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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Memento Mori (play at your own pace!)

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Phobus said:

MAP15 (the name of which puts me in mind of "Karma Chameleon)

Haha! It's named after a song, but not that one! I suppose menacing trip-hop downbeat would capture the feel of wandering around the open spaces better than Klem's frantic symph-prog-rock riff-fest does, but them's the breaks. I agree with the people saying the WAD's music overall is a highlight, shame it's all frontloaded in the first 15 maps with the rest being repeats!

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Map27 - Fort Hades by Scott Lampert
This map is ok I guess, took a long time to accidentally gain access to the blue key area after shooting a wall whilst shooting a pain elemental. Don't get that design choice. Everything else is fine, didn't get 100% kills or secrets, suspect that some areas are just for the other players.

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27 - Fort Hades by Scott Lampert

A nicely laid out weaving and interconnecting base with some quirky moments (including a really annoying lift). I didn't find any super shotgun, which made it almost feel like playing the first doom up to a point. There were some head scratching secrets that I couldn't figure out, and navigating around the map could get a bit confusing at times with the various one-way drops on certain routes. I didn't have a problem with ammo, but I'm glad I found that secret at the start with all the shotgun shells, made life at the beginning a lot easier. Talking of easy, this kind of felt like it belonged earlier in the wad, I seem to remember some of those early maps being a lot harder even without a cyberdemon. Not that its a bad map, just felt like the difficulty should have ramped up a bit as we are coming to the end. Or maybe this is the calm before the storm...

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cannonball said:

took a long time to accidentally gain access to the blue key area after shooting a wall whilst shooting a pain elemental.


I think I must have shot that wall by accident without realising. That would have well pissed me off if I'd missed that, very naughty.

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mouldy said:

I think I must have shot that wall by accident without realising. That would have well pissed me off if I'd missed that, very naughty.

There was a switch behind one of the red doors, which I began to think did absolutely nothing. I looked in doombuilder to find that it raises the bridge beyond the blue key door. Frankly the layout looks very good for multiplayer, just doesn't work in single player leading to a little confusion. The shotable wall is a real dick move, if you are going to do that show some sort of switch texture to give a clue, not just a random wall (ok it is randomly split from the rest by a support texture on both sides of it, but that only makes me want to try and open it expecting a secret are)

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cannonball said:

There was a switch behind one of the red doors, which I began to think did absolutely nothing. I looked in doombuilder to find that it raises the bridge beyond the blue key door.


i wondered what the hell that did, other than releasing a single lonely chaingunner.

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started late so I only reached map 10 so far.
first high point is of course the custom music. it's always nice to hear something different and the music is actually quite nice to "doom" with.
map design was interesting and kept me playing. but there were some weird design decisions and also flaws. for once, what's up with the secrets? some of them aren't even secrets, you just got'em in the normal progression of the map. others got no bonus items but just rooms with enemies. I also noticed here and there unescapable pits and rooms with no way to get out again (map 8 I think).
but nontheless the overall quality of this megawad is pretty solid and feels classic to me.

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To give Lampert some credit, be puts a sergeant in between you and the shootable wall, giving you a reason to fire in that direction. On the other hand, why not simply put a switch in the room you're shooting from, that allows you to open the wall?

The switch to raise the exit bridge is also a bit unintuitive - make much more sense to have it in the right hand room at the bottom of that area. I suspect it was done the way it was on the 'every square inch' principle. i.e. "I want to make sure the player sees every inch of my level, and doesn't just skip a chunk". Modern level designers seem to embrace the idea of optional sections, but fiften years ago, if you mapped it, you wanted people to see it :)

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Capellan said:

To give Lampert some credit, be puts a sergeant in between you and the shootable wall, giving you a reason to fire in that direction. On the other hand, why not simply put a switch in the room you're shooting from, that allows you to open the wall?

lols when I played, all the hitscanners when I reached the room which looked out to the blue key area, all the hitscanners were on the other side of that area for some reason, no sergeant in front of that wall. Ironically it was just bad luck probably as I entered that room and attacked the monsters in that area, the sergeant probably decided instead of heading towards me, he decided to move away from me to the other side of the outdoor area. Happens to me all the time when I do speedruns, monsters decide to flee instead of fight (for some reason)

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also to be fair, these things are generally only annoying the first time you play - these days there are so many good wads to choose from that sometimes I never get round to replaying them, I can imagine back in the day this was released it was a different story.

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Map28 - City of the Unavenged by Jens Nielsen
Oh boy, a long switch hunt - just to note before I go on, I only managed to finish this level due to being able to keygrab the red key, no idea how to lower that platform and spent 10 minutes looking for new switches to flip but alas, none lowered that damn key.
Lots of unexpected surprises and crazy cyber placement, 3 in cramped locations. Ironically I wasn't killed once by cybers as I managed to lure them out into open ground and dispatch then with 2 bfg shots.
The start killed me the most, mainly due to being trapped by spectres that appeared out of nowhere (I assume they teleported miles away and managed to eventually find me)
Not a great map due to ridiculous switch hunts and some bizarre monster placement. It did improve a lot after collecting the red key though

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MAP28 - I love switch hunts (at least when they are contained in a small space, Eternal Doom can go suck it) and not unsurprisingly this is probably my favorite map in Memento Mori.

This is one of the best Doom city style maps. It's large and intricate but not excessively so. The fights are fun and the map keeps up a constant pressure against the player. The cyberdemon appearances are shocking and arch viles are used well too.

Back in the day this was a visually impressive map but now it's lost some of its luster. The innovative touches don't seem quite as novel anymore. That is of course a natural consequence of mapping evolution.

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cannonball said:
I only managed to finish this level due to being able to keygrab the red key, no idea how to lower that platform


Finding the red key took me ages. It requires you to do some platforming without actually giving you a strong visual cue that there's anything of value at the destination.

This fact, combined with the need to go hiking all over the map every time I flicked a switch, in search of what it did, quickly made this one tiresome rather than fun. Which is a shame, since it looks ok, and the gameplay early on was pretty good fun.

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28 - City of the Unavenged by Jens Nielsen

Jesus, i feel like i was a young man when i started playing that map and had a long grey beard by the end of it. It started out quite fun, in monster town with fire coming from every window and ducking down streets to avoid it brought more monsters out of the side alleys. Wish I'd found the super shotgun sooner though, killing barons with the normal one is a right chore. A couple of holy shit moments bumping into cyberdemons, and then the switch hunting began. And it went on forever. Press a switch, then scour the entire map to see if it opened a door somewhere, repeat... add in a few times where you cant find what it did and end up looking everywhere several times over - I felt like giving up at one point. But some kind of perverse masochism took over and eventually I got through it all. The fighting was pretty intense when it was happening, and the layout was fairly complex and interesting. And I don't mind a bit of a puzzle, but to be honest I don't switch my brain on to play this game so it started to drag a bit.

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Map29

A fun map, while it lasted. Given that it's the penultimate map, however, it feels very much on the short side, at least in terms of 'must do' content. I exited with only 49% kills, so there is obviously a lot of the level (or at least, enemies) that I didn't see, but if the exit's there and I don't have a pressing reason not to take it, then exit I shall.

Also, I'm not sure what was going on with that caco on the pillar near the start.

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Map29 - Island of Death by Thomas Möller
This map felt all over the place, multiple keys of the same colour (picked up two red keys), monsters seem to teleport at random sometimes, no real clear sign of progression though I failed to spot a gap in the large area with the beserk packs. Felt strange really. Killed 98% of the monsters before calling it a day.

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Totally doing some catch-up here...

MAP26: Between Scattered Corpses: Very dynamic map, this one. Seemed to lack challenge (and I didn't even find one of the four secrets either!) despite the relatively dense monster placement and use of higher level baddies. Cyberdemon seemed largely pointless, as did the first Arch-Vile I saw, but otherwise things seemed alright.

EDIT:

MAP27: Fort Hades: Much better than MAP12 by the same author. Progression kind of made sense, I found 7/9 secrets and I got a good, classic 90's vibe the whole time playing too! Music was the icing on a pretty good map.

I'll leave the remaining 3 maps for tomorrow, as I don't have the time or energy tonight!

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MAP26 - BETWEEN SCATTERED CORPSES

I actually liked this map, because if there's one thing I love about Doom that has become lost in current-gen FPSs, it's monster infighting. This map tons of it - obviously required at the start with the Spider Masterminds, but also doable throughout with the monsters teleporting into the main area. There was also some good use of Arch-Viles. The room with the three barons at the bottom of the stairs was a lame end, though - I would've ended it after the AV/demon corpse room.

MAP27 - FORT HADES

At first I thought this was going to be a good KDITD-styled techbase map, but a strong start falls apart near the end. Requiring the player to shoot a wall to proceed is just silly - yes, it has a different wall texture, but it's not very obvious, and it's easy for the player to go up and spacebar it to no avail. I ended up hitting it by mistake due to a wandering lost soul... "blow up the wall with a crack on it" was a popular thing in Duke Nukem 3D though, so maybe it's just something lost in time. I also really hated the Megasphere secret (being teleported into a slime-floored area while monsters shoot me in total darkness? Sure!)

MAP28 - CITY OF THE UNAVENGED

Very nice city-type level. The buildings are unique-looking enough that one doesn't get lost, although it is a very tough switch-hunt. I actually like switch-hunts, though it can get frustrating if some parts are too obscure. I did get stuck for awhile at two areas - one near the upper right of the map where you have to jump across a gap, and then opening the bars in front of the yellow key door. The blue key was kinda wasted (as the key is right next to the switch, which doesn't seem to do anything that couldn't be done without it) so using the blue key for another switch indicator down the line would've been a better choice. The yellow key area also felt tacked-on as opposed to the rest of the very cohesive map. The fights are nice and challenging, with excellent AV use and some nice surprise Cyberdemon placements. Fun map, though switch-hunts aren't for everyone.

MAP29 - ISLAND OF DEATH

What a mess. I got through this with only 17% kills - grabbed the red key at the start, through the door, found the pentagram/second red key area (though the gap in the wall is very well hidden), into the red door, hit the button for the lift, walk past the pentagram teleporter into the exit. Uh, okay. Clearly there was a lot more to the level (and two red keys?), but damned if I felt like bothering to find it.

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Map29 was obviously designed only for coop, besides a half-assed attempt to make it SP compatible. It's still pretty fun to go trough all the unnecessary parts though.

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Map30

It's an icon of sin map. It does some stuff to dress that up, but ultimately it's about pumping rockets into small target in a big demon face.

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Map30 - Viper by Milo Casali
This is a little different to the original versions of the icon of sin. In this a cyber is placed inside the boss brain and acts as a meat shield. As a consequence the top of the moving platform is the perfect height to hit the target. It can be a bit tricky and the cyber can get you. It's fair with plenty of health and ammo for you to sustain a much longer attack than in most map30s. It took me 9 minutes to beat this btw. The areas before the boss battle did feel a bit fillerish though. Also given the ammo and health in tis map, perhaps the author could have added a bit more urgency with more monsters spawning or made the room where you fight the boss mean that monsters from outside can get you.
It's a good map30 though which is a change :)

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29 - Island of Death by Thomas Möller

This was an interesting map, if a little strange at times. It had lots of perculiar corridors to explore and monsters to kill, and was convaluted enough to be unpredictable without being too confusing. However.. I'm not sure what the intended sequence of events was, but I found the red key as soon as I stepped out of the first room. Then I was met by red and blue doors with another red key on a plinth. Slightly confused I went through the red door and a couple of rooms later I stumbled into the exit with 8% kills. Strange? Something not quite right there, so I went back to my last save and explored a bit more, eventually finding the blue key. And from there I went through the blue door which eventually gave me the 2nd red key... So by this point I didn't know what the hell was going on, so I scoured the map for the yellow key to see if that would make sense of it all. I eventually found the yellow key after much searching and killing, and went to the yellow door to claim my prize, which was... a cacodemon? It dawns on me now that I somehow I managed to go through the whole map in reverse.

Investigating further it seems that if you don't pick up the red key at the start, the next room has a multiplayer puzzle in it, so single player mode is just messed up for the sake of co-op.

30 - Viper by Milo Casali

The final map, and its a thankfully brief icon of sin battle. I'm not a fan of the icon (is anyone) but this was one of the least annoying ones i've ever done, other than having no way of knowing whether my rockets were hitting the cyberdemon and just pumping them through the hole and hoping for the best. I did like having my own room to fire from though, with only minimal interruptions from other monsters.

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MAP28: City of the Unavenged: Reminded me of the second half of "Dead Man's Town", both visually and with the relatively high difficulty and focus on tough monsters. A few shock Cyberdemons, loads of Arch-Viles and one or two deaths for me. One of the higher monster counts for this .WAD too, bolstered by the PEs and AVs doing their thing. I quite liked the switch-hunting, as it kind of flowed logically for me. I found 11 of the 13 secrets, being rather surprised at some of the things that weren't secrets even after the more unusual approaches to getting to them.

One of the better maps in the set, I'd say - particularly at the start when it's either a wild running battle or a serious bit of trench warfare.


MAP29: Island of Death: This'd probably be kind of challenging if the large numbers of monsters hidden away in teleport traps had a reasonable chance of getting through to you when they're needed and in a timely fashion and wasn't so obviously a co-op map. As it is, you get some minor spikes in difficulty, a largely optional section of the map that doesn't seem to be impossible to access without cheating (I got all but one monster and both secrets in my over-30min run).

I liked the music and the look of the map though, so it has some more redeeming factors.


MAP30: Viper: Kind of really easy - particularly with how impotent the Spider Masterminds are at range and how most of the enemies in the map are Imps all locked up in one tower. I didn't even have any enemies spawning on me, so it was just a simple target practice exercise after the Cyberdemon eventually died.


Overall opinions for the mapset? It's surprisingly bad, given it's reputation. Lots of poorly designed maps (unchallenging fights, really unintuitive progression...), some that clearly work better in co-op and very few proper flourishes of fun. It's aged badly, really. Hopefully if ever we play the sequel or spiritual successor, they are less disappointing.

Favourite map? Honestly, Hell's Kitchen (MAP05) is in with a good shout still, otherwise it's probably a toss-up between High-Tech Grave (MAP09), The Inmost Dens II (MAP13) and maybe MAP27.

Least favourite? I was very set on The Mansion until I played Kinetics which, even with me kind of wanting to enjoy it, was definitely the lowlight... Then Cesspool happened. Definitely Cesspool for least favourite map.


I'm still well on board for something a bit modern whenever we next start one. Interception was our suggestion IIRC?

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MAP30 - VIPER

Yeah, it's an Icon of Sin map, which isn't surprising for a 1996 megawad. It's not bad, not great. The Cyberdemon in front of the face was a nice touch (it actually caught me by surprise at first - since I just assumed it was a typical Icon of Sin once I saw the the lift/hole to shoot through, then started wondering why rockets were coming back at me). Still, it's not that challenging, since only a few monsters get spawned in the upper area. The hardest part is being teleported into a room with 100 imps in it.

Overall Thoughts

Blargh. I know the megawad is old, and it shows, but when you get down to it, a lot of these maps are just plain bad, regardless of the year they were made in. Lots of unintuitive and flawed map design, such as hidden objectives, blind jumps into acid pits, multiple keys, unlabeled doors, etc. Gameplay overall is pretty easy. There's a few decent maps in here - my favorites would probably be MAP28, MAP21 and MAP05. But overall there's a lot of frustrating design choices with not much payoff to balance it out.

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Right review of memento mori
well many maps have not aged well and some don't come up to the standard of the id maps, in fact I was disappointed by some efforts, maybe not for overall quality but I thought the Casali maps were a let down. In fact the best Casali map was map30.
great maps, map03,05,09,14,21,26
bad maps, map08,12,25
the rest varied from good to meh. To be honest the majority of the maps are passable if non very memorable, at least the maps I really liked outweighed the maps I truly hated. I guess if I were to score the wad I would give it 3 stars today

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My overall impressions of this wad: I guess its fair to say a lot of the maps haven't aged well. There were some good maps though - the highlights for me were maps 9 and 21. There were also some stinkers.

But in between there were a lot of maps that I felt were nearly good, and could have been greatly improved with just a few tweaks. In some cases just one or two minor design changes would have been enough.

I don't think this is a wad I will be coming back to anytime soon though. I might have to play through the sequel again just to compare how much progress was made.

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Congrats to all that finished it, and a special shoutout to mouldy for now being the only person (that we know of) to finish every megawad the club has played so far! It's been entertaining to read the overall thoughts on MM, I didn't think it'd do so badly with our crowd. Makes me interested to see how its brethren would fare.

Anyway, the next pWAD we're tackling is INTERCEPTION. I'll be throwing up the topic tomorrow since it's a weekend, although it might be confusing since we won't be initially going by DAYxx = MAPxx, but I figure we'll balance it out eventually as the month goes on.

... It's still funny to me that some of the most initial activity we've gotten so far has been for BF_THUD!

EDIT: might wait on creating the topic for a day, since interception is still being updated...

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BF_THUD was the first thing we did, so the Megawad club was all shiny and new. It benefited from that initial enthusiasm.

My top MM maps would probably be 09, 21 and 27. Cesspool handily wins the worst map "honors".

Edit to add: February is a short month, so how about just using DAYxx = MAPxx+2? So on Feb 1 we can do up to map03, with map30 on Feb28. Maps 31 and 32 would be OK to post about on Feb 13 or later, same as map15?

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