Favorite Episode from Ultimate Doom

[Dark Pulse]

Tossup between E1 and E2, as I'm definitely a bigger fan of Romero's mapping style than Sandy Petersen's, and it felt like more tension could be done with locations slowly turning hellish (E2M6 really comes to mind).

[out_of_service]

I've got to go with Knee-Deep in The Dead! I think that's the most iconic episode of the original game.

[joshthenesnerd]

each episode i love for different reasons, but i think my favourite episode is episode 3 (sorry to john and tom)

episode 3 is just sandy's imagination going wild and i absolutely love it. the exploration of previous levels (most notably from tom's E2M2 and E2M7) gone to a whole other realm with levels like slough of despair, mt. erebus and limbo. stuff represents other stuff even less, it's just pure abstract, exploratory and puzzly. the first level and final level aren't great but the rest of the episode is fantastic.

 

though, many will probably disagree with me on the quality of unholy cathedral and slough of despair.

 

i often feel like sandy's design doesn't get as much love as it deserves. like, sure it's ugly but there's just a fiendish fun to his traps and puzzles plus the man is great at designing exploratory levels (which is so hard)

[Final Verdict]

2 minutes ago, joshthenesnerd said:

each episode i love for different reasons, but i think my favourite episode is episode 3 (sorry to john and tom)

episode 3 is just sandy's imagination going wild and i absolutely love it. the exploration of previous levels (most notably from tom's E2M2 and E2M7) gone to a whole other realm with levels like slough of despair, mt. erebus and limbo. stuff represents other stuff even less, it's just pure abstract, exploratory and puzzly. the first level and final level aren't great but the rest of the episode is fantastic.

 

though, many will probably disagree with me on the quality of unholy cathedral and slough of despair.

 

i often feel like sandy's design doesn't get as much love as it deserves. like, sure it's ugly but there's just a fiendish fun to his traps and puzzles plus the man is great at designing exploratory levels (which is so hard)

 

To be fair Episode 3 seems to catch a lot of flack, but I never really had a problem with it.

 

Then we have E3M7 (Limbo) which seems to be universally hated. I actually like it from an aesthetic viewpoint. I always suspected it was because a lot of people got lost and died to the magma on that map when they first played it. I could be wrong though.

 

In the end though it doesn't really matter, everyone has their favourites and none of them are wrong in my opinion.

 

Some are just more popular than others.

 

[Arrowhead]

I like episodes 1 and 4 equally, followed closely by episode 2, follow distantly by episode 3...

[Valboom]

Thy Flesh Consumed.

[baronofgibbitude]

It's tied between The Shores of Hell and Thy Flesh Consumed. I really like the aesthetics and level design of both of them, although Flesh can trip me up times, but Shores can be a little unforgiving at times

[Maximum Matt]

The upcoming Episode 6: Carmack's Revenge

Spoiler

Nah but seriously, whichever one that had E4M6

 

[Doom-X-Machina]

22 hours ago, Redoom said:

You would have to be brave to admit you like Perfect Hatred, congratulations!

Why? It's a great map.

[Maximum Matt]

It's got a big shitload of barons up in it, tho

[Andromeda]

Gonna steal @Omniarch's idea, because why not?

 

Scale:

• 5 *: Fun
• 4 *: Less fun
• 3 *: Average
• 2 *: Less boring
• 1 *: Boring

 

Episode 1:

 

E1M1: * 

E1M2: *

E1M3: *

E1M4: **

E1M5: *

E1M6: *

E1M7: *

E1M8: **

E1M9: **

Overall: 12

 

Episode 2:

 

E2M1: **

E2M2: **

E2M3: ***

E2M4: ***

E2M5: **

E2M6: ***

E2M7: ***

E2M8: *

E2M9: *****

Overall: 24

 

Episode 3:

 

E3M1: **

E3M2: ***

E3M3: **

E3M4: **

E3M5: ***

E3M6: ***

E3M7: **

E3M8: ****

E3M9: ***

Overall: 24

 

Episode 4:

 

E4M1: *****

E4M2: ***

E4M3: *

E4M4: ****

E4M5: **

E4M6: **

E4M7: **

E4M8: **

E4M9: **

Overall: 23

 

So yeah, a tie between E2 and E3. I do prefer E2 a tiny bit though.

[Omniarch]

26 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

E2M9: *****

E3M8: ****

These two choices fascinate me. Care to elaborate?

[Biodegradable]

E1, now and forever. I've blasted through it many times, and it never loses its charm or fun factor as far as I'm concerned. Romero knew how make his maps frenetic and engaging from beginning to end with the combat/traps, progression, secrets, design and layout. E2, E3 and E4 just pale in comparison in my opinion. No doubt I'm going to annoy some E2 advocates, but no matter how many times I play it after smashing through E1, it always feels like a huge downgrade to me.

 

E4, despite how damn mean it can be, is my second favourite. E2 is okay I guess and E3... ergh...

Edited April 17, 2021 by Biodegradable

[Andromeda]

3 minutes ago, Omniarch said:

These two choices fascinate me. Care to elaborate?

The first one I always play on Nightmare nowadays and try to get as many kills as I can, it's a fun endurance test. As for the second one I devised an interesting challenge, which is to use only the rocket launcher - it's less trivial than it sounds, since you don't have enough rockets to kill the boss and have to strategically use infighting in order to complete the level.

 

These challenges help keep the levels fresh for me, I suspect that if I played them like usual I wouldn't appreciate them as much :P

[Eric Claus]

3 hours ago, Andromeda said:

The first one I always play on Nightmare nowadays and try to get as many kills as I can, it's a fun endurance test. As for the second one I devised an interesting challenge, which is to use only the rocket launcher - it's less trivial than it sounds, since you don't have enough rockets to kill the boss and have to strategically use infighting in order to complete the level.

 

These challenges help keep the levels fresh for me, I suspect that if I played them like usual I wouldn't appreciate them as much :P

 

Sometimes it's all about finding the challenge for yourself!

[magicsofa]

3 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

E1, now and forever. I've blasted through it many times, and it never loses its charm or fun factor as far as I'm concerned. Romero knew how make his maps frenetic and engaging from beginning to end with the combat/traps, progression, secrets, design and layout. E2, E3 and E4 just pale in comparison in my opinion. No doubt I'm going to annoy some E2 advocates, but no matter how many times I play it after smashing through E1, it always feels like a huge downgrade to me.

 

E4, despite how damn mean it can be, is my second favourite. E2 is okay I guess and E3... ergh...

Agreed... E2 and 3 are enjoyable to me mainly because of the trippy aesthetic and the addition of plasma weapons, cacos and lost souls. E1 is just techbase after techbase, and trust me I love my techbases, but after 9 levels it's a relief to explore the more hellish areas even if they lack the perfect flow of E1. To be fair, the more disjointed progression found in later levels does fit with the descent-into-madness theme. Still, I'd love to play an E2 and E3 replacement that's specifically aimed at incorporating the E1 magic flow with the full arsenal and roster. I don't think it's the presence of cacos and barons that ruins it... I think it's more that the later maps can be annoying to move in and have less thoughtful progression. There's a lot more dead ends and plain hallways (like E2M6... Halls of the Damned is right!), and fewer connections between areas. After E1 which gives the player lots of buttons to press and opportunities to get outside the main structure or pathway, the rest of the game is kind of a let-down. There's more teleporters but they often bring you between totally separate, confined areas, with fewer moving parts. I can understand using a little bit of claustrophobia here and there, but the later maps are pretty boring once you get over the novelty of the hell textures.