The DWmegawad Club plays: The Rebirth

[Roofi]

Map 02 : Outer Base

 

 

Am I supposed to be in a generic brown tech base or in a circus? The custom music from the pack particularly sounds quirky and upbeat compared to the mood of the map. I'm far from disliking the music but it brings an odd ambiance.

 

I heard that Rebirth was designed for continuous so I will not judge the levels for their hypotetical unfriendliness for pistol-starts but I've to say map 02 is quite spicy. Getting the secret blursphere at the beginning is quite necessary to not get perforated by the perched chaingunners. The map itself has few ammo and the best upgrades are located near the end of the map.

 

The fake exits at the end of the map are really goofy , as if I was in a circus. In any case, it was a good map, with more places to discover. I hope the future maps will still be playable in pistol start mode. I'm at map 08 in continuous.

 

Grade : B   (13/20)

 

 

 

[Pechudin]

Rebirth, I think I played this one two years ago, searching for something of roughly equal difficulty to DooM 2. It was fine back then, even if I played it with BD.

 

MAP01: Operator (Pistol start, UV No-Save)

Bland, rectangular. Not sure what to say here, it just exists, I guess. Its brevity is appreciated. The new MIDI is good but I feel it's wasted on this map. Next map please.

 

MAP02: Outer base (PS, UV-No Save)

Pistol start is a bit rough, but hey, some excitement. The only viable weapon at the start is a Chainsaw which has a 50%50 of outright killing you via the Chaingunners up top. Died a couple of times before getting lucky pistoling the Shotgunners beyond the first door, after which it was pretty much done. The base itself is very brown, not very interesting. The end room could've been interesting if the floor dropped and you got boxed into a small room with those Demons but as it stands they are quickly dispatched with the SSG. We'll see how the pistol starts works on the next one.

 

So far, so middling. I guess I'm doing this only to finish the WAD as I never actually finished it. May include some mods to keep things fresh.

 

[Al-Faris M]

MAP02 - Outer Base

HMP - Pistol-start - Crispy Doom - No saves

(I switched the difficulty from Ultra-Violence to Hurt Me Plenty thanks to kmxexii's advice!)

 

I remember playing this map specifically and having fun with it when I started playing Doom back in 2020 before I made an account here. Outer Base is where you see a slight jump in the megawad's quality, as it has a less linear layout and more monster variety, but it's still a generic techbase map. It reminds me of Doom II's Underhalls with the early SSG and and loads of pinkies. The secrets are still a bit too easy to get as well as lacking originality or creativity. It would be awesome to have more monster ambushes to create difficulty as well as scaring the player. BobFromReboot's "Viscera & Gravy" MIDI song has an odd guitar melody, I consider Jimmy's "Ripsaw" to be a better song.
Also, I  like the exit room where you have to figure out which switch is the exit and which switch is a trap, really cool :P

 

[cannonball]

MAP02 - “Outer Base”

 

I actually like the presentation at the start (Schoolboy error notwithstanding), the chaingunners flush you into the drainage tunnels, which presents you with a problem of having spectres and no weapon aside from the pea-shooter. The rest of the map doesn't offer this level of intensity, but the map chugs along at a reasonable pace. The exit room is just stupid though.

Overall this was pretty fun.

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 02: Outer Base

100% kills and secrets

Time: 5:41

 

Now this map has a little more meat on its bones. Opening the door in front of you reveals yourself to 2 perched chaingunners who are annoying to take out from this distance with only the pistol and/or shotgun, but I managed. If you don't feel like taking them out now, you can head into the sewer, but be prepared to deal with some spectres. At this point, it should be obvious this wasn't designed with pistol-starts in mind, which was something I was wondering about back when we did Fragport. When did WADs start to be mainly designed around pistol-starts and not continuous? Apparently not by the early 00's. You've got to collect 2 keys in order to progress, but you can sequence break the level a bit by jumping across the shotgunner towers to get the yellow key early. I decided against that since I'm trying to see the whole level here. Getting the blue key unleashes a rather hefty imp ambush on you that can be kinda tedious to take care of with just the shotgun, but it's not too bad. Especially since you can gain access to a hidden area here that nets you one of the chainguns from a heavy weapon dude (also, there's a switch up here that I don't know what it does). Like the pistol, the chaingun's sound has been replaced with the shotgun's, which aligns it more with the chaingunners when they use it, but it also feels like the timing of sounds doesn't line up with timing of the actual shots. Behind the yellow key door is the SSG, and a trap that features pinkies and cacos, surprisingly. Nice to see them here already. The exit room has 3 switches; 2 of which just open closets with one member each of the pinky family of monsters, and the other exits the map (it's the west one). Kinda weird choice, but it was the early '00s, mapping was weird. Overall, this feels like the first real map of the set, and it's pretty fun. Doesn't do anything different that Underhalls didn't do beforehand (except for the chaingunners and cacos), but it's got a decent layout and it's pretty enjoyable. 

[Celestin]

MAP03: Paranoya

Spoiler

Another low-lit base with a hitscanner majority. The starting corridor with monster closets of zombies almost got me, but I doubt it will pose much of a threat for players with a carry-over chaingun. For fellow pistol-starters, I recommend taking things slowly and expecting hitscanners behind every corner. Maybe that's where this whole Paranoya (sic!) came from?

 

Like in MAP02, there isn't much health and the only armour pick-up can be found at the tail end of the map (ironically, the remaining enemies are imps and cacodemons, whose projectiles can be easily dodged). I was rather low on health for most of the run, until I stumbled across a secret soulsphere. 

 

This is not a bad map, a bit too orthogonal, but I have no complaints against its lighting and texture usage. 

[continuum.mid]

MAP02: Outer Base

Crispy Doom 5.12.0 (Debian 12), Doom II, Ultra-Violence, blind, continuous

100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets, 0 saves, 6:46

 

Continuing the trend of simple map designs and easy combat - albeit slightly more complex, and slightly harder. The chaingunners in the opening room are a real threat, especially for pistol start - if not dealt with or escaped quickly they can be a massive health tax - hence my third playthrough of MAP01 just to carry a shotgun into MAP02. But playing continuous, there are very few real threats in this map. All the ambushes are small and consist of Doom 1 monsters plus the Chaingunner, and lest you find them any difficult, this map introduces the chaingun and super shotgun. The former (as well as the pistol, come to think of it) use the shotgun sound, and I'd honestly rather have had Vader keep the original sound. The exit room has three switches; it's easy to determine which one is the exit based on the automap lines, but I triggered the fake switches anyway for some extra fun.

 

Decent map, average MIDI, still hoping these get more interesting later on.

[RHhe82]

MAP03: Paranoya. Played on DSDA v0.26.0, UV, PS. 112/112 K, 2/2 S, 28/31 I. Comp. time 6:48

 

Still pretty standard Doom 2 stuff, not that I mind. Actually here we have one dangerous ambush that almost got me (despite I had played this one before), the lift you ride to the red key, there are chaingunners in front of you and shotgunners on both sides. Damn that was close! Some of the traps have surprisingly high enemy density, although I have to admit I'm constantly thinking this was a 1998 WAD instead of 2003. Don't know where I got that impression, probably mixing Rebirth with some other old megawad.

 

The fact that this was my second time around in this map helped, because I knew about the secret near the start of the map, when you take the stairs up and some enemies are revealed. It doesn't make that much difference, but it helps.

 

The soundtrack is good, like a heavy metal track you could almost have in TNT.
 

[Book Lord]

MAP 03 – Paranoya

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

The offer gradually became more substantial in this TEKGREN and METAL tech-base, a familiar theme from Doom II enriched with customised blood splatters on the walls. Combat seemed more vibrant from the very first room, releasing closets of zombies behind the player while they are walking into a room full of Imps. The ambushes in store have insufficient threat to cause a real Paranoya, but there are a couple of tricky situations that might catch the player off-guard.

Spoiler

The central T-shaped area was crossed repeatedly during the progression and was patrolled by hitscanners on terraces, and by an Arachnotron on the ground floor. The dehacked sound of its plasma gun left me speechless for a second, enough for it to advance and negate the SSG pickup. From there, I collected the RK after a blind ascent with an elevator and the expected rough welcome from zombie officers. The key was used to access to the BK terrace, then I must go to the south-western part of the map to press two switches, eventually revealing the exit. Closets opened along the way to stimulate my aggressiveness with the pounding chaingun. The two secrets were not so difficult to spot, especially the Soul Sphere. Paranoya was a good entry for the slot, still populated mostly by low tier creatures with the first mid-tiers making a brief appearance.

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP03 - Paranoya (100%K/96%I/50%S):

Another pretty square, pretty American McGee map here, with a "Doom II Tech-base" feeling, with TEK- textures. Again, there is a spot where there are seemingly copy-pasted rooms, just like the previous two levels, to save time into making a map which is already short to make in my books. Not to imply things are copied and pasted here, but everything feels a little bit samey. Still, it was an enjoyable map for sure, this time combat was a little bit better, but yes it kind of starts feeling a little stingy with ammo. Here you can see new textures, but textures that you won't even notice that they are there, since those are TEK- textures with blood on it. So if you are playing in modern source-ports you won't even notice the difference because of all that blood splattering. The T-shaped area is were most of the action is going to occur on this one. Sweet-little level, this one a bit more serious than MAP01 and MAP02.
 

 

Order of preference:
 

Spoiler

 

MAP03

MAP02
MAP01

 

 

[KickAss]

GZDooM 4.10, PB 3.0, HeXeReTiC HUD PB3 v8.3RC2e, Weapon Neural Upscale, Destroyable Decorations Definitive Edition, Glory Kills v29b, SilentDoomguy, Flashlight, -iwad doom2.wad (ver 1.666), -skill 4 (UV), continuous play, no saves. Still have problems loading the latest versions of the HeXeReTiC HUD and Glory Kills 3.

 

Hello! I hope you are all back for good for this month ;-). Played the first three maps of rebirth and good old solid geometrical DooM mapping with massive texturing as far as I can see.

 

MAP01 - "Operator"

 

MAP02 - “Outer Base”

 

MAP03 - “Paranoya”

[Pechudin]

MAP03: Paranoya (PS, UV No-Save)

A bit more substantial. The start is hot, and in truth I had most success by tanking the initial zombie closets, grabbing shotguns and continuing from there. The difficulty pretty much dissapears after that, although the ammo situation was such that the final three Cacodemons have not been slain. I like the introducton of some verticality; the layout in general was more interesting. I also liked the Chaingunner closet, even if it looked a bit comical with how many were inside. I recalled where the Soulsphere was so that was a welcome bit of additional health.

 

All in all, a fun little old-school map that looks like it should follow the DooM II's MAP04.

[Roofi]

Map 03 : Paranoya

 

 

A level I will mostly remember for its gracious yet copy-pasted light gradients. The main hallways is so detailed that I got a VPO (129/128) when I was playing on continuous. I'm in map 12 on my continuous playthrough and fortunately the game only crashed only on that map for now. The few blood-tinted walls also add a gory touch I appreciate, making the game a tad more brutal. It matches with the violence of that map, portrayed by a lot of small enemies to eliminate in this network of straight corridors. It was a fun actio-packed map overall , with improved visuals compared to the two previous maps.

 

Grade : B  (13,5/20)

 

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

As usual, this will be played on UV on the From Doom With Love sourceport. Pistol-starting is not very likely for these first several maps though.

 

Map 01: The Operator

 

That is such a good opening midi! Especially when compared with an overall quality not as good as the Revoulution! Midi Pack. And on another note, I don't think this map gets enough credit. Yes, it has the boxy feel of an early Doom map, but it's claustrophobic and thus a fair bit more dangerous than the usual first map. Even if the shotgun had been made available earlier, like say, right before the two Imps across the slime pit, there's still some truth to that, Moreover, there is a certain balance of minimalist detailing with an even simpler layout. It's really kind of nice how when returning from the red key, it's possible to take out many of the shotgunners near the exit despite them being some distance away, but it's up to the individual to decide if they think that's really worth it. The secret tagging is a little bit odd though, since it seems two paralell sectors somewhere were tagged secret. I guess the LAV is a little useless, but there are some darker areas so it could be worst. Also, zombies are headless for some reason. Moving on.

 

 

Map 02: Outer Base

 

The midi here is a strangely 90s deep synth with some staccato harmonic guitar weaving its way through the whole thing to create a certain sense of disturbing menace. We almost immediately exit into a courtyard with a chaingunner each in towers at the opposite end. Since we can't reach it right now, we take the plunge into the completely harmless moat...oh wait, there's a spectre at each end in some darkened tunnels. The one with the blue key door can't be bothered with right now, so we head toward the end with the sort of little rooms surrounded by former humans that die fairly quickly. The demons and spectres in the next room with some curious lighting are a thing, along with the trap which actually hides a bloodwall that opens the way to one of the chaingunner compartments. Then it's a journey to a couple of rooms to hit some switches near some consoles, kill the workers, then raise the bridge to the other end of the courtyard and pick the yellow key up. 

 

Past this door is a Super shotgun and a Cacodemon or two kind of off in the distance and some chaingunners that basically keep us getting too aggressive. The presence of the Cacodemons isn't all that challenging but it's still some nice stakes-raising! And the monster count is nice!

 

 

Map 03: Paranoya

 

The collection of guys in the closets at the beginning beg for the Super Shotgun. What's more, Vader seems tempted to troll the shit out of us with the weapon placement. Hey, let's place these weapons right next to who they're needed for! Sorry Georg, but I'm not playing your fucking game! :p) Although his skills as a composer are actually quite solid. He sort of falls into the same category as Mr. Freeze as someone who's stuff isn't necessarily arty but can lay down a basic groove. This midi here is constantly filled with tension, although I think the guitar here is a little hokey. No matter though, this is the largest map so far but it's also an easily navigable structure. Consoles can be found on many walls that tend to be CONCRETE variants essentially. We meet the first Arachnotron and only one of the map and their new plasma sound is utterly HIDEOUS! In a way, it's like a ridiculous parody of the original, with the main issue being that actually had solid audio mixing, whereas this just sounds like aggressive static. Yeah......

 

The secret room with the rocket boxes was missed essentially because a monster closet trap which also reveals a sort of checkstand/metal detector of sorts makes the telltale wall make far less unique. The chaingunner trap was nice, but we got luckier than usual. The Cacodemon trap, on the other hand, led to a frantic and prolonged search for a rocket launcher, which doesn't actually exist as it happens. Don't be too surprised if the shell count dips incredibly low at the end, especially since there are Imp packs on either side of the end room, along with another Cacodemon trio in the exit. Better stake-raiser than the last map though. Vader feels confident here. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pechudin]

I'll just comment that I played some other maps and hooo boy the ammo situation is NOT kind to pistols starters. Be ready to leave enemies behind. I kind of respect that.

 

EDIT: I guess if you know the map then it'll be better.

[Goody]

Maps 2 and 3, Outer Base and Paranoya!

 

So far, these levels have been pretty short and sweet. Lot of getting pelted by hitscan, which has been fine. There's always a corner to duck behind. The only part I thought was real nasty was in Paranoya, when you take an elevator up and get it from three sides at the top.

 

But I like the way these both loop back and forth on themselves. They flowed really nicely. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when more Doom II monsters start getting thrown in. Nice little hi and bye from that Arachnotron in map 3.

[RHhe82]

28 minutes ago, Pechudin said:

I'll just comment that I played some other maps and hooo boy the ammo situation is NOT kind to pistols starters. Be ready to leave enemies behind. I kind of respect that.

 

EDIT: I guess if you know the map then it'll be better.

I’m on map… um, 11 or 12, and there’s been two maps where I’ve had difficulties due to pistol starting. The first one was mostly a routing issue, but the other was pain, had to punch chaingunners and pinkies without berserk. Secret would have helped immensely if I had found it on time :P But we’ll get to those in the coming days. Hopefully you and others are not referring to some later maps D:

[continuum.mid]

MAP03: Paranoya
Crispy Doom 5.12.0 (Debian 12), Doom II, Ultra-Violence, blind, continuous
100% kills, 87% items, 0% secrets, 0 saves, 7:11

 

In some ways this is the more interesting map I'd hoped for; it has a unifying gameplay concept with its multitude of ambushes triggered by linedefs, the Doom II monsters make for more interesting combat, it's slightly less linear than last two maps while being just as navigable, and it has another kickass MIDI. There's not much in the way of specific fights I'll remember, though, and I had few difficulties in beating this first try immediately after finishing MAP02. The opening hallway almost got me, but the SSG helped a lot. There was also an ambush with a medium number of chaingunners, but they appeared far enough away from the trigger line that I could safely snipe them. I don't know what the exploding barrels in this map are for; in most of the rooms they're placed in, they aren't super useful against the enemies, nor is there much risk of an enemy blowing them up.

 

On the MtPain27 scale, I'd have given the previous two maps Cs, but this one gets a B. Solid improvement.

[cannonball]

MAP03 - “Paranoya”

 

This feels like a slightly longer and more spicy McGee map, clean and tidy design with plenty of small traps with mostly weak monsters. Not a blockbuster but a perfectly serviceable and engaging map. The switch beyond the blue key door caught me out due to jumping from the upper ledge right into a mass of Chaingunners (Whoops).

The best map so far, a solid entry, but so far this wad has still to present a well defined personality.

For the record this map ended my ironman run rather embarrassingly by the double chaingunner trap that feels rather random on route to the red key.

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 03: Paranoya

100% kills and secrets

Time: 7:04

 

This map gives this WAD some bite. Even before you leave this opening room, 2 separate ambushes of hitscan will activate, which the chaingun can take care of easily. Don't have one of those? Open the door to find one! Along with a pinky and a bunch of imps. From there, it's time to explore a bit. Going upstairs will find a switch that opens up a new path (and access to a secret backpack and ammo). Going downstairs gives you a chaingunner sandwich. There's some nice lighting going on this map, and the ambushes are surprisingly dangerous, especially the chaingunner soirée that shows up when you hit a switch. The first arachnotron shows up randomly in this map, and while I didn't give it too much time to fire at me, I think it did and its plasma has a new sound effect. It didn't sound great. I've noticed there's some rockets in this map but no RL, again enforcing the continuous design. The RL would be nice for the 2 caco ambushes here, but the SSG works fine. Pretty nice map. Compact and concise. 

[LoatharMDPhD]

map 03... i really wanted that green armor before going up the lift and getting 3 way gangbanged by hitscanners with only 17hp and no armor to my name... level layout is nice, modest backtracking, but nothing confusing or tedious.... 6/10

 

//I really liked the sound tunnel monster closet; sum shit i'd do there boy...

[Capellan]

MAP02 - MAP04

 

 

[Book Lord]

MAP 04 – Sewage

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

Another tiny map with lots of brown textures, it got the longest possible playing time out of its convoluted layout, full of twists, turns, alternative routes, and secret passages. The name Sewage suggested muddy waters, and they obviously flooded the map’s lowest floors. After dispatching the Hell Knight guardian seen from the start and pressing the switch in the northern sludge basin, the player has no other choice but dropping in the pit in front of the BK and follow the tunnels to the RK area. I liked that the Blur Sphere was intentionally placed to be picked up and become a nuisance during the following Imp ambush, which would be trivial otherwise.

Spoiler

The way to the red door was spiced up with a closet ambush, and behind it there was a pit room that somehow reminded me of the YK area in Doom II MAP04, only smaller and with many Demons at the bottom. Onemandoom had the same sensation, but I swear I read his review after writing my own. The teleporter conveniently dropped me in front of the BK, now reachable with a walkway. I had already found the easy secret near the blue door and heard the bars rise, so I abused it to kill the caged Cacodemons from a vantage point. The circular room with the YK was nice, and the Hell Knights appeared from a strange angle and blindsided me, landing one powerful blow. Sewage was almost over by then; only a squad of Chaingunners was between me and the exit. The visuals were a tad monotonous, but the interconnection and the good rhythm of the fights turned it into a pleasurable experience.

Spoiler

 

[Lingyan203]

 

[Roofi]

Map 04 "Sewage"

 

 

A small and muddy journey inside a sewage system. The not-so-hidden computer map at the beginning looks more like a gift than a secret but the secrets are so easy to find that it wasn't necessary. Still, the progression is a bit convoluted as Book Lord said and there's quite a number of switches to play but we are far from the bullshit of Sewers map from Redneck Rampage (people who played it will know !)

 

The music gracefully accompanies this dirty ride and the combats remain simple and generic but be a bit careful with your ammo because a lot of monsters are impossible to skip because of the crampy layout.

 

The quality of The Rebirth's maps seems to be homogeneous and I also liked this one. I think it ties with map 03 in terms of quality. Map 03 provided action and Map 04 a decent dose of adventure.

 

Grade : B (13,5/20)

 

 

 

[RHhe82]

MAP04: Sewage. Played on DSDA v0.26.0, UV, PS. 84/84 K, 6/6 S, 32/32 I. Comp. time 8:30

 

Waste Tunnelsque (this time I guess it's the brown bigbricks that conjure up that image) that I somehow quite like, not sure why. It's still a compact level that allows a little of good old berserking. I suppose we're still far away from the hairy pistol start territory, but in the last map I noticed that we got rockets but no rocket launcher, and here we get cells but no plasma weaponry, at least not on UV anyway. I wonder if that's an accident or if the author planned to dispense ammo in advance, several (?) levels before you're actually going to need them.

 

What surely is an accident is that one of the secret areas contain at least 3 of the secret-tagged sectors, so we don't really have 6 secrets here but three.

 

The midipack has a nice track for this one, I gotta remember for potential mapping projects.

Edited June 4, 2023 by RHhe82

[LoatharMDPhD]

map04... oh boy kids, it's another sewer level.... midi has some nice momentum to her, the level is... ok. double tagged secret, late armor again, rockets and plasma but nothing to use it with. like the double quick gangling gun.

[DFF]

Map02: Outer Base
K: 100 | I: 100 |S: 50
Gzdoom | Mods: Rebirth midi pack, Trailblazer 1.5, Corruption cards 5.0
Cards: Chaingunner gangs appear, pinkies eat zombies to get stronger, monsters always alert

Another short and simple techbase, this is one of the maps I had remembered from this WAD. Its simple but the visuals and layout are clean and intriguing. The sentry towers and the sewer/cana make for decent height variation and the flow of the map is good and circular. The outdoor greenery and the sewage are a good contrast with the techbase itself. The exit is a fun trick in a 1993-mapping kind of way.

Combat wise nothing terribly interesting happens here, and the blue key can be skipped entirely as the yellow key can be accessed early with a bit of a ledge jump across the towers. A serviceable map that is decently designed but is still a tad tame. Perhaps the chaingunner gang card could have given me the teleport trap this map sorely needed. Also the MIDI here from the pack did feel like a miss, but thats hardly a fault for the map.

Map03: Paranoya
K: 100 | I: 60 |S: 50
Gzdoom | Mods: Rebirth midi pack, Trailblazer 1.5, Corruption cards 5.0
Cards: Imps adjust aim for moving targets, Earthquakes may appear, totem spawns speeding up monsters

Trickshot imps should add a little early spice to the maps, and occasional earthquakes would likely get old fast.

I was not expecting quite the hitscan hell so early. I almost thought the first card i took doubled all zombies but its hard to tell on this map. Either way its a good pickup from the first too maps. More monsters, more combat, more traps, more to do. I died a few times to the red key elevator just because of health issues and the increased hitscan hordes.

As far as map design goes, its a little less generic that the other two, making good use of lighting and shading to make nice dimly lit hallways. The pillars also do good to breakup some of the sightlines which is nice on a map thats more heavily reliant on zombiemen. Good stuff, even if the card i chose was a miss for this map in particular. the few imps encountered were in close range groups so the improved aiming wasn't very noticeable.

Rankings:

Spoiler

Map03
Map02
Map01 

Cards:

Spoiler

Imps have improved aim
Pinkies consume lesser monsters

double former humans

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by DFF

[Veeda Vidlak]

I’ll join back up for June, I played Solar Struggle but didn’t have the energy to actively review it until we were too far into May.

 

I know Vader best from his works in Back to Saturn X (1 and 2) and am a fan of his contributions there. I think I’ve played other levels of his but it’s been too long to recall specifics, though I know I’ve never played Rebirth.

 

I’ll stick with what I was doing before. Play the map a couple times in DSDA Doom on UV with pistol start, one blind run and one nonblind. For the moment I don’t plan on recording demos this month, but I might change my mind.

 

Map01 “Operator”

 

The first thing I see upon starting is a zombieman with his head missing. That’s neat, helps give a memorable first impression. He goes down as easy as any other former human chump, as do his three friends around the corner. Through the door we get to fight imps and shotgunners and… Hey! Why do they get to keep their heads? I guess the shotgun is a better deterrent to whatever has been biting them off. It certainly makes mincemeat of the remainder of the opposition in this level.

 

So yeah, press the button and head over to the opened-up area to the right. Take care of the remaining enemies and open the last secret before hitting the switch and proceeding to the exit.

 

Operator is boxy, shrimpy, and short. Ok for an early 2000s map01, but nothing special except missing cabezas.

 

Map02 “Outer Base”

 

A more complete outing than the preceding maplet, Outer Base starts at a courtyard divided by a sewage channel with sniping hitscanners perched in towers. The specters in the water remind me of Scythe’s map05, which to the unwary can hand out unexpected deaths in comparison to the rest of Scythe’s otherwise sedate first episode. Here it’s pretty trivial with only two of them, but the hitscanners can be annoying when moving through the courtyard. There’s an invisibility secret nearby if you’d like and I’ll credit Vader for presenting a layout that item can actually help with.

 

The rest of the map is a building crawl with brown textures and trivial opposition. I won’t whine about that in a map02, the level is fine. I did get disgruntled at the exit room playing blind because of how it made me miss 100% kills but that’s a preference thing. I also found the music (from the midipack) a strange choice. There’s nothing wrong with the midi itself but it feels more appropriate for something like Going Down than this basic base.

 

Map03 “Paranoya”

 

The generic level name of last map is followed by the very much not generic “Paranoya” which sounds like an indie horror game made using Unreal. I didn’t feel much paranoya playing this one but I will say some of these ambushes are surprisingly effective. The gold star goes to the chaingunner pair released after descending the stairs near the beginning, but the start isn’t bad either. It feels kind of like having cold water thrown on you, especially with how the shotgunners will likely blindside an unfamiliar player as they position to face the initial zombiemen from cover.

 

The first map I legitimately like. Effective hitscanner use without being attrition based.

[Celestin]

MAP04: Sewage

Spoiler

Sewage is the first map of the wad I like. It's much more cramped than previous levels, which gives it a tense atmosphere. The map is rich with secrets, I especially like the berserk one, which lets you ambush a pack of cacodemons from behind, and the enemy roster relies less on hitscanners - though the chaingunner ambush at the end was a surprise. Despite its compact nature, Sewage doesn't feel small, which I attribute to its effective use of backtracking and diverse room design.

 

One oddity I've noticed is how you can find rockets and cells, but nothing to use them with. Other than that, it's a quick map that doesn't waste player's time. I have to say, this is one aspect of The Rebirth that I enjoy a lot.