What are you playing now?

[Salt-Man Z]

So I've got like a million megawads that I'm halfway (or so) through, but haven't played in ages. Hell Revealed is one of them. I beat level 17 probably sometime last year, and decided to pick it up again last night. Finished MAP17 (got the third key this time, and maxed out the level) and then went on to beat maps 18-20. Man, after playing the first half dozen Sunder maps in May, HR seems so much easier now. :)

Also started Innocence, because hey, it's only 5 levels. On MAP03 now, and it's some good oldschool-style fun.

[Phobus]

Currently replaying Community Chest 3 - just beat MAP05: Living Hell and was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't anywhere near as difficult or unreasonable as I remembered it being! Still a bit illogical and definitely appears too soon, but never mind...

[40oz]

Crfe_p1.wad

Can't run frm evil (part 1) by NokturnuS

the only other wad I played by this author was Realm of Shades and I honestly don't remember liking it very much. However I was browsing the doomed speed demo archives and was enthralled by the length of the uv-max demos (fastest map02 time was like an hour and a half!) submitted for it so I decided to give it a go.

my first thoughts when playing it was that this was something that needed to be played on coop. The maps are non linear, and loaded with monsters. The doors and hallways are wide and spacious and beautifully consistent detail throughout. It seems like all the essential ingredients for a good coop mapset. However the length of the levels may be a setback without proper shortcuts and easy access to weapons from the start. During my playthrough so far I'm struggling with ammo but otherwise I'm having a good time getting surrounded by low tier monsters flooding into each multi-exit room.

I never saw this wads release thread and have never heard it mentioned or talked about or praised or bashed or anything before. I'm really surprised this one slipped my radar for so long.

[Jimothy]

I've completed several one-level WADs recently (including MatthewDoomer's Gehenna, several of Memfis's single maps, and The Living Entryway). I've started B.P.R.D.'s Equinox with WildWeasel's Nazis! mod, but I got to MAP02 and left it in the dust. I should probably pick it back up again, honestly.

[sincity2100]

I'm Playing Memento Mori for the first time,I finished map23 and I'm in map24 now,I must say that the game looks really good,it has it fair shere of bad maps as well as good ones,my current favorite map in the game so far is map 23 by Milo Casali,I actually enjoyed the challange theme,shapes of Map32 from Plutonia Go 2 it

[ducon]

I’m back in Community chest 2.

[NuMetalManiak]

just finshed the Favillesco Alpha Episode, submitted my idgames review just now along with a few others.

[Patrol1985]

I finished Serenity and Eternity today.

[Memfis]

Yesterday I played City of Doom map10. I remember when I first heard of that wad thanks to vdgg's demopack I was very enthusiastic about it. So I started a ZDaemon server and we went through about 8 maps with various people. At first it was really fun (wow that map02 feels as big as a real city) but gradually everyone got tired of the switchhunts, etc, so my overall impression wasn't very good. But yesterday I tried a random single map and really liked it. Figuring out the route was rewarding and tight ammo balance resulted in some really interesting tricky situations. So I guess this wad should be enjoyed in small doses so that you don't get tired from getting lost too much and can appreciate everything.

I also played Marswar v3.01 map25 recently. I found it awesomely artistic: the hell\tech fusion, the name "1984," the music from Bladerunner and the image of zombies heading to a theater where all actors are evil demons give the whole thing almost a cyberpunk\dystopian feel. Really cool and unique stuff. But of course it's not just the theme that I enjoyed, the whole level is excellently designed and wouldn't be out of place in TNT Evilution, for example. Maybe I should make a demo for it.

[Veinen]

Played XXXI Cybersky, a single level wad by Eternal, yesterday. It was excellent.

[darkreaver]

Veinen said:

Played XXXI Cybersky, a single level wad by Eternal, yesterday. It was excellent.

Easily one of my favorites. Did you ever play Disturbia by D-D?

[mrthejoshmon]

I completed all 15 maps from the Hell 2 Pay shareware version, It is a shame I can't really secure the full version without committing some kind of crime though. I rather enjoyed the shareware version (Or "limited edition" as it is called), the levels were short and sweet little skirmishes that were both challenging and fun. The included MAP15 is extremely different to anything I have ever played before, it was also kind of tedious.

I personally loved the almost TNT sounding music used (There was this one track that sounded like a remix of the "Human Barbeque" track) and I also really liked some of the new textures used. However, the new sprites were quite meh.

- It was great.

I also started up The Rebirth on UV again, I think I am up to MAP13 and so far I am loving it!

[joe-ilya]

Plutonia 2, cool.

[Veinen]

@darkreaver: Yeah, Eternal is one of my favorite mappers and XXXI Cybersky ranks very high on my favorite single level wads list.

As for Disturbia, I've only briefly played it a while ago. At the time it was a little too tough for my lackadaisical casual style so I never properly finished it. I really should sometime just sit down, concentrate a bit and tackle some of those D-D maps since from watching demos and reading reviews I've gathered that most of them are really good.

[Pencil of Doom]

Pirate Doom, i played it, finished it yesterday, laughed a lot, enjoyed it a lot and i recommend it.
That mod deserves a Expansion in my opinion.

[Memfis]

Started playing random Plutonia levels (8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 19...) to get some inspiration for my PL-inspired project. I was kinda surprised. :) I haven't played it "seriously" in many years and my image of it was completely different. It's way more brutal than I remembered.

[vdgg]

Alternating between demo style playing and casual playing.

The former, CRFE_P1 MAP01 UV Max. Deaths after 25 minutes are quite common :(

The latter, Back to Basics. I adore how stylish it is, with maybe 3 subpar maps (E2M3 has too much brown, E2M8 too much red and E2M9 is just bland). The winning room for awesome aesthetics is this one. The gameplay is a bit slow, one just either has to adapt to Espi's style or quit out of boredom.

[TwinBeast]

Just finished Alien Vendetta. Total playtime was 15 hours 13 minutes 14 seconds. Not including dying+loading, or pausing. Demonic Hordes took me 1 hour 50 minutes (more if all if all the dying+loading is counted)!

Then started playing Pirate Doom. After AV it feels kind of easy, but it's still very fun.

[AD_79]

Just beat Plutonia a few days ago. Moving on to TNT (yeah, I'm a little behind on this).

[Salt-Man Z]

Finally finished Epic 2. (I started it sometime last year, then got away from it, picked it back up again when the Megawad Club played it, and have been slowly chipping away at it ever since.) It was, dare I say, rather epic. The last couple of maps (28 and 29 in particular) got me itching to finally finish off the last four maps of Eternal Doom, which I stalled out on sometime last year (mostly on account of how I absolutely hate Jim Flynn maps) so I'll probably tackle that next.

[Salt-Man Z]

Finished Eternal Doom last night, which I started one, maybe two years ago.

My favorite levels were the medieval ones. Pathos (MAP06) sticks in my mind, in part because I'd played the first episode a couple of times, and also because it may have been the first Doom level I played that used Heretic/Hexen textures and that blew my mind. Looking back, Chris Couleur's levels were highly memorable, particularly Rainbow Bridge, being just absolutely massive. Darkdome, of course, was a masterpiece. The tech levels didn't often do much for me, but Timegate II was a lot of fun, and Timeslip... Well, I didn't think much of Timeslip when I played it in GZDoom (my port of choice) because GZDoom puked on a lot of the texture/3D tricks, to the point of being nigh-unbeatable (though I managed with the help of Doombuilder.) When I replayed it in GLBoom+, though, it was rendered flawlessly. It's too bad, because GZDoom handled the rest of the WAD just fine (that I could tell.)

Jim Flynn's maps I just outright hated. I think each one was responsible for me setting aside the WAD for months at a time.

And what can I say about Excalibur? Just phenomenal. I was impressed that I managed to beat it and find all the secrets by myself—except for one point that I had to look up in a walkthrough: the part where you have a to walk through a wall with a barely-offset texture to find a switch; that was pretty bush-league. (There was also one secret I inadvertently spoiled for myself while looking up the walkthrough.) And I actually liked the atypical IoS fight at the end. Truly an absolute classic megawad.

- - -

Next, I'm going to try finishing Hell Revealed. I played through MAP22: Siege last night. Cool gimmick, having the fully-stocked house to return between encounters.

[40oz]

Had a run through some maps of scythe. I haven't played that megawad in years because I distinctly remember it being very easy, but I tried going through it again replaying each map until I got a short time I was satisfied with. Its just occurring to me now how speedeun friendly the maps are, like the shotgun in map03, I had no idea how to get it the first time I played it 6 years ago, but now I can see you can abuse the block map bug or or do a quick turn off the side of the stairs. These maps just got a lot more interesting!

[NuMetalManiak]

right now i'm playing Pirate Doom, currently in that Western thing...

[kmxexii]

Salt-Man Z said:

Jim Flynn's maps I just outright hated. I think each one was responsible for me setting aside the WAD for months at a time.

And what can I say about Excalibur? Just phenomenal.

I don't think I've seen someone hate Flynn's levels while loving Evans's stuff, interesting. Too bad! I really love Jim Flynn's stuff. At the very least, you can try Evans's early days with Odessa.

[Demon of the Well]

Congratulations on finishing Eternal Doom, Salt-Man. Not everyone has that kind of patience. The whole Eternal vibe doesn't really seem to be in vogue these days, but no doubt it will have its time in the sun again sometime in the future.

Coleur's and Kvernmo's are my favorite maps in it, as well. Neither Evans' nor Flynn's style bothers me much per se, though they're definitely the sort of thing one needs to be in a rather particular mood to play. The maps I remember disliking are Westerteicher's, and maybe a couple of the one-offs.

[Salt-Man Z]

kmxexii said:

I don't think I've seen someone hate Flynn's levels while loving Evans's stuff, interesting. Too bad! I really love Jim Flynn's stuff. At the very least, you can try Evans's early days with Odessa.

Yeah, it's weird. I think it comes down to a few factors. Flynn's maps really didn't feel like they belonged with the rest of the wad, theme-wise. And they felt really gimmicky besides (witness No Parking, with its voodoo doll obstacles, and the Rocket Test portion. It was the only map in the WAD where I eventually just said "Screw this" and noclipped to the exit.) Flynn's puzzles often made me bitter when I solved them ("Really? That's the solution?") whereas with Evans I usually felt a sense of accomplishment ("Ah! It was right there all along!") I will say that Silures was more frustrating than Excalibur, but I'm looking forward to tackling the Odessa maps. (Gonna see if I can compile them into a single WAD first.)

Demon of the Well said:

Congratulations on finishing Eternal Doom, Salt-Man. Not everyone has that kind of patience. The whole Eternal vibe doesn't really seem to be in vogue these days, but no doubt it will have its time in the sun again sometime in the future.

Thanks! As I said, it took me quite a while. :) I definitely enjoy large, exploration-based maps with moderate-to-high combat. I think Eternal Doom might be better (or at least I'd prefer it) if the puzzles were dialed down just a little, and the combat beefed up a bit. (Of course, I played on HMP, so maybe UV has what I'm looking for, combat-wise.) It's interesting to compare Eternal to something like 20X6, where maps in each WAD take me 1-2 hours to beat, but with the former it's due almost entirely to the puzzles, and the latter is purely because of the level of combat.

[soner du]

I'm currently playing lots of random SLIGE crap.

Fascinating!

[Salt-Man Z]

Just finished up Flashback to Hell today. Cool stuff. The first section of the game reimagining DOOM2 levels is good but not great: they're definitely fun, but they've got their own set of quirks and motifs that may or may not work for some people. The last few levels go completely off on their own, however, and are just fantastic. I really hope there's a follow-up to this someday. (For the record, I used the "new sounds" version, and loved it.)

[Phil1984]

Hell Revealed

Dear God I must be mad.

[Demon of the Well]

Phil1984 said:

Hell Revealed

Dear God I must be mad.

Courage, Phil, Courage. Once you get your teeth into it you'll find that it's not as over-the-top as you may have been led to believe....it simply requires a bit of a different mindset than other WADs you may have played on a more traditional pattern (though of course HR is old enough at this point that it can be rightfully said that it has its own tradition, I suppose).