Celestin

MAP08: Buddabi by The_Genie It seems like the forcefield from the previous map transported the player into an oasis of sort. With the Middle-Eastern music, it feels surprisingly cosy. While the player starts under fire, there's an AK-47 nearby to calm the welcoming committee. Then you try interacting with a wall and the place gets completely flooded with imps. After several attempts when I tried to kill them all with only an assault rifle, I escaped, only to spawn more monsters outside - revenants, pinkies and mancubi snipers. At least there's health here. Somehow I managed to thin the imps' numbers to a point where I was able to move around the place, which was followed by a tedious task of eliminating the perched mancubi. This was followed by the second fight of the map, where you have to avoid a cyberdemon sentry in a round cavern, while eliminating monsters on the ledge above and climbing out of this hole. The map gives you a rocket launcher to speed up killing, that's nice. Once you're out, you can interact with a plane waiting outside and leave. If I were to provide some sort of constructive criticism, I'd have the cyberdemon crushed or telefragged once you leave the cave, he serves no purpose after escaping and is a waste of time to kill otherwise. Still, Buddabi was a surprisingly challenging ride, especially the shocking start. When underpowered and lacking space, even the most basic monsters become a threat. While this isn't the type of combat Plutonia purists would approve, I'd say compact, hard-hitting maps are a part of Casalis' legacy.

MAP07: Plutonium Sonata by Lawns and OceanMadman I don't remember when was the last time I felt so creeped out by a Doom level. See, I treat Doom as an action game first and foremost, so arriving into a completely desolate map feels wrong. Like normally the game is quite lively and even when everything is dead, you are still accompanied by the corpses. But this is some liminal space experience, one where the sole company is an ambient background track. I ventured deeper into the map, collecting key after key, obtaining guns and ammo and finding secrets. It got to a point I ended up saving after every room, expecting the single monster of Plutonium Sonata to arrive and destroy me. The place was slowly warping, what started as a jungle complex, turned into a dilapidated techbase. Finally, with six keys I opened one last door and saw the most basic cultist, who promptly received a load of buckshot to the face. This, my friends, is called "catharsis". Stepping inside the blue forcefield ends the level. Few maps made me as immersed as Plutonium Sonata, it kept me on edge the entire time without really doing much. But, as with all this levels that rely on dreadful atmosphere with little gameplay to back it up, it will work only once and is likely to be skipped on future playthroughs.

MAP06: La 25 by Downcologo one If you ignore the references to Depeche Mode, La 25 is a small and exploration-focused village. Only the exit is locked and your goal is finding a pair of keys, which is an approach I always praise in maps of this kind. There's little to report regarding the combat, the red key ambush is nasty if you haven't found the secret life leach earlier, as two revenants attack you in a cramped cemetery island, but that's it. The rest can be dismantled with patience. The main appeal of La 25 lies in its sense of place, as a lot of doomcute and custom textures are used to make this island feel like a lived-in place. While it doesn't challenge the player, a different style of gameplay is a nice change of pace, especially in a Plutonia wad.

MAP05: Burundi by Aintr Set in an underground mine, the first part of Burundi requires the player to locate red and yellow keys. The rocky environment looks fine and with dim lighting it creates an atmospheric place. The fight here are mainly against hitscanners, in fact the map starts with an elevator that descends into a cavern filled with chaingunners. Once you find an AK-47, you can run around like a headless chicken and kill anything in your path. The keys unlock a dark room with a strange pillar, using it transforms the map, revealing flesh and blood behind the walls and releasing more monsters, including a pair of viles, several pain elementals and revenants. You can take a lot of them out if you just camp with a rocket launcher in a long corridor, but you'll still have to deal with the main boss - a cyberdemon with two archvile turrets. Now, the best gun to deal with them would be a BFG, which is underneath the lift. I managed to grab it somehow from beneath the lift - I don't know if I missed something or this one secret needs fixing, anyways, the big gun helped a lot with the cyber, so I could grab the blue key and leaving the map. On a "Plutonia to shitpost" spectrum, Burundi sits comfortably on the more conservative side, it's a well-made level that does a good job with a small area and enemy count.

MAP19-MAP24 MAP19: Blessed Are The Quick by Rand Phares MAP20: WarTemple by Rand Phares MAP21: Engine Core by Dean Johnson MAP22: Nightfall by Gary Gosson MAP23: Painful Discharge by Brian Kidby MAP24: The Haunting by Gary Gosson

MAP04: Axis Forces vs Homicide by Godzialox666 Breaking out of a prison cell, it quickly turns out the player has been apprehended by Nazis (they wear black uniforms now and call me a "spy", but act the same). The AK-47 is right in front of you, it's a perfect gun to mow down hitscanners in mostly narrow halls. It seems to me there's something off-putting about the map, thanks to clashing textures (Plutonia, tech and Wolf3d stuff placed right next to one another) and claustrophobia. There's one tricky fight in a library, which feature several tankier monsters in a very, very small room, with an archvile waiting just behind the door. Beating this rewards the player with the red key, which can be used to exit the bunker and step outside. It gave me a huge Epic vibes, specifically to its second map - it has the same theme of an ancient ruin occupied by a military force, complete with a sector tank. I like it a lot, it's an aesthetic choice that isn't common. A visit in a nearby caves unlock the regular exit and a switch on the tank that leads to the secret one. This is a fun action map, propelled by a rocking soundtrack (I swear I've heard this track somewhere, but I have no idea where). MAP33: Fachoda Vamos por Ti by Godzialox666 I have no fucking clue what's going on. The map starts in a crypt, that I understand. Then, however, you leave this place and outside you can see a ring of Hitler's portraits and a a photo of some guy (I thought it was SOMEMONG at first, but it seems to be an old creepypasta photo). This is where I walked under a floating cube and a voodoo doll (from Blood) appeared in my hands. I don't know if this thing is broken or was intended to be a sort of joke weapon, but it seem to completely mess up with your shells supply. Like, when I picked up a box of shells, the ammo counter displayed -63 and I couldn't use a shotgun. Since this thing fires a weak hitscan attack, it's not worth a hassle. Just use rockets and shells instead to kill the horde of cacodemons. When I entered the building here, I accidentally pressed a wrong switch and got killed via a voodoo doll. Fun. It gets better, I promise, but at the same time even more strange. After a tight fight with chaingunners and a pair of archviles, you are placed with a BFG in a wide open room, against a mob lead by a cyberdemon. Then you are lead through a trippy conveyor to a building marked with "No trespassing" sign, only to find yourself in a field of cloning vats from Equinox, all under an alien sky - this is a stage of another big fight where the BFG can quickly eliminate the archviles and you are left with taking care of the stragglers. The map ends with you hijacking the flying saucer, killing its crew and landing back somewhere else. I feel like the whole map is one big in-joke, a collection of references I'm not familiar with. The map is a fever dream where stuff happens with no rhyme or reason, but I think that's a part of its charm.

MAP03: Dusty Debris by Starman I don't want to be a gatekeeper who tells people what is Plutonia and what isn't, but Dusty Debris feels like the closest map to Casalis' template yet. It's compact, effective with traps and make a good use of monster placement. Two things stood out for me in regards to the fights. First of all, I like the parts where the map gets flooded with spectres or lost souls, it's a fun task to try making enough room to be able to move. The other thing is the ending, where two balconies of monster attack you from both sides when you try to unlock the exit. Rockets are plentiful and if you drop down in one particular spot, you can find the plasma rifle replacement - a life leach from Blood. With a steady supply of ammo, you can defeat the mancubi and revenants that appear when you are unlocking the exit, just watch out for one last archvile. Dusty Debris is a good map, probably the most serious one yet. Being a big Plutonia fan, a map that sticks to the visuals and gameplay style of the original is a fine break between the weirder stuff.

MAP02: Abu Simbel by Doomaniac With its strong Egyptian theme and a hint of extraterrestial, Abu Simbel would fit nicely into Epic, if it was scored by something more atmospheric than t.A.T.u. After all, the easiest way to make an unserious map is to make a serious map and add a silly midi. The start killed me way to much time that I'm comfortable to admit and I bet it's because I was distracted with a Russian pop song in the background. Two archviles at the start seem like you can dump rockets into them, but it's easy to push them off their columns. There are also barons and imps converging at you and a group of shotgunners on top of a waterfall. The biggest threat seemed to be barons' projectiles that were easy to overlook, only to got unexpectadly hit in a back when fighting something else. Also, I had some problems with the next fight of revenants and cacodemons, as I was running low on ammo at that point and the monsters were blocking access to more shells. The map eases up afterwards, turning into a switch and key hunt. I have to say, the hornless cyberdemon gave me a chuckle, he looks so goofy now, though the rocket duel with him was rather by the numbers. He makes a second appearence by the ending, this time accompanied with a couple other foes, before you can board a flying saucer and leave. Abu Simbel is a decent map that, with a different midi, would work well in a more serious project.

Woof!, -cl9, pistol-start with saves, blind I'm not familiar with the wad, nor the majority of its contributors. The line about this originally being a jokewad turned semi-serious made me curious about the project. MAP01: Concha by Hunted11 There's something cursed about this map. I think it's the emptiness of the place - Concha only has a handful of monsters, but much more ground to cover than your average Plutonia map. But I feel like the bigger component is how you can faintly see Congo below all of this, but warped in some way. The only setpiece that is lacking is the crate room - instead, Hunted11 hands you an SSG when you leave the doomcute house you start in. Regarding the new stuff, many monsters have received a reskin, but barring the black imps from Eternal Doom (I think), they look washed out. Shotgunners and chaingunners are now cultist from Blood (complete with their voicelines), they look out of place here. On the other hand, the machete and AK-47 (replacing fists and chaingun respectively) have detailed sprite and the assault rifle is fun to use. I feel like the hardest fight is the red key one by the end, with two balconies of revenants overlooking a fountain. I've wasted all my rockets on an archvile here and was low on health, so killing the skeletons required careful shotgun sniping. I did like the rocket launcher trap, where a horde of revenants rush at you and I welcome the lack of respawning chaingunner. This is indeed a weird map, I don't know if it was intended, but feels unnerving to play. Like something familiar deep below has been changed. @dobu gabu maru Please update the list of old threads - Good Morning Phobos is missing (it should come between Abscission and CC3).

MAP15-MAP18 MAP15: Waste Disposal by Ken Simpson and Jim Kennedy MAP31: Great Balls of Fire by Jim Lowell MAP32: Prestidigitation by Ty Halderman MAP16: Bootcamp by Mike Marcotte MAP17: Bloodbath by Mike Marcotte MAP18: Cargo Bay by Andrew Dowswell

MAP11: Thank You Part of MAP01 (the bridge right before the exit), repurposed for the epilogue with no exit. Conclusions Tetanus is one of the handful of wads I've revisited together with the Club and, just like the first time I've played, it was an absolute blast. It's a set of gorgeous maps and explosive combat that I love. The one aspect I'm most impressed by is the consistency of the project. Not only there are no bad maps here, all 9 mappers seem to converge on a similiar aesthetic and gameplay style. Again, I don't know to what extend this was enforced, but the final product feels coherent. A bit to a fault, though. After my first playthrough I've complained many maps here feel and play the same. This was before I started making write-ups about the wads I was playing, so I was usually binging through a set without much deeper thoughts. When I stopped after every map to write something, I started to notice different approaches to combat and changes in environment. There are obvious standouts, such as Salvage with its creative underwater sections or the action-heavy Circulate and Engorge, but even more mundane entries move the wad along and rarely make me bored. This was one of the best episodes I've played in a while and it's an easy recommendation to everyone, especially since its release as an official add-on.

MAP08-MAP14 MAP08: Donnybrook by David Hill MAP09: The Moat by David Hill MAP10: Bridge by Ty Halderman MAP11: Feeding Frenzy by Gregg Anderson MAP12: Hydroponics by Gary Gosson MAP13: Asylum by Robert Taylor MAP14: Fortress of Evil by Robin Patenall

MAP10: Engorge by Bobbylol First of all, I find the use of verticality appealing, it gives Engorge this large scale that sets it apart from other Tetanus maps. There are some truly impressive sights that make you feel small, especially by the end, when everything is dead and you are moving towards the exit through a desolate complex. But first, you must earn your victory. I think the best comparison of the gameplay style would be something like Valiant, with monster placement that keeps the player on the move and a couple of bigger fights. The map starts oppressive, as it's loaded with monsters from the opening frame. There's a rocket launcher nearby and a plasma rifle blocked by a pain elemental - a scavenged chaingun aside, those are the only two guns available. The opening is already a considerable challenge, as you are attacked from every side and pain elementals can cause havoc if left unattended. Following this, the map was moving along with little issues, there was a couple of ambushes, but nothing special. That is, until I've reached the blue key fight. There isn't much room here, as you are squeezed between two or three archviles (depending on whether you kill the first one ASAP) and a lowering wall of monsters. I feel like this is the hardest part of the map, having to nail the viles in a space that can quickly get too crowded. However, completing this unlocks the standout fight of the map, featuring a cyberdemon, several archviles, flyers closing in and a sea of imps. Frantically trying to make space and murder enemies in masses is an awesome spectacle and a great ending to the map and an episode.

MAP09: Circulate by Skronkidonk Circulate adopts a hub-and-spoke design and mostly arena-based encounters. The underpowered nature of the start leads the player into the only available route, where corpses are already placed. I have to say, it's the only section of the map I don't like, as you only get an SSG at this point and are forced to fight against two archviles and whatever they resurrect. This was not fun, as the only gun you have isn't enough to deal with the masses here. Fortunately, this is an outlier, as the next setpieces hand you a rocket launcher to deal with threats. This starts with the rush of revenants that appear after grabbing the blue key, it's a familiar explosive fight that Tetanus contributors love. With the blue key, you can enter a cave network, where the yellow key sits in an enclosure. There's not much room to move, but the map spawns a lot of pinkies inside and cacodemons outside, so you have to be confident with using explosive in confined spaces and constantly mind your surroundings. This is the final key, so you can now prepare for the final battle in a cavern below you. Pressing a button reveals a truly imposing sea of pinkies and several archviles behind them, but I managed to hide in a corner and pump rockets until they died. This is only round one, though. The second wave consists of a mastermind, cyberdemon, two more archviles and more monsters that appear. The order of operation is similiar, kill the viles quickly and hope for the bosses to fight one another. Besides that one fight, Circulate is another great action romp.

MAP08: Desaturate by uber Emerging from the starting location, Desaturate presents the player with snipers, explosive barrels and numerous weak monsters on the ground. Very quickly the map leads the player to the rocket launcher, which is there the combat changes into a string of explosive fights. Besides eliminating some distant monsters, there's little reason to use anything besides the rocket launcher, as ammo is everywhere and the enemies often appear in groups. There are some tricky moments, like an archvile triplets or the yellow key fight by the end, the latter is considerably more limited when it comes to available space, but for the most part you'll be dealing with small-scale traps or incidental fights. There's very little dead time, you are always fighting something and the map does a great job pushing the player forward. I do like the inclusion of more natural environment, such as how the deeper parts of the facility seem to be built into a giant cavern, so big you can't see the bottom. But the fights are the main star. Desaturate's rocket-propelled combat is one of the most exciting I've experienced in a while. It's just one big rush of energy that is hard to be topped.