this style (Map 14, 'Power Outage') the action here is a little more relevant; you've got to at least pay attention in the titular burial grounds, where a waltz with an arch-vile amongst several other demons is necessary. The church is mostly frontal assault fare of one sort or another, all that's really necessary is not losing your nerve when stuff jumps out a few inches from your face (including the exit, so don't get lax). Seems kind of odd to me that this map used all three key colors, seems like the blue key could have been left out without affecting the map's essential flow in any way....oh well, no real harm done, I suppose. Maybe Erik just liked the way the blue skull looked sitting up on that ledge with the hell knights.