The DWmegawad Club plays: 3 Heures d'agonie 3

[Demtor]

 

MAP28 - “Véro” by [WH]-Wilou84

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

Here we have a nice little hell cave adventure with some frightful moments in between some other stuff. Really enjoyable on the whole. I got a kick out of that chainsaw beginning. It was a nice change of pace from what we’ve had so far.

 

There was a good clean cyberbattle at the half way mark. Which is great considering the hairy finale. I liked that it followed after the sneak peak above from earlier. I thought that window out was just showing off a lot of good detail work. Pretty cool moment getting that BFG and hopping down in it.

 

I also liked some of the texture arrangements choosen here to mix things up for each area. Lots of unique blends and interesting looks. Lots of skilled map making on display here. I like it.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP27: The Red Gehenna

100% kills, 1/1 "secret"

 

Another hot start, though this one brings to mind the phrase "knifefight in a phone booth" as there's very limited room to run and quite a lot of enemies with a bead on you. I eventually settled for grabbing the shotgun and heading into the nearby building, taking a few tries to kill the revenants and pinkies and establish a beachhead without getting killed myself. Took me awhile to figure out where to go, strangely enough the path begins with what feels like a 'secret' jump to the soulsphere area, not sure why there couldn't be a staircase or lift instead to make things a bit more obvious.

 

After that it's shockingly easy, as the player can easily clear out the Minotaur Meat Corridor with the super shotty and RL, and then use all the baddies that pop up when you grab the BFG to help take out Mr. Cyberdemon. The yellow key doesn't actually get used at all (the switch that reveals the key also lowers the gate to the exit) and for some reason there's two different-looking switches at the end that both do the same thing (lower the cyberdemon pillar/exit, which isn't even needed to read the exit, you can diagonally jump to it)

 

Like FranckFRAG's other contributions here, it's one of the nicer-looking maps, and provides a nice little appetizer of puzzle-combat. I think it might be the weakest one though (along with MAP13) in that it has some good bits but definitely needed some more design time. Yes, I know it's a 3 hour speedmap (certainly better than anything I could craft in 3 hours), but I felt that MAP16 and MAP19 worked a lot better and felt more conceptually complete, for comparison.

 

(Also, and this goes for last MAP26 too, negative points for no real secrets)

Edited November 28, 2017 by Magnusblitz

[Magnusblitz]

MAP28: Véro

100% kills, 3/3 secrets

 

My thoughts largely echo Demtor's, I found this to be a nice little cave adventure, with some good weapon progression (chainsaw start, then chaingun, plasma gun, BFG, with no shotgun or RL!) Didn't really feel the absence of either, to be honest (though monster infighting largely helped whittle down some of the bigger hordes that might've otherwise felt like a chore with just the chaingun). The fight that gave me trouble was the plasma gun one, really need to get lucky with the AV pathing on that one. Managed to get past the final fight on the first try too, despite being terrible at two-shotting cyberdemons. Fun map, and I dig the aesthetic (the bronze-colored marble looks really nice).

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP29: Serment de Noirceur

 

So this is Darkwave0000's first and only contribution to the WAD (I think you have to dig all the way back to @Necrotikflesh's MAP05 to find another example of a level that's a particular mapper's sole representation herein) which means I have no idea what to expect going in.  Though the opening vista, thick with slumbering imps just waiting to awaken and descend upon a hapless marine, and 500-some monster count are both hints that this is going to be a turbulent trip.

 

it's actually less rough than I was expecting, with a steady progression from one subsector of the map to another, each arena presented to the player in turn, and plentiful opportunities to incite your enemies to do your dirty work for you.  The Hexen MIDI provides an unobstrusive backdrop to the slaughter, though it perhaps creates expectations of a more fantasy-themed romp than the industrial tangle of bricks, pipes, and slime that awaits here.  Overall, it's not my preferred style of gameplay, but as far as I can judge it's a good and satisfying example of what it tries to be.

[gaspe]

MAP29: I remember that the previous wads of the series had a long slaughtermap near the end, but I didn't remember even those were made by Darkwave0000. I think that I always enjoyed his maps, but I didn't like this so much. Partly it's also my fault since I tackled the whole eastern section first, while picking the YK at west seems mandatory before doing the rest. The whole stair area at the RL was annoying, and I totally skipped the last fight with the related arch-vile extravaganza.

[Demtor]

 

MAP29 - “Serment de Noirceur” by Darkwave0000

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

Awful. Do people like this kind of thing? I couldn’t stomach it. This is the type of slaughter map where I can see why some people hate them as much as they do. Personally I don’t mind a well done slaughter. See New Gothic Movement II or some of the Sunlust stuff. This, however … ugh.

[Memfis]

30 - I don't want to fight 923 monsters.

Overall, this was really fun for the first half or so. It was exciting to familiarize myself with different authors' styles, there was a lot of variation, I saw tons of stuff to talk about, and the gameplay remained fast-paced and relaxing enough for the most part. Then more hardcore and slaughterish maps started popping up and I lost motivation somewhat. Anyway, I enjoyed some of the easier levels in E3 a good amount. I guess my favorites were 12 and 15.

[Roofi]

 

Here is a my uv-max demo for those who are too scared to play this map. :)

[WH-Wilou84]

On 28/11/2017 at 10:04 PM, Memfis said:

29 - I think it's time for the world to come together and learn to say "no" to mappers who submit levels that simply don't fit the project's spirit.

By "spirit", I assume you mean "guidelines" (since the 3ha series doesn't have much of a global vibe or spirit I think, it's more a disjointed assortment of individual levels put together rather than a cohesive ensemble), and while I agree with your statement sensu stricto for projects in general (guidelines are here to be followed), I think it was a good move here to allow in maps that took more than 3 hours to make.
 

Had the 3 hour rule been strictly enforced from the beginning for the three wads, quite a hefty amount of maps wouldn't have made the cut (all of Darkwave0000's, most of Necrotikflesh's work, all of my stuff, and some other maps as well). I'd like to thank JC again for having been lenient on that matter.
 

Obviously the three Darkwave0000 maps took a lot more than the titular 3 hours to make, but they're still speedmaps - it's not as if they were made in several weeks or months. And it would have been foolish to reject them considering how great they are. :)

[Memfis]

Ah, no, no, I was talking about putting hardcore slaughter maps into wads with mostly traditional gameplay. I learned to dislike that over the years and would prefer it if the two genres were kept separated. I can enjoy both depending on my mood but mixing them together is a very dubious idea in my opinion. See Demtor's reaction. I guess I understand that complaining about that can be silly considering the wad's random nature, but if you count the percentage of slaughter maps encountered before map29, it doesn't seem that random. Like what, map32 was slaughter, maaaybe you could also count 05 , 13, and the end of 19, and that's about it really. That's what irked me.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP30: 3 Heures d'Agonie 3

 

...Yeah, sorry, this just isn't my cup of tea.  The start area before the fake exit is a nice little castle map, but beyond that, the player's dropped into a vast and sprawling festival of slaughter that branches off in like three separate directions from the central hub, all while there's an active monster spawner making a racket and spitting reinforcements all over the place, and I simply don't have the appetite for it.  DNF, which is a shame as the custom graphic that replaces the Icon of Sin face is cool, and the overall style of the map is pretty neat as well.

[baja blast rd.]

41 minutes ago, Memfis said:

Ah, no, no, I was talking about putting hardcore slaughter maps into wads with mostly traditional gameplay. I learned to dislike that over the years and would prefer it if the two genres were kept separated. I can enjoy both depending on my mood but mixing them together is a very dubious idea in my opinion. See Demtor's reaction. I guess I understand that complaining about that can be silly considering the wad's random nature, but if you count the percentage of slaughter maps encountered before map29, it doesn't seem that random. Like what, map32 was slaughter, maaaybe you could also count 05 , 13, and the end of 19, and that's about it really. That's what irked me.

Would agree that 29-30 mark a distinct shift in character, but that's because these maps are long. I think on a per-encounter basis, there are many maps that had comparably "hardcore" encounters. Demtor cited NG2/Sunlust which have many maps harder than map29 of this, so I think he's responding to the clean-up-ish aspect of much of it, rather than the difficulty. 

[Crusader No Regret]

Slipping in with a vote close to the last minute:

 

Oh what the hell...

 

+++ H2H-XMas

+++ Biowar and Hellcore 2.0

[Memfis]

I wasn't necessarily talking about the difficulty (I skipped these maps so I dunno if they are hard or easy), but rather the "honest" nature of these two slaughtermaps. Previous maps, with the exception of 32, tried to look normal even when they utilized hordes, but these two openly say: "ok, here are some rectangular rooms and big open areas with hundreds of copypasted monsters, have fun". They don't fit the classic adventurous mood of most levels here.

 

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP28 Véro

 

Like the depths of Muspeheim, grim and red shade this map pretty well to say this is hell. With only a few monsters on this map, we wonder what we see. Well, imps getting replaced by chaingunners on blocks, and quite a few nasty revenants and hell knights in places. It does what it does best. And then there's close encounter cyberdemon pincer, made for speedrunners and those that don't find it annoying. The theme is Ambience II from Hell Revealed II, marking this map well enough due to the low monster count.

 

MAP29 Serment de Noirceur

 

This is one of Darkwave's weakest slaughtermaps. I dunno, the texturing just doesn't fit right. Light brown with green doesn't really go as well as one might believe. I think the Speed of Doom textures are a bit more befitting. On the plus side for a slaughtermap this one does not have one single teleport ambush. Or maybe that's why it's weak, I dunno. It's confusing to actually like this one because even for a slaughtermap there's not a whole lot of substance. You got the baddies approaching from many different angles, establishing a foothold is quite easy. The mancubi turrets and chaingunner hordes are the hardest parts of the map, plus a stray arch-vile every now and then. Maybe it's just nothing I haven't seen before, I dunno. His other MAP29's in the other 3ha's were significantly better than this.

 

Not gonna bother with MAP30. Slaughtermaps are terrible choices for the MAP30 slot. I like simple boss shooter MAP30s.

[princetontiger]

We have this going on Zandronum right now. A great wad that I was unaware of until yesterday

[Demtor]

 

MAP30 - “3 Heures d'Agonie 3” by Franck, JC, Wilou84

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

See here we go. Slaughter done well. For the BFG spam fest that it is, I had fun figuring out how to get things done. Not the nicest looking at times but some of the battles are well set up (even if things got a tad crazy) and offers a very unique and different way of doing an IoS map with switch usage.

 

My biggest complaint was the lack of a backpack, unless I missed it somewhere. I kept running out of plasma and auto switching to my shotgun before making it to the next pile of cells. Very annoying. Forced me to time my strafing runs a little quicker I guess.

 

Of note the first 10 minutes or so of this with the castle base… hah, nice fake out. I got to the exit and was like… "eh? This is map 30, that can’t be it. Oh… here we go." Fun trick and a fun, simple base invasion. I don’t know about the black sky and outer bottom area though. Seemed a little lifeless but perhaps that’s the point?

 

In any case, that’s that! Yay!

 

 

Final Thoughts

 

Well that was a random mix of crazy. It’s impressive what can be done with 3 hours. Some are better at it than others but overall all of these are competent maps. Some perhaps... good in their own way. While this was not my favorite style of wad, at all, it was still enjoyable to go through. Taking on one a day, sometimes more, given the short and sweet nature was pleasing. Didn’t think I would but some actually surprised me with how much I liked them. 4/5

 

Favorites

MAP05 - “Violently Imply” by Necrotikflesh

MAP09 - “Entrepôt” by JC

MAP17 - “Chlorophyll” by Datacore

MAP24 - “Les terres de l'enfer” by JC

MAP28 - “Véro” by [WH]-Wilou84

 

Not so much

MAP13 - “Funeste Rendez-vous” by FranckFRAG

MAP29 - “Serment de Noirceur” by Darkwave0000

MAP32 - “Doom deux” by Oxyde

[gaspe]

MAP30: DNF. The start was nice at first but it was a bit too slow, then the map subverted my expectations since I though I was just going to warp to separated areas with big slaughters going on and ventually reached a final battle with the IoS, or wathever. I wasn't prepared to have to go through some big battles while the IoS (which looked cool tbh) kept spawning lots of monsters, and it forces you to run rather than take the time to actually kill everything. I went to the cave at south first, with switches to press and lots of back and forth to do in that area. But the best is that the teleport at end of this ordeal takes you to one of the towers, for a face to face with a cyberdemon in cramped place, I managed to press the switch after countless times I eat rockets as I teleported. Apparently it wasn't enough for me so I tried with the area with the nukage and the spiderdemons, it looked fine at first, until it opened a room with a swarm of arch-viles. That was finally enough.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP29: Oath of Darkness

100% kills, 1/1 "secret"

 

I gave this one several tries but it proved to be a DNF on UV, partially because I kept getting bored/frustrated and running ahead to try and find better weaponry or a better hole-up place, only to find none and just make things worse. Eventually lowered it down to HNTR and played through on that, and it was much more manageable (since it feels like the author just cut the amount of monsters to 1/3). Also found where the RL was, though I think the map didn't have enough rockets and too many cells. In any event it's kinda a blah map, with the color palette of a hell knight, very square room design and pretty boring encounters. And again, no real secrets... seriously, how hard is it to just hide a soulsphere behind a waterfall or something?

 

MAP30: 3 Hours of Agony 3

DNF

 

Went back to UV, played this one through to the point where you get teleported to the first of the three switches you pull to kill the Icon, and promptly got rocketed in the face by a cyberdemon on the exit teleport. Fun. After that I finished it up with IDDQD on, which is good since I think the wall of meat behind the wall of cacodemons in the area after the arch-vile swarm beyond the two spiderminds would've broken me anyways. I actually like the central concept here of having three switches to reach to kill the Icon instead of the usual "find the elevator and slam rockets into its skull" but there's just waaaayy too much meat on this level to be fun for me. Not a fan of anything I need to play trial-and-error to figure out first, I've got enough stuff to do.

 

Demtor: There's a backpack in the very first area, in the little pit with the armor bonuses near the first baron.

[Snikle]

Well, since Thanksgiving last week and schoolwork this week threw me off, I probably won't finish this one, at least not before the month is over. I'll try to stay on top of the next one though.

[Demtor]

14 hours ago, Magnusblitz said:

Demtor: There's a backpack in the very first area, in the little pit with the armor bonuses near the first baron.

 

Ahhhh, hell. Lol. I knew I might have missed something silly somewhere. Would have made things A LOT easier. Oh well. Thanks.

[Lingyan203]

My playthrough of 3 Heures d'agonie 3 if anybody's interested!

[Roofi]

I necropost this thread just to share my d2all uv-max run , if someone want to see a full playthrough. :)

 

2:31:47 (DEMO)

[Roofi]

I decided to necropost this thread in order to share my thoughts about the maps , 5 years after the release, since DWMC is currently reviewing 3HA2.

 

Here is a brief description on my gameplay style :

 

- I use DOSBOX (expect to see nazis instead of the custom blue guys in some maps)

- I go for 100% kills and secrets (I already know all the maps)

- I play in stroller mode as much as possible, but I run when needed.

- I play continuously because IDCLEV is a cheat afterall.

 

- I give a grade on all maps (even my own), based on my feelings, so they are totally subjective .Here is a table that roughly indicates the meaning of each letter.

 

A - Remarkable

B - Good

C - Boring

D - Annoying

E/F - Total Crap (No map will get those grades fortunately)

 

So, 

 

Map 01 - Négligence

 

A small clever layout by Franckfrag where the small pillars to raise add a bit of height variations. Négligence isn't the easiest first map you'll play. The lack of armor and  the surprise revenant popping-up from the ground make this level a bit arduous. I like how the grey buildings hightlight the deep blue sky.

Grade : C+

 

 

Map 02 - Atterrissage

 

My old tribute to E1M1 dating from 2016 where the blue meet the grey. I feel nowadays indifferent about this color combination. The roughly misaligned STARTAN textures don't help making this level eye-pleasing.

 

I liked that one especially for its fast-paced gameplay and open layout. I think the Cyber-rainforce midi's fit with the action but the level was originally designed with a midi of F-zero Port town in mind. I regret having replaced this music.

 

Grade : B

 

 

Map 03 - Séréna, reviens, on t'aime

 

I have a mixed opinion about that one. I really found the layout interesting considering Jambon mostly used brown brick textures and drew square-shaped sectors. This pseudo-city map features a lot of exploration. However, the level was a bit too long for a map 03 and the fact you have to deal with some revenants and barons of hell with the boomstick and the chaingun make the adventure more like a slog than a true challenge.

 

The secret RL may reduces the grind a bit but you've not enough ammo to use it though. It's especially useful to eliminate the obnoxiously pinkies guarding the blue key. 

Grade : C

 

 

 

Map 04 - Réacteur Chimique

 

A simple but great traditional brown and grey factory made by NilstheRed. The Commander and Conquer's midi fits like a glove with the combats and progression. Since nukage had been replaced by blood , the level feels less generic than it could have been.

 

Grade : B

 

 

 

Map 05 - Violently Imply 

 

This slaughter-lite creepy tech-base belong among my favourites maps in the Episode 1. What happens when you add up one SSG, one RL and a ton of imps? Guaranteed fun! The two arch-viles doesn't pose problem thanks to the pillar to take cover and all your powerful weaponry you have now.

 

And of course, HR2 soundtrack in doom maps is always a plus, even if the track is called "Lost Soul" and you see no lost soul in the level. Hmm... whatever.

 

Grade : B+

 

 

 

 

[Roofi]

My adventure continues. He are the reviews of map 06 to map 10.

 

Map 06 - Ombres Boueuses

 

Datacore returns with dirty sewers filled with mud. I liked this map mostly for its relaxing gameplay. The most troublesome monsters, especially the mancubus and the pain elementals can easily get rid by camping a bit. The arch-vile remains powerless because he can't escape from his sector, so except if you decide to rush, he has almost no chance to burn you.

 

Even if I think "Countdown to death" is one of the most insipid track from Doom 2, it goes well with the classic theme and the easygoing encounters.

 

Grade : B

 

 

 

Map 07 - Six seulement

 

Six seulement represents for me one of the most memorable but also controversial levels from 3 heures d'agonie 3 mainly because of its greeny hellish theme which is a direct reference to the future  winner of Morderth-award the biggest project from the French Doom Community but also for the brutal difficulty spike compared to the others maps from the first episode.

 

Six seulement features splendid and detailed visuals which don't even break the vanilla limits. The flashy green as well as the brown and grey rocks combine delightfully with the blue night sky. However, when I play this map, I always wonder why Oxyde decided to create a hell-themed castle. The use of this theme was excellent but also totally off-topic.

 

Gameplay-wise, I always enjoy when mappers employ the Map 07's special actions without conforming too much to the iwad by building a simple arena. Map 07's centers around a spacious courtyard where a lot of arch-viles notably appear. In order to respect the vanilla limits', the layout also turns out to be a lot corridor-like and crampy.

 

This map proves to be considerably harder than the others maps from the first episode because of the high-monster density and the nasty ambushes at some places. The plasmagun's trap may easily destroy you if you didn't find the secret soulsphere before. Considering how congested the level is, rushing is suicidal. Fortunately, some "block monsters" lines make the most difficult encounters a piece of cake. Once you know where they are, killing the viles and the cyberdemon becomes more a formality than else. I personally like this kind of old-schoold difficulty where you can blatantly cheese bulky monsters , but if you're more attached to modern level-design, you're likely to find this level unneccesarly grindy.

 

I really like this map and moreover its sinister soundtrack coming from Plutonia 2 but I still think It would have been better if it had been in the third episode for example.

 

Grade : B+

 

 

 

Map 08 - Storm Warming

 

What I like the most in this map resides in this aerial atmosphere where the sky dominates the grayish tech base. I suppose we are on the roof of a tall building. The layout is solid and the "magic trick" with the two revenants near the yellow key was creative.

 

Nonetheless, I found the combats rather lukewarm. This level was more pleasant to play on continuous because the two chaingunners in front of the beginning tend to annoy me.

 

Grade : C+

 

 

 

Map 09 - Entrepôt

 

The lively midi composed by Cyber-Rainforce and the large grassy courtyards bring a refreshing sentiment of freedom. For those reasons , Entrepot is my jam and tie with map 10 in order to be the highlights from the first episode.

 

Entrepôt features a lot of my favourite textures from Doom2. The gray and brown bricks combined with the mowed grass and water greatly result to a smooth level.

 

Grade : A-

 

 

 

Map 10 - Jessie

 

An epic finale that results in a kind of circuit that loops back on itself. In my opinion, the midi composed by stewboy fits even more in this level than in the original one (SOD map 16).

 

Jessie has a moderate difficulty but still feel like an action-heavy journey because every place has a lot of monsters to shoot and the Mastermind, despite being almost completly harmless, look like a sort of mini-boss. Jessie features also a lot of backtracks which accentuate its lenght compared to most of the maps in the first episode.

 

Of course, it's a Wilou's map, the striking visuals represent one of the biggest point of interest of Jessie. Between the large pool guarded by the spiders, the bridge suspended above a black void as in one of Back to Basics' level or the futuristi-looking black and red color combination, Jessie is totally worth visiting twice.

 

If you want to see the level in all its details, try to figure out all the hidden switchs in order to unlock the exit !

 

Grade : A-

 

 

[Roofi]

My journey on 3ha3 continues ! here are my reviews for map 11 to 15 , 31 and 32 as well.

 

Map 11 : Ca tombe Satan s'en tape

 

Another totally symetrical and simplistic Jambon made by Jambon but it's a very reposing introduction map for Episode 2. The combination between blue and metal textures remind me directly of 3ha2's map 19 "Brexin" but the midi rendition of Pachelbel's Canon and the low difficulty give me the desire to sleep.

 

I like this map even if most of the layout is composed of 64 pixels-wide corridors. I consider more "Ca tombe Satan s'en tape" as a soft transition to the second episode than a real map.

 

Grade : B-

 

 

Map 12 : Spirale

 

ChowW returned after some successfull contributions in 3ha2 and decided to create a tech-base where the main gimmick is.... lot of backtracking.

 

The progression here mostly consist to hunt switches but the lack of real challenge makes the gameplay a bit boring. This level would have beneficiated to be a little more concise. The IOS which explodes after escaping the building was a fun idea.

 

Grade : C+

 

 

 

Map 13 : Funeste Rendez-vous

 

Funeste Rendez-vous is for me one of the most memorable maps by Franckfrag for two reasons :

 

- The combats centered around the RL where you have to defeat bunch of arch-viles and some significant groups of monsters

- The last puzzle which is both creative and irritating. I never understood how to properly solve the puzzles. I always press randomly on the buttons until the exit's sector lower enough to reach it.

 

I like this map. Funeste Rendez-vous figures among the Franckfrag's highlights along with his map 19.

 

Grade : B

 

 

 

Map 14 : Epsilon Indi

 

The impression I had about the map 14 equals a bit with map 07. The new textures set and the hellish theme make this level feels different to not say out-of-place compared to the other maps from the same episode.

 

Nonetheless Epsilon Indi doesn't contain any serious difficulty spike and to be frank, the eye-catching orange theme compensates the dull level-design. Considering 3ha3 was released before Tangerine Nightmare, I appreciate how Datacore has created a kind of connection with these two wads that have very little in common.

Grade : B+

 

 

 

 

Map 15 : "Ile Paradisiaque"

 

Another map of mine and without wanting to be prententious, I love that one. Ile paradisiaque captures the 90's nostalgia in the cutest way thanks to the cheerful soundtrack, the rudimentary aesthetics compensated by the grandiose landscapes. Seeing so much space can only be a breath of fresh air.

 

The few arch-viles populating this level may be a little tricky to deal with but most of the monsters were arbitrarily placed , so they just act as pop-corn monsters for your guns. I remembered I only spent 15 minutes placing the monsters. I had not enough time to make a polished map of that size in 3h , knowing I didn't plan at all.

 

Grade : A-

 

 

Map 31 : "Eau Trouble"

 

The continuation of Ile paradisiaque where you discover a secret pond and after replaying it, I want to say the vacation start to be more flawed here. Eau Trouble was the first map where I experienced a traps-heavy level design. I overused the "pop-up monsters" trick to the point it become artificial and cheap. I found the traps rather annoying and unnecessarly abrupt in this level in general.

 

Also, the sail of the little boat displays the ugliest tutti-frutti I have ever seen. Too bad for me, I didn't spot this whereas I tested 3ha3 before its release...

 

Anyway, I like the non-linear progression of this map and its theme. The layout was a lot inspired from Super Mario 64's "Dire Dire Docks" level. Originally , I used a midi rendition of Dire Dire Docks but I eventually changed it because the midi was too long and JC wanted a midi which could fit more for the Credits. The new music fits like a glove with the map so I'm not disappointed at all. :)

 

Grade : B-

 

 

 

Map 32 : Doom Deux 

 

Now the things get serious !

 

I had to play map 31 twice because saving in map 32 crashes the game on vanilla.

 

Doom Deux follows the "Go 2 it" spirit through its slaughter-oriented design and the redesigned layout of Doom 2 map 01. However, the metal remix of "Entryway" by silentzorah shows us from the outset what we have to deal with.

 

Whereas the original Go 2 it managed to keep the areas open, Doom Deux presents for its part a ridiculously high monster density so that your primal objective consists to penetrate the tech-base by cleaning every corridor, every room, every outdoor of its monsters. Also, you start with all the weapons except the BFG, which is now located behind you in a very suspicious manner. Cross the line marked with danger signs at your own risks !

 

You actually can obtain the BFG at the very beginning either by performing a double AVJ in order to get the invulnerability sphere or killing the cyber from the spawn  after eliminating all the monsters in the entry room. I failed in my video , but contrary to what you might think, the BFG is far from being necessary to complete this level.

 

Oxyde placed a ton of supplies to the point things sometimes disappear from the screen on DOS. Indeed, most of the items are stacked. Also, in the same way as map 07, a lot of weird "Monster blocks" linedefs prevent the monsters from being really effective and thus make the map much easier. Modern slaughtermappers would consider this kind of design as wonky. For me , it was a great source of amusement.

 

Doom Deux proves to be a lot more detailed than the original map 01. The usage of stock textures was brilliant here (even if ugly tutti-fruttis render where the commander keens are). It has also a lot of secrets which sometimes require accurate (and annoying) SR50 jumps.

 

Anyway , I consider Doom Deux as the perfect super-secret map 32. Vanilla compatible slaughtermaps are my jam.  Well done. Definitely one of the best maps from the 3ha trilogy for me.

 

Grade : A+

 

 

 

[Roofi]

Map 16 - Infligeance

 

I quite liked that map exclusively for the army of barons and hell knights you have to defeat with your RL and generously given boxes of rockets. Also, the funniest thing resides in the fact you can cheese that fight by not lowering the wall. The rest is a lot of more mundane, the two arch-viles at the beginning may be extremly devastating on pistol-start but I was already full stuff in my video, so they didn't cause trouble at all.

 

Grade : B

 

 

 

Map 17 - Chlorophyll

 

Datacore decided to create a map where as many things as possible must be green. Good news for him , green is my favourite color ! I really appreciated the quiet and serene atmosphere. Chlorophyll turns out to be a little break compared to the previous and following maps.

 

The exit is guarded by a Spider-Mastermind and arachnotrons but Datacore offers you a BFG just before because the BFG9000 fire green balls afterall !

 

Grade : B+

 

 

 

Map 18 - Nassima

 

Nassima possesses all the attributes to compete against BTSX maps. It has a stunning tech-base architecture , an upbeat music composed by Psychedelic Eyeball and above all an eye-pleasing and unordinary use of ochre textures. Moreover , the 4 secrets to find help making the level looking less "speedmappy" than the others.

 

PS : I want to mention the high-number of tutti-frutti visible in this map on DOSBOX. That's bad. 

 

Grade : B+

 

 

 

Map 19 - Déficience aigüe

 

Franckfrag offers us through "Deficience aigüe" a heroic BFG-spamfest with one of the most epic midi already used in Sunlust. It's by far my favourite Franckfrag's contribution in the whole 3ha trilogy.  Just watching all the Cell packs packed together and the BFG located in a little nook procures me an immense satisfaction and sentiment of powerfulness. Moreover, Franck placed everything you need to survive so you don't have to adopte a precise strategy to survive.

 

Deficient aigue is one of the higest point of 3ha3.

 

Grade : A

 

 

Map 20 - Donjon sanglant

 

I don't think the esthetism represents the strong point of "Donjon Sanglant" since the layout remains pretty simple and textures used can be counted on the fingers of a hand. Nonetheless, JC implemented slaughter-lite combats and a midi by Cyber-rainforce which make the gameplay really fast-paced and therefore thrilling. Sadly, the music doen't play on DOS but fortunately do on more modern ports.

 

Donjon sanglant proves to be more easy-going than the previous levels since the little army monsters mostly consist of army of imps , revenants and sometimes arch-viles which don't pose a lot of trouble.

 

Grade : A-