What are you playing now?

[Megamur]

Setting HR2 aside, now working on Requiem, which, as hard as it may be to believe, I have never played before. The blue key room in Map05 is really quite pretty, as far as vanilla levels go. It recalled Eternal Doom to my mind in how it was probably pushing those visplanes pretty hard. I also enjoy how it actually takes a few levels before you get a double-barreled shotgun. Those are usually doled out way too fast in MegaWADs.

Time will tell, but I think I'm going to like this one.

[Lila Feuer]

It's a good'un. Kinda falls flat toward the end but otherwise, a five and a half outta five from me.

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

Hordes of Chaos X. I'm loving the challenge, the Doom and Hexen monster imports, and the... well, hordes.

Did a /newstuff chronicle ever reviewed any HoC wad?

[Lila Feuer]

Doom II on Chocolate Doom. MAP20. Doing a 200/200 start on every map whereas possible (exit with a supercharge and blue armor by leaving them around until the end). Good tactic to use on the HR megawads.

[Grazza]

Baby Bonnie Hood said:

Did a /newstuff chronicle ever reviewed any HoC wad?

Yes, I'm pretty sure all of them were reviewed. I recall reviewing at least one of them.

To find them, check the dates they were uploaded to the archive, and look for the T/nCs soon after those dates in the news calendar.

[gun_psycho]

Right now, I'm up to map11 of my scoredoom run of the first Real World level set... and man are those levels short.

[DeathevokatioN]

Playing through Dystopia3 for the first time. I really didn't like that cyber demon encounter on Map07. It made me break my rule of not saving. ;)

[elic]

Just finished Icarus.

That was one great megawad! The gameplay was mostly average, but the maps were really creative and had great architecture. MAP11 is still my favorite, but MAP19, MAP20, and MAP23 were also really great. The only terrible one was MAP07, which wasn't any better than a typical 1994 WAD. Its surprising that the first level was the hardest one without pistol-starting the other maps.

Next up is Eternal Doom.

[gun_psycho]

Blazed through the rest of RW on my Scoredoom run, with Map20 being a pretty hard map compared to the rest. Next up, Real World 2. (Taking a little break from the ball-busting megawads to try something a little easier.)

[BilboHicks]

Been playing through Deus Vult 2 testing Scoredoom. for the first time. I was hoping for something comparable to Scythe/Scythe2, and this has been it. Get to play through the original Deus Vult at the end of it too. Still have ton of other classic megawads to get through.

[gun_psycho]

I also just blew through all of Real World 2 on scoredoom. Man, that mapset's twice as short as the original... with map10 being an anticlimax.

[kmxexii]

Just finished Return to Phobos. Interesting mapset in a semi-E1 style. It's very...freestyle. Most of the time I found the exit before exploring half of the map, so you get to REALLY explore the rest of it, no pressure. Kind of plain, but the maps play well, just not a lot of memorable encounters. Some of the stuff is neat, though, like the raised platform maze in E1M4, or the tower maze in E1M5.

[Lila Feuer]

Processingcontrol said:Next up is Eternal Doom. [/B]

Don't expect to rush through that one, heh. It took me a month to finish it, and that wasn't on-and-off. One map alone can take the piss out of you at over an hour. Most of my times were "Sucks".

[gemini09]

Eternal Doom is to be taken as literal as Hell Revealed.

[gun_psycho]

Eternal Doom pretty much turned me off, though I braved Epic 2 on my Scoredoom run. (I aim to beat the maps under Scoredoom's par time (otherwise I start losing points with each second over par) for each of those maps)

Next up, I'll try Plutonia 2 once again. (The run on that megawad stopped due to the chesire crash)

[valkiriforce]

Eternal Doom is like the Hell Revealed of secret searching...especially Bob Evans' levels. Eternal Doom made me love secret searching.

[Megamur]

Both Icarus and Eternal Doom are great WADs, though Eternal Doom will twist your brain and wring it dry like a wet sponge. I absolutely adore the space travel theme in Icarus, though, as well as the soundtrack and new graphics.

I took a little detour from Requiem to try to do UV runs of all the Master Levels. Boy, the Master Levels are weird, though. There's really no "middle ground" with difficulty. I can usually either breeze through them, or they're like Mephisto.wad and just step on my face until my head cracks open. Black Tower just drains the life outta me.

[Lila Feuer]

Blah, some of the Master Levels are quite good, but most of them fair in the mediocre to below average category. Why id had to go milk a bunch of PWADs is beyond me. Take the ones that are your favorites, renumber the map sequence in SLADE and load 'em together and have fun. I tried to do them consecutively and just got irritated about halfway through.

[Megamur]

Now I'm doing Dark Covenant. I swear, DOOM levels are like crack: I just want MORE all the time.

I actually played this mapset years and years ago, but didn't realize it until a few maps in. For all this time, I thought this was a Boom WAD. Some of the architecture is just AMAZING, and it just seems like it should make vanilla DOOM die a horrible, agonizing, visplane-riddled death. Yet, somehow, it lives.

[Lila Feuer]

!

I remember the WAD you're talking about. It's the one with the first level set in your house and there's a Metallica MIDI and a Hexen red sky? Shit I need to play that again, it's been YEARS.

[Megamur]

Cyanosis said:

!

I remember the WAD you're talking about. It's the one with the first level set in your house and there's a Metallica MIDI and a Hexen red sky? Shit I need to play that again, it's been YEARS.

That's the one. It's pretty much nothing but Metallica MIDIs. It seemed kind of familiar when I got to the city level, but it wasn't until I was sitting around that exit "block" in Map04, listening to "Orion," that I knew for sure that I was playing the right WAD. The giant bridge in Map07 just reconfirmed it.

[elic]

Just finished MAP03 of Eternal Doom. The first two maps were good, but I didn't like this one. The gameplay was pretty frustrating: there was one place where a platform lowered into a room full of revenants and chaingunners. If I tried to fight them with my rocket launcher they would just run in front of me, killing me with my own blast damage. If I used my SSG they would probably kill me before I killed them. All I could do was run to the room's exit, losing most of my health in the process. Also, the author felt some need to block off the first half of the level once you got to a certain point.

There also was a cyberdemon, which is a bit much for MAP03. At least the fight was one of the most intense ones I've ever played, because if I died I'd have to go through the whole piece-of-shit level all over again. :P

I'm looking forward to the next level because there's a lot of crates.

[Megamur]

I admit that I played Eternal Doom on skill 2. It was already a challenge then. It must be fairly excruciating on UV.

[gun_psycho]

I made it up to map08 of Plutonia 2 on my scoredoom run, and still going. At least the chesire bug won't get in the way this time, now that the chesire caco's not amongst the caco replacements.

[Lila Feuer]

Combat wise, ED wasn't too bad, significantly tougher than Doom II (I'd say around Evilution difficulty?). The puzzles and sheer map size were the star of the WAD. There was one bit where I had to fight three Cyberdemons but there was enough room to maneuver.

[gun_psycho]

I'm now back at map12 of Plutonia 2, and I had like six health and seven armor when I entered. (That's coming from map11's exit, then again I managed to nuke the archies beforehand.)

Edit: I'm now at Map22, this megawad's really getting tough now.

[valkiriforce]

Been playing Cleimos 2 again lately; it's always a lot more fun the second time around. It may be a bit mixed in quality for some but there are some really cool maps with great ideas.

[kmxexii]

Played UAC_DEAD and TRINITY.WAD, which were both pretty fun OG Doom diversions. UAC has all the 90s charm with its gigantic complex, facsimilies of vehicles, and neat map tricks in Hell and beyond. Trinity's interesting just for the textures and the goofy movie though the layout itself is pretty rote.

[Megamur]

@kmxexii

Delving into the classics, I see. Good thinking!

Finished Dark Covenant. Tons of fun. Action manages to be fairly relentless while never becoming too hard (no Arch-Vile/Revenant spam, for instance), and, as stated before, it looks great. Map07 employs 3D space to wonderful effect, and the whole thing with the river under the overpass draining to reveal several buildings to explore... Incredible! (For its age, anyway.)

Started up STRAIN, but didn't get very far yet. I really hate the new status bar face. On the plus side, the two-fisting punching is a nice upgrade.

[Lila Feuer]

If you're like me, you can just edit out any new graphics/sounds you don't like with SLADE or something (long as they're not required).