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Let's see, four stars, lots of favorable reviews. Unfortunately I was misled by the title. Was not really expecting thirty-two maps here, thought it was a Doom 2 MAP21 tribute (it has one MAP21-like map though). And then I was misled even further So it's a jokewad. A terrible one though, as I did not find anything funny in the 32 levels I played. Maps are intentionally made to be crappy, with loads of nasty monsters in almost impossible situations, yet not so impossible since this was made for demoers from the looks of it. Except for a few, the screenshot Philnemba took of MAP17's monster count is one thing, but the map itself was completely unplayable for me to the point I had to soft restart (and my computer is usually capable of handling most lag-inducing levels so shut the fuck up). MAP25 after some time had the same issue. However you put it, anyone who wants a good megawad MUST stay clear, for even if you god mode through looking for the good things it still isn't exciting. But those who never take the game seriously will love it of course. Or rather, anyone who doesn't take anything seriously will enjoy it. I prefer actually fun wads myself. You obviously expected this kind of review to come along, didn't you? Come at me.

Played through GZDoom V3.7.0 on Ultra-Violence in a continuous playthrough, how does "the last great megawad", Requiem, hold up today? Sadly, not really that great. I never really played much of the megawad then and playing it again now reminds me as to why that is. Requiem is an odd megawad to have the title it was given, as when comparing it to other 90s classics like Hell Revealed and Eternal Doom, the WAD is unpolished and boring even. For every upside, there are one or two downsides that drags down the experience, and it's a shame because when the levels are good, they do still hold up and stand out from the bunch. To get this out of the way, the music is pretty good, a lot of tracks fit well in the levels they play in and they do help provide atmosphere in some of the better looking levels. Some of my favorite tracks are "Under Death" (MAP08 and MAP30), "Last Resort" (MAP15), and "The Everlasting Negative" (MAP21). Some tracks may not hit as good as others and some do get reused, but otherwise the music is one of the best aspects of the WAD and I don't know what reason you can have to not use the separate music WAD file. While Hell Revealed may have aged in its gameplay, you can still play it from start to finish without running into too many issues. Requiem however, you can find yourself getting stuck sometimes, you can't get 100% secrets on all maps due to some mapping oversights, and some maps are filler and not always the good kind. Some maps have deathmatch arenas separate from the main map with items not flagged as multiplayer only, so you will never get 100% items on them (assuming you care anyways). No matter the length, some levels are just not interesting. You have your typical MAP07, short levels that end faster before you start enjoying them, and map tricks that can't really save levels that are really just boring to put it simply. I found myself snoozing on maps like MAP11 and MAP16 and just feel like playing something else. Finishing the levels out of obligation left a kind of "nothing" taste on me, and it certainly doesn't help when for a second I thought I was playing a SLIGE level (MAP18 start rooms)! There are surprises in some levels like the Arch-Vile ghost bug on MAP23 and numerous uses of fake 3D bridges, but not a lot happens for the most part, if that makes sense. Some of the level design just feels needlessly annoying. MAP06 and MAP08 are the two maps that come to mind for me, and being on the first episode, they can leave an odd impression in what the remainder of the WAD will be like. MAP06 has this one room where some metal bars will lower and you have to wait for them to raise again so you can access the switch you need to press to continue the level. Of course, you can skip that since the switch you need to press is way above your head so you just press the use key where the switch is and there you go. The wait isn't necessary since by then you killed all the monsters around you, making the whole room wait pointless. MAP08 has those slow elevators when you get into the caves, especially near the end of the level where you have to wait around 30 seconds just to reach the exit switch. Wouldn't it be better to just have some stairs or making them lifts instead, it doesn't bring any immersion to the level, and when replaying this level you'll start to really dislike these elevators. Secrets mostly consist of similar looking walls that you press use on or shoot at, and when I say similar I mean walls that don't look any different to surrounding ones. Sometimes what you think is a secret is not actually one and might even be required to finish the level (MAP15 as an example), and sometimes what you think isn't a secret is actually one. There are times where secrets don't have you guessing on walls, but they are uncommon. Sometimes I have to look inside a map with a map editor just to know how to finish a level (again, MAP15) since some maps don't do a usual switch hunt as you may think, and that's just not fun. There's also a lack of ammo on some maps, especially early on. Sometimes you may have plenty of bullets, other times you are down to your fists to survive. Overall, Requiem is not a bad WAD, but among the 90s classics, it aged poorly and the lack of polish made some maps a chore or stop you from progressing in unexpected ways. There are maps I liked a lot, such as MAP05, MAP17, and MAP27, but having to play some "meh" levels on the way got me uninterested in finishing it. The "last great megawad" could have been much more, but instead it's more average than anything else. Might be good to play out of curiosity or playing some specific levels, but not much else.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. A megawad with a lot of hot stuff in it. Aesthetics are nice, thematically as usual, starting with a bit of tech/factory/sewers, then getting deep into hell. Not much to say, the first episode has some mishmashes of colours that sometimes look weird, reminded me of JPCP (like that marble texture with blue triangles, here they come in yellow, red and green), while the second and third episodes look more serious, including Plutonia and gothic textures. There are a bunch of nice tracks to hear, though I spent more time hearing monsters everywhere than the music lol. Action is reminiscent to Scythe. Also Vanguard (according to kmxexii) but I've only played the first one. In addition, there are a few notable guest maps, which contrast from Knox's style. So, basically maps are challenging and demanding. I really like how many of them are constructed like big arenas with lots of buildings, where action is inside and outside, makes good use of environment. Monster placement is well thought in general. Some maps have hectic starts, being surrounded by crossfire while looking for weapons (for pistol starts), followed by teleport ambushes, and some maps include different setpieces in tight rooms. There is an abundance of instapop traps, requiring a bit of foreknowledge to come out alive, though I don't recall any bullshit moments. Only map where I wasn't able to kill everything by myself was map 21, a secret is considerably mandatory to do that and I never found it. In other maps, a few monsters fail to teleport out of their rooms, or simply never wake up, making 100 percents impossible (map 23 is the worst case). Secrets are mostly easy to find, with a few requiring to guess what a switch did or what triggers a tall pillar to lower (I see you map 26). It actually caught my attention that many maps have lots of secrets, since almost all of them short and arena-style. The exception is map 29, that has none, well it's a Joshy map so it's no big deal. Oh yes, favourite maps, let's see: 02, 17, 19, 22 and 29. It's hard to pick favourites since I, more or less, liked them all in the same way. Only map I didn't like was 30, not only because it's IoS but progression is highly obscure (unlike any other map in the set), and it has a 3-times lift, fortunately it's slower so a safe rocket is always guaranteed. Pretty satisfied with the mapset, recommended to anyone who liked Scythe and has a fetish for instapops (not that I have one...). My rate is 8/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 3.5 - Hurt Me Plenty and Ultra-Violence. - Continuous and many pistol starts. - Saves. Amazing megawad. I had a lot of fun, as well as a lot of anger moments, but this is totally a challenging mapset. Won't deny I raged quit several times, you have to be very patient to play this wad. As a mapset that claims to be Plutonia inspired, there are also lots of TNT homages, to the point the gameplay felt like a fusion between the two. That being said, visuals are simply Final Doom-ish, with lots of nice buildings and cool use of liquids, specially in maps 04 and 16. There are a few confusing switches in some levels, not a fan of that, it didn't really affect my gameplay in a serious bad way though. Some maps do have obtuse progression, while others are a total clear adventure/action pack. Again, patience is required. I noticed that ammo can be a problem for pistol starters, though the author recommends to play in sequence, yet ammo is meant to be used wisely and carefully. When it comes to monster placement, traps and such things, well, did I mention patience is required?. Heavy use of revenants and chaingunners, nasty I would say, annoying objectively talking. Slow approach is the way, and I personally don't have a problem with that, but that's something generally perceived as bad. I remember in map 24, the pace had to be so slow that it became tedious, as I had to be playing hide and seek all the time. Maps 29 and 32 had very brutal starts, didn't enjoy being blasted off constantly or being spitted with flying skulls in pitch darkness. Secrets are very clever, some are good, some can be hard to find. My favourite maps are in the second episode, the blue sky is just beautiful and blends good with the atmosphere. Maps 16 and 19 are in between the best ones in my opinion. So, I did enjoy this more than it looks like, it was a 9 for me back then, even though I would rate it a 7 nowadays, so maybe the appropiate number is 8/10. (sorry Rider, don't mind my numbers).

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset - Saves every 10 minutes or so. This was, something. One of the most (in)famous megawads from the 90's, which is mostly acclaimed for it's high difficulty and as a pioneer for slaughter gameplay, among other things. I can definitely see why this is still a well-known wad in the community, and to be honest my expectations were a bit higher than reality. Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that has aged, not so well. For instance, the aesthetics are very very simple, pretty much every single map has green, grey and/or brown textures with little to no detailing. Then there are a few exceptions with new textures (more brown) and neat effects with, for example, portals (map 26). But the majority of the layouts are squared boxes with stuff in them, and with stuff I mean monsters. Plenty of bumpy floors and some questionable positioned lamps. Yet none of these overly affect gameplay, and I get that the wad focuses more on combat, so my feelings are not directed to the visuals, or the music which is limited but real good... As for combat, here is where I had my issues. The wad states from the beginning that is going to be a very populated mapset. But, this doesn't mean it will always be tough. There are many cramped fights as well as overly spacious encounters where any threat is missing. Monster placement is a complete mix bag, rolling on the bad side for specific types of enemies. The most affected one is the Baron of Hell, which 90% of the time is meant to be dealt with a SG/SSG via door-camping or to suppress monster count. Another one is the Cyberdemon in the similar respects, but times changes and I understand this monster used to be a more intimidating thing back then. To add more negative things, monster blocking lines eliminating any kind of danger (pinkies), lack of proper weaponry/ammo just to cut down the "grindy-ness" (thinking for pistol starts), and tons of optional nonsense encounters (I can calmly hit the exit button, and a spiderdemon appears miles behind me for whatever reason, why?)... Of course, there are interesting things to save from the whole mapset: tense situations with "bosses" were rare but I recall a couple with, a mastermind in map 12, and a cyberdemon in map 14; the ring in map 31 where priority targets are not just the usuals; infighting simulators, often high-tier vs. mid-tiers, particularly in map 23; a great The Living End-like map populated by so many archviles; a map starting into void, which looks iconic for the visuals. Secret wise, if there's something I don't like is secrets you have to wall-hunt, via hit or shoot, to magically stumble upon one, and there's plenty of these. In addition, these kind of secrets usually contain something crucial to the maps they are into, such as weapons to reduce "grindy-ness" (the SSG in map 27 is, offensive). One standout is the pitch black maze in map 29, a pretty clever kind of secret with inescapable pits (not offensive at all personally talking). So, for favourite maps, only map 24 is the one I liked a lot, the rest vary in between good/ok/so so/please no. The worst one being map 30, I can point out at least 15 bad things in it from my POV, but whatever, IoS maps don't appeal to me. Afterlife (26) could have been another favourite, if I could grab the RL earlier. All in all, the mapset is just ok as whole, I'm glad I visited it to see what was Doom for doomgods in the earlier days, and I'm not unhappy with my experience. For recommendations, in short words, go for it on continuous first and, take advantage of your carryovers, otherwise, pistol starting might be too tedious with, barons. My rate would be less but, since it's an old wad, I think I'll give it a 5/10.

I can't in all conscience not give Sunlust 5 stars. This was my first run through, I'm late to the party but don't have as much time for Doom nowadays. But if something like this were released every week, I'd probably never play any other game again. I've gotten so used to playing such great maps and megawads created by this community that I can honestly say commercial games routinely feel lacklustre in comparison. And these are free - the best things in life truly are. Sunlust isn't perfect. I dislike the glut of killed-to-end maps in the late teens and twenties - I think once an episode is enough to rebuild from a pistol start, especially when most of the weapons are given to you anew quite quickly due to the difficulty. I do get it though - the mappers want that BFG back at times, to force you to do it the hard way. I personally don't like too many maps that prevent you backtracking for health or armor that you save for later. Some of the later maps are, in my opinion, a bit too hard, and a bit too hit-switch-for-slaughter, too soon. Some of them are only average for design and visual appeal and I dropped below 60fps in places with a relatively fast CPU. These, though, are minor niggles in context. This is a great mapset, and in particular one of, if not the best map 30s I've ever played. Map 30s are usually so constrained by the need to have a demon spitter - it's just not a very good final boss and we've seen every variation on a demon spitter map under the sun now. Far better to do a grand set piece finale with a four figure monster count - and that's what we get here. The final arena when the lost souls spawn above the main battle is visually one of the most impressive experiences I can remember in years of playing thousands of wads. It's not just the final arena - the entire map has a deeply impressive and imposing ambience and deceptively simple yet awesome architecture. It was a fitting end to a great set. Too many good maps to state them all. I guess a special mention to map 13 - I love the flow and feel of this one, and it has a banging track. The music is very good throughout, and feels tailored to a lot of the maps. They modified one of the PSX Doom tracks for map30 and it is just perfect. 4.9/5 then - I wish they'd do it all over again...

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Echoing what Spectre01 said, this is a fantastic set of classic Scythe maps. As short as it is, I had quite a lot of fun revisiting Alm's style. The maps are all beautifully designed with tech/space ambients, small layouts for short gameplay. You can also see at the end what could have been the theme of the next episode(s). The music selection is neat, with map 10 having my favourite one (I just love mysterious tracks c:). For combat and monster placement, it's obvious that the wad is unfinished, the two episodes are clearly early combat against low and mid-tiers, presenting a few instances of high-tiers, something that the other Scythe's did too. Not the whole bestiary shows up, there are even some surprises, which emphasizes the wad's absense of further episodes (Circle of Death crashes the moment you wake the arachnotrons up). It's still great quality though, provides easy to medium fights, some teleport traps and a few lock-ins in darkness. Secret-wise, Alm used mostly the same kind of textures (or similar ones) to use as switches. It's not always intuitive as to which "specific texture" opens the secret, so I had to wall-hump a bit. Regardless, always generous rewards. Can't pick favourite maps, as all play more or less the same, probably map 10 which was hilarious at first and then, the surprises. Yeah, this needs more maps! But we get what we get, and I highly recommend it, at least to encourage Alm to make the megawad... uh, whatever XD. My rate is 10/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset, and some actual pistol starts. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. A generally solid old-school style mapset. One that brought me those days where I got back to the game years ago and not so long ago too. The set is like your typical Doom II maps replacement, with a theme progression almost exactly like in the iwad. Includes many new textures to add something extra to the experience, a bit similar to the gothic/ancient theme part of Requiem, which was one of the earliest megawads I've played. In that regards, I enjoyed the aesthetics, more specifically from the later maps where it became notorious the author improved a lot on this side. I'd also noticed a decent usage of light variation as part of detailing, I always welcome darkness as a feature of the gameplay, and it never became unfair from my experience. Originally it comes with a few new tracks by the same author, so I strongly recommend to load this midi pack, it contains not only a great number of very cool midis but also the automap names. It isn't complete, reason why I added random tracks from other wads for myself, so that's also a recommendation (or else, PM me if you want the list). It's kinda old-school in what it provides, but at the same time is very consistent. Nothing about abrupt changes in the monster count or general progression, if anything, it only gets better from a layout design view. And this having short-medium sized maps with simple progression should accommodate to any speedrunner, who specifically develop d2all runs. Its offerings are more well-suited to continuous players, because the thing placement can be, at times, baffling, or not very well balanced for casual blind pistol starts. I can tell since I tested a few maps with short ammunition available, without secrets the monsters became more bullet-spongy than usual, or I had to rely on the initial state of the fist against packs of pinkies/spectres, which didn't look fun at all. Therefore, if the player insists in playing each map separately, I'd suggest to look for secrets, at least to achieve kills in the least time possible... Returning to the combat topic, it's similar to the style of the iwad (Doom II), which means that you don't have to overthink what to do since monsters appear generally in front of the player in varied proportions. A few traps here and there, in relatively tight rooms, that can surprise the player from the back if they don't act quickly. I'd say the start is usually the most decisive part, where you need to decide what to kill and what should be left for later. If only this restriction was accompanied with a better distribution of weapons (e.g. not giving the plasma rifle when there's only one monster left), but that's my perception, of course this won't be a matter for players that opt to play with more leeway. However, even in several cases the monsters were begging to be ignored, such as barons in cages or spectres in pits you never need to explore. Talking about barons of hell, they have wings here, as a mere cosmetic change, I liked that more than their usage. Troopers are headless, but don't be fooled by the sound of their guns, they're still the same ol' silly guys. There's a also custom sprite replacement for the nazi, pretty funny to gib, honestly. Secret-wise, while not mandatory, they are crucial to get 100% kills, as said above, or else to tank damage from hitscan attrition and tight encounters, because armor sometimes only exists in secrets. A few require wall-hump, which doesn't help. They all provide a decent amount of necessities though, if you happen to find them... Favourite maps, perhaps 20 and 27, stuff from the last episode, I can't really pick many maps that stood out for me in every single way, unfortunately, either good-looking or interesting gameplay, but rarely both in the same map. For example, the super secret map has an interesting concept not seen very often, but the layout design was dull to my eyes. I'll add that in map 29 it's possible to get stuck in the room with four doors, one of them refused to open from one side, no idea why. Overall, while not a hidden gem, it's another option to consider if you are a fan of "classic" combat style and design. Just don't pick pistol starts on UV if you're not good at secret hunts. My rate is 6,5/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 11. - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Top quality megawad here. Lots of incredible visuals and details, each episode has a different theme, designed with really nice custom textures. You get mountain bases, dark castles, hellish environments, huge underground caves, lunar bases, and a few secret surprises. And there's a fun adventure factor in every episode, the author not only put work into fast-paced gameplay but also exploratory settings. For example, almost all of the maps in further episodes are open spaces with platforming and walkways descending into damaging liquids, and lots of optional caves to find goodies. In addition, tight scenarios are dark and spooky, creating a real sense of suspense on what's coming. Music is really good, some of the tracks are also in Ancient Aliens. Favourite tracks are 06, 11, 22 and 27 So, like I said before, the maps are all fast-paced. Right from the beginning, you are demanded to move and find appropriate tools to get started. Nothing is overwhelming, but the usage of monsters is really well thought. Skillsaw seems to have a fetish for snipers in the form of "dead simple" enemies, because they are mostly used to harass you from different distances if you're not fast. Apart from that, he mixed incidental combat with multiple traps. From a viles+crushers maze, to a mancubus you have to guard, to a ghost town (yes, stealth monsters), or even a secret full filled with explosive zombies you'll probably panic and laugh out loud like I did. The new monsters have their ups and downs. From the get-go, imps and demons suffered a few transformations. Upgrade pinkies are fine, creepy, bite quicker. You don't want to use the chainsaw against them, which is my only dislike because I'm fond of that weapon. On the other side, the new imps are annoying... nothing else to say. Lost souls look cool. Then, spiders have red eyes, and the smaller ones can spawn arachnorbs (mostly a cinematic effect, only problematic when telefragging the spiders), which are my favourite enemies of the set, nasty but fragile, and funny. Kamikaze troopers are like explosive balloons of meat, hilarious enemies, I simply could not get mad at them for killing me. Pyro Knights are my third favourite, I recall one instance where a cyberdemon hit a pack and they scratched him to death in a matter of seconds. Super Mancubi don't add something special, they look cool though. Cybruisers are a fair replacement for the cyber/baron in the way they were used, and also look good, but just that, and poor SMMs were deprived of their boss privileges (immunity to splash damage and loud sounds). Diabolist is a great boss, although I feel like there should have been a texture showing the monster, like in Doom there's an IoS texture. As for weapons, well the pistol may shoot faster but it still aims like crap at any range. I did used it a lot more than the regular pistol. The minigun is awesome, and the idea that chaingunners don't drop them is good, makes it a higher valuable weapon. Secret wise, there is a wide variety. Hidden switches, a passage behind a waterfall, a teleport on liquid floors, those are the most common. I like that some of them provide an intense fight before you get your gifts. There's a secret easter egg I found via IDDT (of course, behind a generic wall), it has a really cool effect with the music and if you have played other Skillsaw's mapsets, you'll recognize it. Favourite maps: 06, 07, 10, 18, 22, 24, 27, 29. The rest are nice too. Overall, yeah it's obvious that this mapset has a high value for speedrunning, but if you're a slow motion player like me, you'll still love this, just don't forget to always charge your minigun first! My rate is 9/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. Actual pistol start on the bonus maps. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. This is a massive megawad that stands for its name. Indeed, an eternal adventure through some of the most complex maps I've ever played. Quite enjoyable, sometimes, and quite suffering too. The overall visual theme is medieval castles under a beautiful dark blue sky, including a few futuristic and tech maps, plus some nice music and sounds that you'll hear repeating again and again due to the length of the levels. Textures are super neat, particularly the combination of grey and brown bricks with Heretic/Hexen windows, plus water and trees, which are not in the middle of the way!. There are tons of cool details to take a look, such as fire to indicate the presence of archviles, or a TV revealing the path to a hidden switch. The imp also suffered a few transformations, though it's still the same monkey. In addition, with the new textures there are new switches, like a camouflaged X or a wheel, and some shootable stuff like windows and walls with cracks. Eventually, these kind of details can become key for progression, so I strongly suggest not to ignore any sort of visual clue you may find on your way. Back to the progression topic, a couple of things are what make this infamous mapset an utter nightmare for the ones who played it: cryptic puzzles, and/or intricate linearity. After playing several wads from the 90's, it's clear that was the attraction in that era, but nowadays it's hard that those two features call someone's attention, specially the second one. I liked the actual puzzles of this wad, those where you have to connect the clues provided to solve it, like the hidden red switch in map 31, that was quite satisfying. Another plus was the special textures used to indicate something, map 05 has a lot of computer panels to read and understand better what's going on. Unfortunately, across the maps I stumbled upon a lot of stuff that was completely unintuitive in some way or another: unmarked walls that hid keys, unmarked lifts too, switches that opened other switches placed somewhere in the map, obligatory secrets(!). It's not impossible to find out progression when these things are involved, since areas are connected for the gameplay to be pretty straightforward, but it can be painful and distasteful sometimes, specially when you're constantly meant to explore in portions of the maps that would logically be actual secret areas. I reckon I had to use walkthroughs as guides for the later maps, because I was suffering too much with them lol, and this comes from someone who's very open to exploration in Doom. On a different side, the combat was much more palatable, incidentally a positive contrast in the majority of the cases. Despite the massive size of most maps, monster count isn't very high (for a vanilla wad it could be), and they can be found in different ways depending on the authors, for example Couleur's maps are very spacey so monsters will be wandering freely (cacodemons aplenty, woo!), usually repopulating after some exploration is done. Other maps are more trap-based in tight quarters, gimmicky setups too. You'll rarely find ambushes, though infighting is highly possible and even a "scripted" show in some cases. One of the things I really appreciated was that almost every map has berserk pack(s), which allowed me to have another weapon option for many cases. Secret-wise, well I mentioned before the existence of mandatory secrets. Clearly the mappers wanted to encourage exploration before anything else, and that's something I personally find positive, if only many areas weren't marked as secrets, because you're obligated to find the goodies inside them to exit the level. Whatever... there were also your typical optional regular secrets, behind marked walls, megaspheres on top of pillars, plasma weapons, etc. For favourite maps, I'll pick 04 (yay crates mazes), 05, 08, 12, 17, 22 and 23. I'll also include the bonus maps for an extra quote of fun. I didn't like map 13 at all, and map 30 was a nightmare, not fun when you don't know what you're supposed to do 90% of the time. Overall, not to misunderstand my review, the megawad provided an unique experience I'll never forget, confusing maps can be good sometimes. I'd only recommend it for puzzle lovers, or people who are keen to eccentric progression developed in a past era of Doom, seriously don't even think of trying it if you don't have a minimum sense of direction. Also, don't forget to check the bonus maps, Cybersweeper is really cool, and the extras that the authors provided, I didn't but you might find them useful. My rate is 6,5/10.

Done with these settings: - PRBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9. - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. An amazing megawad I truly recommend for experienced players. This is a hard mapset that develops a style which I'll surely recognize from now on in other maps made by the same author, Skillsaw. I liked this style, takes some time to familiarize, in fact, the first 5 or 6 maps were some of the hardest ones (except map 02). One just doesn't expect to find a cyber as the first enemy in the entire wad lol. There are also what I've read are called "guest" maps, showing some contrasts between Skillsaw's maps. For instance, Joshy's maps are recognizable at first sight, and at first deaths. Anyway, visuals are on point, and midis very fitting. My favourite set of textures are in the second episode, a lot of violet/indigo, not common in Doom. And also in map 24, incredible. One thing that I highly appreciated is that almost all maps provide you ways to return to previous areas, in case a secret is still missing or whatever the case. One thing that I highly appreciated is that almost all maps provide you ways to return to previous areas, in case a secret is still missing or whatever the case. Two new monsters: Trooper in black (or plasma trooper), fast deadly enemies but weak and easy to kill; Alien Drone, I loved this one, especially their sounds that come from the Iron Lich. My favourite maps are 10, 15, 31, 32, 17, 22, 24, 25, 29, and of course 30, those scientists lol. The other maps vary from good to very good. Overall, I'll give this a 9/10

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9. - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Interesting fun mapset. I think it develops its aim quite well, lots of Evilution bits and use of Boom quirks. Really nice visuals, apparently textures that come from Eternal Doom (which I haven't played yet), and they look really good. Detailing is a notorious feature, some maps are greatly detailed, with messages and hints, and others are a mess, good mess in my opinion, like map 19. I found some cool effects like the runway in map 07 and the doors in the RL secret room in map 13, and there's more. Gameplay is very varied, in terms of the kind of monster placement and flow of the levels. The difficulty curve is odd, meaning that some further maps are easier than earlier maps, in a way that it feels like playing two different episodes stuck together to form a megawad. In other words, maps 13/14/15 were, for me, much easier than 10/11/12. That is not to say it's a bad arrangement, it's just not usual to have many breather maps after many harder ones... Combat comes in many colors and shapes, there're a lot of incidental encounters, multiple traps, and bits of slaughter. Puzzles, switch hunts and lengthy levels are present too, in fact, most maps are of a considerable wide length and long progression that might demotivate some players. I found them all completely playable and enjoyable for the most part, but it will depend on each one's tastes. Secrets are easy to find in general, I think I may have used IDDT only for two maps. Maps 08, and 12 are the stars of secret hunt, and map 19 has the most interesting secret (BFG), which is non-Doomish in every way. Midis are mostly good, there is a nice remix of Death Bells and another one of TNT's intermission text screen. My favourite maps are 03, 10, 11, 15 and 20. The other ones are good too, the only two I had mixed feelings were 17 because of the last trap (invasive detailing), and 12, if you want the full experience try it on UV, HMP cuts 1/3 of the map and over eases it too much. Overall, a pleasant experience. It's not a hard wad, but it has it's nasty moments. I'd rate it 8/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. This is a fine story-telling megawad. Aesthetically, I don't have much to complain, the new textures, while not being the best looking, succeed in their context, and I was more fond of the second episode (newer maps) where I noticed an advance in terms of visuals. Tons of eye candies, such as frozen or burning marines, waving flags, boxes on false conveyors, portraits of monsters, and much more. All these little details are rarely seen in other wads, one just doesn't see a machine that produces cacodemons every day, that's one the funniest things I've ever seen in a Doom wad. About light variation, the author played a lot with darkness, most if not all the maps have various sections where it's quite dark to see what's going on. This can be a disadvantage against enemies, particularly hitscanners, caution is suggested in these cases, or gamma correction. However, darkness in caves was visually pleasing, personally speaking, and you'll probably deal with it better than the poor marines that hold the candles. The music selection is generally cool, but some midis are way too loud. On a gameplay side, unless you check the release date, this could totally pass as a wad from the 90s. What I mean is, there's clearly a focus on adventure+action, and while I'm not very familiar with old FPS games, this felt at times like playing a total conversion. Your objective is to punish the scientist for bringing hell into earth, so this guy is the new enemy, which you'll meet at many points and will teleport out of the place upon killing him. The combat is mostly incidental, a great portion are hitscanners of all sizes, plus a few traps here and there, either with monsters or things. The thing is the pistol starts, more often you'll start with shotgunners or chaingunners in front of you, which you'll have to trade guns with first, something very common in old wads. It's not always easy to find important resources, like armor or blur spheres, and ranged weapons usage is limited overall. I had no issues with grinding through tanky monsters with only hitscan weapons, but that may not be suitable for other people. About the weapons, I mostly liked the flamethrower and crossbow (plasma rifle and rocket launcher respectively), the AK47 was cool too, but the sound was kinda annoying at times. Double shotguns were awkward to use, due to the sprite frames being mirrored shotguns. Last but not least, the flamegrenades, these weren't as bad as others implied, I found them powerful, much like rockets but faster and effective at close range, perhaps they should have been way more potent, to one-shot barons or archviles for example, given they occupy the seventh slot... Anyway, the maps are built so progression goes on par with the story, there's linearity above all, but an interesting side of it is how the layouts lead the player to previously explored territories, nothing about going from one extreme to the other, except one or two maps. The rest is to recognize the switches and doors, which aren't always so obvious. The secrets are very important, like I said before, when there are tons of hitscanners, the best shield is a blur sphere. Unfortunately, it's hard to spot a single secret in this mapset. Some are hidden behind random non-hinted walls, others via crossing certain linedefs, which then have you backtracking all the way to the start. A few maps have unreachable sectors marked as secrets for whatever reason. Whatever, no favourite maps this time, since I liked and disliked them all pretty much the same way. Overall, not too exciting, or recommended to everyone. I had fun probably because of playing on continuous, which made the starts more bearable against hitscan attrition. So, if anything I said above sounds good for you then try it. My rate is 6/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9. - Ultra-Violence - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. Actual pistol start on map 33. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Not bad, generally a well received megawad. No story, but I dig the overall theme being hell(ish), meaning red textures dominating the set. There are also some grey/green/brown rooms with tech stuff here and there, not making a huge contrast or for episodic purposes, and at least for me personally maps with only brown textures didn't look quite appealing, although the usage of green in map 29 was an attractive difference. I played with GlBoom+, but on ZDoom there are a few additional details, such as the lava moving different than usual, or smoke that comes out of things touching lava, anyway I think they are worth to check if you like reality effects in Doom. The soundtrack is a mix of stock tracks plus other cool midis that really bust the gameplay imo, the one that I loved hearing again was in map 23, the Jazz Jackrabbit bonus level track!. People who played Hell Revealed and its sequels will find themselves in constant deja vu here. The gameplay resembles the earliest conceptions of slaughter, as in monsters appearing en masse in front of the player where spam mostly hitscan ammo or maybe die is the key. Well that's what HR offered in general, don't know about the sequels, and here the author replicated not just the style but the maps' layouts too, with some minor differences, so it felt like playing the same thing again, which still wasn't much of an issue since JC added the "hellish" visual touch... Of course not everyone is familiar with the old-school too-many-monsters style, so what you can see here in terms of combat is, indeed hordes of monsters as the main concept, but number isn't always correlated with quality. While JC provided tons of cases for each weapon class, either preparing you for sweaty combat or a boring slog, more often you won't need to think twice about what you'll have to do, as these hordes can come in single types or mixed types, and you know what happens in the second case, but in the first case, it can happen that you have more than enough space to implement your ammo spamming without risk, or monsters can't go further due to block lines, which severely trivializes the combat. In other cases, it's possible to be overwhelmed if you don't react fast, or have no idea what's going on (e.g. being infinite-height-scratched when platforming). What can be attractive to some players is that many of these maps allow you to "choose" how many monsters you want in the same area, given size and space, which can elevate difficulty and infighting shows. There are also a few bite-sized maps that empathize in tight combat, those are probably the trickiest ones yet not that interesting on the weapon progression side. Oh and, about progression, generally linear, triple-key hunt, getting lost is never a thing here. The new set of monsters have their ups and downs, mostly downs, and that's due to their usage: Belphegors are abundant, they are red buffed barons that attack twice, I liked them in general, but their usage as walls with health in some occasions really put me off. Afrits rarely appear, they are deadly flying barons that don't wait a second to spam their multiple projectiles, and in this case they can't be pushed too far away, I only wish their appearance was more casual. Last baron's cousin is the Cybruiser, though unlike Valiant's, this one shoots twice and their attack's frame is so short that it's nearly impossible to notice when it shoots, and that was super annoying, keeping a distance is recommended. Then there's the Poison Soul, a buffed skull that shoots green fireballs, they look cool, but hardly ever appear, if not just two times in the whole mapset. The new final boss isn't a joke at close range, I'd say his usage didn't favor him a lot, plus he isn't so aggressive, still a cool looking enemy though. Finally, last enemy is, basically a bomb, can only be found in the bonus map, hopefully fans of that particular game will know better what that thing is. Some stock monsters have been reskinned or modified too: Cacodemons are now grey, less cute unfortunately. Spiderdemons are slower and lack their "boss" class, meaning rockets are more effective on them, and you can't hear them from afar, there's only one case where its usage is hilarious, just pay attention. Revenants and pain elementals won't show blood when being hit with hitscan, which was confusing at first but not a big deal. Secret-wise, what mostly caught my attention is the tiny visual "thing" that can be found in all (or most) of the secrets, a neat something I've never seen in other wads. Aside of that, nothing in particular to point out, maybe the fact that one requires SR50 and can be frustrating for some maxers. For favourite maps I'll pick 22, 23, 24, 29 as they look gorgeous compared to the rest. Overall, while not providing always original contents, I think it's worth to check if merely for the music and all the red going on. Difficulty is there, but I doubt it'll impact on anyone there who has moved on from the 90's slaughter style. Still, if you are keen of the HR trilogy, this could be up your alley. My rate is 6/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9 - Ultra-Violence - Continuous combined with pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. This is a slightly improved sequel of a mediocre megawad. It has no story whatsoever, not that it needs one, it's practically designed without an overarching theme and focused on Boom compatibility, something that the prequel didn't communicate very well. Although you rarely see tricks like conveyors and silent teleports put to specific purposes, they're mostly for the atmosphere. A couple of maps use custom colormaps in particular setpieces. One is to simulate immersion in toxic, and the other in blood, or perhaps portals to hell?. Anyway, Community Chest 2 has some nice visuals using stock textures. While not every map looks great, a bunch are simply awe-inspiring because of the author's creativity. I dig the idea in "Death Mountain", the sinuous terrain with mounds everywhere is very neat, as it's theoretically a mountain floating in the air. My only gripe is the trees are placed to get stuck in. Other locations are plain techbases, brown caverns, wooden complexes, Inferno-styled hell and unknown places. Most of the music available are tracks from other wads and games, with only one self-made piece for map 24 by the same author, an amazing melody by the way. I would suggest to add your own tracks for the maps lacking them, for a stronger experience if it helps. For those who have played the prequel first, and I'm sure everyone did, there are quite a few familiar names to be found, some of which contributed with more than one map. Gene Bird cooked around five for example, evoking a conservative "rooms with monsters" 90's style. His maps don't vary in any aspect to each other, nor to his previous works in Community Chest 1 unfortunately, but they blend well enough with the tone of the mapset. The first map is already by Erik Alm in his well-known Scythe fashion. Then we have individual entries from Andy Leaver, Kaiser and Use3d, the latter came as an improvement to be honest. On the other hand, a big portion of the people involved were completely new to me, and that's when I had to expect the unexpected, sort of. I'd say the maps had their ups and downs, generally enjoyable if some exceptions. They were also organized in a very random way, but that's no news. Just like a traditional community project, this megawad features a wide range of concepts, layouts, and forms to entertain the player, for better or worse. Fans of old-school and/or adventure maps will be delighted, as there are a lot of them in all sizes and difficulties, even several inspired by the original Doom levels. The obvious standout is "The Mucus Flow", a brutal map that can only be understood with patience and dedication, mostly the former one, and heavy chainsaw practicing. Besides, its curvy "mint-chocolate" design is beautiful and unique, or used to be, since tons of future releases found inspiration from it (e.g. Speed of Doom). A shame it has glitches in the sky. There are other remarkable moments to be experienced, such as to explore a city in depth to figure out the secret exit, or to fall in a sequence of fake exits that only exposes you in circles of chaingunners. I'm not sure how others will take it, but I couldn't hold my laugh after the second time. Secret-wise, the first thing to know is that PRBoom users need to activate the "Linedefs w/o tags apply locally" option to enable access to some ZDoom-only secrets in maps 06 and 24. There is also a secret in map 20 that requires an archvile jump, but it's not possible to reach it outside of ZDoom versions. Other than those, hope your sense of exploration is wide awake, as there is plenty to locate and highly appreciate. I'm thinking of the standout map, of course. For favourite maps I will pick 19, 24, 27, and 31. Some others like 06, 13, 23 and 32 were entertaining for the most part, but not convincing as a whole. The rest range from good to dull or tedious, like the final map. Overall, it's certainly an upgrade in quality, and I'm inclined to believe the successors are much better. Still, it's nice to traverse the history of the community chest projects. If you and I share similar tastes, then you'll probably find content to enjoy here, and if not, well, skip the unnecessary. My rate is 6/10.

Base Ganymede: Complete is a lot shorter than you'd realize. the levels are of the modern quality and the fights get progressively difficult. it's not true to traditional Doom fashion, going for fierce run and gun with groups of small monsters as well as some big monsters in numerous locales. again, I still have a low opinion on some of the cheaper teleport ambushes, but with replays it doesn't bother me as much. the maps are of varied qualities and sizes, most medium sized, some like E3M4 which is broken are large, and some small maps to lighten some moods. I wish these levels had names, and I wish E1M8 could've been better. but overall, Base Ganymede is quite a challenging Ultimate Doom megawad.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 seconds or so. Fun mapset, a mixed bag of varied styles. The set is all speedmaps by different authors, some I recognized in their maps, like JC or FranckFRAG, and others completely new to me, so it was nice to meet all sorts of offerings. Visuals aren't the strongest feature, of course, still many authors managed to create some nice looking areas using mostly stock and custom textures. A few maps play with lights variation, such as having to find resources in darkness while waking up tons of enemies. The music selection is a mix in between iwad tracks, several others from well-known pwads, and also unused Doom tracks, I had no idea those even existed, really cool soundtrack. As a community based project, there's a lot to see in terms of progression and combat. Each author shows their own style, and the contrast between them is quite notable once you make further progress. I'm not sure whether some of the authors were completely new to mapping or not, since part of the contrast I mentioned before is due to the quality of the content by all meanings (visuals, geometry, combat, etc). This is not to say the ones that didn't stand out for me were bad, because others might find them more suitable to their tastes. However, I was more keen to the maps that provided a higher difficulty while having more than one way to deal with them, and not exactly to particular authors. Speaking of the mappers, you'll probably several contributions from the same guys, such as JC, FranckFRAG, and Datacore. The former one provided some old school slaughter(y) levels, I really liked his earlier maps where you are subject of crossfire in fairly open spaces, indoors or outdoors, he usually put the monsters in the way to find your weapons. I wasn't a fan of the symmetry of certain maps though, nor the repetitive combat that came with that, but still generally fun gameplay. On the other side, FranckFRAG opted for bite-sized maps with small but effective monster placement and traps. His maps are sometimes hard to taste given how short they are, I preferred those where after 2 minutes I still had more enemies to kill lol. Datacore didn't stick to one single style, incidental combat in the majority, the weapon progression is what can put off some players, as using just chaingun for 300 imps in a big box didn't seem so exciting, to name an example, although I did like his second to last map. Other notable contributions include [WH]-Wilou84 maps, his last level was hard to digest, I'm not so fond of that sort of clausterfuck gameplay, personally speaking. There's also the Darkwave0000's biggest map, which was everything I expected from them, and it kicked my ass a lot of times, neat and brutal level. Oxyde's map is another one I really liked, it's heavily congested and has many surprises that can catch one off guard. The rest are some hit-and-miss, such as ZyklonB's two maps that were a little boring, or the HR-ish level by subject_119 which was weird and fun. Necrotikflesh maps can result in a funny or horrible experience, depending on how much you like darkness, or shotgunning a cyberdemon, all I'll say is I made an exception for my "100% everything" rule in the second case. Secret-wise, I don't remember any lol, well being super short maps there isn't much to talk about secrets, FranckFRAG maps surprisingly have more than 1 secret, that they are meaningful or not depends on each one. For favourite maps I'll pick 08, 15, 16, 19, 26, and probably 29 even though I had my anger moments. Overall, a success in my opinion, it might not be the most consistent megawad, but it does provide a little bit of everything for everyone. People seeking a fun time with short maps will surely find something up their alley here. So yeah, my rate is 7/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. - Ultra-Violence and Hurt Me Plenty. - Pistol starts. - Saves. An unsatisfactory product composed of mostly uninspiring content, with a few enjoyable segments. First of all, I was glad the maps are grouped by authors, which made it better to differentiate the better content from the, questionable sections. Coincidentally, the better segments have the most polished aesthetics, not that visuals really mattered in a project like this. The majority is built in simple shapes and geometry, generally squares, triangles, rectangles... corridors... but with nice texturing from the Gothic packs, such as maps by Phml and Grain of Salt, and some abstract weirdness texturing using the stock ones, particularly TimeOfDeath as I see it's his typical style of visuals, or even some modest hot red caves in Memfis' only contribution. The music selection, while not memorable, it has a few particular atmospheric midis like in maps 25 and 26, among many stock midis from iwads. Some maps don't even have midis, whatever! The gameplay can be described in several ways, though I didn't find that many differences between the authors. If anything, the common consensus of "high number of monsters per room" is applied in pretty much every map except one, the thing is how each author employed this particular mechanic and ways to approach encounters. Whether they failed or not to deliver slaughter-styled gameplay is up to more experienced players on that genre. My understanding is fast-paced combat is one of the principles, among strategic procedures under pressure and generally powerful artillery to use, as can be seen in most of these maps. Now there's also a wide range of difficulty, from bland to demanding to suddenly overwhelming from wherever you see it. Dannebubinga is one that maintained a balance between hordes and space, he has probably the most serviceable idea of crowd controlling in his maps, since it usually requires to concentrate monsters in some specific ways, like infighting scenarios or pushing towards hordes in god mode, to gain terrain and claim victory. He doesn't overload the player with resources, nor you're entitled to save up them for "a better circumstance", unless you go wild on spamming cells on anything, but since you won't be swimming on ammunition, progression can take a while, like in map 11 at the stands of hell knights, though depending on what you do it's possible to clear everything faster than expected. The same can be said from Phml's maps, he went for more sprawling huge areas where combat turns a bit grindy low-pressure at times, and lots of enemies you can skip forever, though that's up to completionists and how they decide to spend their time. In spite of the slow-paced gameplay, which had its fun sweaty moments too (e.g. the maze of spectres on blood!), I'd say the highlight comes from aesthetics, as mentioned before. Another case of lengthy maps is TimeOfDeath, he went straight ahead for the BFG-spamming through bullet-hell styled in, mostly, huge areas that feel as cramped as monsters occupy every spot. While this is seen as lazy mindless gameplay, there's something about clearing hordes which pumps up the adrenaline, at least during the heat of the battle. It's also true there's no variety or complement on what you do, other than holding "fire" for as long as it takes to kill everything. Plus the new weapon, a giant pink unlimited BFG, completely neuters any chance to approach something from a different perspective, although I recall a couple of instances where rockets were more efficient, but that's not a big deal given the maps were balanced around the new weapon. Of his three maps I enjoyed the first one more (that is, map 27), probably because I had to observe the hud to know my current ammo stock, and it also didn't have any lag. His other two maps are best to be played using the extra file which shrinks cacodemon's corpses, and expect not only lag but also to get infinitely lost if you had never experienced the infamous megawad Eternal Doom before. Lucky for me, I did, but still the BFG spamming lost its charm too quickly, honestly speaking. Anyway, a contrast to the bigger maps, are the ones by Grain of Salt. Her maps are arena-styled, structurally symmetric, short but exhausting. The first map of the set is the only exception, though still claustrophobic and with not many choices, and it'll probably leave a bad impression on many people, but trust me, everything becomes worse later (; . Being serious, I preferred her later maps more than the earlier ones, the second one is specially best to play on lower difficulties, since the balance between stimpacks, monsters clogged on each square, and ammo in unconventional spots, is simply egregious. The other maps are similar but way better balanced to not ache for ammo or health... Then, I have a couple individual standouts, which are maps 13 and 14 by Memfis and Olympus respectively. The first one, despite being entirely different from the rest of the set, is a welcome change of pace, I liked its tyson/strict ammo based gameplay. The second one is an obvious tribute to Hell Revealed, not easy nor hard, surprisingly fun for being a huge rectangle of monsters. Now for the rest of the set I don't really have anything positive to say, too much RNG-based gameplay which is not my thing at all, too many lazy spamfests (map 31 omg...), interesting concepts that only masochists will perhaps enjoy due to how they're executed (the tunnels of cyberdemons/hell knights in map 24), and too much bland randomness (anything from 16 to 23, except 17 wasn't so bad), many of these maps don't even have skills implemented. The final map made me miss IoS, and that says a lot... If you still insist to play those maps, I suggest to use that extra wad that gives you higher ammo/health which comes in the zip file, it'll help to speed things up. There is also nothing important to speak about secrets, the majority of the maps don't have any, and secret encounters in slaughtermaps are actually a cool idea, which this wad is missing. My favourite maps have to be 09, 12, 13, 14, and maybe 32. Overall, not really glad for this experience, nor I recommend this to any newcomer slaughter fan. If you still wish to try this, my personal advice is to play directly the maps I praised the most, and either skip the rest or run the wad with extra modifications. It's up to each person, really, I know people who enjoyed this megawad and there's nothing wrong with that, obviously. My rate is 4/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 5.3 - Ultra-Violence - Continuous combined with pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. A strange, okay old one-man megawad with a long story included. Basically, the protagonist is part of a worldwide terraforming organization whose objective was invade Mars, they sent a spaceship with him inside. Troubles happened and he had to work it out on his own for several years, running out of oxygen and supplies. Rest is your job to survive, and if you care, the background of the maps is thoroughly explained in the text file. By the time I played the wad, I opted to ignore the story, but you don't have to do the same. Mars War has as many themes as basic Doom II resources allows, including spaceships (from where everything starts), tech bases, bunkers, underground caves, and other ambiguous environments. The peculiarity is that the visual themes appear in alternation rather than like a classic thematic progression, which seemed a bit disorienting at times. Texturing and detailing are generally a take-it-or-leave-it. Sometimes the looks are very bland, which is due to the a lot of monotexturing and misalignment combined with full brightness and boxy design in many of the maps. Think of huge walls of, for example GRAYTALL, to get the idea, or any other textures you might not like. However, I will admit the bits of surreal architecture helped some parts to look memorable in a good way, like a giant kitchen sink or the chambers with floating crates. I get that the author tried to tease people with Microsoft references, but that was not of my concern, in fact I liked the tricks with lifts resembling bar and pie charts, once I got the joke. The labelled textures, on the other side, seemed like silly memes. It was hilarious to find a big "DOOR" text on a door, that sort of things aren't common these days. All of the maps contain different midis, some gorgeous songs and tracks while others quite noisy. The one in the super secret map was the best by far. The levels have a sort of gradual progression as monster species go, with the biggest demons appearing in particular boss-like situations. Figuring the correct way to exit is part of the regular gameplay of the wad, specially in the larger maps when becomes a maddening task, so as feeling constantly exposed to, mainly, hitscan attrition. There are a few instances of pressure from mixed groups of enemies here and there, and some interesting ideas like a zoo of monsters and infight simulators, but what will mostly keep you alert are the chaingunners and shotgunners, usually sneaking in resource compartments or from higher positions. Well, and the death traps. Teleporting in the middle of a round of zombies was devilish enough but dying my way through chains of nearly inescapable crushers was a tad obnoxious. Or the inverted case, you get sandwiched between the raising platform and the ceiling if you don't time perfectly your escape, which is the gimmick of map 20. Kudos for making an average player rage, heh. Anyways, the pace isn't necessarily slow in spite of the hitscan preponderance: health supplies exist aplenty, weaponry is available pretty soon in every map, with some exceptions, so I can only believe pistol starts are enjoyable with proper knowledge. Secret-wise, usually they are very easy to spot. If you're familiar with 90's wads, it just takes a good eye to catch the hint, but sometimes you're down to trial and error, since the author had a fetish for punishing unwary players (yes, death traps). I like that there are plenty to find and some lead to hidden areas for extra kills and stuff, keeps the exploration side more engaging. For favourite maps I'll pick 16, 21, 29 and 32 for their cool concepts. Maps 15 and 17 would also be in the list because I love city maps, but the visuals are garish. The rest vary from acceptable to mediocre or boring. Overall, it's quirky, rough, perhaps provocative for some people, as I could see around here, and still got me immersed until the end. Not sure if I would recommend this outside of nostalgic reasons, it definitely didn't aged so well, but unless you're opposed to the creativity of mappers from the past, this might worth a quick check. It's not going in my list of favourites, though. My rate is 5/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Important note: this is indeed a vanilla megawad and you can use any compatible port, however, expect some bugs to happen with the wad itself. This is a solid set of speedmaps, quite intense and fun. It consists of super short maps that can be completed in a few minutes, or seconds if you don't want to max them. There isn't a lot to talk about visuals, it uses the stock textures in a simple way, basically to ambient the maps for standard playability focused on action, no unique theme or episode progression. The text file mentions new graphics, but honestly I didn't pay attention to that. I could see it as a plus, given the little time I spent in the maps. If there's a comparison it would be the iwad's maps, visually speaking, if that sounds attractive to you. The soundtrack consists in iwad tracks mixed with some others not specified from where, or if they are custom, but they are alike the stock tracks. Its main attraction is the fast-paced gameplay, as these maps will challenge your reactions and movement skills in constricted areas, some times forcing you squeeze through your enemies to find weapons (and a single place to breathe), or putting you in a situation you can't overthink what to do. I wasn't very hyped by this at first, not a huge fan of short and/or speedy maps, but as I was playing my mind totally changed. I'll say this, the maps aren't so hard on a casual play, monster placement isn't too demanding by itself, it's the slight existence of health/ammo available what makes them punishing. You basically have very little room for error, and any hit from anything can mean a restart. In addition, ammo is super tight, almost the strict minimum for a max. I should have to play them back on pistol start to confirm if they can all be maxed, but from my experience on continuous with my restrictions in some maps I felt forced to skip monsters (e.g. barons), thinking that I could kill them later, and then seeing the way back closed, particularly in map 20 that lacks a plasma rifle on HMP. There was a considerable number of instances where I was unable to complete the map without cheats: in map 18 there was a secret soulsphere easy to see on a tall ledge, due to the lack of an archvile on skill 3 it was impossible to reach it, besides a bunch of monsters that could never teleport out of their closets; in map 22, there's a double teleport pad in the room with 4 mancubi and others, it was impossible to use it, I also tested that part in other ports and complevels, no solutions; in map 27, there's a similar case of a teleport I wasn't able to use it, the one behind the blue skull bar. I'm not sure how others handled with these situations, I simply cheated and guided myself thanks to some videos. If there's a patch somewhere I don't know. There's nothing important to talk about secrets, since most maps don't have any, I mean, there's no time or room to explore or you'll be murdered in a second, so the lack is logical. No favourite maps, as I liked them all in a similar way. Overall, it's not for everyone, if any speedrunner haven't seen this yet, they should try it. Exploration fans might have to overlook this. Also, continuous doesn't make this much easier, trust me (start the next map with 21% health and tons of turrets everywhere was pretty intense). My rate is 8/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9. - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Important note: it's supposed to be compatible with complevel 2. However, a quick research in the forum showed me that there're some issues in the intended complevel, therefore I chose 9 to play the whole thing in sequence. Whatever you choose, expect broken monster teleport lines in a couple maps. First of all, Bloodstain is an impressive megawad of beautiful super-detailed design layouts. Thematically joins the Plutonian architectural design in the first set of maps, such as vines, dark bricks, lots of grey and brown, various naturalistic environments rather than techbases. Then it's all about medieval castles of shades of brown, culminating in ginormous grey gothic castles with bits of hot red rocks and exploration on lava (which doesn't hurt, surprisingly), more like in another dimension, since at some point you're traversing pure flesh and gore, and after that, the void. There's some icy maps in between, which I liked too. And oh boy how amazing are the little details, like the floating lampposts in the brown tall castle from map 17, or the multiple faux 3D bridges where, I must say, it is possible to fall in between the steps like you would in real life, not that it's funny in any way. I really like the geometry variation in the maps, even though you wander through caves and, naturally, corridors, there is nothing samey about the design, at least from my perspective, it's like each map has its own personality. My only gripe is how geometry can become a disadvantage in certain maps, the clearest example is map 28, I could count at least 10 elastic collisions in the same room, wow. The soundtrack is a wide selection of tracks we all probably know from wads like Scythe and Alien Vendetta, some ROTT midis, this song by Blur called "Song 2", and more. Honorable mentions are TNT04 and Plutonia 2 map 14 midis, because those are my favourite Doom tracks :P This is a weird case of a mapset, it has everything in aesthetics to accompany the same quality of gameplay, but that's not always the case here. The style of combat is actually diverse, from casual instances of frontal fights, to extreme carnage in confined spaces, and everything in between. I'd think of Alien Vendetta or Scythe's third episode as a comparison, Plutonia too, there's some obvious homages of those scattered in the maps, but the general adventurous/murderous grindy bloodshed of that era is present here, along with many situations of slaughter-esque, choreographic-based fights in arenas of all sizes. Usual starts evolve surpassing an army of dudes (mostly imps, cacodemons and former humans) to reach your first available weapon, and that becomes a serious task in further maps where earlier monsters are also mid to high-tiers in packs waiting to unleash their power on you. Progression, despite being mostly linear key hunts, comes at the cost of multiple deaths in order to build a route to where resources are lying, which can be tense and fun, if sometimes very slow in this wad. Things get real demanding in the middle episode, not to mention how hazardous is the cramped combat in this wad, specifically when all sorts of enemies join together to shred you before you realize what's going on. It's ok to put pressure from many sides, but situations like chains of hitscanners inside a small square or instapop barons/revenants in a very narrow corridor, combined with questionable geometry, are merely RNG rollercoasters, and that kind of combat isn't my thing. Anyway, about opposition, if something can't be ignored is the vast number of circumstances where this can't deliver it's full potential thanks to some inconsistency in their placement. What you see is what you get, except they don't always get to your spot, which isn't the monsters' fault, but the enormous amount of block lines that impede them to track the marine. This is extremely crucial, since it trivializes a LOT of the encounters, whether they become boring "walls" of meat or subject of obvious infight, almost like scripted shows. I'm not opposed of the infighting though, it was fun to trigger as many ambushes as possible to solve their issues on their own, and helps a lot when ammo is tight, because I noticed weapon progression can be wonky sometimes for pistol starts, like secret SSGs or BFGs when they would theoretically be more optimal as mandatory. On a semi-positive side, there exist a bunch of interesting concepts and gimmicks, such as to prepare yourself in god mode for a full slaughter arena; take a blur sphere to handle a sudden zombiemen apocalypse; lead a spiderdemon to perforate a bunch of revenants; activate switches to watch some imps being tortured, which are some sort of obscure indication of another gimmick with barrels, you'll probably realize too late about it. Good or bad execution is in the eye of the beholder, the standout for me is a finale where the platform lowers into a pool of corpses and, you guessed it, a squadron of savage archviles flood the space and turns the arena into an uncontrollable madness in a blink of an eye. I'm still not sure what to think of that section, it's doable but far from fair, I would have preferred to have the archviles introduced part by part. Whatever, I'll never forget about the constant fire in my screen... The megawad comes with three new enemies. One is an upgraded baron of hell, also known as "Hellstorm Archon" in Realm667. In combat, he gets to be a douche in tight quarters. It takes time to adjust your dodging since he now shoots a second fireball, which also means that in infighting he's able to smash up to four-five revenants, for example. The downside is their usage, typically found (un)protected by block lines inside a cubicle, or at the top of a lift waiting in a tiny room with no chance to avoid damage. The concept of this new baron is cool though. Another new douche is the Z-Sec, a tanky sergeant wearing a helmet. He shoots in bursts, three shotgun shots. Yes, a nasty opponent, the only issue is that a close SSG shot might not be enough to kill him if blockmap gets in the way, which was annoying sometimes. Last but not least the Afrit, a flying red hell noble, though in this wad it shoots just fireballs, thank goodness. They usually appear in family, and take a bunch of ammo to kill, specially if your shot push them far away. I guess their strongest usage is previous the last map, other than that their appearance is generally low. Secret-wise, super useful ones might not be easy to miss, but you really don't want to miss them. A SSG or BFG can make situations less awkward if found in time, there is one special chain of secrets to get a necessary BFG in one map that requires an atypical trick to get a necessary key, hope you find out the solution! Anyway, that's my standout secret, we need more of those in non-ZDoom stuff. Favourite maps are 10, 18, 23, 24, 25, and 30, while the rest have their ups and downs. The secret maps deserve a mention too, particularly map 32 for its visual content. The maps where it's possible to miss kills are 06, 18, and 29, monsters that failed to teleport in somewhere. Overall, while not outstanding on its gameplay, this is still one of the most impressive-looking wads I've seen so far, that could be a good reason to at least try on HNTR or HMP, because UV can turn head-scratching later, not suitable for casual blind runs. I'm honestly glad with the experience, it ended in good terms. My rate is 6,5/10.

Doom the Way Id Did birth from the idea of making maps that could replace the original campaing and made mostly with the same aesthetic and limitations of maps made on 1993. But not only that, the idea is also to emulate the designing styles of the different authors of the maps of the original Doom: Romero, Petersen, and Hall. This made the authors of this megawad analyse the quircks and designing ideas behind the original creators. For certain, after completing this mapset not only one, but like more than 10 times already, i feel that this mapset is overrated. Yes, some maps are really good, especially on episode 2 and some on episode 3. But the first episode not quietly match up to the original shareware episode. That said, here is a review map per map of all episodes along UDTWID, as it was later expanded to contain also all new Episode 4 maps. Every map has it name, it author, the author style to mimic, and an individual rating for the map. Episode 1: -E1M1: Communications Bridge by Sarah Mancuso (esselfortium)(Romero) 2.5/5 For certain, it start differentiating itself from the regular way Id Did their job. Esselfortium opening map is vastly more complex than the original Hangar by Romero. It is still a short map, but it chain of secrets is far more complex. Also, not great opening sight to set the mood, just a green wall with windows. The music used on the DTWID Music pack isn't a great opener, but its ok. A little repetitive, even before it start looping. -E1M2: Military Bunker by Nick Laurent (hobomaster22)(Romero) 3.5/5 Again, a far more complex map than the expected for a second map on the first episode. This time, a little bit longer than the map on the same place of the original. The layout is intricante and non linear for the most part. Still, this one is fun. So Hobomaster did a good job here. The music is quite up to the atmosphere of the map, fitting well with it pacing. -E1M3: Fuel Synthesis by Sarah Mancuso (Romero) 1.5/5 This is where things started to stray from the usual. This map is really big for a third map, almost too much. IT start to drag a lot when the Id formula by Romero just make it long enough to beat it on one sitting. Great map by Essel, no doubt. But too long. Also, for some reason, its fairly easy to find the secret exit before the normal one. The music is quite spooky and good. But the map is soo long that is makes the action seem slower than what it is. -E1M9: Excavation Site by Stuart Rynn (Stewboy)(Romero) 2/5 Another really long and slogish map with a lot of interconnected areas. Stewboy make a linear map, but it interconnectivity detriment it pacing. There are some really good desings here, but again, it is a bit too long for Ep.1 The music here is a stright rip of Zero by The Smashing Pumpkins. As the map is longer than it should, it start to loop heavily on the back for a boring action. -E1M4: Treatment Plant by Jason Root (Hellbent)(Romero) 4/5 Really good medium to large map that opens up a lot and has a really good nonlinear nature. This is far more complex than the map on the same sloth, but somehow, it catches the same ambience and atmosphere for a good action packed round. So Hellbent did an amazing job here with great secrets. The music is simple and repetitive, but it works. -E1M5: Engineering Bay by Jacob Zuchowski (ellmo)(Romero) 4/5 Another great medium to large map. But this one is a bit more linera with a lot of interconnected areas. The areas are greatly designed and the secret are quite good. The music here is slow and atmospheric going perfectly with the lenght of the map. -E1M6: Reactor Complex by Nick Laurent (Romero) 3/5 Pretty long map, but fortunatelly, it doesn't drag too much. Is a linear map with side secret areas. It goes well in this spot as the orignal map6 was also a little longer than the previous. Hobomaster did another great map quite fitting with Episode 1 aesthetic. The music is a stright rip of Sex Type Thing by Stone Temple Pilots. -E1M7: Logic Core by Trevor Primmett (iori)(Romero) 2/5 Long, kinda non linear interconnected map. It goes well for the slot number as map7 on the original was also pretty long. Problem here is the interconnectivity, making easy to loose track of where you are. Sometimes a strightforward approach is better, but anyway. The aesthetic is good here with some areas reminicent of the original maps in general. The music track is a march style slow one, pretty menacing and kinda spooky. It mesh so so with the map. -E1M8: Transport Facility by Jacob Zuchowski (Petersen) 3.5/5 The episode ending is quite similar to the original, but with a little more ramp up. Lonelines and dread is sense during all the map until the final area. And thats really good. The secrets are good, but one is kinda stupid as you need to beat the bosses to access it. The musis isn't as dreadful and the original, but its also quite good and fitting. Episode 2: -E2M1: Receiving Station by Xaser Acheron (Petersen) 4/5 It set the tone for corrupted tech base quite well. Far more than the original map. The lenght is right for the slot, and the secrets are good, making the little backtracking worth. Undoubtly, Xaser knows what he did with this map as its a perfect introduction to Ep.2 The music is a stright rip of Big Guns by Ac/DC. Repetitive as fuck and not meshing with the map at all. -E2M2: Filtration Compound by Sarah Mancuso and Xaser Acheron (Petersen)(Romero) 4/5 Now this is how a good colaboration is made. Essel and Xaser deliver a really atmospheric and quite complex and interconnected map. It deviates from the warehouse setting of the original, but it deviates for good. The corrupted techbase theme is taken to the max here. The music is repetitive slow but quite atmospheric and fitting for this map. -E2M3: Rec Facility by Captain Toenail (Hall)(Petersen) 5/5 This map is a really good fun. Again the usage of corrupted tech base is top notch. The length is right and the pacing is just amazing. Capatain Toenail delivered a great map for sure, right there as good if not slighty better than the original slot map. As like the original game, the music is the intermission music. Since the map is on the action side with a subtle exploration, it fits quite well, even if it becomes a little repetitive. -E2M4: Mental Ward by Jacob Zuchowski (Hall)(Petersen) 5/5 Amazing atmosphere from the get go. This is kinda in line with the darkness that dominates Deimos Anomaly, too. But here is far earier and haunting. The lenght is surprisinly medium to short, but there is no bad moment on it. Excellent map. Far better than the original. The music piece is quite earie and atmospheric, too. Meshing perfectly with the map. -E2M5: Deimos Command by Mike Alfredson (Use3D)(Petersen) 2.5/5 Even when the atmosphere and the layout is good, the pacing of thi map is not good. There are too much workaround to get to the later areas, something that could be easily fixed by putting switch that activated a set of stair or a lift on the courtyard behind the lue door. That, and making one secret inaccessible if you move onto the room after the yellow bars, it make the liking of this mapset not good. Its kinda a let down from the great maps that were before this one. The original map for this slot was also really convulted, and long. On the good side to this map, is that it is fairly more coehesive and easy to explore, even without checking the automap. The music track is an ominous spooky march, previously seen on E1M7 i think. Its good for this map, certainly. -E2M9: Nebulous Origins by Trevor Primmett (Petersen) 4/5 Now, this map, is what map e2m5 should had been. Complex and long with a good pace, neat sights and interesting areas. It even has a secret exit back from the starting point. how this one was relegated to E2M9, a map with a name that hinted some kind of bizarre setting, just to deploy the usual corrupted tech, is beyond my understanding. Anyway, this was supossed to be faithful to the original game, so making a really abstract and bizarre map would had detracted for the faithfulness. In this case as it was a secret map, and for a map that had a really abstract map on it original slot, i wouldn't give a fuck to the faithfulness. As i said, great map. The music track is kinda good for the ambience, but a spookier one would have been better i think. -E2M6: Foundry by Gus Knezevich (Alfonzo)(Petersen) 3.5/5 This map has a perfect atmosphere and pacing...but really a lot of the map can be accidentally skiped, so that kinda is a let down, as most of the side areas, and even a key are optional. So i'm kinda divided on what this map offers. The atmosphere is top notch and the explorative aspect is cool, but at the same time, i feel its not implemented properly onto the pacing of the map itself. Taking that in consideration, the map is kinda short. Ok, the original map on this slot is not really good, even kinda tiresome on how long it could be, but the progress is dsigned to almost all areas being visited before having all the needed keys for the exit. One good way to solve this could be ad a colored key door with a switch behind that activates the stairs to the exit, that way, one need to explore more before completing it. The music track is a slow and atmospheric quite good for the map. -E2M7: Ore Processing by Brendt Pantley (Megalyth)(Romero) 2/5 Great atmosphere, but the map is really complex, interconnected and kinda all over the place with it pacing, so progressing through it is really tiresome and could make the player feel lost most of the time. This map is kinda analogue as the original E2M6, where the pacing is not clear and the progress is disjointed. Its a good map, but it not up to the excellent map that was on the same slot on the original. The music track is really good for the atmosphere, but as the map is a really mazey it becomes annoying and boring really fast. -E2M8: Vault by Michael Fraize (Marcaek) and Sarah Mancuso (Petersen) 4/5 strightforward boss map, better than the original, but annoying to loose track of where the cyber is teleported from time to time. The music track is not even near to how good was Nobody told me about Id. Episode 3: -E3M1: Abyssal Stronghold by Jacob Zuchowski (Petersen) 2/5 Kinda simplistic map. Theme wise, it works. Now, it lives up to the original? Hard to say, its a good map, but the original has kinda an iconic introduction. This one is just somewkind of portal inside a cave. Things are more spacious and less corridor here, and thats good. But i feel that it needed a little bit of atmosphere. Not much hellish, more than volcanic cave fortress. The music track is not good, feels more up to a tech base map than something like hell. -E3M2: City of Corpses by Walter Confalonieri (daimon) and Jacob Zuchowski (Petersen) 2/5 Not Interesting map with some nods to Mt.Erebus, its a big and linear map that tries to simulate non-linearity. Not bad map at all. Kinda empty and with boring sights. The music track is again more fitting for techbase and completely ruins the atmosphere. -E3M3: Malebolge by Icytux (Petersen) 5/5 Awesome nonlinear map with great interconnectivity and great areas. Secrets are top notch, too. First proper hell map on the set, and this one delivers as it should. Being far different from the original map on this slot, this one is a great example of good material here. The music track, even if a little punchy works pretty fine for this map. -E3M4: Torture Chambers by Captain Toenail and Jason Root (Petersen) 3.5/5 Quite short map, but good non less. The inspiration, aesthetically, is clearly the original Limbo, and it is delivered quitly well. But one of the things that i didn't liked much is that after collecting the keys, the path wasn't clear, still. That along with two shooteable switches, that don't appear on the original game before TFC, made me reluctant about this one. Its a good map, thats for sure. But has a few pacing problems. The music track is the same as on E1M8, earie, dready and quite fitting for the map. -E3M5: Chapel of Scorn by Paul Corfiatis (Edits by Alfonso and Essel)(Petersen) 5/5 Excellent map for sure, a little bit longer than one thought, but excellent. Paul really knows what he was doing here, the pacing is marvellous and the action is just right. Secrets are cool, and the areas are really good looking. The map seems to take inspiration from various maps, like E3M2, E3M5, and even map28 from Doom 2. Even though, there is also a clear TNT influence on almost every map Paul make, kinda greatly meshing the abstract and the semi-realistic. The music track is the same as E1M7, the menacing march, it goes well with this map, but i'm getting kinda tired of hearing it. -E3M6: Depths by James Cresswell (Phobus)(Petersen) 3.5/5 Good map, really good. The secrets are well hidden, but the shootable switch detriments from the original experience, making the search for the secret exit a little tedious as its not what one would search on a map from the original game. The abstract nature of the map along the semi reallistic areas give an awesom vibe for sure. One of the best maps of the episode for sure. The music track is again Sex Type Thing by Stone Temple Pilots, strangely, it doesn't go bad with this one, but the map is soo good that probably any kind of music could go well with it. -E3M9: Lake of Fire by Christopher Lutz (Petersen) 3.5/5 Pretty good map in the same vein of Mt.Erebus. This one should have been a main level, not a secret one. Lutz, as always, deliverd a great map. A little bit more linear than the original, but still with great pacing and explorative aspects. The music track is again ZERO by The Smashing Pumpkins. And doesn't fit the map at all. -E3M7: Inner Sanctum by Jacob Zuchowski (Petersen) 3.5/5 Really good puzzle map, in fact, it is quite short, but as it is kinda big, it seem much larger than what it is in reality. Its a good mash-up of the sandbox open ended style of Mt.Erebus, with the concept of limbo, as all is surrended in darkness to simulate emptyness. Only thing that didn't mesh well with the map is it name, but well, it kinda and not. The music track its quite atmospheric and fitting for sure. -E3M8: Core by Eli Cohen (ProcessingControl)(Petersen) 5/5 A really good final boss map. Quite improvement over the original, but still giving it an homenage with it form. The map has it difficulty on properly aiming to the Mastermind. The music track its quite good as a climatic one. On the ending, the Bunny theme is quite good, too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From here i will be reviewing the Ultimate Domm The Way Id Did, Thy Flesh Consumed Episode replacement. From the get go, the team took really long time to complete it, and it is only 9 maps long. And thats is something to take unto the equation. Seems like all those years, the team making the maps forget about the idea of maps being made on 1993/1995 as the maps here are far more complex than anything saw on the previous episodes. Not only that, but also some maps are not, even if they supposelly did, resemble anything that could had come from the head of the original authors of this episode: Romero, McGee, Green, Willits and Anderson. The designing cues may be there, but the aesthetic and limitations of the time, are not. So UDTWID is somewhat controversial as it doesn't fulfill at all what it should. But anyway, here is the review map per map. Episode 4: -E4M1: Into The Grave by Walker Wright (Pavera)(Romero) 4/5 Right on difficulty for the hardest episode. The map is nice for sure, grasping the TFC aesthetic quite well. Its pretty linear, and the secrets are easy, but is ok. Its notoriously more difficult than any of the previos maps on DTWID. The music track is the same as E1M8, similar to the original and fitting for the atmosphere, too -E4M2: Vile Affections by Matt Cibulas (RottKing)(McGee) 3/5 Not even near the difficulty of the map on the same slot as this one. Even though, the map is quite good and entertaining to play, with good monster placement and tight encounters. The aesthetic is more in line with map E4M3, but its ok. The secrets are pretty hidden, and probably not even thought as secrets on first sight. Maybe a more notorious approach would have helped more. Its quite interesting to note that maybe there are some kind of hardcoding ramp up in difficulty, somehow, as the shotguners in this episode are starting to be really hard hitters, unlike the previous episodes that they were kinda cannon fodder. The music track its not as cool as Donna to the Rescue, and its kinda repetitive. -E4M9: Terror by Mike Alfredson (Use3D)(Willits) 2.5/5 Really good map, good pacing and interesting layout. Its not techbasey as the original map, but still match with the aesthetic of the TFC. Albeit that, its easy to get lost in here, somehow. The secret are so so, some are easy to find and some need great explorative skills or just luck. But one time only secrets are a big no no. The monster placement is good and its moderatelly difficult. Just like the original. The music track is ZERO by The Smashing Pumpkins. It fits here, strangely, but is repetitive as hell. -E4M3: Earth, Blood and Fire by Chris Bourke (purist)(McGee) 3/5 Nice map, but the aesthetic doesn't feel right. Too much gray for the TFC. Aside from that, its a really good map that plays well and its really entertaining. The secrets are easy, except for the running one that may take more tries than one would like. The sight is good and i like the idea of a rising a bridge to access the other areas, even when most are acceded bua teleporters. The music track is surprisingly fitting for this map. -E4M4: Unclean Spirits by Michael Fraize (Marcaek)(Green) 1/5 Great achievement on vanilla mapping, gorgeous, top notch aesthetic grasping fully TFC. Problem? Balls hard, even playing continuous and on HMP. This maps needs a lot of tries to be completed. And you know what is the biggest offender? Well, yo don't need to go to the side areas at all. Yes, if you carefully made your way onto first area, and collected the blue key, you completed the map. Not even the side areas are in need to be explored, and the worst of all is that there is not enough health to completelly explore the map. If the side areas had good rewards that could be good, but just a few rockets, a berserk pack or a soulsphere is not reward enough for all the monsters you will have to kill to reach them. And the ammo loose on them. Seriously, how do you guys think this was on release state? This need a lot of balancing as i seriously thinking that maybe there is not even enough ammo to complete it on pistol start. Or even enough rad suits for explore it as it deserves. Or you are a dooming god or you spend lots of time trying to conquer it for a reward not that gratifying. And from the start, DTWID and it expansion, UDTWID aimed for a conservative design, trying to replicate or made maps on the style of the authors of the original game and a difficulty similar or a bit above the original game. This is nowhere something seen on the original game at all. Designing wise and difficulty wise. Those designs are not even near to what Tim Willits or John Anderson did on his master levels or released PWADS. Not A.McGee, not even Romero has this level of designing. And certainly not Shaw Green. They did something far more in line with the original game aesthetic and design. So this is completely bullshit about what UDTWID should be. Maybe it was made a joke? As the original E4M4 by McGee wa really simple and easy, so you guys went for something far more complex and ellaborate and balls hard? Well, this one was not fun at all, and not what is expected of a true UDTWID. The music track surprisingly fits this map, giving it a mysterious atmosphere. -E4M5: Doctrines of Devils by Gifty (Petersen) 4/5 Now this one is a true TFC experience. Gifty made an excellent map. It is supposelly on Petersen style, but it feels like meshing T.Willits and J.Anderson influence greatly. The simplier and clean design is faithful and makes for a really enjoyable experience. The map has a hub area with three different routes to tackle. So the pacing is at your choice. All of them are challenging and has greatly designed encounters. The final room after the yellow door, is a bit unforgiving with all the spectres and barons on almost complete darkness. But if you still have some BFG ammo, this is the place to use it. So perfect design for sure. The music track fits greatly on this map. -E4M6: Molten Gods by Richard Frei (Tarnsman)(Romero) 5/5 Excellent map in the style of Romero. Tarnsman did a great job here. The map is really fun, even when it is quite short. The layout and flow is excellent, allowing exploration and action in a good mix. There is even a surprise Cyber that offers a good challenge. The aesthetic is a bit woodey, too much wood for TFC, but mesh well with the map flow and design. The secrets are rightly done and none of them seems to be hard to find. The musci track, surprisingly, fits perfectly with this map. -E4M7: Hand of the Heathen by Gus Knezevich (Alfonzo)(Anderson) 2.5/5 Really interesting map, but has some flags. The layout is mostly like what Anderson did, orthogonal rooms with some interesting texturing. The pace is a little convulted as there are sections in need of a rad suit to be traversed, and if one loose something or miss as switch, it becomes tiresome. Maps that relies a lot on sector damage need a safe return or way to access the concealed area in case of need. Aside from that, the map is really hard on hitscanner action and Caco mobs. Not bad, but certainly something no note. The map is short per ce, but the use of the rad suit and the sponge enemies make for a slower action. The texturing may have been better, as Anderson make use of TFC aesthetic on an interesting way. The secret are not that hard to figure, and one is key dependant on a heavy damaging sector zone, so thats kinda annoying. Then there is a surprise Cyberdemon after the blue door that could literaly kill you on the surprise. The map gets flooded of demons, specters and lost souls that difficult the fight with the cow a little. After that, just a little more to access the final room with a neat self referencing bridge with a dead marine body on it. Something that didn't appeared at all on Doom or TFC, but well, nice touch. Not bad map, but could be better i think. The music track is quite fitting for sure. -E4M8: An End to Darkness by Xaser (Anderson) 3.5/5 This map is a tribute by Xaser, to the late John Anderson. The starting area of the map resembles the only know image of what is supposed to be the last map on his Inferno serie, ''Waters of Lethe''. Aside from that, the map doesn't resemble something Dr.Sleep would make. Its far more complex and kinda puzzley. In fact, it is almost a complete puzzle map that turns slaughtery at the end. Great map for sure, but doesn't mesh at all with the DTWID aesthetic, as this is too complex for something that could have come from 1993/1995. This fully grasp the TFC aesthetic, though. The map itself is divided on two parts, east or west. You don't need to explore both to complete the map, but only for completionist sake. The east area offers an interesting puzzle and the west area offers a more action packed approach. Both sides lead to the unique complain of the map, that is fighing a cyber on a tight corridor. Not only you are on a tight corridor, you also are under hitscanner fire and imp love. The proper way to face this part is founding the secret invensivility, but its kinda too well hidden, and this lead to the secrets. Most are cool and rewards exploration and attention to details. The pace is good and mostly you are all the time going from loud-quite-loud during all the map. There is a secret not reacheable by any means, and are just two textures in memory of Dr. Sleep. Great map, again. But departs too much from what UDTWID should be. After all, DTWID + UDTWID make for a great mapset. Far more loved than it should as it is vastly inferior to Wonderful Doom, or far less ambitious than 2002: A Doom Odyssey, for example. The authors couldn't stoped themselves of including some of their own quircks and designing choices. And thats not bad, as it adds some new fresh air to the style. But could have been done better as shown on the examples mentioned above. Mixing the boldness with the faithfullness is rather hard, thats for sure. And this was not an easy task. They succeded? For some yes, for me, not completely. So after playing it for long time, i can say that the real complete UDTWID is clearly Wonderful Doom made by Wraith777.

clearly when it comes to classic megawads Memento Mori gets mentioned. this is certainly a classic megawad on account that it clearly is imperfect in lots of senses. the overall feel is fairly Doom, only with stranger levels, those that are geared more for coop gameplay. but they did tweak it for singleplayer. nevertheless, there are loads of problems still, some HOMs can be seen in some maps (and the deep water effect in MAP25, lol) and many level secrets and items are unobtainable in singleplayer. the levels somehow do strike as memorable in a number of ways, the middle stretch between MAP10 to MAP12 definitely rings a bell, MAP10 being a middling mansion which is easy, MAP11 being strictly coop-based and screwed up heavily for singleplayer, and MAP12 being green marble with some stair tricks but without a lot of detail. along with crappy levels like those, there are some hiccups in progression, some of which can make levels impossible to complete, these include not collecting that backpack in MAP09 or that chaingun at the beginning of MAP14. to offset these we have some very cool maps such as MAP07, which definitely proves its title by being quite the puzzler, with a decent maze section and incredibly tough secrets to find. MAP18 and MAP28 are tough city-style levels with arch-viles in conspicuous corners and tough monster placements, with a few switchhunts that can be confusing, but are far more memorable and enjoyable than other switchhunts I've seen. finally there's MAP23, an early example of a true slaughtermap that still holds up. it's an obvious example of a mixed bag community project, and still can be considered replayable due to middling fun factors that ebb and flow. be warned of hitscanner placement in general, as they are gonna be the nastiest encounters in most maps. these maps are certainly not as polished as the ones in the sequel, and you're gonna have a better time playing the maps from that pack than this.

consistency is a key factor when it comes to which wads are fantastic and which ones are less than fantastic. for its time, MM2 was the bees knees, made for Compet-N and cooperative play. the experience of playing MM2 basically involves some pretty good level layouts that improved heavily on the quality that MM's maps actually lacked, and the combat that goes with it is appropriately harder than its predecessor. it is just a fresh full megawad for Doom 2 at the surface with gameplay and design being consistent throughout. many of the levels are medium-sized, and will usually take around eight minutes to beat, four if you're pretty fast. it is surprisingly balanced well, especially in single-player despite being geared for cooperative. and even those of you who usually play hard slaughter maps may actually find a few of the maps somewhat worthwhile, as monster counts are generally high and there's quite a few tough ones here and there. while there's some outlier maps that generally feel either silly (MAP32) or rather odd and not too fun (MAP20), the majority of the maps are fun. they don't need to be truly memorable, but are fun nonetheless. it's still likely to get lost in some of these maps, starting with MAP09, and also including some of the bigger ones like MAP22 and MAP27, which I think of as one of the actual better maps in the set. MAP28 is a nice corporate tower that certainly seems geared for coop-play, but seems to do well otherwise. some of the maps have tidbits that are kinda bland, like 30-second doors in some maps, that one lift in MAP22, and a few hard-to-reach secret areas, but they don't detract the overall experience that much. what compounds the MM2 experience is a wonderful soundtrack, alternating between two authors so you can see some signature styles of music. these tunes prove memorable as they are reused in many wads to come, while many of the wad author design styles are imitated in other wads to come. these are the reasons why MM2 has been a memorable wad for a lot of people. that, and it's fun to play and replay.

oh Hell Revealed, you are touted as a fantastic megawad back in the Memento Mori/Requiem days of Doom modding, and that's particularly all because you are all "gameplay over graphics" as compared to everything else. now, looking back at Hell Revealed, it's quite obvious that any and all inspirations to this wad have far eclipsed it. whether it be Kama Sutra, Alien Vendetta, and even Hell Revealed 2, Hell Revealed just doesn't hold onto any candles it used to have. but the keyword as to why Hell Revealed is considered so great is that it was inspirational. that's why people like it, that's why people reference it when they reference slaughter (though a look back at Hell Revealed reveals about 10 of the maps to actually be real slaughtermaps). the difficulty is still up there, higher than Plutonia for sure, and while the looks are not inspiring, the gameplay sure hits a boatload of strides, and shits at times. so my biggest gripes with the set are, first of all, the problematic monster re-placement for different difficulty settings. most notable would be in MAP18, a map I despise for its deceiving difficulty. there's a few moments where I'm pretty sure playing on HMP is harder than it is playing on UV. take the big room that has two spiderdemons in an open space on UV that show up. these are replaced with archies on HMP and are harder to dodge, since the spiderdemons would probably just infight with each other. a number of other maps have this issue, where cyberdemons are replaced with archies when they could actually be a little harder to tangle with. and the other issue with HR is that pretty much all of the maps are concept wads to some degree or have these interesting tidbit areas that while memorable, just don't play all that well in this day and age. the SSG room in MAP12 comes to mind, as well as the concept of MAP21, the usage of berserk in MAP09, and the reversal concepts in MAP28, plus the Cyberpunk maze and the notorious Afterlife which still remains the best map. HR doesn't go with a lot of proper themes either, the authors cared less about theming them appropriately for hard, scenario-based combat with some slaughters. Hell Revealed just isn't that good in 2019, but it sure inspired many creative children that further made modern sets better.