Pa3PyX

If Hexen II was included in the list, my favorite would have been Assassin's powered-up Scarab Staff. BzZZZzzz... Always cracked me up when I was playing. As is, it has to be Heretic's tin-can gun (i.e. firemace). P-p-p-p-p-p... ding, dang, dong... I didn't like the powered-up version as much, although it was a lot more useful against fatter, slow-moving enemies (iron liches). And finally, if we mean strictly items (not weapons), then Cleric's puppy choker (already mentioned) will have to do.

Technically, I think "savegame buffer overrun" means too many THINGs (entities, in Quake lingo: monsters, items, deco) on the map. So yes, saving may not work on some custom maps, but not others. Even one of the vanilla Heretic maps (E3M6?) had this bug in the initial version. Also, with "borderline" maps (just under the limit) it might work some times bot not other times, depending on how many spawned lost souls and missiles in the air you have at the moment of saving. Two possible reasons for this bug and a bunch of other annoyances in the game (such as visplane overflows): either Carmack didn't know how to use malloc()/realloc() or he needed a reliable way to ensure that the level design meets the (at the time) harsh memory requirements. The former is extremely unlikely, so it's probably the latter. Though after some extensive reading of Hexen II (<- Quake) source code, I still wonder why it was necessary for someone _not_ to use the readily available and extensively tested standard library functions to do routine tasks like taking a substring of a string, but rather write their own buggy versions that trash the call stack. Unless I'm wrong, stdlib is a required part of ANSI C since 1989. My most memorable DooM experience coincides with yours. You probably mean Wormhole (MAP04), right? There's a convenient door, an archvile, and a good number of chaingunners, imps, and pink demons behind. Initially I too chose the wrong tactic and started killing the monsters one by one in the doorway. But then I ran out of ammo and ran away with 10 hitpoints back in the dark passages, thinking I was safe behind that door and that elevator. So of course, the monsters killed in the doorway were respawned in noclip mode. Lo and behold, a pinky comes out of the wall and takes the final bite... Freaky indeed. I had the game saved, so I reloaded and I think finally found some rockets to get rid of the cheaters. I believe it is likely that TeamTNT knew about the bug, and designed the map this way on purpose. In some other map, this may have been just a bug, but in those dark and scary underground hallways, ghost monsters actually make sence, and thus make a good feature. So if TNT indeed found a way to turn this bug into a gameplay element, this was ingenious. Cacodemons did look scary at the time, yes. So far as E1M8 is concerned, there _is_ a way to kill all the monsters in that last dark room, if you have enough health left after the "bruiser brothers". Of course you will still die on the sludge... so much for Ark travel, Reaper. Regarding "bruiser brothers" themselves, I call them "kasha throwers". They throw the green kasha at you, and with that nice busy look... "sample this, you know". I even had an idea for sprite modding once -- to give them a nice ladle in their paws, and a cooking hat... There is actually another early map in TNT (MAP05 I think) where at one point you come out to a large darkened outside area where you can barely see. You can find a teleporter to your left and warp onto a balcony surrounding the area. There, you can pick up some key and a blue armor, but once you do, some doors outside will open and you'll have a few "bruiser brothers" on your way back. Of course then, I didn't know how to strafe. So I tried picking these out from the balcony, but it was too high and of course it didn't work. So I had to jump down, and take a lethal dose of kasha a few times. Creepy, considering you can't see the cooks -- just the kasha, since it's fullbright. "Doctor Willits?!" That was another "memorable moment".

I see. That is to say, you prefer the "arcade" aspect of Doom to its "thematic" aspect.

I see a number of people don't like TNT's level design. Indeed Plutonia's levels are a lot more carefully designed and polished than TNT's (though they are different theme). But to that end, I must also notice that some maps in the original Doom II are even more amateurish, inconsistent and unpolished than the worst you'll find in TNT (if you discount the bugs in MAP31); in particular I mean MAP08 (tricks and traps), MAP23 (barrels o'fun), and especially MAP30 (icon of sin).

Always wondered why it took me at least 3 BFG shots to bring down a cyberdemon (even at point blank range), whereas spider mastermind can be brought down with one at the same range, if aimed directly. The former only has 1.3 times more hitpoints than the latter. [Must be because spider is wider, so it gets more of the splash damage cone?]

You'll probably also need to add TCP/IP manually (binding it to your serial link) and configure it by hand so you can run ZDoom because I'm not sure if Windows will install it for a null modem connection by default (I think at least some versions of Windows will just install NetBEUI or IPX). Use IP addresses of 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 with the mask of 255.255.255.0; disable DNS.

MAP15, Industrial Zone. That's what I was thinking of, too, but no. That's it, Refueling Base. Thanks for refreshing my memory. Invincibility was in a T-shaped passage above the room to which the cyberdemon teleports, I think. That's right, once you got that, you could make a short work of that cyberdemon with the BFG.

Oh it wasn't meant to compare the overall quality of the games -- merely to draw a distinction between what is being emphasized in some games versus some others.

No, actually I was talking about vanilla Doom II. There _is_ a cyberdemon on MAP15, but only in multiplayer mode -- which is what I forgot. But it is out in the open, not near the exit, you are right -- there's only a hell knight, a baron of hell, and a bunch of imps around the walkway. So I take that back. Yet I could swear there was some map with cyberdemon sitting right on the exit pad -- and it wasn't MAP29. Which map was that?

I'd have to add Crater (12), Nukage Processing (13) and Pharaoh (31) to your list. Even though Pharaoh has bugs. Overall, "TNT is better than Plutonia but not quite sure why" difference is probably atmosphere vs. design/gameplay. Also consider Unreal vs. Half-life (both first games, not the sequels), Doom II vs. Dark Forces, and Quake vs. Duke Nukem.

IMO Doom the Movie, though I liked it as is, could have been better if they just took "Knee Deep in the Dead" story and filmed that instead. The remarkable thing about the first two books is that they are action books that are actually readable.

Well, first of all, all MAP30 varieties are supposed to be hard. Apart from that... In Doom II, either MAP15 (Industrial Zone) or MAP16 (Suburbs), if started from scratch in UV mode. There is a lot of space to maneuver, but when I played that, I didn't use the mouse, so this probably explains it. 16 was especially treacherous; in 15 you can just find a high ground and you are fine (the cyberdemon in a confined space near the exit is the problem -- of course, you can take a different exit), but 16 is the one where I mostly was on the run. There is barely enough ammo to kill all enemies, and dumb as monster AI may have been in Doom, the map is designed in such a way that there isn't much safe ground; there is only one room/building which you can more or less easily clear and take defensive position at, and AFAIR it requires a key (maybe I'm wrong). Plus it has too many windows which can be shot through by monsters. There is also one where you can plain _hide_, without being able to hurt anything, but also without being able to get out later as the only exit will be swamped. Stay too long anywhere else and you will surely be outflanked; with that, you will have a couple of archviles running around, setting you on fire from across the map and raising all the monsters you just killed. I didn't have much problems with MAP29, but then again, I didn't try it from scratch! In TNT mission pack, MAP04 (Wormhole) was probably the hardest on UV, simply because I chose the wrong tactic. You have two similar looking buildings which you can teleport between. The problem is, there are archviles in one of the main halls. The way I originally killed the bad guys is from behind a door. Open, shoot, close; open, shoot, close, etc. So many dead monsters were crushed in the doorways. When an archvile raises such a monster, they will be in noclip mode -- can travel through walls and are invincible to straight shots (they can only be killed with area effect weapons). So imagine my surprise when I was running with 10 health and no ammo left, thinking that, well, I'll clear the main halls again when I find some ammo, but for now I'm safe in these underground passages -- lo and behold, a pinky comes out of the wall and takes a final bite... There was also an imp like that. That was pretty far into the map, too, so I didn't want to replay it from scratch; I think I reloaded from close by, ran away and finally found some rockets to get rid of the cheaters.

To my knowledge, the prototype of Santa Claus is actually St Nicholas of Myra, although, like it has been said, Christmas in America and Western Europe in the present times has little to do with Christianity.

That doesn't weigh for a reason, that's a subjective opinion. Give a better reason.

Pretty much so, both involve bad creatures out of control - a standard storyline for an action game, standard being set by DooM, most likely. What I meant was the fact that the storyline in HL is incorporated into the game very tightly - everywhere, in every map (in the beginning at least). Not like in doom where you'd just go blasting the bad guys around, pretty much on your own and without any clue of what the storyline is if you haven't read the manual (save for occasional intermission screens). True, but the atmosphere in Half-Life just isn't as gripping and immersive as it is in DooM, despite the fact that HL uses a much more up-to-date engine. So much so that the fiction books induced by DooM (Knee Deep in the Dead, ...) still have no rival from the HL side (wrong?), even though HL makes a much more detailed and elaborate plot. And given that, these DooM inspired books are about as immersive to read, which can very rarely be said about books induced by action games/movies (Rainbow Six etc) - in the sense that pure action is fun to watch and play, but extremely boring to read. Thus DooM gets my vote.