The DWmegawad Club plays: Back to Saturn X E2

Hmmmm, looking at what I have on my plate for October, I'll probably have to pass on the DWMC, so I'll hope that Alien Vendetta is not chosen, nor Eternity, Serenity and Infinity, for that matter.

And as the day goes on, prepare for a SteveD Skyscraper of Text. I'm just about to start Map21 and hope to reach Map24 prior to noon, when blazing sunlight is liable to make playing Doom impossible, at which point I'll start slinging words. ;)

dew said:

[...] the white void itself isn't introduced with enough bang.

So this is actually part of episode 3's theme? Honestly at first I thought it was a rendering bug, but the texture names implied it was put there deliberately I thought it must be a placeholder for a yet unmade part of the map. Either way I didn't think it looked like it was meant to be there.

I thought the white void served same purpose as the "under construction" sign in AV20.

RjY said:

So this is actually part of episode 3's theme? Honestly at first I thought it was a rendering bug, but the texture names implied it was put there deliberately I thought it must be a placeholder for a yet unmade part of the map. Either way I didn't think it looked like it was meant to be there.

Nope. It looks weird and unusual, so it's okay for a hub surprise, but it's also an uncomfortable eye-scorcher, so it won't overstay its welcome.

Time to wrap this up before the end of the month!

MAP25: Unstable Journey
94% kills, 3/7 secrets

A large, sprawling level with 800+ enemies that could probably be 2 or 3 levels on its own. I missed the eastern part at first and ended up going red-yellow-blue in terms of key collection. Tackled the BFG section as well, despite playing continuous. Took me just about an hour in Doom time to complete the map (plus however much time was lost saving/reloading). Worst place I got lost was not noticing the button on the red skull column... probably would've missed some areas in the blue/yellow areas since there's a lot of doors-that-don't-look-like-doors, but that point I was aggressively using the minimap.

So yeah, despite the long level... not that much to say. It's a pretty constant affair, with not many quiet moments or big climaxes. The red key battle is probably the toughest/most interesting (having the monsters teleport on the far edge of the map, forcing the player to run through the middle structure, makes things more difficult than if the player could just keep looping around the outside), but even the final battle, while initially dangerous (revs and AVs right on top of you) isn't all that tough. Lots more chaingunners in this map than the rest of the WAD.

And uh... yeah. Meh. Lots of people like long maps, I'm not really one of them. On one hand, it gets points for never really feeling like a slog despite the high monster count, but it never really wowed me at any point either. I can definitely appreciate the amount of work that went into this, especially to get it under vanilla constraints, but I'm just judging this based on what I end up with on the plate, not how much effort I know went into it.

3/5

map22 is mint

The white void is supposed to be the end of time/the universe. I guess yeah you could view it as "under construction"

Tarnsman said:

The white void is supposed to be the end of time/the universe. I guess yeah you could view it as "under construction"

I understood that the first time i saw it, how can people think that "THAT" is the final design, i mean come on, there is pictures of e3 in the project thread with a purple sky hinting a Prince hell!!

MAP26: Beneath a Festering Moon
72% kills, 2/5 secrets

Ah, the map I was waiting for after taking a quick peek at the start of each one. The start is very snazzy and visually stunning, getting a look at the tower before entering it. And we're back to the tech textures, which is one of my favorite themes in Doom... nothing against all the brick and temples and stuff, but I always liked the tech look.

Unfortunately, the map itself doesn't quite hit the mark for me. It's very cramped (as to be somewhat expected from being inside a small tower) and reminds me a bit of a Cell map. Aside from the finale, most of the actual opposition here is Arch-Viles (since you don't need much more to fight them than a small room with a column for cover in it), the rest of the monsters feel incidental. There's a small puzzle when descending into the depths to figure out which teleporter takes you to the switch you need to hit. (I guess there's a big secret area down here too which I failed to find.) Then it's out to the rocks for the big finale, which actually proved far more frustrating than it should've been, but Doom's RNG decided to keep fucking me over and not making the AVs die in one BFG shot. The gate is pretty damn cool looking, and I like the glimpse you can get from the tower before entering the caverns.

For some reason, some of the purple goo is damaging, and some isn't, which seems like a big no-no. And yeah, this map finally makes it clear to me the the orange pasta is supposed to be a flesh texture, and it comes in orange and pink, much like Doom's beige-flesh and pink-flesh, just much more vivid. I still think the small midtex looks like burnt cheese, and seems really confusing next to the lava on the last hub map, but whatever.

4/5... really a 3/5 but I am really digging the visuals here.

Well, the descriptions of Festering Moon have me sold. I'll be playing this for sure some day, that level sounds like everything I beleive Doom is.

Demon of the Well said:

That said, I guess I'll vote for Psyren's maps, since I kept promsing plums I would vote with him on that.

I was definitely hoping we could do Psyren in October, but seeing as I've basically missed the last two months, I don't feel I'm entitled to swing the DWMC in that direction if there isn't enough desire for it.

(And I can't help but agree with Cynical regarding some of the bad music in Rylayeh. I think that was my least favourite part of it; MAP02 had a good tune, the Heretic/Hexen music was good but quite familiar, and most of the rest was fairly ill-fitting and often annoying.)

Going Down would be cool, now that it's basically finished. I should at least check out Resurgence sometime, too.

Not much else that has been suggested that I'd care to do. I kind of played a lot of AV in September already so I don't have much desire to go back to it.

Overall Thoughts

I never did finish playing through BTSX Episode 1, as I really found most of the levels look far too samey (seemed all used the exact same 'rusty techbase' textures). Thankfully, this one is a bit more varied. Overall, it's really a damn good WAD... there's not any real stinkers in the bunch, and while some may say that the amount of production time and playtesting and editing and such may result in some of the interesting 'edges' being taken off, it's also nice to play a WAD that doesn't get bogged down with errors like texture misalignments, monsters that don't teleport, etc. Instead, we get to debate gameplay setups and aesthetic choices, which is far more interesting.

For me, almost every map got a 3/5 or 4/5, which only a few showing some large drawbacks: MAP04 "Dirty Water" (too easy to miss weapons, switch hunt complicated by poor texture choices, bad ending), MAP20 "Speedtraps for the Bee Kingdom" (really sloggy outdoor half), and MAP21 "Bulldog Skin" (felt like filler).

I think Demon makes a good point in that one of the reasons the overall WAD can seem a bit 'generic' (for lack of a better word) or missing something, is the flat difficulty curve. I did play this on continuous, and most of the maps are fairly easy for the most part. It is fairly difficult to balance maps between pistol starts and continuous play, and I think it definitely leans towards the former.

Despite this, I'd still disagree with dew's assertion that backpacks are the devil and we should all be happy one wasn't given out until MAP15. Personally, I find 'lack of ammo' to be one of the most boring ways to create difficulty in Doom... granted, some maps can make it interesting, but unless you're really starving the player to the point where he's down to only a few shells or a couple rockets and has a few enemies to contend with, it doesn't quite work. Most of the time, lack of backpack just means I need to waste time tracking back to pick up boxes I've left, and making extra-sure I don't accidentally walk over a shellbox when I'm at 48/50. Though backpacks became fairly common after MAP15, the lack of it was definitely felt in the first half of the mapset and did kinda annoy me.

In any event, the maps do play differently enough that it's hard to really sum up everything together, after leaving map by map comments. So I'll just leave off with a list of my favorite maps: MAP14 "Shocker in Gloomtown", MAP06 "Useless Inventions", MAP19 "Unbaited Vicar of the Scorched Earth", MAP15 "Theory of Broken Circles."

(Hmm, guess I like Vader maps)

As for next month... I would vote for Switcheroom purely out of self-favoritism, but I can understand why a lot of people might not like it as it's re-imagined IWAD maps. (Also, I'm not sure it's gonna get out by Sept 1, Jaws hasn't been responding to his PMs).

I'll cast my vote for Going Down, some of the levels are pretty fun/inventive and I'd like a chance to play through the whole thing.

Alright, so looking back through the nominees for October it seems that Going Down stands out the most, though Getsu makes a really good point in that the club should get back to older megawads as we've been in this beta-testing trench for a long while. Perhaps we could do Going Down for October, Psyren's set for November, and then an oldskool megawad like AV or Requiem or Eternity/Serenity/Infinity for December? If anyone takes umbrage with this just lemme know.

I like that plan.

Woohoo, Going Down! Can't wait to play it for the Club next month.

Maybe a christmas themed set for december? H2H-xmas? :P

Even though not everyone got through BTSXE2 just now, I' d like to thank all of you for their feedback and dedication involved here. For me it has been a good source to gather ideas (especially from the FDA's provided) how to improve my maps and I'll make sure to work on them accordingly!
Concerning map14;
It seems that lot of people like this map and I just feel the need to clarify that most of the credit belongs to Mechadon!
Dew pretty much summed it up already, but anyway:
When I got the map from Mek, layout and gameplay was already done mostly but the map was pretty much mono-textured. My job was to settle on a texture theme and to add more details. After I've been done, mek did even more texture and especially lighting improvements. He did all the bug-fixing, a lot more layout optimizing and other stuff that makes the map what it is now too!
Especially the various textures with windows in them were a late (but very effective) addition to the map by him.
So yeah, my contribution on this map is pretty small and as I said above; Mechadon deserves 99% of the praise it got!

I've already played all of Going Down (finished just recently), but it's a fun game, so I guess I don't really mind playing it again.

I concur with Dobu's plan, and will try to rejoin the club at some point in October. I mean, I wouldn't want to deprive cannonball the opportunity of chuckling over the high death counts he expects. ;D

If it's to be an oldschool wad in December, I'll vote now, and again in November, for Eternity/Serenity/Infinity, because no Archies in Ultimate Doom. ;)

SteveD said:

If it's to be an oldschool wad in December, I'll vote now, and again in November, for Eternity/Serenity/Infinity, because no Archies in Ultimate Doom. ;)

It's a little early for that, but that's what I'd vote for as well. Will keep it in mind for a few months...

Archies 4 undeath. REPRESENT.

Personally, I'd rather do something with a little more substance to the action than the Hermans/Nathrath trilogy ever comes close to beginning to dream about mustering, but in truth it's been so many aeons since I've played those maps that it's possible I've never pistol-started them, which would be a somewhat new experience, I suppose. We'll see.

Oh, shit, I also forgot about Resurgence. We should do that sometime fairly soon, as well. So many WADs, so few months in a year....

Near the end of the month in my time zone so time to rush this post out.

map 22: Bite
Liking the use of the new textures here. Got rally immersed in this one. Difficulty hovered at the addictive "nothing nasty individually, only hard when trying to make it in one attempt" range for a long while. Multiple attempts later, I lower the lava teleporter and hop in.
OK, two archviles, cramped spaces. Um, don't want to play this over and over just to die here every time. I'll come back with safety saves though.

map 23: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks 4
Having not completed the previous map, I missed the connection. And what's up with the damaging floors in a hub map?

map 24: Maybe Now the Vultures
OK, I'm guessing the health at the beginning is to offset any lava damage from the previous map. That lone health bonus is curious. Maybe picking it up makes the map harder. Haven't opened an editor to confirm though there is potential for an evil idea.
Found the secret just fine without AV jumps. Made it as far as blue key on furthest no saves or cheats attempt. Just froze up and died to two successive AV blasts. OK, totally my fault there. Coming back with cheats on an experimental run, the available cover feels too flimsy for the number of archviles in that space. Gonna try running for the elevator to the earlier part of level and camping up there maybe. This map is going in my pile of "beat it once honestly and never play again."
Update: Rather unlikely anyone will read this but I tracked down the BFG. Had another go with godmode to test some suspicions I had and actually found it. Props to dew for mentioning the BFG as I would not have thought to look for it otherwise. Won't spoil the solution; only hint is that it's not necessary to be at a specific location at the 5 minute mark.

And so the time has come for the SteveD Skyscraper of Text. First, my apologies to Mechadon, Xaser and Joshy, for I reached the shore of Mechadon's ocean of a map and there my journey, for now, came to an end as I simply could not find the time to tackle it. I hope I can get to these maps fairly soon, but I always say that and it never happens. There's always a first time, though, and I do not mean to be a smartass when I say that.

Owing to time constraints, my comments will be more brief than usual, and will be split into groups. So, to begin . . .

Map16 – Episode Hub

Another view of Xaser's spectacular hub map. Highlights include the hanging orange flesh in the temple and the view of a distant tower.

Map17 – Steeple of Knives by Xaser – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 100, Armor 0. Death Count – 8. Shells – 36, Bullets – 200, Rockets – 24, Cells - 133

UV pistol-start, GZDoom, frequent saves, keyboard-only

At least I played one fer-real Xasermap. This was pretty cool, albeit gimmicky. It was a real feast for the eyes, with glowing lights behind great midtextures – an often overlooked strength of this texture pack – and that really cool slanted overhead texture at the archways. Xaser shows himself to be a Doom Renaissance Man by providing the excellent BGM “Ominus.” This map also marks the advent of purple textures, much welcomed.

In gameplay, I lucked into the Manc/PE/Cyb route. I'm pretty sure all my deaths occurred at the end, mostly to sudden Archie blasts when I teleported in, or getting blasted while fleeing for cover. I also died by Cyb, Revvie and Chaingunner. The problem for me, to be explained in more detail while discussing a Tarnsmap, was lacking the directional control to get out of the way of the initial fire, so to me, this was a true dick-trap, albeit a fairly mild one. Success was assured once I finally weaponized the Cyb in my favor and he took out one of the Archies. I rocketed the other, and soon it was just the Cyb and myself. A bit of circle-strafing and plasma-shooting later, and Cybie was gone. Fun stuff. And hey, I UV-Maxed again!

As an aside, the reason I include so many stats, for example death-count and end-ammo numbers, is to let mappers know how effectively they were able to kill a player of my minimal skill on UV, and how good their ammo balance was. The end-ammo numbers are only given when I play beta megawads, as part of an extended playtesting process. There's obviously no point in doing this for officially released maps. And yes, I do keep a notebook to the side so I can mark down every death. My death counts are so high in some maps that I'd never be able to remember them. ;D

Map18 – Optional Bases Opposed by Skillsaw – Kills – 100 (390 monsters), Items – 97, Secret – 60. End Health – 200, Armor 100. Death Count – 7. Shells – 50, Bullets – 112, Rockets – 21, Cells - 40

UV pistol-start, GZDoom, frequent saves, keyboard-only

I think DotW was right when he suggested that Skillsaw maps make the player feel like “an unbeatable badass,” because in spite of a high monster count and plenty of mid-tier enemies, this is the easiest map since Skillsaw's own Map12. Indeed, it felt more like an E1 map, and that's not to its detriment, IMO. It makes for a nice fun romp which, after its frantic start for the usual reason of “shit weapon, gotta dodge through traffic to find something better,” becomes an easily manageable exercise. My deaths came mainly from either Archies or Revvies, for example 3 Revvie deaths at the BFG secret, but I believe that after a few passes I could demo this map on UV with 0 deaths, though Demons Are Real would be still easier. The Mastermind reveal was one of the easiest fights to avoid, and after I ran past her I slogged through the HKs until I could return and SSG her to death through a little corner-abuse from behind a column.

I'm guessing that the title Optional Bases Opposed refers to how the map is split into 2 sections – ruins and techbase. The techbase felt very Quake2 owing to both the textures and the low detail. Overall the map looked good and played fast.

And let's not forget Stewboy's Hell Jungle BGM. This was just awesome, and ranks as one of my faves, ever. It manages to combine a sense of grandeur with a haunting and evocative quality, and its pace makes it perfect for a Doom BGM.

Map19 – Unbaited Vicar of Scorched Earth by Tarnsman – Kills – 51, Items – 30, Secret – 0. Death Count – 20.

UV pistol-start, GZDoom, frequent saves, keyboard-only

As with E1's Bingo Pool Hall of Blood, the first Tarnsmap of the megawad marks a giant spike in difficulty for yours truly, owing to Tarns's well-known “Archie fetish.” It's also the case that Tarns has described Doom as “a game of speed and movement,” and you'd better believe he follows through on that, bucko, because in Tarnsmaps you will have to move your ass, and at high speed, or you will surely die.

Like at the start, for instance. As soon as I saw two Revvie rockets smoking in my direction, I screamed, reloaded, and was ready to move. I got through the opening okay, dying once, I think, and then replaying the Soulsphere sequence to get my numbers up. Went down to the lava lake and dodged around while shooting – what else in BTSX E2? – a shitload of overhead snipers. Ran out of ammo with one Arachnotron and 2 Imps left, Zerk-punched the Imps, got rockets and finished-off the spider baby. All going pretty well so far. Opened the next door, got Cacos and Revvies and an HK, backed up and made a few tries to get some infights, then cleaned up the survivors and moved to the really horrifying part, which is the alcove over the lava pond with the Arachnotron in it, Revvies to the side and ahead, a sniping Manc and so on. I'm pretty sure I had misused the most recent radsuit, so I couldn't do what DotW did by jumping into the pond to kill spider baby, and with nothing but rockets, I was faced with a closing enemy below, an approaching Revvie, another more distant Revvie, and a sniping Manc. And Tarns was thoughful enough to throw in teleporting Cacos behind me in a “Fuck you, campers!” move I heartily approve of. This is where my control set-up led to ridiculous amounts of deaths. Allow me to explain.

I use my right hand on the numeric keypad for all movement. My strafing keys are KP7 and KP9. I can circle-strafe just fine. My left and right-turn keys are KP4 and KP6. Forward and back are KP8 and KP5. The main problem I have is my slow turning speed. In this Tarnsmap, it was essential to be able to do quick right and left turns to see if there was fire coming at you. Instead, I got blindsided. I do have a 180-degree key – KP1, that I basically never use, but it would have come in handy for those times when I ran past Revvies only to pause upon seeing Mancs ahead, and end up with a rocket in my skull. So really, the time has come for me to learn the mouse. There is absolutely no way my current set-up can be mastered to a point where I can play Tarnsmaps, and keep in mind, Tarnsmaps are the only one in this whole mapset that make me want to lower the difficulty. With a couple exceptions, all the other maps were borderline easy. Only the Tarnsmaps were Really Fucking Hard, and that was only because of his profligate use of Archies, the single monster in Doom that really eats me alive. Knowing my susceptibility, there was a point in this map where I realized the best I could hope for was to escape with less than 30 deaths. At least I accomplished that! :D

So back to the action. I couldn't rocket across the gap because of auto-aim. I couldn't rocket the spider baby because of splash damage. Running straight ahead and trying to dodge past the Revvie often led to me moving too far and falling into the lava. Damn, did I want a BFG! ;D I also had one really cool death on the other side when something nailed the barrels and I got exploded to oblivion. So it didn't just happen to you, DotW! I'm even now awaiting a letter from your attorney. ;D

I eventually survived this section and died once more when facing the Revvies and Archie guarding the SSG, and at this point, I just want outta here, so I went up to the exit and survived on my second try. When I do a flee for the exit, I don't get a bunch of end-stats. Sorry 'bout that.

Tarns definitely goes for the throat. I admire that, I really do. Someday, when I've become reasonably good with the mouse, I'll rip his maps up. I really would like to see how he does without using so many Archies, or indeed, how he'd do making an Ultimate Doom map, assuming he's interested.

Final comments on the map – it looks fantastic, with a sense not so much of place but instead of a pure game environment that looks cool. The layout is a simplistic, linear racetrack unless you find the secret area. Xaser's Kashmoney Temple BGM is suitably arcadey and very well done. I look forward to the day when I can properly play a map such as this. Watching DotW's FDA made it look easy, but that's only because DotW has put in the time to develop his amazing skills, but if I was only 3 times better than I am now, I could beat this bitch with 5 deaths or less. 85% of my deaths happened in that one area, so I get through that and this thing goes down, y'all!

Thus ends this cluster of commentary. More of the Skyscraper of Text coming soon.

I knew you were a keyboarder, of course, but I didn't realize you used such a nonstandard setup, with every axis/type of movement clustered into that one small space (what are your use/fire keys?). I can play keyboard-only serviceably well in IWAD-difficulty maps, but using your setup in maps like these would render me a sitting duck. Incidentally, the setup I use is now considered strange/antiquated as well--I still use a variation of the mouse + keyboard setup that 'golden age' id popularized in their earlier FPSes (e.g. Wolf3D, Doom, Catacomb 3D if you want to count that), with the arrow keys used for moving and turning, Shift as the run modifier, Spacebar as the 'use' key, mouse 1 as the fire button, mouse 2 as my strafe modifier, etc. Used to be a very common type of setup, but these days variations on the WASD model seem to be the most common choice of power players.

Learning to use a mouse in this kind of game always seems daunting at first (I used to play Wolf3D keyboard-only as a snotnosed whippersnap), but it becomes second nature before you know it, and you'll be glad you took the trouble. The main benefit the mouse offers you is dynamic/gradated turning/aiming speed, something you can only approximate with very precise/rapid stuttering on the keyboard controls. Not to say that there aren't some phenomenal keyboard-only players out there, though, hats off to them for the feat.

What confuses me about SteveD's adherence to the keyboarding religion is that he's referenced modern FPSs such as Quake/Quake 2/and I know there's others I'm forgetting that default to M+K and require freelook. Steve, do you just play Doom keyboard-only and play other games with a more modern scheme, or do you have keyboard only setups for more modern games as well?

@Demon of the Well
@Cynical

Well, the story of my keyboard set-up is that Doom is the first -- and still the best -- FPS I played. A key point is that I started on MacDoom, which allowed greater freedom in keymapping, such that I could use KP5 to back up. Imagine my horror when I loaded Doom on my first PC only to discover that KP5 left me stopped while the Rocket Launcher appeared. I had numerous "Good at Doom!" suicides because of that, until source ports saved my ass. ;D

I never changed because most maps, frankly, are pretty damned easy on UV. I mean, easy to me, even. ;) Then again, I've seen mousers demo maps I've either made or played, and watched them die more than I do. So when I write stuff like, "This map is too easy, I only died 3 times. If you only kill someone who sucks as bad as I do 3 times, you're doing something wrong," I mean it. Those maps felt easier than shit to me. I can die just because I missed a key, after all. ;D So that's why I've considered BTSX E2 a fairly easy megawad, except for the Mechadon/Vader map, the Tarnsmaps, and the Rottking map at the Soulsphere/Red Key trap because I kept getting hung-up on wall projections, not to mention the fucking Spectres that got into the room, lit at 112. Grrrrrrr! Another reason I never changed is because I did a lot less gaming after losing access to Hellmaker around 2003. Mapping is my primary motivation for playing, so without that, aside from the occasional modern shooter that I'd play once and usually never think about again, I'd play Doom for a couple days once every 3 months just to relax. That doesn't advance your skills. ;)

DotW, your setup sounds amazingly complicated. I'll probably try the WASC thing, which I rejected back in the day because my left hand is so unskilled. I'd love to watch you actually playing so I could see how you do it. And yes, there's some super-skilled keyboarders, like gggmork -- a Sunder tester no less! -- SAV88, and Dobu must be pretty damned good considering how sadistic his maps are.

Cynical, I used basically the same setup for Quake 1, 2 and 4, Doom 3, Half Life 1 & 2, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Serious Sam, Unreal, Shogo, and of course the classic Amiga game Breathless, still my favorite Doom clone ever. And Marathon 2, and God knows what else. IIRC. most of these games had an autoaim function, but mostly, they were all much easier than Doom. There weren't as many enemies. A lot of times all you had to do was back-up and shoot, or circle-strafe. When it came to flying or crawling enemies, I used the Q, W and E keys for Look Up, Look Down and Center View, the same as I have in Doom. Most of the time, flying enemies were slow, so I had time to get a bead on them and fire away. Only Serious Sam threw enough flyers to make me panic and run away. The worst of the overhead enemies was actually that stupid ceiling blob in Unreal that grew a tail and shot spikes at you. I'd just come to a stop, look for an angle, raise my weapon and kill it, but it really slowed the game down. Crawling enemies were more of a challenge, the head-crabs in Half-Life, the bugs in Unreal, and worst of all, the Parasite in Quake 2. The way that thing's tongue came out and hit you low, I took it personally, like it was trying to rip my dick off. ;D But overall, my death-counts in the true 3D games were very low compared to Doom.

The last thing I have to say is that not only does my keypad setup lead to pointless deaths, it's also hard on the wrist and elbow when I'm doing big maps with a lot of dodging. There's no question that I need to change, for several reasons.

Edit: DotW, I forgot to answer your question about my fire/use keys. I use my left hand for that. Fire is A and Use is good old Space. Further, one reason I don't do a lot of FDAs/Demos is because PRBoom has the worst keypad 'feel' of the major source ports. Risen3D is like a Lotus Esprit Turbo. GZDoom is like a Jaguar S. PRBoom is like a fully-loaded 1-ton Ram pick-up with manual brakes and steering. ;)

Half-Life and Serious Sam on keyboard only... Holy fucking shit, your patience must be inhuman. The calmest player on Earth, no less!

SteveD said:

@Demon of the WellI've considered BTSX E2 a fairly easy megawad, except for the Mechadon/Vader map, the Tarnsmaps, and the Rottking map at the Soulsphere/Red Key trap

idclev 31 ;-)

And wow, yeah, I can't imagine playing any of those without the fluidity of Mouselook! Those stupid helicopters in HL2 must have been torment...

^^^Half Life 1 & 2 were both more aggravating than hard, though HL2 was more challenging because of the flying machines. In HL1, I remember having problems with the giant tentacle thing that came out of the ground in one map, and also that one huge boss that chased you through a tunnel. Serious Sam was more difficult because of the closed-room trap maps, like that one with a fuck-ton of exploding frogs. It was fun, though. ;) My favorite was probably Return To Castle Wolfenstein. The flamethrower dude was damned scary.

I have a confession to make -- I never completely finished a lot of the 3D shooters. Often, I lost interest, for example with Shogo and HL2. In Return To Castle Wolfenstein and Serious Sam, I God-Moded the final boss fight. In HL1, I got frustrated with the moving platforms at the end, thought they were stupid and out of character with the game, and called it a day. In Doom 3, I was about 80% through when incompatibilities with my video card made the game unplayable. I just found my Doom 3 CDs in an old box, so maybe now I can try it again. I liked it more than a lot of people did.

So that's my story. ;)