The DWmegawad Club plays: Serenity & Eternity & Infinity

[Zed]

OK, so I had some work and couldn't keep up with you. So, I'm posting two levels now, and two next time.

E3M7:

This one is a little difficult if you choose the hard way without finding the first secret with the plasma gun. Design looks more coherent compared to almost every other preceding map, and it's fun to play. Minor complains such as the stuck Cyberdemon, the fact that it's in a small cage in a small corridor, so if you don't find any secrets, it's very, very hard to bring down (fortunately, and as with practically all secrets in this set, they are very easy to find). Another thing is that, when fighting the Cybie I happened to find the "secret cage" with the teleporter. Then, when I finished the Spider and all the minor ones, I realized I have to kill also the Cyber. And there's no way back, so there we go again from the start. And the easy way is the same, just without the cages, which was a little disappointing, but it's not that bad. Overall, a good map, but that's it.

By the way, maybe that part where you have to choose inspired Kama Sutra MAP30?

E2M1:

I liked this one, and I had some sort of deja vu entering the first building. I liked the design and architecture, and while it's very simple, I liked the S room. But again, why put monsters in cages, where they are barely a threat? Especially that first Baron, it just seemed out of place there. And I just couldn't kill the Baron in the crusher room (the one in the upper room) because I had no more ammo and couldn't find my way up there. I think it's a better start than E3M1, I hope the next ones will just keep improving.

[dobu gabu maru]

E2M3: Pretty good map. The visuals actually impressed me the most, having some good lighting sectors and cool sprinkles of metal textures around certain corners, as well as a neat use of the green STARTAN with MARB textures & floors. And the way the map wrapped around itself was pretty smart. The enemy placement was all over the place though, with a lot of baddies facing very odd directions (or not seeing you at all), allowing you to get a couple of free shots in. Fun nevertheless.

[Demon of the Well]

Found a little time to get started on the second episode.

Eternity E2M1 -- From Here to Eternity - 99% Kills / 100% Secrets
A very memorable level, apparently....I haven't touched any of these three WADs in well over a decade, but I was able to remember this one almost step for step. As has been said by everyone else at this point, the quality of the craftsmanship here, from the purely aesthetic dimension to the nuts and bolts of the actual game scenarios, is far above anything that was found in Serenity. Aside from the music track being in poor taste (I've never played a PWAD where the Terminator theme sounded anything other than painfully awkward), the presentation/setting of the level is quite spiffy, with the loose church theme making for a nice segue into the new episode after the (even looser) church setting of E3M8. You can still tell this is a mid-90's work, of course--there are a lot of misalignments of varying degrees of obviousness, particularly on more complex constructs, and still a lot of orthogonal hallways and boxes at play--but the level of ambition on display in the structures and some of the detailing of the level's main attractions is obvious, truly well above-par for the majority of contemporary PWADs. In concert with Nathrath's continued attention to lighting (which was above-par for contemporary PWADs even in Serenity), it's a quite presentable setting, and it begins to establish a sort of sense of place, something that most of Serenity's maps were too minimalist/messy to accomplish.

While there has been some improvement in the combat as well, it does remain the level's (and the whole WAD's) weak point. The mindless 2D corridor-shooting that characterized so much of Serenity continues to play a prominent role here; while it is largely unchanged in nature, the more palatable surroundings in which it takes place do make it seem somewhat more tolerable, I suppose, at least in the short term. I also noticed far fewer crassly obviously monster-blocking shenanigans than in the previous episode, although perhaps I was just killing the monsters too fast from them to run up against them (the corridors are longer and the rooms larger than most of those in Serenity, on average). Others have already mentioned the pointless caged monsters as well; they contribute nothing other than an opportunity to misspend ammo, although in fairness a lot of 90s mappers seemed to have this fascination with monster menageries...maybe it was more a thrill back then because people didn't know the monster AI inside and out and liked having an opportunity to see them in action under controlled circumstances, I dunno. To give credit where it's due, however, we do see some experiments with more complex encounters here, ala the strange crusher-nexus room, which by 90s standards is a reasonable trap, especially when the lost souls pop out of the elevated closet in the corner (what's with the stupid Baron up there, though?).

There are other niggles--for example, you can break the map if you go back into the crusher-nexus after leaving it for the first time (the door into the general area is one-way, and the blockade that rises to seal you in on the first trip will prevent you from passing through on the return trip), and the closet of monsters behind the marble demonface in the church's chancel is highly ineffective because they're only deployed after the player has no call for actually encountering them--but nevertheless, writ large this is still a much more polished piece of work than almost anything in Serenity. Hopefully the trend continues.

Eternity E2M2 -- The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues - 100% Kills / No secrets
Don't mind the music here at all, actually. It's really more muzak than anything. Seems like it fits.

Much less aesthetically remarkable than E2M1 (more corridors, more boxes, a couple of yards--nothing too ugly, nothing very striking), this map's more notable for some of its gameplay concepts. The nonstandard pistol-start doesn't seem like a conscious design decision; seems more like Nathrath/Hermans just simply assumed that everyone would play through the episode continuously (which, in fairness, was really not an unreasonable assumption in those days, I suppose), which can make things a mite awkward in the early going, where shotsells are very scarce and there are bunches of imps and demons loitering around the joint. It's not really a real problem unless you've got no common sense, though....just save up a buffer of shells for the first couple of rooms (e.g. don't immediately use them on the pinkies/specters you can easily dodge in the ooze yard), and you'll be fine, especially since the early drought suddenly gives way to ammo-placement diarrhea in the door-maze, just a little ways down the road.

Ah, yes, the door-maze. What can I say? It's dementedly high-concept, and you either like it or you don't. I, personally, don't. It plays like shit unless you have exceedingly poor FPS reflexes, in which case you might theoretically get a monster that lives a few seconds too long opening a door and starting a cascade of other monsters opening other doors, but I reckon for most folks it will be an exceedingly dull series of spacebar/mouseclicks. I suppose I can see where someone might find the idea itself cute, though. The interesting thing here is that there's at least one one-time teleportation line near the end of the maze, which can be used by either the player or a monster. If you trigger it yourself it's probably just a stupid waste of your time unless you somehow made it that far without clearing most of the maze, but if a monster uses it they end up stumbling through the maze, opening door after door, trying to get to you. Maybe that would be an interesting scenario if it were a powerful monster (and if there weren't approximately 40,000 shotshells for the taking in the maze), but since it's probably just a lone shotgun guy or the like it's not exactly the most harrowing sequence in the world.

I will gladly give the authors credit for the checkpoint crossfire trap, though, nice to see them finally show some teeth (granted, they probably thought they were showing some teeth in previous levels in the trilogy, but....even by the standards of 1994, they're wrong)....SteveD should be pleased with all of the bullets and buckshot flying around here. If you come in wounded, you could very legitimately die here, even if you're a skilled player, so props to the authors for that. Fortunately, the chaingun in concert with some quick reflexes make an excellent remedy for the situation, as long as you've the presence of mind to aim for the sergeants first. Downhill pretty steeply again after this, though....the specters in the ooze are a pain in the butt to shoot, and then level ends with a nonsensical unshielded jog over some damage floor (this is another Doom taboo that doesn't actually offend me very much, but given the potentially heavy attrition factor of the checkpoint trap I think many players will have justifiable cause to be miffed at this particular decision) and a last perfunctory fight in a silly-looking boxroom.

All in all, this level's more miss than hit in terms of the way its ideas actually pan out, and it's not as engaging a setting as that of E2M1, but it's still generally more interesting than most of what was in E3.

[Capellan]

Warning: e2m4 breaks if played in prboom-plus with default compatibility. Make sure you are in complevel 2 (I've tested that and it worked).

[Capellan]

Eternity 4
As noted above, I had some issues with this glitching out in prboom+. I won’t hold that against the wad designers, obviously, as they couldn’t be expected to plan for the foibles of an engine that was yet to be created :)

I can, however, hold against the wad designers some of the other decisions in this level. For instance, this is the kind of map where it’s not good enough to just have a door you open directly. No, we have to have a walkover line somewhere else that opens an alcove with a switch that opens the door. Now it’s hardly the first or last level to do stuff like that, but it is more guilty than most of making the triggers rather obtuse. There are two walkover lines where the only thing to coax you toward them is ammo, for instance - and ammo is not something you’re likely to be struggling for on this map.

Which brings us to the second problem: as usual, the opposition is weak. A handful of troopers and imps aren’t going to scare anyone, and the few cacos around the place are largely stuck in areas where they can’t maneuver. Given that there are a couple of places where they could have been a nasty surprise, that’s pretty disappointing. You’re certainly given much more firepower than you need to deal with the enemies.

Looks wise, it is OK. A lot of BROWN1, which I quite like as a texture, but with other sub-sections in different styles. Alignment is so-so, especially on stairs, but nothing like the ugliness of e3m7.

Usual wonkiness of secret tags applies; there are three such sectors on the way to the BFG, for instance (though ironically, they don’t include the sector the BFG is actually in).

[7hm]

Slot: 2 3
Map: Totally Crossed Out
Author: Holger Nathrath, Bjorn Hermans
Notes:
Because of the damaging floor to start the level, this one was actually easier from pistol start than continuing my save (I died and just went with it). That's a bit of a fuck-you, but there's a radsuit right by the entrance so it's not too bad.

Gameplay is very "walk forward, shoot stuff". There aren't really any memorable moments in this one. Still, if this is the low point, I'll be about 100x happier with episode 2 than I was with episode 3.

------------------
Slot: 2 4
Map: Clear and Unpleasant Danger
Author: Holger Nathrath, Bjorn Hermans
Notes:
Not sure what to think about this one. I loved the exit fakeout, and I loved it even more when it teleported me back to the start. It was totally unexpected. Secret tagging the path to the exit was a little strange. The BFG secret was solid enough though - pretty obvious if you were looking at the automap, but easy to miss if you weren't. I think it would have been better if that secret door wasn't marked as such.

My biggest problem with the map is that it just wasn't hard at all. I think we're starting to really see the limitations of the Doom beastiary here. Barons are boooooring, but they're like the only punchy monsters available.

[Capellan]

7hm said:
I think we're starting to really see the limitations of the Doom beastiary here. Barons are boooooring, but they're like the only punchy monsters available.

You can do a lot more with the Doom bestiary than these maps are, though. The opening of CC2 map05 uses big waves of imps, sergeants and troopers and really puts pressure on, for instance. I played it last night, so it is fresh in my mind.

Or you can use lost souls to harass the player and get in the way so they can't dodge while other monsters pelt them.

Or you can unleash a flood of cacos. I love a good cacoflood.

The monster counts here are simply too low - and the architecture tends to be confined enough that it would be hard to add a whole lot more effectively - to be much of a challenge.

[Magnusblitz]

E2M4: Clear and Unpleasant Danger
97% kills, 14/14 secrets

Pretty meh on this one. There's some interesting rooms here and there, and the fake exit fight is pretty decent, but aside from that it's a pretty linear affair with lots of long hallways and little threat from the enemies. About 11 of the 'secrets' are just mis-tagged sectors, and there's some spots where the monster placement is really lacking due to block monster lines, or placing lost souls behind cages they can't cross through.

[scifista42]

E2M3 - "Totally Crossed Out"

Bad usage of secret-marked sectors and secrets in general, there was even a mandatory blue key in a secret closet. Gameplay wasn't specially thrilling, but okay. Visuals were as prehistoric as always, several areas look like the author wanted to spice them up (key locked doors, the marble hallway, metal borderline textures in marble areas) and somewhat successfully, actually. The nicest room was the 4-directional marble hub with side corridors and cages. But most of the map still looked bland (though better than how Serenity's maps looked on average). Crushers around the exit were interestingly used, the exit lift itself didn't appeal to me, though.

What's the music? I know it from some other famous wad, I believe, but can't remember. Either way, I like the music.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/5663619 = Serenity and Eternity playthrough. (continuous)

Well they both score 2.5 out of 5 from me, although Eternity showed some nice difficulty progression and fun challenge compared to Serenity.

While Serenity was a mostly peaceful walk in the park, Eternity was thankfully a tad more challenging with each map threatening at least one difficult encounter. Both wads showed some nice technical trickery, evil enemy placement at times and good use of barrels! Also ZAP THIS indeed. Too bad the final boss encounters on both wads sucked miserably.

I also kind of liked the 90's music, although it only played once before stopping altogether throughout Eternity annoyingly.

Decent stuff from 1995, basically. Hoping Infinity will be the best of the bunch!

[mouldy]

E2M3 - "Totally Crossed Out"

Starting off with a rad suit and damaging floor sets the speedy pace of this map. The enemies are mostly weak and there is tons of space to move around in, so you can rip through it as fast as you want, and there's plenty of health around if you need it. The music stopped working half way through, not sure why. Anyway, this was the most enjoyable map so far, no technical complaints other than a few stuck monsters, and the visuals are fairly decent. Good stuff.

The music sounds familiar to me too, i think its from a film.

[Steve D]

Capellan said:

Or you can unleash a flood of cacos. I love a good cacoflood.

May I suggest a nice, relaxing, UV play of Map25 in Mayhem2048? BTW, during Suitepee's playthrough, I did give you credit in the chat for introducing me to the joys of cacoswarms. Prior to MM2 Map15, I honestly never thought those things were worth a damn. My views have since changed . . . radically. ;D

[Walter confetti]

E2M4: Starting section doesn't attired me that much, with that bland brown square rooms, but for the remaining of the map is pretty normal, lots of rectangular rooms layout, little usage of enemies (plus a pair of barons for change of pace), few puzzles and a mandatory secret hallway for reach the exit. Meh. lowest of the pack so far.

@Scifista and mouldy: Song is "Das Boot" by Kraftwerk, a really cool techno track.

[Salt-Man Z]

E2M3: Totally Crossed Out
Awesome. First off, the music is fantastic. It does stop playing at one point, but after a stretch of silence it starts up again (in GZDoom, at least.) I started this map with 33 health, so I had to hustle to find the rad suit, then avoid hitscanners like the plague. On a whim (prompted by the "Why would you save?" thread) I decided to try playing through with no saves. I died once early on to a shotgunner, but then blitzed through the rest of the level. And oh, what a level! I love this one. For starters, it looks great. That big marble room is one of the iconic Trilogy visuals for me. And the red key room, as well, which (unless I'm mixing up my megawads--which is likely) also reminded me of something from STRAIN. Anyway, the weakest part of the map is the crusher-filled exit room; I think I got 100% kills just from seeing the piles of blood on the floor in that room (the barons were the only ones I had to finish off myself.) The exit lift/teleporter looked just like last map's, so I thought I would ride it up and see if the switch was above, but nope! teleporter! so I didn't get to finish secret/item hunting...

[Capellan]

SteveD said:
May I suggest a nice, relaxing, UV play of Map25 in Mayhem2048?

You can certainly *suggest* it :-)

I might do mayhem2048 after I finish cc2 actually.

[Demon of the Well]

Eternity E2M3 -- Totally Crossed Out - 98% Kills / 85% Secrets
Pretty much all I feel like doing here is ranting about the monster-blocking lines.....they pretty much singlehandedly ruin the map, which is a particular shame in this case because there are a number of areas here that might've played rather well in their absence. The area with the red key and the rocket launcher in a side-area comes to mind, and sort of underscores both parts of my point: you teleport blind into the middle of this area, and you are initially surrounded by enemies--they're weak enemies, granted, but there's a decent handful of them, and simply being surrounded puts the player under a significant degree of pressure, even if only momentarily....or it WOULD, were it not for the fact that the lion's share of the enemies are stuck behind blocking lines (as in the zombiemen in the shadowed recesses near the cages), which means they can be (or MUST be, really) picked off bit by bit at the player's leisure.

Oddly, this contrasts with the Baron and other malcontents knocking around in the aforementioned small side area with the rocket launcher--while these monsters are hindered by a solid barrier which can only be circumvented via a pair of narrow tunnels, their movement is not actually constrained by blocking lines, so if you get cocky and charge down one of the tunnels at the outset (like me), you can end up with the Baron or some other jerk circling around behind you while you're not looking. Not that this is terribly dangerous, of course, but this is the kind of thing where "the thought counts", especially where a WAD from 1994 is concerned. Given this inconsistency, I'm still struggling to determine whether I think these blocking lines are a conscious design decision or some kind of oversight...in the central yellow key area, there are monster-closets that open that the monsters can't actually leave due to blocking lines, which is so unspeakably daft that I lack the words to adequately articulate the depths of its daftness, and I wonder how it could've been missed during playtesting....and yet, this kind of thing is just so prevalent in this whole collection of maps that it's hard to believe that it's all unintentional. No, someone must've really thought a lot of this was a good idea, and I....well, I just don't get it.

That whole issue aside, the level simply offers more of the episode's characteristic schtick, if that's your thing--there are amusing concept-pieces, like the crusher room beyond the 'R' or the briefly interesting blood-wading bit at the very beginning, some very serviceable visuals, with a clean-looking texture scheme of marble and concrete (a much more polished take on the theme from Serenity's E3M4, perhaps), and continued attention to lighting effects. Cool music track, too (this one's been reused a few times since), although it doesn't loop properly.

[Memfis]

walter confalonieri said:

@Scifista and mouldy: Song is "Das Boot" by Kraftwerk, a really cool techno track.

Correction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwc0shJ2aYc

[scifista42]

E2M4 - "Clear & Unpleasant Danger"

Clearly the unpleasant danger was the broken exit. Playing in Zandronum, I couldn't find any way to eventually open the EXITEXITEXIT-textured door. Until that point, the map flowed okay. The nukage part was kind of challenging, and even the last ambush before the exit was well done IMO. Overall principle stays the same: Bland and ugly parts mixed with nicer looking parts, mostly basic combat with many opportunities to skip the monsters (specially those in cages or behind bars), therefore inefficient challenge - but still quite well playable. Except the exit. I also couldn't get most of the map's secrets due to an impossibility of backtracking.

[Capellan]

scifista42 said:
Clearly the unpleasant danger was the broken exit.

The unpleasant danger is apparently modern ports, which process certain linedef types differently to vanilla. I did post a warning about that after it happened to me, but I guess you didn't see it :)

[mouldy]

walter confalonieri said:

@Scifista and mouldy: Song is "Das Boot" by Kraftwerk, a really cool techno track.

aha, i recognised it from the film

[scifista42]

Capellan said:

The unpleasant danger is apparently modern ports, which process certain linedef types differently to vanilla. I did post a warning about that after it happened to me, but I guess you didn't see it :)

To be honest, I saw your warning before I've played, and only decided to take it into account during my playthrough instead of changing compatibility settings or the port. So I've basically spoilt the game for myself (which I still don't see as a big deal) and I don't really have the right to complain, true.

[Never_Again]

E2M3 - "Totally Crossed Out"

This track has a biiig (2min+) chunk of silence at the end, that's why the music appears to stop. It doesn't stop, it just takes a couple of minutes to resume. Same problem with D_E2M7, only the silence is shorter. There's a fixed ETERMUS.WAD with silence edited out on both tracks, get it from eternm1_na.zip on DSDA. As a bonus you get to watch four of the levels done on Nightmare, including the oh-so-easy E2M4. :P


As Memfis correctly pointed out, D_E2M3 is not Kraftwerk. It's Das Boot (1991) by another German act, U96. Thought I'd spell it out as Memfis only gave a YouTube link. This is not the original version, either; the original is Main Theme from Klaus Doldinger's score of the eponymous 1981 film. IMO, the epic original is greatly superior to U96's cover; I find the "Orchestra Hit" synths and stupid vocoder samples of the latter quite annoying. Anyway, you can listen and hear for yourself:

[Never_Again]

Capellan said:

Warning: e2m4 breaks if played in prboom-plus with default compatibility. Make sure you are in complevel 2 (I've tested that and it worked).

True, "-complevel 2" will work, although it's debatable whether this complevel is appropriate here. The standard complevel for DOOM1 WADs is "3" (Ultimate DOOM), with "2" (Registered DOOM v1.9/DOOM2 v1.9) reserved for a handful of cases where UDOOM compat breaks the level, the most notable examples being UAC_DEAD and NUKEMINE E1M8 (the latter being broken on the lower skill levels only).

It doesn't matter, of course, whether you use "2" or "3" here if you're not recording; but that's not the point of this post. What I'd like to draw everyone's attention to is the "with default compatibility" part.

That's a potential source of confusion to prB+ users. I presume what you meant is "default_compatibility_level" from usage.txt, which equates "Current Prboom-plus" compat and currently translates to "-complevel 17".

This is not a vanilla complevel and should not be used with vanilla and limit-removing WADs. It is a MBF compat mode with all the accompanying (undesirable) changes, some of which date back to Boom, to the physics and gameplay. Some of these changes can be toggled on and off via Setup/DOOM Compatibility menu. When the items there are set to YES the engine emulates the corresponding vanilla behavior; so I suppose that setting some of them to NO is what breaks E2M4 in the so-called "default compatibility" mode.
The name itself, "default compatibility", is a misnomer and an unfortunate legacy of the old Prboom (without the plus). In Prboom-plus's .cfg file there's a user-set "default_compatibility_level" (accessible from menu since v2.5.1.2). Its value is used when no complevel is specified via command line. The user should set it to one of the following, as appropriate:

• 2 DOOM2 v1.9 and Registered DOOM v1.9
  
• 3 Ultimate DOOM and Doom95
  
• 4 Final DOOM
  
• 9 Boom

The only cases where "-complevel 17 (AKA "Current Prboom-plus") is appropriate are

• the map requires Boom or MBF compat but you want to change certain options to be closer to vanilla (e.g. you're not happy with Boom allowing live monsters to be knocked off high ledges and platforms)
  
• the map is supposed to be vanilla-compatible or limit-removing but is broken on vanilla complevels due to Boomisms/Zdoomisms. This is the opposite of the current case, with Armadosia MAP07 being a notable example.

TL;DR:
- Do NOT use "-complevel 17 (AKA "Current Prboom-plus") unless you have a good reason to
- Use one of the standard complevels instead.

[Capellan]

Eternity 5
This level starts with damaging water. Always an eye-roller for me. It also loses points for the return of the 64-wide corridors, and the overly cutesy means of activating the lift that gets you into the area where you find the blue key. If I hadn’t made sure I was on complevel 2, I might have thought I’d glitched it up again.

There’s generally not much to shout about here. It’s essentially a hub spoke, mostly in COMPBLUE. Not terrible, but blocky and a bit bland, looks wise, and with even blander gameplay.

I did kind of like the section behind the blue door (despite the damaging water there). It’s obvious what’s going to happen there, but it’s not a bad way to make a secret rad suit a nice power up (you’d have to book it back there after grabbing it, though).

Required “secrets” (for certain loose definitions of the term) and the usual undergunned opposition also give the level black marks, though they’re pretty much expected at this point. It’s the 5th map of the episode, guys! You can use more than one caco at a time. Though given all the chokepoints, it probably wouldn’t actually help that much since they’d just get stuck.

As an added note, having looked at the maps 1-5 in DB2, I am amused by what the authors considered to be deathmatch support :-)

[dobu gabu maru]

Capellan said:

I might do mayhem2048 after I finish cc2 actually.

I definitely recommend a HNTR playthrough as some of the later maps can be very rough.

E2M4: I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of these “no health/no chaingun/forced damaging sectors” maps. Admittedly this one is the least harsh of these types of maps, and actually has some pretty good traps (like the false exit). I also liked having to open a door and hit the switch on the opposite face of the door, and the little secret path at the end of the map. It’s those kind of lawless design choices that make the ‘94 era so free-spirited and intriguing (as well as unplayable at times)

[Never_Again]

Capellan said:

You can do a lot more with the Doom bestiary than these maps are, though. The opening of CC2 map05 uses big waves of imps, sergeants and troopers and really puts pressure on, for instance.

You don't even need big waves. Smart monster placement, tight ammo/health/armor control and carefully engineered enviroment (i.e. all-in-all, quality over quantity) can greatly spice up gameplay while keeping the opposition's numbers low. Most of SUDTiC's nine levels' population is under 150, yet the intensity of the gameplay places it closer to the much later Plutonia than ETERNITY (which it actually predates by several months!).
T_DUNN01 by our very own traversd is an even more striking example: none of the levels have more than 200 monsters, with the toughest (E2M4) actually fielding less than a hundred.
So yes, the DOOM1 bestiary is limited, but it's not the size, it's how you use it.


Another interesting tidbit about E2M3:

ETERNITY.TXT sez:
IF YOU USE DOOM 1.2 OR LOWER, RUN ETERNITY WITH THE ETERWITH.BAT. IF YOU USE 1.666, USE THE ETERNONE.BAT WHICH DOESN'T INCLUDE MUSIC!

New Music : Yes (Doom 1.2 and earlier only 8-( ... (Doom 1.666 crashes on level 3 when you play it WITH the new music...)

Indeed v1.666 freezes at about 35 seconds into D_E2M3, with the music stuck on the track's note last played. This only affects OPL playback; if you select General MIDI there is no crash; presumably, GUS is not affected either. Paul "The sound dork" Radek strikes again.

[scifista42]

E2M5 - "Through The Eye Of The Needle"

This wad used coherent texturing in a relatively very good way, IMO. Architecture and fights still suck, though. At least at the beginning it was an interesting challenge due to lack of health. I've run below 2% HP, and only survived thanks to a secret Soulsphere and everything was okay from that point on. By the way, usage of secret sectors still seems way too immature, while the plasmagun secret isn't marked at all, the Soulsphere secret has 15 secret-flagged sectors in total! The "zig-zag" walkway behind blue door (and the fight there) seemed as it could have been pretty interesting in 1994, though a too simple setup for nowadays, but I liked it for its simplicity. Similarly with the piece of furniture with a red skull key. These are the bits of successful effort put in this map that I can see. Plus the thematic consistency, which I've mentioned before and which I've enjoyed.

[Magnusblitz]

E2M5: Through The Eye of the Needle
98% kills, 17/17 secrets

Well, this map is certainly very blue... also, Eye of the Tiger? Man, this is WAD truly is a repository of "which MIDIs are the most popular to use on a 1994 webpage" music choices. This one is very othogonal, unfortunately, and also has quite a few thin corridors, though thankfully none of them are really maze-y. There's the standard secret mis-taggings and poorly placed monsters (didn't bother taking out the ammo-sink barons at the end, for example). Feel fairly standard and non-offensive.

[Capellan]

Never_Again said:
Smart monster placement, tight ammo/health/armor control and carefully engineered enviroment (i.e. all-in-all, quality over quantity) can greatly spice up gameplay

Sure. But with the exception of the bridge trap in e2m2, neither Serenity nor Eternity has indicated the slightest understanding of how to do that :)

[Walter confetti]

E2M5: Nice map, again a rectangular kind of linear layout, but instead of been like the previous map it have better organization of theme (it looks like a blue and brown version of Deimos Lab), level itself isn't too bad, just pleasant looking... Gameplay as wrote before is straightforward, there's a pair of cool tricks like the hidden window that reveals at your passage on the red door hallway or that bridge after the yellow door that at a first glance looks like a 3D bridge (at least for me), but there's also that annoying door trick on REDWALL1 living room (plus a fake fireplace that doesn't burn when you pass it.. and you found secret porno dungeon with imps in prision. Eh, kinky demons!).

Anyway not bad, just a pleasant stroll in hell, with our midi that finsh after one play like e2m3. Fantastic.