The DWmegawad Club plays: ConC.E.R.Ned & Draft Excluder

[Steve D]

cannonball said:

The one thing which strikes me now is how easy many of the traps are to simply avoid. I think these days I would have been a bit smarter in trapping the player and forcing them to slog it out a bit.

Which is why I use a lot more locked-room traps these days. A decent mix of those plus monster-floods when players can't conveniently escape should do the trick, along with some player-hostile architecture here and there. The player is the enemy, after all. ;)

I'm also keeping an eye out for Suitepee if he streams today or tomorrow. I might be able to make it if so.

[Magnusblitz]

Yeah, locked room traps (especially with really tall doors that slooowly open) are a very 'modern' mapping trope but a useful one for precisely this reason.

E2M3: Hydrophonic Facility
100% kills, 4/4 secrets

Plenty to shoot at in this level, and weapons/ammo are given out pretty fast and furious, compared to last level. Actually died at the start, lots of room to take shots from all directions with lots of windows and enemies in close quarters while trying to find a gun. After clearing out the area, a bit of exploring to find the tools to take down the Spider - having both the blur sphere and plasma gun make it trivial, though (and gave me some time to run in circles while waiting for the barriers to open). Another lot of enemies in the second section of the map. Didn't have trouble with the yellow key ambush - very easy to just retreat back to the teleporter building and use the rocket launcher in the chokepoint. The invuln secret is overkill, basically. I do like entering the infirmary at the end, nice little level-to-level continuation there. There's a bit more verticality in this map, though it's limited to two areas.

[Tristan]

E2M2: Logistics
| Kills: 150/150 | Items: 52/52 | Secrets: 3/3 | Time: 12:46 | Deaths: 0 |

It's been a while since I used stopmus in single-player, but I couldn't listen to that for more than about 30 seconds >:(

This map isn't cannonball's finest hour. Overall, I found the gameplay to be pretty boring, with the crate maze being the worst part. On the other hand, it would have been far worse had the berserk pack not been present, as berserk can provide at least some fun in simple combat situations. I don't feel it saved the map though.

There were some cool things in the map's visuals though, like the massive crack in the floor near the yellow key, and I also thought the outdoor area looked particularly nice, the low light levels fit the E2 sky perfectly, which also looks quite nice, don't think I saw it in E2M1. It reminds me a bit of a painting of the Venusian surface I saw recently.

5/10

[Memfis]

e2m3 - I like the "garden" look of the first area, very cool. Spider mastermind seemed almost pointless. I somehow missed the plasmagun so dealing with some barons was a bit boring. But I found a god sphere so I was able to shoot rockets at monsters up close. :D I always do that when I get invulnerability: can't resist even though it probably doesn't really help. Overall the level seemed to lack some character perhaps.

[Capellan]

e2m3
The opening fight of this level – at least when you choose to run north and alert a surprisingly large number of enemies, as I did – and the yellow key fight are pretty much the only sequences that are likely to get the blood pumping. It's pretty easy to negate the latter by seizing one of the corridors into the area and raining rockets down it, though.

The rest of the level is pretty simple stuff: you wander along a corridor, shooting monsters as they appear in front of you or at windows on either side. Occasionally there are crossfires, but nothing very tough to deal with. There's also a near-harmless Spiderdemon who you can trivially camp to death. I took about 20 damage dealing with him, but if I could have been bothered to exercise more care it would have been none.

Looks and layout-wise the map's not too bad. Vines and cement definitely put me in mind of the IWAD e2. There's more use of height again, which is good. Still, this is a curiously toothless affair after the menace of the two maps previous to it.

[Sui Generis]

E2M3 - "Hydrophonic Facility"
This map makes extensive use of the E2 vine textures and does the job well I think. The gameplay is mostly straightforward close-quarter shooting, but two ambushes are more notable. In both, you can run away (as with the ambushes in other levels) but the first one has the benefit of the rest of the level still being populated, which means you run into more monsters and have to work a bit to make the area comfortable without losing too much health to sergeants. The second ambush takes place when most of the rest of the level is vacant and can be trivialised by running down the corridor towards the start area. Arguably I'm spoiling the map for myself here by not playing how cannonball presumably intended, but then again I want to minimise damage to myself as I'm playing continuous. The mastermind serves purely as a gameplay speed-bump because it's a one-on-one encounter with decent cover. It only takes time because it has boss monster level health to whittle down. Without any other supporting monsters to make the cover less safe, this is not an exciting encounter.

While this level is decent overall, I think that the middle areas are a touch mediocre in terms of gameplay - the monsters that aren't used in a trap, are pretty much entirely encountered at short-range and at the same height as you. There's little variation of distances and heights that fights take place in throughout the middle portion of this map. It's slightly reminiscent of E1M4, with the windows aswell.

Incidentally, I assume the map name is a typo and should be 'Hydroponic'? I can't see any underwater microphones :P

EDIT: I replayed from pistol start, and yeah depending on where you run to from that first fight, you can end up waking up much of the rest of the level which makes it more entertaining. If more of the designs were like that, that could be good.

EDIT2: I forgot to mention the music for this level is from Requiem Map12 - one of my least favourites in that wad. My thanks to Cannonball for creating a competent level for this, so I can mentally erase the bad map association of that track.

[Capellan]

cannonball said:

The one thing which strikes me now is how easy many of the traps are to simply avoid.

I'm firmly of the opinion that sometimes traps should be avoidable - reward the player for alertness/quick reactions. Also, "oh look, I'm trapped again" gets kinda wearisome as a design trope, IMO.

[Sui Generis]

Capellan said:

I'm firmly of the opinion that sometimes traps should be avoidable - reward the player for alertness/quick reactions. Also, "oh look, I'm trapped again" gets kinda wearisome as a design trope, IMO.

Yes, I think it can be ok to have space to run to or an obvious camping spot, provided that there are more monsters placed there so as to make the safer spot require a bit more work to exploit. The first fight of E2M3 as I mentioned in my comments above, would seem to be a good example.

[mouldy]

E2M2 - "Logistics"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/w1cad0cwe54218g/concern-e2m2-mouldy.lmp

This feels like more of a continuation of the previous episode than the last map, with more of a real-world setting and a sense that something is going on in this base besides monsters hiding in cupboards. I like all the little touches like the road and the room with the crack running across it. And of course there had to be a crate maze, which wasn't much of a maze I guess even though I still managed to get a bit lost in it. Some of the traps are now casting monsters in an ever wider net to catch cowardly players like me. Had fun rocketing cacos in the final battle, after my first failed attempt where I got trapped in the switch crevice and managed to rocket myself in the face.

E2M3 - "Hydrophonic Facility"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/098k04zkgrl4r0z/concern-e2m3-mouldy.lmp

Another nicely non-linear layout, with lots of side-rooms to explore. This one had a bit of a hectic scramble at the start, but on the whole it felt more forgiving than i expected it to, particularly the blue and yellow key traps. The sound of the mastermind filled me with dread at the beginning, but the actual fight was painless. The yellow key ambush had a moment of nastiness when I jumped down into a crowd of bad guys, but otherwise this was a more chilled out map for me than the previous 2.

[cannonball]

E2M3 - "Hydrophonic Facility"
This felt very easy this time around and yeah the mastermind is barely a problem in this map too. The visuals look decent throughout though the northern wing (yk area) could have done with a bit more variation in the height levels than the two distinct levels on show here. I guess I still had not done many organic looking environments which shows in this locale. Draft excluder addresses this somewhat though and nowadays I am more comfortable with rocky environments I think.
Whilst bagging all the secrets, I omitted taking the invulnerability, a rocket against a spectre brought me close to death but other than that even the big ambushes were simply to handle. The combat is a little straightforward here which I think makes the gameplay easier, the hardest part is probably the start as there are multiple angles of attack which can cause players to run into more trouble.

[dobu gabu maru]

SteveD said:

Which is why I use a lot more locked-room traps these days.

This is a bit tricky because it's such a direct way to get the player to engage with the encounter that they may feel it's cheap or forced. I find it best to somehow make exiting the encounter "ill advised", like using monsters to block the exit or placing a ton of damaging sectors/crushers in the hallway leading out. Also lifts and teleports work more naturally than just closing a door behind them, though sometimes you gotta use a door every now and then. It can be quite a puzzling conundrum trying to figure out how to incentivize someone to stay in a battle—some players really just want to run at the slightest sniff of danger.

E2M3: Ha, I just realized that this is the exit room from E2M2—nice touch!… though we’re oddly missing a door here. Anyway, let’s talk about the hitscanner's best friend—windows! Windows are great. This map is full of windows, ergo, the map is pretty great. It’s also helped out by having a lot of rooms to explore, a great balance of ammo, and the chance to snag a PG for a sudden Mastermind ambush… though it’s not too hard to hide from the bulky lug. Past the blue key door the big white mountain is a bit less impressive, as some quick legwork around it can reduce the fight to a circle strafe marathon, especially when it’s repeated for a second time. But you can definitely see Powell tinkering around with better layout and monster placement here, and it’s leagues above almost all of E1.

[Steve D]

dobu gabu maru said:

This is a bit tricky because it's such a direct way to get the player to engage with the encounter that they may feel it's cheap or forced. I find it best to somehow make exiting the encounter "ill advised", like using monsters to block the exit or placing a ton of damaging sectors/crushers in the hallway leading out. Also lifts and teleports work more naturally than just closing a door behind them, though sometimes you gotta use a door every now and then. It can be quite a puzzling conundrum trying to figure out how to incentivize someone to stay in a battle—some players really just want to run at the slightest sniff of danger.

The crusher technique for bottlenecking the player is something we'll see from cannonball as well later on, IIRC. I still like locked rooms, although I prefer to use rising floors or descending bars rather than doors. IMO, doors must be openable at all times unless they are key doors. If an area requires a non-opening door, I prefer to use bars instead.

Locked rooms are still okay by me as long as they're not overused. I like the sense of menace they convey when a player is in a large room and presented with either a switch or a goodie, and no monsters visible, then the room closes and they know the shit's gonna hit the fan and the only way out is through. And after all, "the only way out is through" is what Doom's all about, right? ;D

And then there's always the old reliable "leap of faith," too. The war against campers is never-ending and must be conducted without mercy! ;) Then again, if someone stuffs me in a tiny room with Barons or Archies, they probably won't earn a spot on my Christmas card list . . .

[Pirx]

e2m3 -

lovely wood + vine texturing, and music from requiem (there are a few maps which use those tracks). a somewhat rough start, because of the crossfire. i was worried about getting enough shells in the beginning, then found the berserk pack which solved the problem of demons eating ammo. cleared the rl area. the most dangerous enemies, again, were the sergeants. shooting the spider with plasma while having invis + soulsphere was a joke. now, a cyber and invis would have been different.

[TheOrganGrinder]

E2M3: Hydrophonic Facility

Should that be Hydroponic Facility or is this really a techbase dedicated to the production and use of underwater microphones?

Anyway, moving on, I definitely enjoyed this level. The crossfire at the start is a good example of how to construct an encounter that exaggerates its own threat to the player; there's enough cover and enough room to move around that avoiding damage is mostly a matter of being careful and not freaking out, but the constant incoming fire from every direction is tailored to cause exactly the sort of panic that's counterproductive. The blue key section is nicely dramatic with its generous provision of weapons and ammo warning the player that something big is coming - you can't hand the player a plasma gun and a giant pile of rockets without tipping your hand that a boss monster or half a dozen Barons of Hell are only a teleport linedef away.

Where I feel the map falls down a bit is the bottleneck that the blue bar corridor provides. Both during the player's first foray into that area and during the teleport ambush after picking up the yellow key, it's all too easy to hang back in the initial crossfire room and pound the monsters with rockets as they squeeze through the bottleneck; the ambush is actually made easier than the initial foray because of this, since all the monsters are walking down the one path and they don't have shotgun snipers to chip away at your health.

I'm definitely liking episode 2 so far. :)

[Steve D]

E1M3 – The Cleanser – Kills – 100, Items – 86, Secret – 80. End Health – 171, Armor 180. Death Count – 1

This is a cool map. I really like the look of it, with that opening reminiscent of a much expanded Phobos Lab. The light levels were perfectly chosen to complement the textures.

My only death occurred right at the start, because I played like a jagoff and forgot that I had a Chainsaw, so instead of using that, I was plinking away at demons with my pistol until I got swarmed and ran into a mass of Imps and hitscanners. Face-palm! ;D

Thus chastened, I had no problem after that, though I still had fun. Traps were telegraphed like nobody's business, especially that RL trap. So natch, I positioned myself facing the door and ran for it. Cannonball made an attempt to put a backstop in there with a teleporting Caco, but that puppy needed reinforcements flanking from each side and farther away, because once you're out of the RL room, it's clean-up time. BTW, in the combat before grabbing the RL, the combo of Sergeants and Lost Souls was very good and took me down quite a bit.

Another cool area was the Tekwall piston room. Yeah, a square room, but I like the decorations.

I found the Blue Armor and Soulsphere secrets, which made me happy.

Even though I enjoyed the look and play of the map, the new version looks aces. This map seems to lend itself to the open floorplan approach.

One thing's for sure, this map floats on an ocean of ammo. It's almost like it was done by a different designer than some of the other maps in this set. This was much to my benefit, because I found the secret exit, and I always play continuously into that map when I do, so I went into into Atomsmasher armed to the teeth with 302 bullets, 100 shells, 3 rockets and 20 cells.


E1M9 – Atomsmasher – Kills – 100, Items – 98, Secret – 50. End Health – 100, Armor 200. Death Count – Zero

Oh, such larks! This was a madcap adventure of blasting the shit out of hopelessly outgunned monsters. First a little whiz through the outer ring with chaingun blazing, then a little dip into the central area for some ring-around-the-rosie rocketing fun, then back to the outer ring to rocket all those pesky overhead Imps. Thanks for the barrels up there, mate! ;) Then a little sequence of telegraphed traps to grab the keys. Was happy to have rockets for those damned Barons. Then back to the central area to grab the PG and blast away at the horde.

I took some damage here and there, partly because sometimes it was more convenient to take a hit in order to land a shot, but this was really a Sunday stroll, albeit with heavy ordnance. The new version looks more involving, though I do notice a use of Compwerd panels as switches in the revised maps, and that might be a little bothersome.

Even though this map was incredibly easy, I still had fun, and once again, it looked very nice.


E2M3 – Hydrophonic Facility – Kills – 100, Items – 83, Secret – 50. End Health – 100, Armor 114. Death Count – 2

Allow me to whine that this was my 6th map of the day, and I was very tired because it was late, so I played like a big-time jagoff. My first death was legit because I ran into a swarm of enemies in the north fork guarding a rocket launcher and got shotgunned to death while dodging Cacos. Nice pressure, there. On my next try I ran to the south and was about to get killed again thanks to traffic in the hall plus hitscanners firing through windows like Dobu mentioned, when I remembered that the easy way to win is to go into the first room, kill everything there, and start to take out everything sequentially. This worked, but I kept playing like a total doofus. For example, I didn't take the stairs to the north to grab all the overhead goodies until I'd already killed everything. D'oh! Also, being a total chickenshit and fearing a trap, I didn't hit the switch that lowers the PG platform until after I'd killed the Mastermind with shells, rockets and bullets. Imbecile! But my final act of hopeless jagoffery was the way I died after getting the yellow key. Like an idiot, I allowed myself to get stuffed up near the teleport room to the yellow key platform, shooting rockets and plasma down the stairs until the plasma ran out and I had to back away from the meat. I ducked into the teleporter room and did some peek-a-boo dodging from behind a column, rocketing away at the Barons and Imps and Pinkies until I finally zigged when I should have zagged and got slimed to death. Afterwhich, I said to myself, “Dude, you could have teleported out of there.” D'oh! Face-palm!

After dying, I finally remembered that the best way to handle this fight is to go out the way I came in and chokepoint the monsters at the blue bars position, like TheOrganGrinder said. Worked like a charm on the first try.

All that said, and with allowances made for my excessive foolishness, this was another fun map, with lots of monsters to kill. I liked the odd-angled hallways to north and south and the texture work was excellent throughout. Nice work.

[Capellan]

e2m4
From a pistol start – unless you find the secret plasma gun, and there's no extra ammo for that, either – you'll spend the first third of this map relying on your Tyson skills. That's thankfully not required for continuous play, though I did break out the chainsaw a fair bit to deal with the many imps and demons who were wandering around.

When you finally get the shotgun the tempo picks up a bit, but this is a very linear corridor-shooter of a level: there's essentially only ever one way forward, and the monsters tend to obligingly line up in front of you to get shot. This is more or less true even in the teleport ambushes and monster closets: they're telegraphed so obviously you'd have to be playing with your eyes shut not to pick them, and it's very easy to run off a short distance and then pelt them as they lumber after you.

Like e2m3, this is tepid stuff on continuous: the first part probably has a lot more teeth if you're pistol starting, and ammo would be tight overall. Hope you like Tyson play, I guess.

[scifista42]

E2M3 - "Hydrophonic Facility"

Another map where 99% of the layout and detail looked like it could have been easily generated by automated algorithms, which is not a good thing. The map looked good, though. Gameplay and balance were OK, better than ConC.E.R.Ned E1 later maps. Finding a safe place at the beginning required taking a longer path than usual, but it has proven to be very easy anyway. Then I could just gradually explore the rooms and everything, which I actually enjoyed enough to feel positively about the map. However, the final yellow key ambush featured too many monsters, and they couldn't stop me from rushing to the exit, anyway.

[Sui Generis]

E2M4 - "Infirmary"
This is a surprisingly quiet level coming after E2M3 - the monster population is smaller, the teleport in traps are much gentler and there are fewer crossfire situations (like the start of E2M3). There's also little heavy ammo provided, particularly early on. A berserk is available at the start and a secret plasma gun is present, but beyond this you're down to small arms to deal with the earlier barons. (I played continuous so it wasn't an issue).

Because of the gentler initial gameplay, I expected a really nasty trap at the yellow key but it was not to be. A few barons and some low-level monsters teleport in one room, but you can very easily drop off the walkway and go into the next room, resulting in a linear chase through several chokepoints. The only trap that causes much damage is the close-quarters dual sergeant closets, which are easily anticipated but easy to take a lot of damage to anyway. The area containing the secret soulsphere features an expansive, nice exterior that I assumed would house a big final battle, but again no such luck. How strange.

I suppose this map is ok as a cool down level. Again I think it got the E2 feeling down well - it just needs to be a bit more open and less corridor-ish.

EDIT: just replayed from pistol start and to correct myself, there aren't any heavy weapons/ammo in the first portions of this level, beyond the secret plasma. This level makes most sense on pistol start as a tyson map.

There is little incentive on pistol start not to just run past the early barons rather than fight them, particularly the ones that teleport in after the switch in the marble section.

[mouldy]

E2M4 - "Infirmary"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/5dpwo7v42s0sg8p/concern-e2m4-mouldy.lmp

I felt bad walking all over those poor dudes lying in their hospital beds, and then killing all the demons who were presumably nursing them back to health. A lot of barons patrolling the wards, they do a good job of being annoying to deal with and non-threatening enough to leave behind, and then they sneak up on you an shoot you in the back. Again this map felt more easy-going than it could have been, but when the surroundings have a story to tell I'm not bothered about that. Starting to feel the grind of killing barons with shotgun though..

[Surreily]

I'm back for more action! I played through another three maps, and it's looking like episode 2 is off to a nice start!

E2M1: Collider Anomaly - 100% kills, 100% secrets
Damn, I had a hard time staying alive here. I died multiple times, mostly because of the very limited health and those damn shotgunners everywhere! Despite that, it was a fun little intro map, looks really nice, though that secret (you know the one) could have been a little less frustrating to find (especially since the item concealed within is pretty much useless).

E2M2: Logistics - 100% kills, 100% secrets
This one I really like. The areas are well detailed, and each one is unique. It even has a crate maze, just like the real E2M2! It felt great to get not only the chaingun, but also the rocket launcher back - I feel ready for anything now! The massive teleporter ambush at the end was pretty obvious (mainly because I was keeping an eye on the monster count on the automap), but it was a blast to end their lives with my shiny new rocket launcher! A really fun and solid map.

E2M3: Hydrophonic Facility - 100% kills, 100% secrets
This felt like a filler map to me. Other than the first area where monsters attack from all sides (which was pretty cool), there weren't really any notable encounters. Even the spider mastermind was really easy thanks to the many pillars in the room. The map does look nice, and reminded me of the original E2M3's opening area with the vines. Fantastic use of the transparent vine textures in the final area!

In my opinion, E2M1 should have been a bit easier while E2M3 should have been slightly more challenging. I'm also getting a little concerned (no, this is not a reference to the title) that many more of the maps will use the 'find the keys and bring them to the start' formula, which is beginning to become tiresome. Thankfully, I have seen fewer of the ridiculously obvious traps showing up, so that's a good thing! My favourite map so far (out of all of them) is E2M2 - let's hope it gets better! Also, I am beginning to wonder if these maps were designed to correlate with the official Doom maps, as they share certain features (E2M1's brick walls, E2M2's crate maze, E2M3's vine texture usage).

[Magnusblitz]

E2M4: Infirmary
100% kills, 2/2 secrets

This one is a bit of a change of pace. From pistol start it's a berserk-heavy affair until about halfway through to the blue key, when the player is able to get the shotgun, chaingun and RL all in short order (and either has the secret plasma gun or will quickly get one in the next area). There's good use of the setpiece ambushes here as well - it's a linear affair, but getting the blue key requires backtracking, and I liked the setups here (baron + lost souls on the corpses, demons in the opening room) more than the ones in say, E1M5 (which was just 'teleport a bunch of monsters in'). Of course, that's also exactly what the yellow key trap is.

Unfortunately, none of the combat is really threatening - most of the teleporting monsters come in decently far away from the player, and there's always plenty of room to navigate around the barons. A nice creepy track, but the level is generally well-lit and non-threatening enough that it's a bit undermined.

[dobu gabu maru]

SteveD said:

The war against campers is never-ending and must be conducted without mercy!

Agreed—it's like they play Doom to purposely not have fun.

E2M4: Some punch-happy action is a nice change of pace; as a keyboard player, it’s always a bit risky to tango with some barons. The SG is given in the… stone morgue? down below, and I think it’s a shame there isn’t a bigger encounter here as the layout is absolutely ripe for one. The upstairs portion of the map is one that’s unfortunately plagued with barons in hallways that allow for easy dodging, so it drags on a bit too long and doesn’t leave much of an impression by the end.

[Capellan]

dobu gabu maru said:

Agreed—it's like they play Doom to purposely not have fun.

Or that they find fun in different things. I mean heck, if we accept that there are people who genuinely enjoy WoW, anything is possible :)

[Memfis]

e2m4 - video

[scifista42]

E2M4 - "Infirmary"

Unfortunately and since the very start room, all of the corridors in this map made me cringe "Computer generated!" again. Details like furniture, coffins and outdoor scenery helped to remove the feeling. On the other hand, they were copy-pasted maybe too much.

Most of the gameplay was OK, though. The latter half of the map lacked health, which was annoying, but also somewhat challenging. The certain trap with 6 sergeants (2 of which teleported behind me) took me a while to handle, as I've had to enter it with 26% health only. However, the very final monster spam was cheap and inefficient again.

Generic and average map for the most part, but not terrible at all.

[cannonball]

E2M4 - "Infirmary"
Yeah this one is a bit too straightforward I think now, the berserk punching isn't that taxing and the barons can definitely be skipped. I still think the coffins and the lost souls is a nice touch to give the impression that the souls of the dead have come back to haunt you, again though this area could have been designed better. The rest of the map is too corridor-y for it's own good and again the barons are not the best opponent to shove into the mix. In fact the deadliest trap is the rather random shot-gunner ambush which to fill you full of holes in a split second.
Died once near the start because an imp managed to activate the noclip cheat (the bastard) so I ended up punching through his face into thin air whilst I got ripped to shreds.

[scifista42]

cannonball said:

E2M4 - "Infirmary"
I still think the coffins and the lost souls is a nice touch to give the impression that the souls of the dead have come back to haunt you, again though this area could have been designed better.

I agree, it's a good moment from an atmospheric perspective, but the way how they are lined up in a row and also extremely easy to avoid, that spoils the moment, IMO.

[TheOrganGrinder]

E2M4: Infirmary

After the spider mastermind fight and large ambush of the previous level, what we're treated to here is more of an atmospheric and intimate corridor crawler with lots of situations where swarms of imps and shotgun guys are able to get right up in your face. The layout neatly divides the map into west (unkeyed) and and east (blue key) wings, the west wing being a haunted morgue and cellar of green marble while the east wing is still more technological in nature, though even here flesh, skin, and other hellish intrusions and starting to make themselves evident. Lots of points for atmosphere, though the action was a bit tame for the most part.

I'm playing these levels continuously so didn't precisely have a problem, but I had a definite sense that ammo for most weapons was far from abundant here, which is a bit of a surprise considering that there are no small number of Barons of Hell amidst the map's bestiary. Maybe a third secret delivering a significant ammo cache would make an appropriate reward for the sharp-eyed player?

[Capellan]

e2m5
Now this is more like it – a big, mean, snarly level that wants to kill you and then jump up and down on your remains until you're just a smear on the floor.

The 'big central area with spurs around the outside' theme is used again here, but it's amped up and writ large, with two extra subsections courtesy of the central teleporters and a whole lotta aggro in every one. Sergeants as always are there to keep up the attrition-based pressure while large herds of demons and barons provide the meat of the resistance. There are regular sections where such monsters provide cover for the hitscanners, which is a nasty little trick of which I thoroughly approve.

It's a nice looking level with plenty of interconnections, windows and height variety. Texturing is quite diverse, with the main part of the level being more or less what I would expect of e2, while the teleport destinations give us a taste of e1 and e3, as signified by the gates which lead to them. Quite a nice idea, that one.

I also liked the numbered switches for the secret exit – a good way to give the player some clues as to their progress.

A strong recovery after the underwhelming efforts of the last two levels. My only complaint is the presence of another one-use secret.

[Steve D]

E1M4 – Withering Gardens – Kills – 100, Items – 97, Secret – 100. End Health – 100, Armor 170. Death Count – Zero

Nice hectic start. I was running around like crazy sidestepping Pinkies and Spectres and Imps while fleeing the dangerous Sergeants. Adam has said that Sergeants are the most dangerous monsters in Doom, by which I reckon he means Doom 1 and not Doom 2, and this map is a good example of that. With no Revvie rockets, no Archie ranged attacks, and so on, Sergeants command the field. After I ducked inside a building, I managed to start thinning the platoons of bald guys as well as the Pinky meat walls that almost hemmed me in long enough to finish me off. As I went through the map, I kept thinking how nice it would be to have a Zerk or Chainsaw so I didn't have to shotgun all these Pinkies to death.

Once I found the Blue Armor and the Chaingun, the map was over. By which I mean, nothing but clean-up after that. And since I found these items rather early, the map felt very front-loaded, which is a common problem in many maps but especially Doom 1, it seems, based on my experience.

As in previous levels, the big traps are well-telegraphed and easily defused. Once again, the main problem is not so much that they're telegraphed, or even that the player is not locked-in, but that there wasn't enough depth, which is to say, layers, where monsters spawn in at different points along the player's escape route. With deep traps, the player can be injured even while running away, though it does raise the question of how well the initial batch of monsters can pursue, or whether they'll just become tedious clean-up, but these issues can be dealt with. As it stands, this map offers easy escapes which allow the player to turn when ready and hose the monsters down as they approach a choke point.

The map is nice-looking as usual, although the key doors had their indicating textures cut-off at the bottom in almost every case.

Even though this was a relatively easy killing spree, it still made me move and turn, so I had fun.



E2M4 – Infirmary – Kills – 97, Items – 71, Secret – 0. End Health – 61, Armor 89. Death Count – 2

Keyboarders love Tyson maps! And we love them even more when they have lots of Barons in them. ;D

This wasn't too bad, really. Nice atmospheric opening room with the glowing inverted crosses. Side-step the lumbrous Baron, grab the Zerk and then go on an Imp-smacking spree. Managed to die in the deep, dark warrens when I ran right past the shotgun and decided to go toe-to-toe with the Caco and Imps. Next try, I grabbed the shotty and survived, and achieved great satisfaction by leaving 2 Barons stuck down there. Yeah, there was no chance I'd go back to take them out at the end, either. I have appointments to keep! ;D

The Lost Souls rising from the infirmary beds was cool, but the set-up made it easy to duck behind a wall and let them infight, afterwhich I picked off the stragglers. I then proceeded to grab some more goodies, including the Chaingun and Rocket Launcher, and then through the blue door I go.

This area had much more action, with lots of openings allowing easy pursuit by the monsters. I had to run around like crazy and do more Baron-dodging to get the Plasma Gun. Then I went upstairs and woke up another Baron plus his Caco buddy, which led to me trolling for an infight, and then I went to the bars and got blasted by a Sergeant, which dropped me to 34% health. This is notable because only after this did I go to the confounded switch that unleashed, IMO, the best trap in the megawad so far, the infamous Sergeant Sandwich, where I died like a dog! ;D Well, just once. The next time I was ready with my trusty Chaingun, only took 1 or 2 glancing hits, and after grabbing the stimpack I was back up to 34%.

Now it was time to unleash the big yellow key trap, which I quite enjoyed. I got most of the Barons with plasma and rocketed the rest. Most of the small fry died from infighting, and aside from an Imp that got in the way of a rocket meant for a Baron, all I had left was 1 Spectre, and it was very satisfying to punch him out.

Overall, I enjoyed the map. It's funny to think that when I first played it, I was on continuous and had way more trouble than I did this time. I do remember some of the tricks and traps, which helped, but I reckon I've actually improved a little over time. Had I come into this map on continuous with the nice store of ammo I had at the end of E2M3, I probably would have been bored silly over how easily I dispensed with all the critters. What's really funny is that the reason I had so much trouble when playtesting was because I sucked so bad I barely had any ammo left after the first 3 maps!

That said, I still live in fear of what's to come . . . ;)