The DWmegawad Club plays: Speed of Doom

[Spectre01]

Since club activity is so slow, nobody will notice me posting a day ahead.

 

MAP28 - “Twilight Massacre” by Darkwave0000

 

<- Get a load of this guy: Complains about demo recording and makes another one. Well, maybe somebody will find it mildly amusing as it demonstrates what not to do while playing this map on a couple of near-death occasions. Is there a good way of taking screenshots while recording anyway?

 

This is one of the more (in)famous Speedo Doom maps, depending on who you ask, as it's a full blown BFG spam slaughtermap. "But Riley (not my name), what about map32?" Well, map32 forced you to equally balance using the Rocket Launcher and BFG as there were not enough cells to spam down the entire map. Darkwave lists Scythe 2 map28 as an inspiration (you know the one with the silly Nightwish midi and a hundred Revenants running down the stairs) and this one plays very much like it. Only that map had just over 300 enemies and this one's got nearly 10x that amount. "Nearly 3k monsters?! What is this, Slaughterfest 99x9 or something?" Well, this map's actually on par with Darkwave's other slaughtery stuff in the set in regards to difficulty. I've seen people saying it's the hardest map and all that and it's really not unless you're very new to slaughter. It's low on that FDA pelt count that @rdwpa posted compared to maps 27 and 29 that it's sandwiched between. There are a few reasons as to why it's not particularly hardcore, and certainly easier than Joshy's Pyramid. There's basically infinite BFG ammo and tons of Megaspheres all over the place along with miles of Hellscape to run a marathon in. This map is absolutely huge, probably too big for its own good, and runs about as well as Hellbound map29. I played it in Zandronum way back and sub 30 FPS is not fun. GLBoom+ even struggles to maintain consistent frames in a few locations. This is because of the nearly 30k sidedefs here and the fact that your view is rarely blocked by solid/deleted sectors. I personally prefer the map11 remix in Resurgence due to its more reasonable scale and performance while maintaining the gameplay and main idea here.

 

Getting back to the actual gameplay, there is a secret in the starting room which gives you other weapons with full ammo, but you only really need the BFG (although I did rocket some Souls). It also takes the "sandbox" aspect of map26 and expands it further, offering you 3 distinct starting locations at opposite ends of the map and never restricting your freedom through surprise lock-ins. I always take the portal to the right of the secret tunnel and obliterate the tower area first, probably because I saw that in a demo or something. Once you're out on the main island you can run around a pop-in all the enemy hordes. Waking everything up usually results in around 1k enemies dying without you firing a shot, which I always found amusing. Speaking of enemies, the threatening stuff like Viles and Revenants are quite restrained here and only show up in a few places. The biggest threat comes from Cyberdemon rockets flying all over the place, and my two failed attempts were due to them. The general rules of: 1) Don't get stuck on monsters. 2) Don't get stuck on terrain or fall off the island. And 3) Don't eat Cyberdemon rockets apply here as there are few other ways of dying aside from not watching your health/ammo and doing silly stuff. The large central tower with the exit also bears special attention as there are enough Viles to chain-fry you if you happen to alert enough of them. Nearly happened to me in my demo so don't do that. If you retreat and let them spread out slightly or get distracted by the Cyberdemons it's much safer to take them out. Happy BFG spamming!

sod28_S01_UVMax.zip

[rehelekretep]

im changing my vote to

 

+++ Urania

 

ive also edited my original post; im not sure what the convention is? dont count it twice! (unless you want to :p)

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP27 Hais Temple

 

Among the most menacing stewboy midis, and apparently the longest he made at the time (probably not anymore, there's probably a track on BTSX that's longer). It's flute is at a low-tone and then the rest of the music gets in at just the right point. Love it.

 

But this level? Not really. It's better than Poison Ivy II by a long shot though, with a decent opening. But once I reach that central room, there's literally nowhere to hide. My concentration gets easily skewed in this room due to the mancubi being, as usual, nasty, but also homing rockets from side skeletons, and the worst part, the two windowed rooms to the sides with arch-viles inside both. Arch-viles are the LAST enemy that should be used as a sniper, well other than the demon, but we know that.

 

So yes, screw that middle room and everything around it, I'd rather deal with the stuff at the key spots. The blue key area sucks in the beginning, mostly because you'll be firing rockets straight at the crowd of imps there. Once that's cleared, make the mad dash past the cyber, find your strategy for the cave section, and it actually isn't bad. The red key section is a lot easier once the arachnotrons get cleared out. The biggest danger there is losing your patience killing ledge monsters, as well as the cyberdemons who are just in awful spots. Those two keys really help for returning to the start of the central room (did I mention this thing closes behind you when you enter the central hall? Fuck that.) because the wall can be lowered for two secrets. I decide to save that lovely invulnerability for the cybers that show up once I unlock the yellow key, makes it so much better. The final manc wave is thankfully not as bad either, and endgame is a breeze. On onset, this one certainly will rough up the feathers, especially with the entire central room. Clear out the biggest annoyances, and the key rooms, use what you can, and it should actually be survivable. Now see you at Twilight Massacre.

[HIB]

+++ New Gothic Movement 2 and Deus Vult 2

 

[gaspe]

MAP27: Worst level of the wad. The start until you enter the temple is bad, but still better than the rest probably. The monsters for how they are confined and used end to be roadblocks on your front (the cybers were the worst). While the central area with all the crossfire seems to promote a more campy and slow cleanup. This was really bad.

[Demtor]

 

MAP27 - “Hais Temple” by Joshy

gzDoom - UV – pistol start

 

Hmm, ominous looking start with a pretty gnarly looking upside down lava flow.

 

Ugh, that beginning though. Not sure about all that. Oh… there we go. This wad… * SMH *

 

Not a single secret found. Huh. Not sure where I went wrong but it was a lot of frantic running, trying not to die so maybe that had something to do with why I wasn’t looking hard enough. Hope I didn’t miss anything cool while I spent half the time on this level in the fucking save/load UI.

 

The inverse lava flows are really quite something. Very cool looking stuff I don't think I've seen before. It's too bad this couldn't have been used on a better map. Most of this is not that much fun and the end scramble for the YK between 4 Cyberdemons and a shit ton of everything else, is ridiculous. Not a fan of encounters that almost require you to find the secret IV sphere. 

 

The best and most fun area was that BK section. I used the imps as a meat shield from the Cyberdemon while running back and forth trying to thin down the oncoming aerial attack from below. Then once things have calmed a little bit, I dashed across to deal with what was left of the Mancs and Revs that I wasn't able to rocket snipe from afar while the Cyberdemon was still up on his platform firing randomly at everything. That was one hell of a hectic blood bath.

 

Everything else in this map was a bit of an annoying slog, especially the main hub area. You move any direction and chances are your taking a projectile to the head. Blah. The AV’s in the corner were a bit much too. Yes you get a BFG then but if you don't save it for the Cyberdemons later... good luck.

 

The music might be the best part of this map. Stewboy lists "CC4 Map30, Zelda Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple and much more" as his inspiration and it's entitled Fall of the Kingdom. Here, listen again if you couldn't before. 

 

 

The brooding drums along with the dark bass line and the eerie flute in the background. Beautiful. Things get kicking after a minute but I think the 3:10 mark is my favorite part with the keys.

[galileo31dos01]

9 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

This is why I don't understand your reason to vote for Urania, when instead you can have some nice slaughter every time by playing NG2 and DV2. ;-)

Oh that's because I like slaughter from time to time, and I prefer infightings and there is a lot in Urania too. Plus, I vote for it because I'm not participating next month. 

[Nine Inch Heels]

Changed my vote...

 

[NecrumWarrior]

Urania is love, Urania is life. 

 

Also, fuck Map27! 

[NecrumWarrior]

MAP27: Hais Temple

 

This map was a piece of cake! Firing rockets up Cyberdemon buttholes, casually strolling past Arachnotrons, giving Arch-Viles gigantic hugs, it was great! Collect two cool keys to unlock an ugly yellow one. Okay, I'm down. Only took me a few minutes. More Cyberdemons? nbd, I'll just go hit the switches to I can say hi to the Arachnotron Mother that's so fat she can't even walk down a hallway in Doom. OH SNAP! Burn! Blast some more uglies in the face and walk to the teleporter like a badass. Hell yeah.

 

 

 

 

 

...Oh, btw I used Degreelessness mode.

[dobu gabu maru]

5 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

ive also edited my original post; im not sure what the convention is? dont count it twice! (unless you want to :p)

Please don't edit original posts—I just keep counting from whatever my last tally was, and if I see something that says "I changed my vote to ___" and then I go back to check the original post, I need to tell what you changed it from (or at least state in your post what you changed it from). It does help if I'm counting from the very beginning though... so actually, I'm not sure what my preferred convention is :P

 

NG2&DV2 is at 5 votes, Urania is at 9

 

--------

 

MAP12: Another decent outing from Darkwave. The big crusher is the MVP encounter of the map—besides that, not much else stands out. All of the AV scuffles are pretty fun (and a few are quite tricky if you’re not close to cover) and I like that the finale takes place at the bottom of the standing towers, though the fight itself was a cakewalk.

 

MAP13: Man, these Joshy maps without armor are a real nasty experience. The sergeant warp-in kept me at low health for the rest of the map and the lack of ammo at the end made the AV fight really tense (I finished with 8 bullets remaining!) That said, I do appreciate the map somewhat, as the traps are dirty and dangerous, forcing the player to react quickly without the need to shove an HK in their face (the pit with the specters is a good “fair” ambush). I think the hitscanner flood is obnoxious even with the HKs there to soak up the damage, but the map does let you get wild and push out into places like the YK area if you’ve got the balls to play like a fool. Not too bad, but the insta-pop-ups and lack of proper armor in Joshy’s maps continue to wear on me.

 

(I looked back through the thread to make sure I wasn’t being too much of a baby and was glad to see people agreeing with my sentiment. RIP @Demtor’s no-save sanity)

 

MAP14: Screw subdued atmosphere, let’s have ourselves a party! “Sledge” is a pretty rad slaughtery-map that has you zippin’ around some curvy overgrowth, blastin’ fools left and right with the SSG. I got sloppy/unobservant a number of times and ate quite a few deaths, but it was all in good fun—I think this kind of free-wheelin’, no-nonsense gameplay is a good shot in the arm for the player, especially because a number of previous maps were starting to feel fairly similar in style. This one was a rambunctious map that’s impossible to hate. Also this:

 

 

Is a really awesome structure. Shame the fight here was comically simple; Darkwave was either uninspired or clearly wanted to tease the player.

 

MAP15: Hey, it’s getting better! The start of this map is in line with the "hot starts" of prior Joshy maps, but there’s a bit more space to move around and it’s not too often you see arachnatrons used as a space-denial mechanic! The rest of the map is also nonlinear (which we haven’t seen too much of in Speed of Doom) and has mostly serviceable gameplay (also three green armors! W O W!). The staircase in the southeast wing makes that entire area awkward to fight through, but other than that the map was alright.

 

MAP31: One of my favorite midis from stewboy <3 

 

Oh man this ticks all my boxes. Cool, consistent, weird setting? Check. High tier weapons as the only weapons? Check. Big open asymmetrical slaughter arenas? Check. Using only enemies with cybernetic implants? Uh… I don’t think that’s one of my boxes… but I’ll list it as a “check” anyway. This is a really frantic, fun map that’s actually way easier than the opening & boxy revenant area might suggest, since there’s ample room to move around foes and get some good circle-strafing loops going. Plenty of ammo too! I like everything this map has going for it but the difficulty of MAP15 was way more my style, so it’d be a tough choice to decide which I like more—both are good showings from Darkwave!

 

MAP32: Whooo boy this was a trial. Joshy does his best Hell Revealed impression here, throwing a gazillion baddies into a cramped space and basically flipping the middle finger at the player right from the word “GO” (GO2IT? more like GO2HELL amirite? [is GO2HELL.WAD a thing?]). While there were a lot of dobu pelts collected over the course of the map as I tried to get a lay of the land and figure out the intended progression, everything paled in comparison to the encounter at the top of the map. That fight man… that was difficult. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to grab the invul so I basically had to save spam until I got an AV jump to it, and then by that time in the map the flying balloons were surrounding me and raising all hell. None of it was annoying I’d say—that battle was just a really strict fight you had to work out the strategy for in-between deaths. Thinking back on it, I actually had more fun here than dying from hitscanner potshots in a number of other Joshy maps, so I’d say this has been one of Joshy’s strongest so far. It’s quite a brick wall in terms of difficulty—especially after the lax ride of MAP31—but I approve of all the gameplay choices here. Good work.

 

MAP16: Damn. Between the interesting concept, gorgeous visuals, energetic midi, and big ol’ monster bloodbath at the subterranean core of this unnamed facility, this map had all the makings of a top 5 of the wad. But then… there’s the gameplay. There’s no real danger at any point in this map, sans the AV ambush if you don’t see it coming—all the combat sequences at the core are really just routine circle strafing exercises. The warps occur in the middle of the “track”, ammo is supplied in abundance, weapons are easy to grab, and the one time the slow moving enemies that can block your progress are used, you’re given the BFG to tear through them with. This is probably a lot more fun and satisfying for more casual players that hate stuff like MAP32, but I needed a few more scratches in order to feel sated; the part of the map that killed me the most was repeatedly exploring the inescapable nukage. Shame.

 

MAP17: A lot of… unnecessary speed bumps in this map. The mancs near the start slow down the gameplay as you fight them with the SSG, the PEs and cacos after the RL only serve as a minor nuisance, and the triple AV outlook in the lava cave is a shooting gallery that's hungry for rockets. Besides that, this is still better than the E1 stuff, but this map in no way stands out or makes a strong impression; honestly, this feels like a speedmap that was spruced up.

 

Also I totally forgot to note how much I appreciate the mappers handing the player weapons/berserk/backpack at the start of each level to ensure the combat stays lively—I think that’s a relatively unspoken but brilliant design choice that gives Speed of Doom its unique, action-packed flavor.

 

MAP18: I have no real idea why, but I died here in this map more than any other map thus far. Sloppy play? Bad RNG? Difficult design? Who knows. What I do know is that I loved this map. Not in a SteveD way where it beat me into submission and now I must worship it, but because the texture choices, layout, and encounters were all great. At first I was skeptical about the block monster lines around each den but it kept me from adequately circle strafing around all my problems, forcing me to pick targets and run… I ate most of my deaths here from stray manc fire and generally being careless. And even when I carved out a section and went to pilfer the goodies inside, an AV would emerge to thwart my efforts, pushing me back out into the dangerous open field.

 

After slowly carving my way through that section inch by inch, I was surprised to find that the map branched into quite a few paths. Luckily I went down the BFG route first and found the RK to be a surprisingly easy get, though ironically the equally simple dual cyber fight gave me a crazy amount of trouble, likely because I was trying to rush the 2-shot on each of the cybs. Then I threw myself at that crazy AV rush down in the blood a couple of times to find that to be a dead end, and then proceeded to get shot up in the crate area since I was out of shells and needed to constantly backpedal to use my RL in close quarters. The finale by comparison is a wash—I really don’t think the invul is necessary—but the clever design of the rest of the map and the nonlinearity both propel it to my favorite slot. That, and I will always love VINE textures in combination with SILVER/SHAWN.

[rehelekretep]

map24 fda

forgive my trashy play - my mouse hand has suddenly decided to desert me and make everything i do feel awful, especially trying to play games. oh well.

this was a lovely atmospheric contrast to m23; i really did enjoy this; you could approach any of the keys first, but i think YK-BK-RK is probably best so that you have the BFG in case of emergencies (and to kill that cyber!). speaking of which, its a shame you cant just stay behind the cyber, wait till the doors open and the provoke some infighting - he comes straight to attention, even with his back facing you. missed opportunity there!

the only complaint would be the honeycomb effect meaning that sometimes you bob up and down in front of AVs if youre not completely certain of your surroundings, the YK arena seems particularly annoying for this; and the aforementioned honeycomb means prboom makes you a bit slide-y at times, not so fun against the cybers. of course you can avoid this by not chickening out and running away but i didnt want to be in a cyber club sandwich so no thx bye.

Edited May 9, 2017 by rehelekretep

[Varis Alpha]

speaking of Hais Temple, isn't part of the melody at the beginning from a module track that was in Massmouth 2? i instantly recognized it when that part was playing.

 

also while i'm at it, anyone else noticed the Heretic track in Twilight Massacre is slower than the original track? i guess it must've been fudged up in a conversion process at some point.

[galileo31dos01]

Totally off topic but, how can I upload a GIF and don't get the "There was a problem processing the uploaded file. -200" error? Or why do I get this error with every gif?

[Paul977]

Map 27

 

Not so dickish as I expected. Ofc this is a rather irritating map thanks to the crossfire in the principal hub where you can't see the enemy shots due to the low brightness (I partially solved that issue with hardware render and a good resolution), althought the most dickery part has been the four cybers where I happen to die two times after 25-30 minutes of playthrough... In my successful attempt I used the invuln and slammed them.

Overall this level is not so bad supposed you know where to go and what to do (for me RK->BK->invul->cybers->win): every part of the map can be methodically cleaned and you can take your time freely (my 'first exit' was 35:xx).

For the visuals departement I follow the bandwagon of 'the subverted lavafalls are cool' otherwise I'm not a big fan of gothic castles of this kind (anyway I can see the effort of the author in what is probably the best looking map of the set from him).

 

Next map, the 28, I completed some time ago and not gonna replay again. It's a big gigantic map with near 3000 monsters to slam with the BFG, beautiful to watch, not my cup of tea to play. I'll attempt map 29 even though I have a bad feeling since I read that it is the hardest map of the set.

 

Edited April 27, 2017 by Paul977

[baja blast rd.]

Not really in the mood to finish m26-m30 on schedule, since I've been feeling like playing other stuff lately, and also mapping. I guess I'll use the break month most of us are voting for to fill in some write-ups.

 

Dobu, someone should make a Python script to tally up votes for you, although I can easily envision that being unwieldy. 

 

10 votes for Plutonia

8 votes for Back to Basics + Italo Doom 

...

3 votes for Suspended in Dusk

1 vote for Suspended in Duskis one of my favorite mapsets of all time, an atmospheric tour de force by Espi that combines cool visuals and sleek polish to bring one of the best experiences in Doom you can envision. It's only four maps long so we should probably play it alongside something else, or probably two other things. 

 

1 hour ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Totally off topic but, how can I upload a GIF and don't get the "There was a problem processing the uploaded file. -200" error? Or why do I get this error with every gif?

I just use http://imgur.com/ to upload/rehost gifs, which also has the benefit of not eating into your 20 mb attachment limit, which you can easily reach in a handful of gifs.

[galileo31dos01]

MAP27: Time: 1:43:57

You know, this map was not that bad. Well, not that dickish like Paul977 said. It started with some pick ups, and a sudden imps ambush, ok. The next part... I'm going to say it directly, fuck that part. I wasted so many attempts to find the best possible way to get out alive. With all those revefuckinants and like no cover to be clear, I ended up using my rocket launcher. Sometimes I try to follow the intentions of the mapper as if I'm playing as pistol starter. I just couldn't this time. Anyway, more enemies, more imps, etc, entering to an extremely dark corridor that leaded to an even darker temple. I saw rockets coming to me, and some that hit some barons, who were useless because they couldn't hit those revenants. "That should be fun" I thought... But, no. First of all, I hated the fact that the megasphere was mandatory, because I didn't need it, and I know that other players may have appreciated it but in my opinion it should have been placed a little further so one could choose to grab it or not. Ok then with all those instapop enemies I run away to the right side (the RK part), and tried to off the spiders and annoying snipers. Same with the cyberdemons. Flipped a couple of switches, then another switch, headed to the red skull, killed the flying balls, and proceeded to the OMG I'M GETTING BURNED NONONONO BOOOOOM *dead*. FUCK those archviles, ugh!... Yeah, I spent most of the time idealizing methods to clear the middle area, like sitting there and waiting for more deaths:

Spoiler

So seeing that they were all just shooting in vain, I had to intercede. One by one, first the stupid useless barons, then the archviles, finally the revenants. Oh I also killed the mancubus from the left side (BK side) before. Finally some success!! Plus I could grab more ammo. The new opened wall showing tons of enemies was amazing, mainly because everyone was against the cyberdemon lol. Still he came out alive, but with just a few plasma cells he died in a second. And finally I saw some armor, I felt like it was lacking. Anyway, proceeded to the cave, killed everyone there, grabbed the BK, went back to the central area, flipped the switches, released around 4 or 5 cyberdemons and cacodemons, killed them all easily (am I the only one who found them easy to deal?), grabbed the YK, flipped the switches, released mancubus, killed them, killed the SMM, then the archviles, and bye bye. 

Found 3/3 secrets, there was one that could only be seen via automap. The other two are very hard to see, they require good observation:

Spoiler

To be honest, I saw the megasphere purely by chance, as well as the other sphere that could have been so helpful before...

This wasn't a very enjoyable map, although there were some pleasant moments. I liked the temple a lot, and the midi is very catchy.  

EDIT: There was a Commander Keen which I forgot to mention, but really don't know the purpose. If someone knows please share!

Edited April 28, 2017 by galileo31dos01

[Ribbiks]

2 hours ago, rdwpa said:

8 votes for Back to Basics + Italo Doom 

 

lol, please yes. I wanna set the record for lowest participation rate.

 

not like it matters at this point, but I'll:

 

+++ NG2 + DV2

[dobu gabu maru]

4 hours ago, rdwpa said:

Dobu, someone should make a Python script to tally up votes for you, although I can easily envision that being unwieldy.

You don't know how much I'd appreciate that. Counting votes may seem relatively minor but it's just one of those small nuisances that's never fun to do, especially since I want to make sure I don't screw up somewhere. I would love for an application to just look at the thread and find all the "+++"s for me.

 

MAP19: Not too shabby! Joshy continues the wildly overgrown facility trend that Darkwave established and constructs a pretty good map around it, filled to the brim with pesky snipers that are likely to get a few hits off on the player. There’s still a bit too much meat which makes it so the player can't play through the map speedily (at least on casual play), but we’re still heading in the right direction of balancing tough-as-nails gameplay with smooth, uninterrupted gameplay. The map from the YK door onwards has a pretty great balance of enemies, munitions, and health placement.

 

MAP20: This was a really great map. The start seems easy enough since you can just circle strafe around all those fools but it’ll soon dawn on you that you don’t have enough shells to finish off the imp horde, forcing you to release the archvile and plunge deeper into the hellish outpost. The theme of this map is essentially “piss everything off” as you madly dash around in search of ammunition, a handful of archviles likely to complicate the battle should you rouse them. Both the east and west wings are stupendous—the east is about scooting past nobles & projectiles as you attempt to gather up more rockets, and the west sees the player trying to brutally claw out a safe space from the starting den. The AV at the end of the west wing is phenomenal too, turning a minor clean-up into a brutal free-for-all should you not deign to neutralize the perched baddies. Unfortunately the final fight is a mere victory lap, since the nobles and cybers will happily tear each other apart for your amusement, plus there’s a shit ton of ammo just lying around (you know what they say—“The road to hell is paved with BFG cells”. Besides that—and the fact that the map erroneously skews more towards the SSG than the RL—this is exactly the kind of gameplay I want from Speed of Doom. GIVE ME MORE!

 

MAP21: I like that Doomguy emerges from his grave simultaneously with the berserk powerup, as if he was so pissed off he had to die that he needs to (rip and) tear some demons limb from limb. Sadly there’s not a whole lot of low tier murder to be had here, as you’re immediately pit against two archviles in a really slow, laborious fight around a corner. I really wish this had been more of a “normal” map instead of a tyson hybrid since a lot of the punching isn’t all that satisfying in cramped spaces, and stuff like the E1M1 callback can only be briefly appreciated before you find yourself hugging a corner and waiting for a cacodemon to move closer so you can punch its lights out. Visually this is the best Joshy map yet so I can’t dislike the map, I just feel it could’ve been a really strong opening had it not such stringent ammo placement.

 

MAP22: Yo real talk—”Sign of Evil” is a bad track. Every time I hear it I roll my eyes. It’s not fit to be anything more than intermission text music. You want something spooky, use “Suspense” or “Demons on the Prey”.

 

This is another good map, which is par for the course for Darkwave at this point. It’s kinda interesting to see his take on cramped gameplay, which we haven’t seen since E1 IIRC. At times I got a little bit of archvile fatigue (the bastards are everywhere), but all of the combat kept me moving and strategizing, which keeps me happy. The hell visuals are nice, though this does seem a little too much like generic Doom 2 hell.

 

MAP23: Woahhhh nelly, who pissed in Joshy’s coffee the day he made this? I was mildly confident that MAP32 was probably going to be as intense as the megawad got, but it looks like I wasn’t ready for the merciless sting of Poison Ivy! The player is dropped into the hottest of starts here with not even a damn shotgun anywhere in sight, a legion of monsters ready to pick them apart as soon as they catch wind of their fear. Though the ground is dense with hellspawn, the hardest parts of this map really boil down to two things: that accursed perched AV that overlooks half the level, and WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS? The CG and SSG aren’t too hard to find but eventually you run out of ammo and still need to take down a heap of baddies!

 

After pretty much killing everything I could kill, I had to throw myself at the cyberdemon a couple of times in an attempt to slip past him, which proved fruitful once I located what was essentially the demon armory. I noticed plenty of people mentioning how the map is over once you acquire the BFG but IMO the rest of the level is still pretty brutal, given that you never know when to kill the cybers (the panopticon one is useful in cleaning the tower of AVs) and good lord do they have a lot of angles of attack throughout the level. I honestly breathed a sigh of relief once I finally reached the exit, as it was a victory I had to desperately claw my way to. Neat stuff.

 

However, three things keep me from really admiring the map. The first is that it seems you need an AV jump to reach the megasphere, which is pretty stupid in a map that’s low on health (could be wrong about this one, admittedly). The second is that hiding a good bulk of the weapons behind the cyber is a pretty dick move. I’d be cool with spacing them out or hiding a cache of ammo in the armory spot, but shoving them all in there only serves to agitate players not familiar with their surrounding. I really enjoy playing without using -nomonsters to scope out a level first, but this is one of those instances where I was strongly punished for doing so. And lastly, the most grievous of sins this map commits—the fucking AV bullshit at the YK switch. Why. Why do this? This fight is so fucking awkward! You’re either sniping them through the window or crossing your fingers as you attempt to hit them with BFG tracers, sliding up and down the stairs and hoping the mancs don’t melt your face. The jump to the exit already requires a bulk of the map to be cleared, so why ruin your gameplay with this? I honestly haven’t seen such a idiotic, lame-brained encounter since this one in Hell Revealed—come on Joshy.

[NecrumWarrior]

10 minutes ago, dobu gabu maru said:

However, three things keep me from really admiring the map. The first is that it seems you need an AV jump to reach the megasphere, which is pretty stupid in a map that’s low on health (could be wrong about this one, admittedly).

This may sound weird considering my unabashed hatred for all things Arch-Vile, but I actually rather liked this aspect of the map. I didn't have that much trouble with the health available on the map so when it came time that I needed to claim the Megasphere I had enough health to take the shot no problem. And it felt really good when I did pull it off because I wasn't 100% sure I would even make the jump. The only thing that really sucked about it for me was that I had to get one of the Viles to see me through the goddamned window just right so they could hit me. Otherwise, the damage you take is trivial because you instantly jump to 200 in both categories.

[Nine Inch Heels]

14 minutes ago, NecrumWarrior said:

the damage you take is trivial because you instantly jump to 200 in both categories.

The damage you take is trivial only if you successfully get to the megasphere. If you don't, it can be a run-ender right there. I would also like to add that this AV-jump can vary in difficulty depending on seemingly arbitrary things, such as compat-settings, IIRC...

[NecrumWarrior]

5 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

The damage you take is trivial only if you successfully get to the megasphere. If you don't, it can be a run-ender right there. I would also like to add that this AV-jump can vary in difficulty depending on seemingly arbitrary things, such as compat-settings, IIRC...

Fair enough. It also matters whether you use saves which I don't know if dobu is or not. Still, it's a very nice reward if you can pull it off, and way the hell better than the Health Bonus jump bullshit in one of the early maps.

[dobu gabu maru]

12 minutes ago, NecrumWarrior said:

I don't know if dobu is or not

I would be frothing and drooling on the ground had I attempted to beat this without saves. I'm fine with using AV jumps as a method to sequence break and stuff, but being forced to use it to grab the only other megasphere on the map? That just strikes me as really rude, especially considering how strict Joshy is with his health placement already.

[baja blast rd.]

 

7 minutes ago, dobu gabu maru said:

I would be frothing and drooling on the ground had I attempted to beat this without saves.

It would be a below-avg difficulty dobu map. 

edit: you can grab the megasphere conventionally at a later stage.

 

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP28 Twilight Massacre

 

And here we are, good old slaughtermap MAP28, centric around the BFG like Scythe 2's MAP28 as well. And much like the darkwave maps before it, a hub level with keys being the pieces to the exit, except this time all six of them are necessary, and are spread out amongst the madness that reigns. Speaking of which, yes, pop-up monsters are everywhere here, and done pretty well enough to warrant their uses. The opening shot gives the BFG as well as three options to go with.

 

Let's say I went for the yellow skull key place first. Lots of cacos, plus a cyberdemon to fry. The middle sections of the map have the keycards, with some sporadic combat between each and every one. The skull keys are in the outlying areas, which have just about as much combat as the ones before it minus the key ambushes. Blue keycard area had such an ambush, make sure to find where these guys all come from. The red keycard zone is quite different, as it's actually a fully open projectile hell with quite a few cybers needing roughedness from the others. The red skull key area has imps and demons in loads of places, plus the circular platforms from the red keycard area, which is fine for the most part. The yellow keycard opens two huge monster pens on the sides. The concern shifts to the pain elementals and any stray lost souls that are worth the kill so they don't bother you later. Finally, I make my way into the cave where the blue skull key resided. The caves weren't too bad apart from the cyberdemons.

 

So overall, despite the heavy monster count everywhere, this map gives enough space so that you and the BFG can work things out and everything is actually easy as a result. There's no hitscanners either, apart from maybe a spiderdemon or two at the blue skull key area (not on my skill setting though). And there's very few arch-viles, the only ones I can think out outside the exit area were in the YSK and BSK areas, but again, not on my setting. Onto the exit area, go fuck off please with these arch-viles. It's not a good idea to retreat, really, you just gotta circle the castle here avoiding their fire, the revenants and cybers as well. Truly slaughter, but it gets most of the annoyances out of the way for combat that plays well.

[gaspe]

MAP28: A truly memorable map, I remember how this was impressive the first time I played it since I didn't think that something big like that and with almost 3000 monsters could exist. Sometimes the flying monsters (especially the pain elementals and lost souls) were annoying as they keep to fly high and you accidentally stumble upon them, but it isn't as difficult as I remember it. Here we have some very big battles where we have can have lots of fun with the bfg in a rather nice hell setting. It's still cool when everything gets so peaceful when everything ends.

[DAZZER]

MAP27: Hais Temple
Time - 21:36

 

This Map has some pretty hard parts in it. The start is manageable but the first Fight in this "Main Hall" is just brutal and if you play it your first time on UV you sure will die a few times (like me). I liked the Red Key pickup. It's again a cool Trap which I see less and less in this Megawad. That's sad cause the Traps made this Megawad what it is... or I thought it was... It seems like most Megawads try to be the "hardest" Megawad out there. But the thing is I won't remeber a Map because it was so hard and frustrating... I remember Maps where I had Fun and if I look at that last "Fight" in the Main Hall where the creator just spawned Cybers in the Room I really see nothing special. I don't even killed them cause I thought it's wasting my time if I can just sprint to the Yellow Key Switches and Exit :/ a good desined Map with basic Gameplay I would say

 

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP24: Aww, this one had so much potential! Hexagonal layouts are something that’s rarely seen in Doom even now (there’s what, Sunder MAP14 and that’s it?) and this used in combination with a big sprawling cave complex is like a wet dream for me… except the cave complex was filled with lone archviles and little else. Don’t get me wrong, I like fighting the golden bastards, but it wasn’t really that dangerous since you could tackle them mano a mano. Most of the other fights on the map don’t take place in a hexagonal area, and the one that does (the YK fight) can be suppressed with your back to a wall as you mow down scores of imps with your rockets. This is definitely one of the easiest maps in the latter half of the set—the final battle can be fled from!—but I nevertheless enjoyed it, probably because the hexagonal setting is still a novel idea.

 

It’s funny that frequently my critique of Speed of Doom is: Josh maps: TOO RUDE! Darkwave maps: NOT RUDE ENOUGH! I need to find the precious goldilocks zone...

 

MAP25: That segment where you push out into the outdoor area and there’s a bunch of pinkies below you and revs firing rockets into your face is ROUGH. There’s barely any room to breathe in this map, as you’re constantly surrounded and assaulted by mid tier enemies, forcing the player to perfect their wiggle movements in order to survive. Didn’t really actively like or dislike this map ultimately. I think the whole library section is pretty boring and slow, but the rest of the map played okay, especially the first half… well, that is, if you can stand being wedged between HKs.

 

MAP26: Darkwave pulls a Joshy here and decides, “you know what? I’m tired of giving the player their weapons too!”, relocating their armaments to fairly inconvenient locations. Thankfully Darkwave’s maps never have nearly the same carnivorous bite as Joshy’s, and once you locate your gear all you really need to do is neutralize the AV and PEs, and then the circle strafing can begin! I had mostly a good time with this map—felt the BK battle was really punishing but the RK battle was waaaay too easy (what is with the cornucopia of munitions there?)—and the fights were fun to maneuver around in this gorgeous crimson hellscape. The final fight was a tad tricky too since a good amount of BFG ammo is in the “center” of the arena which makes it harder to stock up when you’re low. I thought the AVs were on a timer and were eventually going to escape to rain down holy hellfire upon my head, but the block monster lines held them in place… might have to steal that idea for one of my maps. Fun stuff from Darkwave; though the encounters aren’t all that tightly balanced, the dude can still make an engaging slaughter map.

 

MAP27: I just noticed for the first time that the lava is flowing in reverse—neat! A soft start from Joshy this time, letting you catch your breath before you tread upon the forbidden grounds of the titular temple. And that temple… yeesh is that central room not fun. I can withstand having a swarm of mancs down there to impede/halt movement, but the AV guards overlooking the arena are a huge pain in the ass, frying you as you run from pillar to pillar. What makes this even worse is the health is placed right below the “safe spot” next to each tower, meaning you’ll be incinerated should you try to grab it during a run. Oh did I mention the whole temple is dark? Because it's really dark and difficult to tell where/who is firing what bullets at you.

 

The other sections of the map fare better gameplay-wise but they’re really not all that notable nor inventive. The eastern wing is slower and let’s the player pick away at enemies, while the western wing is more of a fun baddie jamboree you can launch rockets into without a care. Shame the map returns back to the central room for the finale, as I was quite tired of it by that point. For all the whining I did about MAP23, I really liked that with each death I was slowly learning the optimal route through the level via the intricacies of enemy placement and geometry, whereas here there was nothing to puzzle out; my only conclusion to each death was “wow that sucked that that manc required 4 rockets to kill instead of 3”.

[The Bandit]

I UV-Maxxed 28 probably 6 months ago.  I didn't keep the demo because it took me around 40 minutes to do it.  It took very few attempts, but I treaded carefully.  It's fun and gives those of us with less reflexes a sense of accomplishment.  I found it way easier than Resurgence Map 11.  I'm come to the conclusion that my old-ass just doesn't have the reflexes to hang with you younger guys on demos, but I'm pretty solid.  I'm from the school of playing "Doom when it was released".  XD

[galileo31dos01]

MAP28: Time: 2:58:21

I started this map around 13:30 pm, and I've just finished it, and it's 18:17 pm (in Argentina), ok. I don't even know where to begin, it was literally massive, intense, fun, and did I say massive? Oh boy. I've never used the BFG so much. There were sooooooooo many corpses, that pickups became invisible!

Spoiler

And it was so dark everywhere that it was nearly impossible to see coming projectiles, but that made things even better. Oh and lost souls, literally the most annoying enemies in this map, even if they helped me to kill several cyberdemons, they were flying everywhere from one end to the other, I laughed so much with them. 

At first, I was given several paths that would teleport me to different spots. I chose one that leaded to the YSK, but I died 3 times, two of them because I fell down to the lava. Then I went to find the other keys. Fights, infights, BFG these, BFG those, cyberdemons dying, lost souls avalanches, plenty of megaspheres and energy cell packs, all crazy. I guess the second key was the blue one, third the red key, and then the yellow key.

My next step was the blue skull, and I died once, but I found out that if you step on the border of the cliff, before falling into the battle area, the enemies already pop up, making things much easier. So the SMM killed a cyberdemon, then she died because of the hell knights that later offed the spectres that bit the other SMM to death, yeah. The rest was rather easy. Next step, red skull, and I loved how the arena was behind a big fort. That was a fun battle! 

Final step, use the 6 keys to open the exit door. Because the archviles began to resurrect many corpses I tried to guide them to where the yellow skull was, so I could kill them from a safe spot. Eventually the enemies arrived to a linedef they couldn't pass, that was my plan. The archies died in the middle of the infighting. Then I went to where the cybers were, hard to get close to them since they were four. Once killed, I was still missing the only secret. Turned out it was in the room at the beginning of the map, crap... anyway, I had to use idclip and god mode, at least I found the secret switch by myself. There was where the other weapons were, along the last enemies. 

So, awesome map, and nice midi.