The DWmegawad Club plays: Serenity & Eternity & Infinity

[Demon of the Well]

Serenity E3M8 -- Church of the Poisoned Minds - 80% Kills / 88% Secrets
Possibly the best map in the episode, although it has some competition from E3M5. While it's pretty obvious that E3M7 is the oldest level in Serenity, I suppose there might be some uncertainty as to which was the newest at the time of the WAD's release....my money's on this one, it certainly seems more polished than the others, especially aesthetically, but also conceptually. It's not really so far above or beyond the Serenity baseline, mind you--gameplay is still quite weak, it still has clumsy implementation of the secret tags (again several of them are redundant, and I believe that one of them may be too thin to trigger), and so on. It's not without some charm, though, and that charm elides largely from the sense of place the map is able to establish, and from its central gimmick, the easy route/hard route split. Someone called this split a 'video game moment', which it absolutely is, and normally this is a quality that I dislike in mapsets (call me stuffy and boring and soulless, but stuff that actively/willfully breaks the 4th wall outside of hidden easter eggs or whathaveyou normally makes it harder for me to enjoy the setting)....but I think this is a case where the "unwritten rulebook defense" really does apply. There was no blueprint or standard practice for this stuff back when this WAD was made, and so it's hard for me to really hold it against it (still not my personal preference, mind) in the same way I might if I saw a similar thing in a modern WAD.

The same goes for the barrel puzzle that marks the start of the 'hard' route: it's clever and novel, no doubt, but also extremely metagame-y in its implementation (incidentally, you CAN reliably escape any damage here, as long as you shoot the right barrel with the right weapon), another trait I generally find not to my taste in gameplay setups. But, again, given this was from 1994, I'm again more inclined to give it its due for the ingenuity, and stuff like this is what makes the map interesting, even if it's not particularly engaging from a combat standpoint--more frontal corridor-shoots, a lot of caged monsters (along the 'hard' route), a bunch of imps beyond the many stained glass windows that have as difficult a time attacking the player as the player has of attacking them, and a very anticlimactic spiderdemon battle. I'm not really ready to excuse all of its faults (e.g. the cyberdemon in the cage area initially being stuck inside another monster or something), but seeing as how many WADs through history have shared Serenity's tribulations in trying to make a decent final boss fight (it's just not the engine's strength), and the meat of the action is mostly inoffensive, I'm not inclined to look too unkindly upon it, especially since the level is by far the best-looking map in the WAD....I think that the sudden reveal of the grand, shadowy hall at the very start of the map is probably my single favorite moment in the episode.


Well, I guess it's no secret that I don't really like this WAD very much--it simply offers very, very little of those things I personally most enjoy about Doom (e.g. violence, speed, tension, moodiness, a sense of exploration, etc). It's kind of like a guided tour of a cheap county fair funhouse, with all manner of little sideshows and curiosities; I understand why/how it appeals to some tastes, and I can appreciate its creative spirit, and even accept some of its quirky design decisions in good faith considering the WAD's contextual history, but I find that many of its fundamental gameplay flaws are serious enough that I'm not willing to simply overlook them in the name of whimsy/novelty. Some might also be quick to gloss over its various problems via an appeal to history/the limited tools of the time, but the problem is, there are WADs of similar vintage that don't share Serenity's numerous foibles (both technical and design-wise), or that DO share many of its foibles and yet are still a lot more robust from a gameplay perspective, and so this defense doesn't really fly with me: a boring map is a boring map, whether it was made in 1994 or 2024.

At least it's not ALL bad, and having played the entire trilogy before, I can indeed agree with Salt-Man and others that Eternity and Infinity are both generally better than Serenity, so things should be looking up as we move deeper into the month.

Favorite map from Serenity: Hmmm.....probably E3M8, overall. It's the most cohesive unit, certainly....there's some rather cool stuff in E3M5 as well, but that map also has some segments that really drag it down, whereas E3M8 is mostly palatable all the way through, with a possible exception of the brief caged monster segment.

[Zed]

E3M7:

OK, I understand this is the first work by the authors, and it shows. It's big, ugly and a little confusing. The architecture feels way too big, there's too little opposition and/or an excess of ammo, especially considering that with some maneuvering, the barons can easily kill about half the monsters for you. Also, we're back to trivial secrets, some of them necessary to progress. Not much else to comment on this one, only to say that, for the first time, I decided to save my game and try to find the rest of the monsters and secrets just for the sake of it. It turns out once you are in the exit room, there's no way back. Fuck it, let's move to the next one.

Final Time: 31:14, in part because I relied a bit too much on infighting (what can I say, I like it when maps allow it to this extent, and this is in fact one positive thing I can say about this one: as ugly as it looks, at least is not boring if you happen to like seeing barons blowing imps and pinkies apart), and because it took me a while to find the yellow key.

264 out of 288 monsters
26 out of 31 secrets

EDIT: Heh, sorry.

[Capellan]

The Eternity link in the OP has an extra 'p' at the end by the way. Correct link:

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom/d-f/eternity.zip

[Steve D]

E3M6 – I'm Here. I'm There. Stairs Are Everywhere – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 179, Armor 169. Death Count – Zero. Shells – 76, Bullets – 90

UV continuous, Risen3D, frequent saves, keyboard-only

The map whose reputation convinced me to play continuous. Glad I did. This map would have been frustrating on pistol-start. There were just enough Cacos to be ammo-sinks, and I spent a surprising amount of time in this map looking/praying for ammo. I was never down to nothing, but there were a few close calls.

TBH, I expected this map, from its title, to be a different oldie I once played, which had a room full of freestanding staircases leading to various goodies. As it turns out, I've never played any of these maps before, and as we all know, this is Hallway.wad, but with stairs.

That said, I didn't mind the experience. Yes, it was confusing and it forced me to use the automap, something I rarely do. But Sladwall is one of the great textures, so that half of the map looked good to me. The seemingly endless “secret” Wood area was mostly too brightly-lit, and even more confusing than the Sladwall section. On one occasion, I rode a lift up to the yellow door, but lacking the yellow key, I could not proceed, and the lift would not go back down, so I clipped my way through. Rather bad design there. There was also a Medikit and a Bullet box I could not reach on platforms. More bad design. I used my Jump key.

Aside from these flaws, the main thing about this area is its trickiness. Getting the yellow key was a typical example of its overwrought nature in this regard, but it's also quirky enough that I enjoyed its 1994ishness. It was yet one more example of how the mappers preferred messing with your mind than delivering thrills in combat.

Last note: I wasn't super-psyched about the Depeche Mode MIDI, mainly because it's a poor version of a great song.



E3M7 – Big Time – Kills – 100, Items – 89, Secret – 96. End Health – 100, Armor 54. Death Count – 1. Shells – 74, Bullets – 313, Rockets – 12, Cells – 453

Wow, this is one big hunk of ugly. I suppose if I compared these maps to my old Realm of Chaos maps from '96, this would be the Venom of the pack, the one that was weirder and uglier and downright stranger than the others, yet somehow, not the worst play.

The blinky flesh corridors were all but nausea-inducing. Oh, my! :D Never wanna go through those again. Yet this map was rather challenging thanks to its huge number of snipers and the necessity of finding certain secrets. For example, on my first meeting with the SpiderQueen, I didn't have the Plasma Gun, or much of anything else, really, and I died. Then I figured out that I should run past her, was doing well, tried to save a game, and accidentally launched an M3 save instead. D'oh! This proved a godsend, because this time I found the chain of secrets leading to the PG, so back to visit Queenie, and this time I put paid to her.

Special note must be made of The Hideous Giant Computer Room where, once again, I was able to camp the middle of the room and watch monsters infight at yet another gameplay-kiling Block Monster line. Action could have been fairly intense in this map without them damn thangs.

I thought the MIDI in this map was really dreadful. And yes, a vital key in a secret room. Will wonders never cease! ;D


E3M8 – Church of the Poisoned Minds – Kills – 84, Items – 0, Secret – 44. Death Count – 5

Forewarned would have been fore-armed in this case, with a nice goose-egg on the death count. Oh, well. And in this map, the MIDI is so damned obnoxious that I IDMUSed “Suspense,” my all-time fave Bobby Prince track.

Getting past the irritating music, this map is actually very nice-looking, even better than M5. That opening hallway with its Dr. Sleep lighting, scale, and those awesome windows was -- dare I say it? – magnificent! It was also very annoying with its unseen Imp snipers. Imagine if this was Doom 2 and those were Chaingunners or Revvies. Gak!

The church itself was even more beautiful. The E3 sky is perfectly suited for those windows. Have they been ripped for a texture-pack, by any chance? Something really weird happened on my playthrough, because 3 Imps managed to walk into the church from the area beyond the windows. I checked the map, and it seems they were able to walk through impassable lines. There's no end to the tricks in these maps!

I foolishly missed the door into the Soulsphere secret, assuming the horizontally misaligned walls were in keeping with those along the stairs. Face-palm!

All my deaths came along the Hard path, twice to the barrels, including once when I did it right and foolishly decided to detonate them from what I thought was a safe distance, twice to the Cyb, and once to SpiderQueen herself, because I'd used up all my cells killing the caged monsters. Once I wised-up, I simply ran past them and BFGed the Queen.

This map is extremely weird. It trolls the player into wasting all their ammo on the caged monsters. Luckily, I do lots of saves, else I'd have had to replay the entire map several times before I hit upon the winning strategy. I inherently dislike turreted monsters presented in this fashion, and overall, the gameplay in this map is as horrifyingly bad as in every other map. But fun gameplay doesn't seem to be the primary focus of these mappers, not in this episode, at least. Instead, they concentrate on being tricky and weird, and succeed in their quest. I have to admire what they did with the barrels and also their homage to Phobos Anomaly.


Summary

Overall, I have to admit I liked this mess. The maps could have been thrice as challenging by simply removing the Block Monster lines. This would have delivered real dividends starting in M4 thanks to the rising monster counts. Still, this mapset has a certain atmosphere, or perhaps a scent, of 1994, when time was new as far as mapping went. The freshness of being among the early mappers doing odd, jagoffy things to players literally bubbles off these maps. You can sense the glee of these mappers in designing their tricks, maybe thinking, “This is gonna be so cool!” And that really is the joy of mapping for Doom.

Best map overall is probably M8, with M5 closely following. Not coincidentally, they are also the best-looking maps, IMO. No need to pick the worst map, the competition is too strong. ;D

On to the next!

[SyntherAugustus]

The maps were quite hilariously crude. My favorite part being the sky wall in one of the maps being used as a window view, when instead it looked like a museum exhibit.

[Capellan]

For Eternity I'm doing continuous HMP, no music, frequent saves (but probably not that many re-loads unless the difficulty is a lot higher than Serenity)


Eternity 1
Well I guess you have to acknowledge that the authors have definitely learned about some of the technical aspects of texturing since Serenity. They're still apparently fuzzy on the whole "secrets" thing, though.

This level looks a lot better than the previous wad generally did, with textures unpegged and aligned pretty well throughout. They're not always combined all that well - the grey brick to marble transition on the "church" windows being a prime example, but each room tends to look alright.

Gameplay is up and down. I like that monsters are allowed to come at you from a couple of different angles at times, but the penchant for sticking them behind block lines remains (though at least they mostly have visible reasons for being blocks now). There's also some compulsory running across damaging floors which is a tad annoying at the best of times, and especially so when it also involves opening a hard to spot door.

The level kinda needed some roaming monsters to 'port in or be released once you get the red key, too, as right now it's just shooting a couple of fish in a barrel on your way to the exit.

[Jaws In Space]

serenitY: E3M8 - HMP, Pistol Start

Well this map was a step up in quality, the opening room looks quite good with it's lighting and custom textures & really sets the mood for the map. visuals are just all around good throughout the map, the other stand out area being the blue key room. Map progression is still a bit weird, like walking into the baron room just to get the door to the red key to open. When I got the choice to take the hard or the easy path, I chose the hard path. The barrel trick did me no harm, but I did almost run out of ammo in the jail section. After teleporting out of there I found the invulnerability secret & easily killed the Spider Mastermind. Despite it's few flaws I really enjoyed this map.

So on the whole this wad is pretty mediocre, sure it was made in 1994 & the editing tools were pretty crappy back then, but still I've seen better maps from 1994 & it's also pretty obvious that these guys were learning as they were making their maps, so it really feels like a newbies effort. I can definitely see potential though, I have faith that the next 2 wads could be pretty decent

Map list fave to least:
E3M5
E3M8
E3M2
E3M6
E3M4
E3M3
E3M1
E3M7

[Memfis]

e2m1 - awesome music obviously. The beginning is very impressive, I bet that chapel took a lot of time to design! Liked the "control center" with the white teleporters a lot, especially the air raid that took place there. Even I have to admit that the use of caged monsters is a bit excessive though.

[scifista42]

Eternity

E2M1 - "From Here Till Eternity"

I liked the first half of the map, while still oldschool, it showed an improvement in regards of architecture, appropriate texturing and providing maneuverable space. But it still felt very 94-like, and in the 2nd half, quality rather declined to Serenity's worse standard of narrow corridors and odd monster placement and placement of secrets. The walkover-activated raising twisted staircase was a good touch. Blue key room's nukage stayed non-damaging while still looking as nukage when raised up, I've found it odd. Red key ambush was good, though, in that oldschool-ish gimmicky way. Not a bad start for a 1994 wad.

[mouldy]

E3M8 - "Church of the Poisoned Minds"

This map looks a bit more visually polished than the rest, gameplay still has its baffling moments though. Most wtf prize goes to shooting the barrel puzzle, though the whole easy/hard way choice is kind of strange. And the cyber in the cage. And walking through the cage bars to get out. The secret invul is pretty easy to find, as is the bfg, and having both makes rather a mockery of the final battle, but what the hell, I'm glad its all over.

My overall thoughts on this wad... Its pretty dodgy to be honest, and I can't help wondering if I would ever have been impressed by it even back in the day. It is entertaining though looking through this little window into the past and seeing how far we have come. I will definitely stick with the remaining parts of the trilogy.

[Magnusblitz]

E3M8: Church of the Poisoned Minds

Definitely a step up, as most of the level looks decently nice (if still a bit blocky), there's a couple interesting gimmicks and the stained-glass window texture looks really cool. Still, gameplay is pretty bland, pretty much just a linear corridor shooter with a boring boss fight at the end. A bit disappointing that the 'hard path' just eventually ends up at the 'easy' path, but at least it's possible to get 100% kills that way, I suppose.

Overall Thoughts

This is not a good map set, and I while I can't say for certain, I kinda have the sense that's true even by 1994 standards. It's garish and blocky, there's lot of errors/flaws (such as the secret tags, or monsters being stuck in walls) and the gameplay is, for the most part, pretty bland and half-assed. Despite the touting of "mind over muscles" there's very few puzzles in these levels... E3M1 had the 'sun damage' room, E3M4 had the red key/powerups four-way computer thingy, and E3M8 had the barrel puzzle, but that's about it. The rest is just running through orthagonal corridors.

I get the sense that it was popular simply as a 'right place at the right time' thing, being a full eight-map replacement episode early on in Doom's history, and having custom textures and custom music (even though the music is pretty ill-fitting). There's certainly nothing amazing out the gameplay or layouts, and there's definitely some real clunkers in here as well.

E3M1 and E3M8 are my choices for best maps, E3M3 and E3M6 for the worst.

[Walter confetti]

E2M1: Hey i remember to played this map! At least, it's Heretic remake! (that was titled chapel.wad... i think to recall correctly?)

Anyway is a pretty cool map sets in a some temple of sorts, with some nukage sewers in it, there's some variety in the layout and some nice traps (like the one in the middle of the sewers section) but less fast to play instead of Serenity e3m1, but still a pretty cool starting map imo...

Good start. Also why there's a S here? Did Serenity was over? Or... serenity is never over? Mysteries! Conspiracies! Chemtrails! Illuminati! Reptilian! Lots of bullshit like rain! THis and more on "DW Megawad Club!"

[Memfis]

Wait, indeed, what the hell? The maps in Eternity spell SERENITY again! How did they fuck that up? And how did I never notice it before???

[dobu gabu maru]

E3M7: Oooh, scrolling MARB textures, a rare sight. Unfortunately, that’s the best thing going for it as the map is just a giant sequence of boringly lit boxes you’ll blindly wallhump looking for where to go. Out of all the maps this one screams “1994” the most, and is probably the weakest of the set. The Mastermind fight is a tad clever if you haven’t found the PG yet, but the map is wholly forgettable otherwise.

E3M8: A pretty good closer—there’s some absolutely rough encounters right at the start. I was impressed with the blue key door part, as opening it reveals a demon that scuttles towards you, with a baron firing acidballs down your back. If you push into the room you’re welcomed with a row of sergeants from afar, so it makes hugging the corner to play it safe extremely tricky. Smart stuff. I unfortunately can’t say the same for the final encounter, as running up to the mastermind and greeting it with a big ol’ ball of hot steaming plasma goo closes out E3 with a whimper. Good lighting the blue key room, too.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

ETERNITY.WAD E2M1

Oh, yes. Hermans & Nathrath deliver with this one, which is a notch above anything from SERENITY.WAD. It's sort of a green marble cathedral, at least to start out. Gothic DM came to mind when looking at this map; obviously it's not up to that level of detail, but parts of it feel almost like a prototyle for the concept: arched windows, carpeted halls, etc. Later areas do become more like a typical old level, though. Gameplay also felt somehow more polished than most of Serenity.

Progression was slightly cryptic at one point; I figured the gap in front of the exit was just a death pit that would get a bridge built across it, so it took me a while to decide to search down there. In a game with look up/down this wouldn't be so bad, but in unmodded Doom you can't look before you leap.

The room with the pentagram pads was devilish and cool. This is where the same sort of ingenuity that was put forth in Serenity shows forth again, and it's a well done gimmick this time.

The exit is properly marked. However, one major negative was that it's possible to become permanently stuck if you go back through the blue key door after completing the pentagram room; the door doesn't open from the inside and the rising block seals off the other route, leaving you to suicide in the nukage. After falling to this once, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and completed the level in shame without attempting to purge it completely of demons.

Speaking of said nukage, it appears taking at least one round of damage from it might be mandatory, another minus. It also would have been nice if the rising pool in the blue key room used a change floor texture special instead of leaving the nukage flat.

I will wag my finger at texture misalignments, especially on the cage bars; I let them slide in Serenity for the most part because those maps usually had bigger issues to worry about, but this is reaching a level where they stand out against the higher quality of visuals.

Overall, this is good oldschool fun that I can give a thumbs up to with few reservations.

K/I/S: 84% / 100% / 100%

[Never_Again]

Memfis said:

Wait, indeed, what the hell? The maps in Eternity spell SERENITY again! How did they fuck that up? And how did I never notice it before???

Because it's titled "Serenity II AKA Eternity".

[Salt-Man Z]

E2M1: From Here Till Eternity
Hunh. I never even noticed that the letters spell SERENITY again. (And Infinity's levels spell INFINITY.) Weird. Anyway, I've always liked this map. The starting chapel-thing is just gorgeous. I always find myself missing the stairs up into the next section, but really it's that initial marble that's so memorable. Man, there's a lot of meat on UV. I left the barons and caco alive so as not to waste precious ammo. (It felt wrong, but I'm pretty sure I didn't have enough left to waste.) Good T2 theme music, too.

[Capellan]

Eternity 2
Meh. While this continues to show a much greater technical command of level design (though I notice the door sidedefs are unpegged), it has some pretty awful sections, gameplay-wise.

The opening isn't too bad. You've got guys outside and in, and while there's nothing very tough around you do at least have a couple of angles of threat in the courtyard part. Unfortunately, then you get the red key and we have the first *facepalm* of the level.

The first couple of side rooms are bad enough, but the 64-wide maze of doors is dreadful. The monsters are no threat at all and the unmarked teleporters just prolong the tedium.

You do get the yellow key eventually though, and I quite liked the room beyond that for actually having the guts to be dickish. Trapping you in a smallish area with monsters on both sides? It's not exactly advanced encounter design but it is at least showing some ambition to make the player sweat. I suspect that I'd have liked it a lot less if I managed to get myself trapped in there though - there's a repeatable lower line for the bridge, but all the 'raise' linedefs are one use, so it's is theoretically possible. Didn't happen to me as I was moving fast enough to get out before it lowered too far, but would have been annoying if it had.

Alas, the end room is another bad area. Mandatory floor damage to progress (with no visual cue what to do), and then two anemic fights after that. And the inevitable 'stuck in the exit room' nonsense, as there is no way to lower the exit lift back down.

Some decent moments, but too many bad parts to be considered a good level.

[scifista42]

E2M2 - "The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues"

The start made me think of Rylayeh again. Well, there were similarities in texturing and gameplay. But here the areas looked much more bland, rectangular, relatively basic... In one word, 94-ish. Not a bad map structure, but the visual/gameplay-related simplicity doesn't do well (though okay for a 94's wad). At a couple times throughout the map, I felt slightly lost, but didn't mind it at all, this is not a complaint.

Regarding gameplay, there was a distinct lack of armor and health, which made the beginning quite hard to pistol start, but I've enjoyed it. But fights themselves were rather uninteresting, except for the nukage courtyard, which could however be easily skipped. Usage of monster-blocking lines was contraproductive at times, but I suppose it was some kind of an attempt at "realism" (monsters don't want to leave their turrets / step on nukage)? Interesting, anyway.

The door maze (leading to yellow key) was interesting for a short while, but it actually sucked, and its only challenging aspect was avoiding shellboxes when I had 45-49 shells.

There were 2 parts that seemed bugged: The descending bridge (it can descend multiple times, but can be raised up only a limited number of times?) and the exit (pressing a wall from inside a pillar that acts like a lift?). Not a fan of them, although the bridge ambush by monsters was quite a nice surprise.

Good music.

[7hm]

Wad: Eternity
Slot: 2 1
Map: From Here till Eternity
Author: Holger Nathrath, Bjorn Hermans
Notes:
I enjoyed the start of this map. The church is a nice little intro; it seems to build off of E3M8 while also demonstrating some improvements from the previous episode in terms of texture choice and even alignment. It's pretty bland gameplay-wise though. Why lock a Baron behind a cage? What's the point of him even being there? The blue key room was also really empty. The whole map was pretty empty, until you got through the nukage tunnel. I liked the Soulsphere room. The small enemy waves accosting you while you try to figure out the puzzle of how to exit the square makes for one of the more interesting encounters the Serenity series has offered so far.

Wad: Eternity
Slot: 2 2
Map: The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues
Author: Holger Nathrath, Bjorn Hermans
Notes:
This map kicked the shit out of me. I went back on my resolve to mainly play pistol start because of how not-fun plinking away masses of imps and demons with the pistol is, and then I went back on my no-save resolve because of the damn crossfire room behind the yellow door. I went in with 42 health and in maybe 15 attempts I only made it through to the other side twice. And then you had mandatory damage floors to reach the get the lava to drop and allow you to reach the exit.

That being said, I enjoyed it. It was kind of strange but I actually really liked the door maze. I would have liked it even more if there had been more of a cat and mouse feel to it with maybe a few more live monsters, but it was good fun. The technical skill vs the previous episode remains evident despite some small flaws like failing to unpeg the doorways. I'm going into E2M3 with only 27 health, so I'm hoping for an easy start to the next one. :)

[Suitepee]

Well now that Mayhem 2048 is enjoyably out of the way, I think I shall join in the fray this month and get to livestreaming this Ultimate Doom triple header over the next few days.
If anything it'd be nice to have a break from those agitating skeletons....

[mouldy]

Time for Eternity

E2M1 - "From Here Till Eternity"

Well this is a bit of a massive improvement from the previous episode. Actual architecture going on, much tidier and more coherent visuals. The gameplay as well seems more thought out, with some interesting set-ups like the soulsphere room providing more of a challenge. I still didn't die, but I was definitely fearing death once or twice. Hope this is the shape of things to come. I didn't kill bother killing any barons though with only a shotgun, life is too short for that. In fact I left most of the stuff in cages alive, I guess they were just hostile decoration.

[Walter confetti]

E2M2: Another time a sweet jazzy tune for a pretty hard map, lots of sladwall here and a very cool layout and detailing, also there's another maze after the red key door and is the most disorienting maze i've ever seen: a doors maze (lots of short hallways connected by doors)! also the trap after the yellow key door is a really bastard trap!

gameplay is challenging, if you aren't careful enough, you'll found your health drained, and a inevitable dead is always beyond the corner... or totally inevitable in the already mentiond red key bridge trap...

But i like it! Very good map! But why there wasn't a anti-radiation suit before the exit fire room?

[Magnusblitz]

E2M1: From Here Till Eternity
96% kills, 3/3 secrets

Wow, this is MUCH better than any of Serenity's maps... I'm not sure how much Doom WAD editors changed between Serenity and Eternity's release, but there's a noticeable climb in quality. The texturing schemes are much nicer, the lighting is good, the general room design is a lot less boxy (curved corners!) and there's stuff like carpet runners and such.

That said, there's still some issues. The 'secrets' are required for map progression, and it's very easy to get stuck if the player misses the red key, passes the S and returns back to the courtyard - the door back into the courtyard is one-way, and the backpack area closes off. Gameplay is still uneven, large parts of the level are fairly empty, though I did like the ambush in the backpack area. Some of the monsters are rather poorly placed, however (there's no real reason to stand around and waste ammo on either of the barons in the cages, for example).

So, not great, but definitely much improved. Since it seems everyone else is already done with E2M2, I might as well keep up even though it's still the day before here in California...

E2M2: The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues
94% kills, no map secrets

The start of this map continues the improvement... better texturing, better angles, some nice curves (especially that teardrop 'E' room). The red key section is a horrible door maze that I actually found more amusing than anything else. Then the map sees the most sudden upswing of difficulty so far, with a huge amount of enemies thrown at the player behind the yellow door in a trapped, moving ceiling/floor area. The lack of health is also a big problem (there's one medpack in the next room, and that's it) and took me several reloads and using the chaingun as a bullet shield to get through. Unfortunately, that left me with only 25% health to tackle the ending, which features a wonderful trip into some damaging blood to open up. I find this to be very poor game design - if the player survives an encounter, they should be provided with the tools to survive the next one as well, they shouldn't suddenly find themselves unable to proceed in the next one just because they were too low after the last setup. I finally was able to trigger it and get back out with only 2% left, and clean up the monsters, but it wasn't fun. I also believe it's possible to get stuck in the yellow room if the player exits while the bridge is rising.

[dobu gabu maru]

E2M1: A very unorthodox opener. The little pit arena with the single crusher was perhaps the most creative idea I’ve seen in the wad so far, and it did get pretty hairy with all the Lost Souls around. Not much else besides that—it was a decent map.

E2M2: Wowee was this a pretty vicious pistol start map. There’s barely any health, a cruel outdoor nukage room, and a whole lot of imps to chew through with just your pistol. The door maze is way too lenient, handing you shells every other room, and then the map ends with a pretty nasty box trap and forcing the player to run through a damaging sector. I feel like if there was a little more balance between the drought of munitions and the design it’d be a fantastic map in ‘94, but so far it’s definitely rough around the edges.

[Salt-Man Z]

E2M2: The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues
100% everything. Holy crap, was this ever brutal (even on continuous). First I take a ton of damage, then I get outside and start running low on shells. By the time I made it to the bridge/ambush, I was down in Single Digits Health Land, which made things quite desperate (and forced me to replay that room a half dozen times--I eventually stayed in the turret and strafed back and forth cleaning out each side with my chaingun.) By the time I reached the exit area, I was at 16 health, which quickly disappeared (thanks mandatory lava walk!) Gah. Good map, though. I even liked the door maze. That opening outdoor area is one of the icon Trilogy areas, in my mind.

[Capellan]

Eternity 3
From a technical perspective, the vast difference between this and Serenity remains obvious. I did think the preponderance of green startan and green marble made the visuals a bit more homogenous than was wise, but we did get some areas of variation, and some attempts at interesting lighting.

This level also avoids some of the gameplay errors of the last one. It mostly eschews 64-wide corridors, and it’s pretty much free of helpless monsters for you to bushwhack.

This is not to say that it’s flawless, of course. The progression to find the blue key is pretty much ‘hump some walls’, especially if you start at the wrong end of the row of faces. On the plus side, once you do find it, it teleports you to what is probably the most fun area, since it has a mixture of roaming monsters and caged imps, and more roamers as you open areas up. There’s not enough opposition to really be dangerous (at least not on HMP) but does keep you pleasantly busy thanks to multiple angles of threat.

On the other hand, that area also buries you under a mountain of goodies that make the rest of the map child’s play. A situation that’s certainly not helped by the generally weak resistance to begin with. A caco and two imps is not exactly terrifying opposition when you return to get the yellow key, for instance. The end room is darn goofy, too. Apparently crushers were a lot more scary to the authors than they are to me.

With a bit more done to break up the long green walls, and more aggressive monster placement, this could have been a really good map. As it is, it’s merely decent, but still the best they’ve managed so far.

[Walter confetti]

e2m3: Oh my god look is the level from that imp screenshot on this very website! $ELLOUT!!1!1BOOH...

after this stupid digression we can return back to be serious: this map is a pretty nice map, is a techbase divided in three parts: A stone wall introduction area, filled at the start from toxic blood and random dark "secret" hallways (well, are marked as secret room), a green startan section divided from various locked doors and a hellish section after the blue key room (that actually made me wandering around in middle section of the map for a long time, after finding it in a secret door in one of the decorative hell faces).

Level look a little linear at the start, but from the startan becomes pretty nonlinear, btw there's a lots of hidden paths and shortcuts that lead you back to the saucy point, the locked doors section... gameplay isn't difficult like the earlier map (luckily!) thanks to a good usage of medium monsters and huge places that gives a idea of desolation... and the final crusher room is the most awesome thing i've seen!

Also the music is awesome, too bad the midi finish playing after one time you hear the track, leaving you in the silence...

[mouldy]

E2M2 - "The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues"

Oh dear, and it was going so well.. The smooth jazz soundtrack was maybe a clue to not take this map too seriously, and the quirky door maze was certainly amusing, but then came the broken bridge of bullshit. Cross the bridge and be trapped in a certain death crossfire. Escape from the trap and all kinds of stupid floor lowering/raising ensues. Survive that and cossing the bridge again causes it to completely fuck up with sectors rising to the ceiling for whatever reason. The only reliable method to avoid dying or breaking the map was to avoid the bridge altogether, jump off the side and use its lift action to get back up the other side, bypassing the trap. Do all that and your reward is to run around in damaging blood to activate the exit room, and hope you had enough health left to survive the hitscan assault. So many crimes against mapping, but I guess these were more forgiving times.

[Magnusblitz]

E2M3: Totally Crossed Out
100% kills, 7/7 secrets

I was worried when I came into this level with 22% health and immediate was greeted by blood and hitscanners, but one I managed to get some health back it's pretty easy. On its own merits, this is actually a pretty solid map, especially for 1994. It's blocky, sure, but there's a decent amount of architectural details to break things up and lots of nice lighting. The texturing is pretty good too... the STARG1 combined with the marble gets a little boring after awhile (and it doesn't help that the marble looks so much sharper than the STARG1) but it works for the most part. There's a LOT of 'hit switch, find what door it opened' but the non-obvious exploratory nature is fine with the level of opposition faced here. Couple points where I only backtracked because I had nothing else to do, though. The area that holds the red key has some nice combat with multiple angles of attack for the monsters (hurt a bit by one monster closet being too tight for the enemies). The crusher room is a bit odd and, much like last map, is probably the worst thing in it.