Evilution vs. Plutonia

[Little Faith]

Yes it's the overactive newbie Little Faith on the line again.

This time I would like to know if anyone other than me thinks that Evilution was cooler than Plutonia.

[Lüt]

Evilution had a lot of better points than Plutonia, but one thing about Plutonia was that its level design was quite consistent (consistently boring, but consistent nonetheless).

Some of the Evilution levels were crap, but the majority were better than Plutonia, in concept if not in actual design.

Also, I love how random water pools in Plutonia damage you while random Nukage doesn't.

[Fredrik]

both good

</compact spam>

[DooMBoy]

Evilution was 32 times better than Plutonia (32-one time for each level-32 times). The level design was for the most part interesting, whereas with Plutonia only 4 or 5 maps stand out as being good. Also, Evilution started off and ended with a nice sense of balance. It sarted off easy and difficulty gradually ramped as you went along. As for Plutonia, it started off hard and ended impossible. Well, nearly.
All in all, I love Evilution, I just like Plutonia.

[Little Faith]

I thought everyone would trash Evilution and praise Plutonia. I'm surprised!

Now it seems as though I have to defend Plutonia a little. At first those levels are damn beautiful if you give them time to seep in and some of the levels just got truly special mood (Map 23 for example).

Map01 is just really sweet and you have to love the new textures (I especially like the peat brick walls).

If you bother to play on lower skill levels the megawad is actually quite entertaining. Even for average doomers, and then you will also get your dooming skills sharpened a bit.


Actually some of the maps are quite easy if you approach them carefully.

My main gripe is that the megawad can be a bit monotonous at times. This might be an effect of the wad having been produced by two brothers. (The famous Casali Brothers). Of course map32 detracts from the score by basically being a Doom2 map01 ripoff with far too many monsters.


BTW, what are your favourite Evilution levels?

[Lüt]

Little Faith said:

BTW, what are your favourite Evilution levels?

It's been years since I even loaded that WAD, but I seem to remember Map09 being a standout, also the one with lots of STONE and LITE3, forget what number it was. It could be Map05, it had a big and dark outdoor grassy area somewhere in the center.

[Kid Airbag]

My favorite Evilution map is map 20 (I think). It's the one with the offices and the giant warehouse and the shipping area outside. There's a few good ones, though.

The only Plutonia map that really stands out in my mind is Map 26.

[Little Faith]

I have to correct you there Archvile64. The map you referred to was map19 (Shipping/Respawning). The main problem with that wad was that it was far too easy for a map 19. Though the idea with the truck was of older date the conveyor belt trick have been copied to numbness.

My fave maps are: Map14, Map18, map19, map20, map21 and map28.

Map14, Steel Works:
Prime Reason: Theme! This map shows that you are able to make a "realistic" facility without capitalising on the Doom spirit. I also liked to see basic former humans that actually mattered!

Map18, The Mill:
Prime reason: Mood! Those huge iron hallways with all their looming machinery. The music matched perfectly. It also satisfied my craving for big nonsensical machinery.

Map19, Shipping/Respawning:
Prime reason: Theme! A spoof wad, but a fine one. This wad is terribly let down by being far too easy. Yet it has atmosphere and all the tricks actually worked (besides the "respawner".

Map20, Central Processing:
Prime Reason: Grandness! The last in the "factory series" this one takes place in some underground tech-bace, no wait, overground starbase, eh, wait again, huge mining base, wait, stop, ultragargantuan leviathan building. The level never repeats itself. Yet everything seems bound together. It is like the level keeps unfolding itself with any turn you take.

Map21, Administration Center:
Prime Reason: Climatic ending! This level places you within this huge edifice of Doom2 Map27'ish strangeness. You seem to be in a relatively civilised building, yet just under the surface hellish anomy lurks. When you just thought you figured it out you are suddenly displaced to an equally huge (so it seems) building made of weird green organic material why you are being assaulted by a veritable army of imps, a cyberdemon and an untimely archvile.

Map28, Mount Pain:
Prime Reason: Closing Scene! Here you battle through a huge weird citadel of hell. Imps and chaingunners rushing down the hallways. Everywhere you go huge halls of hellish weirdness greet you. When you at last reach the outer battlements prepare for a great battle where the whole landscape seems to be turning upon you. The glowing mountain that gives the level its name spitting out an endless stream of lost souls. When you reach the exit take a short breather and have a look at the hellish landscape. This is how Mount Erebus (Doom's E3M6) should have looked.


The main problem with Evilution is the level progression. A good level progressin in my (and most other doomers') eyes is the levels becoming steadily wilder and wilder with a few subclimaxes before the text intermissions.

Evilution however sometimes put a far too easy level between some of the later one like shipping/respawning and Lunar Mining Base (map23). It also puts two climatic levels back to back once (Central Processing and Administration Center). Finally it wrecks it's own storyline logic: We start at research facility, then move on to a military industrial area, to finally enter a great hellish world. The Deepest Reaches (map 19), a hellish level, appers in the midst of the factory levels while Lunar Mining Base and The Quarry (map23 and map24), two industrial complexes are found along the hellish levels.

[Little Faith]

Memento Mori 2 is the megawad with the best level progression I have ever experienced. Only The Devil's Coterie (map 15) stood out as being a little bit harder than the levels around it.

[Fredrik]

I think either of Ultimate DOOM or DOOM2 is the megawad with the best level progression.

[DooMBoy]

Evilution-fave maps:
1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 12, and the rest of the game.
Plutonia-fave maps:
Dunno, haven't played it in a while.

[Kid Airbag]

Little Faith said:

Memento Mori 2 is the megawad with the best level progression I have ever experienced. Only The Devil's Coterie (map 15) stood out as being a little bit harder than the levels around it.

MM2 is quite possibly my favorite megawad of all time. The music was incredible, too.

[Little Faith]

Yup, better than original Doom2 maps.

/me dodges molten rocks thrown by angry cave troll.

[Fredrik]

Little Faith said:

Yup, better than original Doom2 maps.

/me dodges molten rocks thrown by angry cave troll.

Hmm...

No. DOOM (1) is better yet.

[pritch]

Evilution is the only choice. Plutonia is shite.

My favourite maps come in around 20, with Central Processing a big favourite still. I remember the first time I played that map, I was fairly sexually inexperienced at the time and it was almost orgasmic :P

[Little Faith]

Fredrik said:

Hmm...

No. DOOM (1) is better yet.

I agree with that. Though I still find E2M9 and E3M8 hard to justify.

[Fredrik]

Little Faith said:

I agree with that. Though I still find E2M9 and E3M8 hard to justify.

Yeah, you're right about those. Any newbie could've made a better map at a first attempt.

[Little Faith]

Hey, that was an idea to a map-making contest.

Make an E3M8 that actually served as the great climatic end of the three episodes. Of course it should fit into the Episode 3 theme.


Another could be making a Fortress of Mystery that was actually mysterious. It should still only be populated with barons and cacodemons.

[Little Faith]

Please, could anyone make a shoutout for Plutonia? It need it badly!

[Lüt]

Little Faith said:

Please, could anyone make a shoutout for Plutonia? It need it badly!

Heh, well if there was something worth shouting out for, I'm sure somebody would do it.

Still, I think their Inmost Dens-ripoff map looked nice. Totally unoriginal, but nice.

[Fredrik]

Plutonia rox!

[Erik]

Plutonia is way better than Evilution. I am not saying that Evilution is bad at all though, just that Plutonia is one of the best megawads ever (maybe the best ever)

[dsm]

Erik said:

Plutonia is way better than Evilution. I am not saying that Evilution is bad at all though, just that Plutonia is one of the best megawads ever (maybe the best ever)

MVAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pritch]

Erik said:

Plutonia is way better than Evilution. I am not saying that Evilution is bad at all though, just that Plutonia is one of the best megawads ever (maybe the best ever)

from a Vrackist like you, this is even more hilarious :)

[Erik]

I may make overdetailed maps, but when it comes down to playing I like small/medium sized, underdetailed maps with good layout and architecture (like doom e1 and plutonia). Also, the gameplay of plutonia is the best of any wadset ever.

[Liam]

Plutonia > Evilution

Although it did bother me how some of the maps in Plutonia looked like they were all made with none but a 32-sized grid.

[Lizardcommando]

Um, let's see.. in Plutonia, there are only a few good levels, which are MAP01, MAP11, MAP26, and MAP31. And there are some cool textures. For Evilution, there are alot of cool maps, some being MAP11 some other ones, which I forgot. There's new music in almost all of the levels... And uh, that's all I can think of... They both have their good points and bad points.

[Little Faith]

There are also some pretty lame maps in Evilution, like Map02 (though I admit the blue key secret is nifty on UV), Map03 (just boring), map15, map30 and map31 one the fizz gone off them.

Also map 23 is just too damn easy!

[cph]

Strangely I preferred Plutonia. From reading about the two I thought I would like Evilution more, so I played that first - while it has some really good levels, the quality is variable and some of the levels from around MAP20 onwards were so crap I didn't finish it. Just like Doom 2 in fact.

Plutonia is less subtle, more of a fun knockabout game with lots of heavyweight monsters and tons of health & ammo. The architecture stays good quality throughout, and there are some really nice features - e.g. the exit teleports, which are usually in view early on in the level and make a good target for the player, this is one of the best megawad style ideas I've seen.

OTOH the Plutonia gameplay style has been done much better since by Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta, which have better variety, so it's been eclipsed IMO. But I still think Evilution, like Doom 2 itself, had too much crap to be release worthy - where's the quality control when you need it.

[Little Faith]

The Plutonia exit teleporters rawx.