Your thoughts on E4

[SYS]

So it's been a while since I actually played Episode 4 of Ultimate Doom. I remember it not being enjoyable. Up there with some of those drab city themed Doom2 maps. Lava pits made alot of the levels very unforgiving and difficult.

Playing through again now, the lavapits come across as brilliant. That constant threat of there being a lack of safe ground, and being pressured to traverse it at times. Loving the level layouts and the difficulty is great for an original Doom level set.

What do you guys think?

[Blastfrog]

While it's certainly not a bad episode, I think it feels really out of place, the levels are just in a totally different style.

[printz]

The first Doom I got was Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed, before I got Doom 2. So my opinion is biased.

Just like in the blurb, I feel that Episode 4 makes the default 3 episodes feel like a walk in the park, both by difficulty and layout. When testing monsters or simply replaying Doom, I often go to Episode 4, because I like the challenging parts of the maps, often involving lots of shotgun guys and monster variety. The E1 maps are too easy and tidy and the E2 and E3 maps put too much emphasis on the demonic monsters, being too sparse.

[Mithran Denizen]

Much of the episode consists of fairly drab grid-raped levels, which felt quite PWADish. The fact that the episode was made by several designers also means that the quality and style aren't very consistent, even if the marble+wood theme defines the whole thing. It also has my least favorite official secret map ever released.

There are some good points too, though. Aside from E1M1, E4M2 is probably my favorite deathmatch level in the Ultimate Doom IWAD, and it's a great single player romp as well. I'd definitely rank the entirety of E4 higher than Sandy's city map miscarriages from Doom 2. I like it better than E2 as well, if only because E4 has nothing as awful as E2M4 and E2M6.

[PRIMEVAL]

Definitely different compared to the rest of UD, feels more like something that would be from Doom 2. I find it fun, nonetheless.

[Alfonzo]

As a collection of maps that together grant unique definition, the only thing Thy Flesh really has going for it is a relatively consistent theme in wood and dark symbolism, and an unshakable feeling of fighting through northwest Europe (don't know how that one came about for me, but there you go). The map design and the difficulty are too inconsistent for it to really hold up as a fine "episode" in this regard.

However, the majority of individual maps are superb. I mean, I'm dangerously close to screaming adoration here. Only M3, 5 and 7 leave me feeling dubious. M1 is by far my favourite opening map with its overwhelming aura of concentrated evil and desperate action, and both M2 and 6 just blow me away architecturally and in the gameplay department. In light of these favourites I can only consider the collection of maps as second best of all four collections; at least if you want to apply such a definition of the word episode. It's just a shame that, to take the former definition, the mood and difficulty that was so well established with the first two maps is abated come the third, fourth, and fifth. It hits a bit of a bump I feel, but still remains one my fondest and most played.

[DoOmEr4LiFe]

E4M6 is just pure awesomeness, I love everything about it, but like st. alfonzo said, the architecture is just gorgeous and everything you do in the level builds up to a fight with the Cyberdemon, it's my favorite level in all of Ultimate Doom and one of the very best of all commercial releases.

Otherwise the episode is mostly hit, with a few misses.

[Technician]

I liked it. I started playing registered Doom at Doom 2. I've only had the shareware of Doom available to me before Ultimate Doom came out in stored.

[hex11]

Didn't like it as much as E1-3, and didn't actually run through it so much as -warp to a map any play it like any other PWAD. It was definitely a lot harder. For some reason, I remember enjoying E4M5 a lot, maybe because of the marble & blood theme.

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

Episode 4 is consider harder than the previous episodes, and it also features something related to doom 2(e.g switches with key). Average I like episode 4, although it is hard but it's a very cool episode, the hellish design was nice and it can give players a challenge. Maybe many players will think E4M2 a real perfect hatred, but it's not too hard if it was played carefully. The whole episode I hate most is E4M1, this map has no health pickups and very limited ammo. I remember I never success on maxing this level. But among all levels, E4M3 is my favourite, I really like rockets and plasma spam. :)

[kmxexii]

I love it. It's generally tough, thematically consistent, and has some great ideas, like that four way teleporter or the entire madness of e4m2. Also as easy as it is, that cyberdemon fight in e4m7 is just fun, I like the idea behind it.

[Megamur]

I've never liked E4, and for all the years I've owned Ultimate DOOM (probably close to a decade, now), I've probably done a complete playthrough only about three times. I dislike the ambiguous wood & marble theme (there's a real sense of place in the first three episodes. Where the heck are you in E4?), and don't like having to constantly be charging through damage sectors.

Really, people like E4M6? Repeated jogs through sludge while you try to solve a teleporter puzzle? M6 is probably my least favorite of all.

Plus, E4 brings nothing new to the table. All the guns, items, and enemies have been expended on previous episodes.

Also, would you believe that I've never actually played E4M9? To this day, I have no idea where the secret exit is, because I never played E4 enough to bother to find it.

[elic]

E4 is my favorite episode of Ultimate Doom. The architecture is impressive, the fights are tense, and even though there were 5 level designers, the theme remains consistent.

Megamur said:

Really, people like E4M6? Repeated jogs through sludge while you try to solve a teleporter puzzle? M6 is probably my least favorite of all.

E4M6 is my favorite level by Romero, and its tied with The Inmost Dens as my favorite id level. The fights are difficult (by id standards) and lead to the most intense Cyberdemon fight in the game (which becomes easier if you find a cleverly placed invulnerability sphere). The puzzle is pretty simple, and its fun trying to understand where each side takes you.

[Xaser]

E4M2 and E4M6 are awesomeness on a stick, and even the others are still pretty badass. I like it. Only thing missing is an intermission map (and maybe a better end boss fight).

Oddly, a lot of the "Doom2-isms" like fast doors/lifts and key-switch actions have always registered in my mind as "E4-isms" since I played Ultimate Doom long before Doom 2.

[Clonehunter]

I like E4 simply for the challenge it lays out. It's harder than the others, and has mre mnsters, which equals more blood/gore. SO there are some pluses (for me anyways.).

[lupinx-Kassman]

Episode 4 taught me the meaning of save when I was a kid. This was before I played Plutonia.

[Porsche Monty]

I've said it enough times but E4 features some of the most memorable maps in the history of Doom. It's gloomy, evil, beautiful and perfectly playable in the right difficulty. Just take it for what it is, an independent expansion, not really a follow-up.

[DuckReconMajor]

Megamur said:

Really, people like E4M6? Repeated jogs through sludge while you try to solve a teleporter puzzle? M6 is probably my least favorite of all.

I love it for a lot of the reason I love MAP24 The Chasm, but not a whole lot of people share that opinion.

[_bruce_]

E4M1, E4M2, E4M7 are my faves, though the ending area of E4M7 is visually out of place.
E4M9 is also good along with the "rest".

The mud map E4M4 seems more like a concept map and would have been better with some Sandyfication.

Overall it's pretty good - 8/10.

[Vermil]

E4 features some of the best maps in Ultimate Doom, however the difficulty was all over the place and the strong visual consistency of most of the maps in the episode, makes the couple of maps that don't follow the main visual theme, stick out.

M1, M2, M3 and 6 were great.

M7 and M8 were good, but a bit easy in difficulty.

M4 and M9 were good maps, but they felt out of place against everything else. I know that was the point with M9, but it doesn't mean that I think it worked in this case.

M5 was the only map I didn't really like from E4. It lacked the same quality as the others. It was also a very easy map, perhaps the easiest in the episode.

[DoOmEr4LiFe]

Megamur said:

Really, people like E4M6? Repeated jogs through sludge while you try to solve a teleporter puzzle?

Sounds like you are talking about E3M7 actually. The "puzzle" is hardly anything but and is a unique way to open up new sections of the map, and there's more than enough rad suits to make it through relatively unharmed.

[Sigvatr]

The first three levels for me are almost definitive of Doom, and also number seven. I suppose it is a combination of the atmosphere and their difficulty. I'm not exactly sure where the maps are meant to be, but I just love that style: stone blocks, marble, wood and rusty metal; its like some bastion of hell on earth and what I imagine demons would construct using imp slave labor.

[SYS]

Mithran Denizen said:

I'd definitely rank the entirety of E4 higher than Sandy's city map miscarriages from Doom 2. I like it better than E2 as well, if only because E4 has nothing as awful as E2M4 and E2M6.

Funny you say that, E2 is probably my favorite. Just seeing the TEK base and hell themes mashed together was what I found really cool about it. It really goes against the grain of conventional modern mapping that says; "Here's your theme, only use these textures. Don't mix those, they don't belong. I've played million shitty PWADS, I know what I'm talking about."

Where as E2 tried to resemble bases but they're slowly changing shape and being corrupted by the unworldly dimension colliding with the worldly. Or maybe I'm putting too much though into it and got successfully got OT.

lupinx-Kassman said:

Episode 4 taught me the meaning of save when I was a kid. This was before I played Plutonia.

Very well put.

Megamur said:

Really, people like E4M6? Repeated jogs through sludge while you try to solve a teleporter puzzle? M6 is probably my least favorite of all.

I cursed that map when I first attempted it. But now I find it fun because there's so much that can go wrong, and it's incredibly unforgiving. Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome from dying too many times, but I think it's brilliant.

[yellowmadness54]

episode 1 and episode 4 are my favorite episodes of ultimate doom, actually.

[printz]

POTGIESSER said:

It really goes against the grain of conventional modern mapping that says; "Here's your theme, only use these textures. Don't mix those, they don't belong.

That's exactly the problem with Quake and what makes it less cool than Doom.

[Lila Feuer]

Meh, first two levels are quite hard and annoying. It gets pretty fun on the third. Fourth is stupidly short and easy. Five is average and six is probably the most clever one, design wise and fairly challenging. Seven is decent enough but otherwise the eighth falls short of being overloaded on power ups making it far too easy. I quite liked the secret level myself despite it being different from the rest of the episode. More or less on par with episode 3 with how I feel about the experience. 3/5

Episode 1: 5/5
Episode 2: 4/5
Episode 3: 3/5

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

Here's my opinion on all maps of episode 4:

E4M1 - Too hard, not suitable to put on the first map of episode 4. Some health pickups should be given to made it easier.
E4M2 - I may have think it's a perfect hatred before, but it's not that hard if it's done carefully, after getting the plasma gun the whole level will become easy, I like the telefragging skill too.
E4M3 - Sever the rocket should be better, my favourite map in episode 4.
E4M4 - Too easy!!!
E4M5 - Nice marble texture, but I don't like the hidden cacodemon at the beginning.
E4M6 - It's really against thee wickedly! I never succeed in this map, I don't like this map at all.
E4M7 - And UAC followed? Anyway nice looking map.
E4M8 - Should be unto the spiderdemon. Nice map for speedrun, lots of rockets and plasma spam, easy boss map lol.
E4M9 - Nice map also, only the beginning is hard.

Actually my favourite episode is episode 2, I always like the semi-hellish-techbase design, it also contains many of my favourite music, the maps was designed nicely too. Episode 1 is also good, but it's too easy. Episode 3, hmmmmmmm, so-so.

[Sigvatr]

Heresy! No health is a great introduction to E4.

It makes me think what the game would be like if maps never had any health and you only got some when you beat the level.

[Rizera]

I find E4 to be really good, the best episode only second to E1. It has really good looks, detail and great difficulty. I wish Doom 2 followed E4's difficulty/detail pattern, as most Doom 2 levels are too easy and lack detail.

Anyways, I love Doom 2 too.