BlondieMcFilthy

Plutonia is definitely hard but people talk about it like it's Sunder or some shit, when it really isn't. It's definitely a fair WAD, it's just very mean-spirited in its useage of traps & other situational encounters a lot of the time. I'd love to see the club tackle Plutonia in a few months, but i'm personally looking forward to playing Revilution. I'll also support going through NEIS when the time comes again as i've been having a lot of fun playing that, but we shall see.

Map 30 - Last Call There's actually a few aspects of this map I like quite a bit - the initial torch puzzling is a fairly unique set piece, especially for the mid 90's, and for.. i'd say about 2/3rds of the map, the combat is once again pretty involving. I really like the section with the Revenant/Arachnotron reveal. There's a few things that really go against the map though - it's very bland looking outside of the IoS room itself, dominated largely with brown-brick textures. The Cyberdemon encounter in the red key room is a flop, mostly by its movement being artificially restricted to such an enclosed space. And the monsters in cages you can blow by on your way to the IoS room was a lame idea. And yeah, the IoS fight itself is really lame, and in large part the least challening one of any of the four IWAD games - all you have to do is stand on a particular step near the top after cleaning out the monsters on the top level, just fire and it's over. There's some cool ideas here but this map feels very half-baked, and so it's kind of a disappointing finale. ------------------------------------------------ Revisiting Evilution this time out, I found myself having a more positive outlook on it than I had in earlier playthroughs. Yes, there's some maps that look extremely rough from a texture & lighting standpoint - Map 08 being notorious for that - but for the most part a good number of these maps are genuinely engaging, even challening at times by today's standards even if it never goes into the full-on slaughter territory or later WADs, nor quite the spiteful nastiness that dominates Plutonia. I tend to appreciate maps that have a lot of hitscanners in which you can mow down with inpunity, and for the most part, Evilution's maps are really good when that's applied to sensible level design. (Map 09 being the best example of that, I think) However, it's also hard for me to deny that it's very flawed a lot of the time, not just with some of the rough looks even for the mid 90's, but some of these maps just have bad all-around concepts (Map 08 really is completely wretched), or they have good concepts executed very poorly, especially Map 27 and its unbelievably annoying monster placement that's cheap and no fun to go through. Still, while this has some real stinkers, there's still a fun, engaging game to be played here, and ultimately there's enough good maps to where I don't mind returning to it every so often. Highlight maps for me are... Map 09 - Stronghold Map 13 - Nukage Processing Map 15 - Dead Zone Map 20 - Central Processing Map 32 - Carribean

Map 29 - River Styx One of the better - or at the very least, more memorable - maps in Evilution to me. This one has the feeling of a linear journey map, starting off next to a cavern system and moving through it before entering a hellish temple and exploring around in it. Lots of UD episode 4-esque marble texture use in addition to the usual craggly hell rock stuff you'd come to expect. I think where it succeeds as a map is that there's a strong sense of place here, and more importantly a sense that you're actually progressing as you move forward into it. The combat here is typically solid, though i'm not fond of the Revenant alcoves - they're just really easy to diffuse. Mostly I think this map has solid atmosphere, helped out in large part because of the midi. (one of my faves from the game) That's mostly enough to carry this map through some admittedly janky parts. But overall it's good stuff.

Map 25 - Baron's Den One of those maps that I completely forget exist every time I go through Evilution. To be fair, there are some solid aspects to it; I like the stringy layout of the map, in large part because it offers multiple paths to move through it that doesn't feel particularly linear, and some of the traps here are pretty nasty. It's just very forgettable looking, for the most part just being a series of brown-textured dirt tunnels with some lava-heavy passages. Map 26 - Ballistyx Better, though by trade off it's a little more linear. Agreed with whomever said that the bit where you descend into the underground via a bunch of elevators with spectres is repetitive, but this map has some solid claustrophobic combat, with again, some really nasty traps. (including the notable one where you're inside "the cage" getting fired on by a bunch of demons in a rough craggly area. I think this midi also makes FAR more sense here than it did for map 16. Nothing great, just a solid map... Map 27 - Mount Pain I had called this map one of the highlights of Episode 3 earlier in the thread.. lol after having played it again. The problem with this map is that there's way too little health for all of the wideopen spaces that hitscanners are allowed to pick away at you with inpunity; this is definitely the biggest map in Evilution and in areas like the infamous area near the end, festooned with lost souls, revenants, cacos & chain gunners, it really doesn't help. Evilution has done that sort of thing plenty of times throughout the WAD, but here, between the lack of health and the huge amount of space most of the rooms in the map take, it feels really cheap. There's a lot of weird aspects, like the oversized sewer tunnels, the Disaster Zone room.. even the way the map ends is janky. The shame of this map is that I think there's some good aspects to it, but the execution is wildly off. Map 28 - Heck Basically a less difficult Plutonia map, which is not at all a bad thing. This has a lot of the Casali brothers' tricks on band - the traps putting instant & immediate pressure on the player, usually from the flanks; the liberal use of middle tier monsters also in those situations - two noteworthy rooms being that "keep" with the horde of Revs and then the yellow key room with an absurd number of Pain Elementals. The catacomb bit it totally from Doom 2's The Courtyard except nastier and with Arch-villes running around. Unsurprisingly, it's probably the most dynamic map from a gameplay standpoint of any in the third episode, and maybe the whole WAD - while not as difficult as your average Plutonia map, it's just nasty enough to force you to stay on your toes all the time. While it's a hub layout, it's very well done and doesn't force you to back track excessively. One of the best maps in Evilution, and definitely the best of the Casali's contributions here, at least with Map 32. Good shit.

+++ Revilution for me also.

Map 23 - Lunar Mining Project Evilution gets somewhat back to form with this map, which reminds me a bit of Tom Mustaine's final map earlier in the WAD - I think it's the opening shot more than anything else, as they play pretty differently. Anyway, this one is solid - lots of nasty, hitscanner-heavy combat in close quarters, but still offering enough elbow room to move around. Nice, solid monster placement on the whole, a layout that's fairly intuitive (even the cave section can be moved through swiftly).. just a solid map on the whole. Map 24 - Quarry Yeah, this one definitely has an air of a 'breather' map, albeit one with some surprisingly nasty monster placement that's willing to pick away at you. Between that and the tons of lava floors, this map can quickly wear you down if you aren't careful. I enjoy that it's more non-linear than what most of the WAD offers. Actually, Evilution's hell maps tend to be less linear than most of what the WAD shows up to that point. Good stuff.

Map 21 - Administrative Center The thing about Central Processing is that while it was pretty rough looking in a few spots, it worked because the gameplay was engaging and it generally came together cohesive. This map, on the other hand, is downright fugly to look at and comes across like a bunch of ideas just kinda mashed together. There's never an idea about what it's trying to be - a tech-base? cavern? hell map? It's poorly put together, poorly assembled, and the gameplay in it is some of Evilution's weakest to this point also. After playing through this WAD all the way, Episode 3 isn't much of a step down - but man, the first two maps in it sure love to leave that impression. Speaking of which... Map 22 - Habitat The "gold" standard for shitty Doom mapping right here. There isn't a single thing this map gets right: it's downright hideous to look at, its texture work a mish-mash of stuff put together with little thought placed toward making it look like anything vaguely cohesive. The gameplay is Evilution at its absolute lowest point, with the bulk of it being stuck inside a cramp sewer, and the map progression is irritatingly unintuitive. Absolutely worthless.

Map 19 - Shipping/Respawning Kind of a forgettable map, outside of the teleport room near the start. By which I mean it doesn't play badly from a gameplay standpoint, it's just a tech-base level with a crate-maze-y (not really) by Evilution numbers. it isn't offensively bad, but it isn't great either. Map 20 - Central Processing One of Evilution's things in the second half of the game - more accurately the last third - is that it showcases maps with a huge, sprawling sense of scale. This map is the first and arguably the most successful in that regard - while it's linear (as TNT is won't to do here) and the texture work is mish-mashy, the map does a really good job of presenting it as a journey, as if you've been stuck in a corrupted tech-base for quite a while and you break out into the wilderness - only to find it infested by demons or something like that. Another map that banks on wearing you down by virtue of having a ton of hitscanners, and it employs them at long range alongside the usual retinue of imps and mid-tier monsters. Generally very satisfying & engaging; my only complaint is that the progression is a little obtuse at times. One of the best maps of the set overall, despite some rough-looking bits.

Playing catch up once again... Map 11 - Storage Facility Part of me wants to say that I dislike this map for being a crate maze, but i've played a lot of maps called such that I really enjoy. This one.. I think my problem is that when you get inside, there's like three spawn points and it just plops all the monsters out of them when you grab the keys or get to a certain point instead of just letting them spawn in more evenly. Very clumpy, annoying combat, and while Evilution has moments where it does that well, this map doesn't. Map 12 - Crater Very average map that feels like a mishmash of several concepts jammed together and presented in a somewhat spartan fashion. Despite that the progression is smooth and the combat is mostly decent. So it's not a huge slog. Map 13 - Nukage Processing One of the better maps of the game, I think. While the bulk of the map is kinda centered on a hub-like arrangement, the combat in this map is really fucking visceral & bloody; if you're not dilligent it's the kind of map that presents constant pressure on you, and while it's relatively linear, it's a very cleanly laid out map and the progression is very intuitive, something TNT struggled with in some of their other projects over the years. I wish the Cyber fight would've been more challenging, but overall this is a pretty successful map with some nasty, mean spirited encounters and a fun layout to romp through. Map 14 - Steel Works Pretty average & linear, though it leaves an impression because the combat - mostly involving hitscanners, with some surprisingly nasty appearances by Pain Elementals - is bloody & vicious. On the other hand, there's some really stupid design decisions, like the lost soul room with the pillars & poison floor a little before the red key - that's just dumb stuff. It's not challenging and it isn't fun to play. Map 15 - Dead Zone It's true that this isn't a very good looking map; that much I agree with. However, it's one of my favourite maps on a purely gameplay level from the WAD - in a departure, this one is mostly nonlinear, and lets you tackle it at any angle you want to choose on continuous. It's bloody & visceral on a combat level, with some smart useage of both Cacodemons & Revenants as snipers and otherwise rovers throughout the map that keeps you on your toes. In addition to the usual retinue of hitscanners & hell nobles here. It doesn't look like much, but it's a lot of fun to play. Map 31 -Pharaoh Another one of my favourites, this by one of the masterminds of The Plutonia Experiment in Dario Casali. This is quite different from that WAD though, being much more of a linear map through the bowels of a Pyramid. Very influential on stuff like Alien Vendetta Map 20. There's one bit that's really unintuitive because the switches weren't marked correctly, but for the most part this is a map that runs the gamut from diving into the bowels of the pyramid/tomb, to exploring adjacent courtyards to it; as such the fighting ranges from vicious close quarters stuff to much more open area, classic Doom styled combat where agility is your best defense against swarms of Cacos & Revenant missles. Yes, the yellow key bug is a major faux pas, but I still genuinely enjoy the map. And the intermission music midi is great here; it gives the map an identity unlike the others in the map. As for the person who thought it was lame that Casali barely hid the secret exit.. I suppose I get it. But do keep in mind that if you hit both of the secret levels in Plutonia, it was mandatory to play both, period. So in that respect, I don't mind that he barely hid it in the first place because he wanted folks to play Map 32. Speaking of which... Map 32 - Carribean MUCH more classical Plutonia in execution, albeit in a map layout much bigger than most of that map. The basic principle of applying very sudden, instant pressure to the play with nasty traps, as well as more passive stuff like sniping chaingunners & roving Revenants is pure Plutonia. Even the texture scheme, with its heavy juxtaposition of greens & browns, is pretty in-line with that WAD. This one took me a long time to like, but nowadays I count it as one of the best maps of the WAD. It's full of vicious, mean spirited encounters, and it plays pretty intuitively - it doesn't hand-hold you, but it isn't opaque about it either. And for how relative spartan the colour scheme of the Casali bros' maps tended to be, they knew how to make it look very clean & presentable anyway. Exceptional map. Map 16 - Deepest Reaches Basically a precursor to a lot of the mediocre hell cavern maps that dominate episode 3 of this WAD. Again, the combat here is solid - one thing i've noticed going back through Evilution is that the actual encounters & traps with monsters are usually very solid - but it's a really fuckin' ugly map, laid out in a manner that takes a few playthroughs to get a full handle on, and even then the lifts that dominate the map take too fucking long. I'd really like to say more good stuff about it, because it has atmosphere going well, but overall it's just a blah map. Map 17 - Processing Area Tom Mustaine's final contribution to the mapset is very much an extension of his usual work: small, compact tech-base type levels. This one is definitely more developed than his usual fair, with a nasty, wide-open nature that leaves you being picked at by hitscanners from afar unless you act quickly and take 'em out. Another solid map on the combat front; as irritating as some of the monster placement is, one can't deny that at least it makes some attempt to pressure & rattle you, even if it's tame by today's standards. Very clean & well laid out, with some nicely placed secrets and a good sense of progression that's intuitive & never opaque, yet it's never too obvious. I've always like this one. Map 18 - Mill I'm a stan for the Casalis, I can't lie. I love The Plutonia Experiment and I think their contributions to Memento Mori 1 and Requiem were fantastic. That being said, I don't really like this map very much. The progression is kind of clunky & unintuitive here, with a weird layout that tries layering on itself and it just doesn't quite work. The texture work is really mish-mashy on top of it, and the encounters range from being really cool to being really tedious. ' Part of me wants to say this is the worst Casali map i've played, but there's a couple i'm not quite sure on how i'd place 'em. Regardless: i've always wanted to like this map and I can never bring myself to fully do it.

Map 09 - Stronghold Bloody to a basically comical degree. I think, of the official IWAD maps between the four games, this map's second only to Map 27 later on in this WAD for initial monster count. And as the majority of the map's pretty closed in and full of hitscanners, it boils down to if you can take out a ton of 'em before being reduced to slurry as you move for cover. Health is also VERY limited in this map, in broad strokes the best of it being placed inside of the secrets. This is easily one of my favourite maps in the game; first off because it's satisfying blowing away a bunch of zombies with the chaingun or SSG; maybe even a well placed rocket in one go. (though it's worth mentioning that the rocket launcher is VERY high risk/reward due to the cramped nature of the map). The other big thing is that it opens up considerably as the level progresses and showcases quite a bit more interconnectivity than you'd expect at first, and naturally it also opens up some nasty crossfire possibilities. Hard, but exceptionally rewarding to run through and play. Map 10 - Redemption This map i'm not so keen on, OTOH. This is not a poor map so much as an underdeveloped one: it plays nicely enough with that particularly nasty SSG trap near the start, it is generally laid out adequately and looks nice enough - but it plays more like a little sketch of a map than a full blown one, if that makes sense. It really seems like it could've been fleshed out more with a few other sections. It's alright but could've been more.

Map 07 - Prison As others have noted, this is a curious mishmash of a map that's kind of strung together by spitball & bailing wire. This is also where the IWAD takes a pretty strong step forward in difficulty; the traps become a lot nastier & more mean spirited, and while the WAD isn't the most consistent on that front, this map does leave a pretty nasty impression. The fact that there's a lot of hitscanners in this map that can pick away at you from far away forces you to clean out everything. Evilution is really good at doing that. Despite all that the map is pretty much just ok, as mentioned it plays out like a mish-mash of stuff strung together, and while you could say that about a lot of doom maps, the combat is only sporadically interesting. That being said, it's a hell of a lot better than... Map 08 - Metal First off, that midi is garbage. It's like a bad thrash song filtered through the chintziest midi tones ever. That aside, the rest of the map doesn't fare much better. Evilution cops a lot of flack for using hitscanners in wide-open areas to pick at you and for oversized, underdetailed maps - or at least, certain rooms - and while it's somewhat overblown at times (Maps 20 and 27 do this and they're two of the best maps of the set), this map is guilty of it. It's flat out ugly to look at, a mish-mash of ill-fitting texture and general lack of lightning detail makes this a real eyesore to play through. The monster placement is no better, turning into outright cheap garbage if you don't know what's coming, EG the chaingunner closets in the stairwell area. Lots of hitscanners in wideopen areas, mandatory secrets needed to progress through the level, etc. Honestly, it really seems like the map was just kind of slapped together and was barely tested. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's a bad map anyway.

Yeah, you're gonna have a lot of fun when you get to map 27.. or the next one, for that matter. A little behind, but yeah as another poster said, this IWAD isn't terribly hard to get caught up on... Map 05 - Hanger Another techbase that has a somewhat quirkier opening than some, requiring you to go over triggers and kill the zombies in the closet before beginning the level proper. One of the things I dig about this map is the sheer claustrophobia of the combat here thanks to the map's natural reliance on narrow corridors; it makes fighting it out with shotgunners and chaingunners a risky proposition. This isn't something I typically dig out of my Doom experience, but when it's done well, it can be very good. And a few maps in Evilution do it very well, includng one of the best maps of the set coming up very shortly. Only thing about this map is that the 'basement' with the soulsphere seems a might out of place from a textural standpoint, but overall it's fine stuff. Map 6 - Open Season This one's very pressing to start with, in some respects I want to kind of make a Plutonia comparison because that IWAD had a fondness for bracketing you with hitscanners, which is essentially what Open Season does when you get off the elevator at the start - four shotgunners to the left, a chaingunner to the right, and two separate levels of hitscanners straight ahead ready to pick at you. Another map that favours the intimacy of close combat over more wide-open stuff, albeit there's more of that here than the last map. From a gameplay standpoint, it tails off quite a bit after that opening part though; from that point it's mostly just going and blasting dudes just around the corner. Still: the two things that I appreciate about the map is how ominous it is; the midi is a mite repetitive, but it does a great job of setting a mood of unease. Furthering that is the lighting in the map: it feels like an abandoned part of a UAC back that you have to go around and reactivate. Good stuff, even if the backtracking is a mite much.

Map 04 - Wormhole Memorable concept at the heart of the level, kind of iffy execution. I think it was a weird design choice to let the player leave essentially at the start of the level, and one that I don't think works in the level's benefit very much. I actually really love the layout of the level and the variation in monster type & placement between the 'two halves' of the map, and while the combat is incidental in nature, it's also ferociously bloody when it wants to be. But yeah, the design decision to leave the exit essentially at the start of the level doesn't work for me. It's a great idea for a map overall but that one thing is annoying.

Map 03 - Power Control One of the things Evilution gets right in the early going - say, the whole stretch of maps from 2-9 - is that they're almost comically blood, with the liberal use of hitscanners to cut down and the odd heavier monster thrown in for effect. "Power Control" is one of those maps where it isn't necessarily spectacular to look at - though generally speaking, it is a cleanly laid out & organized map - but it's really fun to run around that 'outer circle' ringing the central part of the map and just mowing down dudes. I also dig what Demtor mentioned with how each key area kind of locks you in until you get the corresponding one to get yourself out. Nothing spectacular, but it's good & solid.

Map 02 - Human BBQ I've always been of two minds about the map. The combat in this map is suitably bloody & visceral to start with; one thing the map gets right is that a lot of the encounters tend to be pressing, be it the run in with the Barons you can telefrag, or something more like being picked at by hitscanners. On the other hand, i'm not super big on how the layout makes you have to backtrack several times for no particularly good reason. Nice enough, I suppose; just wish the layout was a bit different in a few spots so it played more smoothly.