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[ SUPER LONG REVIEW ] I like the idea of a WAD being created by inexperienced and/or new mappers: it can showcase new idiosyncracies and allow little (in most cases, I guess)-known people to make a name for themselves on these forums. Having beat this for the third time and knowing how a good chunk of the levels worked, I also turned my focus to design and thematic consistency. Thankfully, the levels all seem to have about the same sort mapping skill on an aesthetic scale (with a few exceptions). This isn't a negative, by the way; if there's anything I dislike, it's seeing a beautiful map followed by a vastly inferior-looking one. That sort of thing doesn't gell well. The first NOVA on the other hand is consistent on that front. And, besides, considering the whole nature of the WAD, maps not looking quite as polished as stuff you'd see in Sunlust or BTSX isn't at all bad. So, what comes to basic looks, the WAD comes together nicely. How do the mappers themselves, what comes to gameplay, fare? Above-average, I'd say. PRIMEVAL, who made the first level (Outpost) and co-made The Seventh Circle (Map28) goes for typical pistol gameplay in the former. Kinda stale type of gameplay, but it works for a simple Map01. Jaws in Space only made Map02 (Administration Center), a sort of fast-ish paced techbase level with a nukage-cavern and ocean backdrop. Besides the hideous-looking toilets (well, I suppose that's the point), it looks fine. Gameplay can be a bit annoying, considering you'll have to use the Pistol for a bit. mrthejoshmon ups the game, making 3 levels: his first (Map03: Water Treatment Plant) is a compact map with some bigger monsters. It's alright: okay secrets and a non-official SSG (while I do like). Compound (Map08) is a kind of tribute to Containment Area (or I guess Storage Facility from TNT?) and has some secrets that weren't placed too good. Again, it's compact, and slow-paced. Luckily his third and last entry, Incubator (Map12) is a faster run-and-gun through an admittedly blocky-looking tech area (it uses that ugly black-and-white texture quite a lot). Still, a fun map is a fun map, so I can't complain too much. EvilNed is one of the more prolific mappers in this particular WAD, authoring 5 maps: 04, 07, 10, 14 and 17. All have a distinct look to them: tech levels that contain some form of liquid, whether it be simple water, lava, etc.. I must admit, his secret placement isn't what I'd personally call stellar, and the gameplay is really hit-and-miss: for some maps, like Map07, it's really fun (besides that damn ending!), others are adequate (04 and 14, the latter of which I'd argue has TOO many Mancubi, in spite of the map's jokey name "Man Cub Up") and the other two are just a bit frustrating (in 10, some areas shut off and potentially ruin a 100% run, and 17's ending is flat-out annoying, and has pretty shaky pacing). Next up is kildeth. Not a fan of his first map, Hazard Facility (Map05), what with the damaging floors everywhere, monster placement that I found obnoxious and, in my mind, crappy secrets. His second entry, Sensorium (Map27) is weird in that it's quite large but has sub-100 enemies. The first time I played it I hated it, but using the current UV-max strategy, it's more bareable. Arjak's two levels are quite different from one another: the first, Sewage Processing (Map06) is a compact map with a lot of secrets (relatively easy to find, one of which has an SSG!) and rather fun gameplay. Map20 (Castle Bloodletting) is a much larger level, with an annoying start that has enemies just about everywhere, but progressively gets better. The ending is quite tense. FuzzyFireball's only level is Suspend (Map09), a very linear massacre through hallways where the enemy fodder becomes stronger as you progress. Tense and fun. Phobus Anomaly (Map11) is a very Phobus level; rather small, and precise (and concise) enemy placement. I will admit though that I wasn't a huge fan: some of said enemy placement did feel annoying. sgt dopey delivers one of the first bigger maps in the form of Warehouse District (Map13). The start isn't great; for one thing, there's a slow lift that you have to manually activate to proceed, and falling from where you end up meand you have to repeat a dumb ascent to a switch, blah blah blah. The highlight is the ending in a city-looking area, with a fight with a Cyberdemon. Cannonball is a mapper who, in general, is REALLY hit-and-miss for me, and his NOVA levels are no exception. His first outing, The Prisoner (Map15) is not one of his masterpieces: aggitating enemy placement and Arch-Vile traps that bugged me to no end. The ending's quite tense, but it doesn't make up for the rest. Power Core (Map18) is our first real taste of slaughter-ish gameplay; it's okay. The Hell Revealed-inspired "maze" looks neat but plays like crap, but besides that, the map's serviceable with enough resources and well-thought secrets. Paul D made Teleportarium (Map16), quite the fun "go-left-or-right-to-find-whatever-key" sort of level, featuring an ever-increasing growth of enemies that swarm the centre of the map. He revisits some of the areas of this map with his second entry, Immaterium (Map23), which is sort of Map16 if it was merged with Hell. Cool design, but I don't think the gameplay elevated it to quite the former map's status. Cyriak (or mouldy) is one of the mappers (along with Cannonball and dobu) whose aesthetics rise above most of the others, and sort of fucks with the consistency I was on about above. Despite this, his maps are fun to play and you can see his surreal design bearing fruit (and being perfected in Going Down). Bad Blood (Map19) is apparently his first Doom map ever, and it's quite impressive. The ending with the Hellish tentacles are very Cyriak-y. Vile Arterium (Map25) has the fatal sin of being beatable in less than 30 seconds: you can literally run straight to the exit with a Hell Knight and maybe a Cyberdemon in your way, whom you can avoid. Besides that, it's okay, with a lot of diverse areas like a blood sewer (?), machinery, vents, etc.. The Seventh Circle is, I'm guessing, mostly a product from him, and is possibly my favourite map in the WAD; a large cave, a library and prison-like areas... also, inventive traps. joe-ilya delivers a couple of Hell-themed maps, the first being Beta Base (Map21), which does have ammo and the like, but just enough to kill everything. It's weird since the last level didn't have a death exit, so why do this? I dunno, maybe for pistol starters. In any case, okay, the ending with the enemies in the field is dumb. Hell's Playground (Map26) is a "jog"-paced (between slow and fast) map revolving around the chaingun and the shotguns. It's more of a filler level than anything. Getsu Fune's two maps are distinct for having large rooms: Broken Confluence Point (Map22) starts off with a few monsters, then gradually opens up revealing Hellish caverns and gives you a nice dose of heavy artillery to help out. The ending involving telefragging teleporters sucks, though. The secret map Riptide (Map32) is a borderline-Tyson adventure underwater. Interesting idea, just very slow and not well executed in my opinion. Stygian gives us one of the big maps, Rings of Gyges (Map24). Getting some of the secrets is a pain, and a lot of the enemies feel like they're there just to boost the monster count up. Some fun areas involving key traps, but that's about it. dobu gabu maru's secret map Iron Exuviae (Map31) can be beaten pacifist, but going for the super secret exit, that's a whole different story. I actually enjoy the non-fighting portions, since the areas where you DO engage with enemies are generally poorly conceived. The first area is tight and has a ton of corners that you can easily get pushed into and it's game-over, and the last has a massive swarm of Revenants and a bunch of pillars you can easily rocket yourself into. Nice design and music, but otherwise bothersome. Memfis and fiend-o-hell collaborate on the same map, the penultimate one: Extorta Nova (Map29). Usually a map made (or at least co-made) by Memfis is a good sign, but sadly the first half is a bit daft, waiting on slow lifts to get you into areas with 20-dealing damage floors and, once again, telefrag teleporters. To me, that is indeed "artificial difficulty". Just teleport the player near the start. The Cyberdemons are in tight corridors. God help those playing this from pistol start. So, that should be just about all the mappers. Some of them (namely: kildeth, dobu, Cannonball, Cyriak and Arjak) collaborated for the behemoth of a final level, Megiddo! Each made their own section. Only three are required, but for completion's sake I did them all! Arjak's is probably the easiest and has by far the least enemies, though the Revs and the Spider Mastermind can be bitches. Dobu revisits some areas from the previous maps (that's an idea I've always wanted to see, so cool), which flows quite nicely. Cannonball goes for slaughter-like gameplay, and it's quite fun actually, and can get really intense. Cyriak is more fiendish, using Arch-Viles especially to catch the player off guard. I can see this frustrating some people beyond belief, but knowing this stuff beforehand, it's fine; I also like the blue design. kildeth, I suppose, made the southwestern portion which I stand by as the "bullshit" section: a wide-open cavern with Pain Elementals, a few Cyberdemons, Arch-Viles and hitscanners galore. Sure, there's an Invulnerability, but even so, it's dumb. Also, 20-damaging floors are aggravating! The actual ending looks cool, and isn't that tough: a small clan of monsters, then focus on a trio of Cyberdemons then shoot into the boss brain. You win! All-in-all, a mostly consistent (I have a limited vocab, I know), interesting WAD that warrants a try. Best Maps: 06, 09, 16, 19, 28, 30 Worst Maps: 05, 15, 31

"Deja Vu all over again." Therefore Plutonia Revisited has been finished, played through GlBoom+ 2.5.1.5 on UV difficulty. A mostly pleasant surprise but could have offered more, so let's why that is. Plutonia Revisited is a 32-map megawad consisting of revamped versions of the existing levels from Final Doom's Plutonia Experiment expansion, made by various members of the community. It comes with new textures, music, status bar, intermission screens, and fonts. Unlike Plutonia 2, Plutonia Revisited does not aim to be a fan sequel of any sorts to the original IWAD, but rather aims to offer a different spin on the original maps from Plutonia while sticking to its design philosophy very closely and not taking too many liberties most of the time. Which is perhaps its greatest flaw. Although most levels bear striking similarities with the original, they are sometimes taken to a whole new level where they basically descend into rip-off territory. This is due to preserving too much from the original levels on quite a few occasions where its no longer about staying faithful to the original as these places in maps are almost identical, apart from perhaps a few changes here and there. This can be observed both early in the wad as well as later, when nearing the end. Another problem would be the music. The soundtrack is good and fits the theme, combat, and overall atmosphere of the levels, however it repeats the same mistake PL2 did, by being all over the place. Ultimate Doom, Doom II, and various sources or original works. Not particularly good for consistency. Luckily, those are also the only (major) problems of Plutonia Revisited. It does a great job at preserving the overall atmosphere, gameplay, and otherwise essence of the original while also adding its own spin to the levels, and the liberties taken are fairly big sometimes. As it was the case with PL2, it seems that MAP11 is once again the map that stands out of the crowd by being a re-imagining of the original while keeping its core element intact. This time, the player finds themselves into a city-like map, not too dissimilar from Odyssey of Noises sometimes, with an occasional PL2 vibe to it, but its much larger with wide, open areas, many enemy types, and complete lack of the door gimmick. It does keep the many Arch-Viles in place though, and they ambush the player in many ways, but usually only one or two of them is encountered at one time, apart from a few instances. Similar to PL2, the quality is fairly consistent considering the number of people who contributed to the project, but at the same time it's also easy to tell who made each map because they all play differently and have their unique play style and design. After all is said and done, the journey ends with the traditional IoS boss fight, short and straight-to-the-point, only needing to press a couple of switches to raise a platform and lower a lift, then blast the brains of the boss to pieces. It is by far a better take on the concept than PL2's effort with the awkward and hard to determine firing angles. Overall, PLR manages to be a good effort at re-imagining the original Plutonia while adding its own spin. It's fun and refreshing, despite its occasional dick encounters/traps, which are very, very few, and easy to see coming unlike the various instances seen in PL2 which were also more numerous. It could have been better if it took more liberties or at least didn't almost copy-paste parts from the original with only a few changes in places. Worth a shot for fans of Plutonia and PL2. My favorite maps are going to be the ones seen in the first half, and my least favorite level is going to be MAP20, the single and most obtuse level in the package. So, grab your weapons and prepare for the Revenant and AV onslaught.

"Putrid stench in your last breath, Seeing death is nothingness, Inhale the winds of punishment. Aim! Fire! Attack! " (Perversor - Inhale (Anticosmocrator, 2015)). And thus, Plutonia 2 ended, played through Eternity 4.00.00 Voluspa on UV difficulty. A rather interesting community sequel to the most challenging IWAD, but does it live up to its name? Well let's find out, shall we? Plutonia 2, as the name implies, is a community sequel to The Plutonia Experiment, one half of the Final Doom expansion for the original Doom II. It aims to be a continuation to the IWAD and thus it sticks pretty close to its philosophy while adding new things to the table and expanding upon the foundation of the predecessor. It comes with new music, status bar, ENDOOM screen, fonts, and intermission screens. The Schutzstaffel and Commander Keen are the only non-standard Doom II enemies to make an appearance in the levels. The design of the maps stays true to that of the original while bringing its own spin and usually taking liberties, but the essence of Plutonia is present in every map, that being challenging combat and smart enemy usage. The player is carried on various locations on Earth and Hell during the journey, both indoors and outdoors, and faces an Icon of Sin at the end. Similar to the original, the difficulty curve is traditional, starting relatively easy and slowly becoming more difficult s you make progress. Relatively, because just like the original even the first map can give the player a false sense of safety, but all it takes is a dumb mistake and everything goes down. Mistakes are costly in Plutonia, and Plutonia 2 is no different. There are also no difficulty spikes, therefore the balancing is done well for all maps, from the beginning to the end, and the enemies or maps themselves aren't the only thing to pay attention to either. Resource management plays a big role. Easy to get fooled into believing the maps are offering a bunch of ammo or health, only to discover in potentially the same map that it isn't so. Monster infighting also helps in the more punishing sections. Although the general ideas of Plutonia are followed, certain iconic maps present an interesting take on their concept, with perhaps the most notable level being MAP11: Arch-Violence, which expands on the original's Hunted. This time around the player finds himself in a maze with 3 locked door (3 keys), and the Arch-Viles are no longer encountered one by one, facing even small groups at once. Another difference would be the lack of very tricky portions that the original had. A notable example here would the notorious Soul Bridge, an idea which isn't seen in PL2 at all, instead resorting to other creative traps and encounters to kill the player or push them over the edge. But this is perhaps were the problems arise. Despite the encounters being fair and challenging most of the time, there are a number of questionable choices. Sometimes the player is ambushed in very dark, if not pitch dark rooms, and occasionally a completely unexpected monster closet opens up, killing an unsuspecting target in a matter of moments. There are also a number of secrets that are trapped, instantly spawning enemies around you. Both are cheap ways to kill an unsuspecting target as neither of them require the player to anything other than have previous knowledge, as by the time they assess the situation they're dead. Other than this, despite some maps paying homage to other traits of their IWAD counterpart, they might go too far. MAP29 is one such scenario. Although it's a very solid map with good layout, interesting areas, great use of textures, and fun combat, it's too long for its own good, taking almost or over an hour to finish in a blind playthrough. MAP29 was also the longest map in Plutonia, but took nowhere near as much, thus this level being an example of a level taking an idea to the extreme. The final map has, unfortunately, a very anti-climatic end game battle. This is because it's one of the worst takes on the IoS out there. The player is tasked with shooting the eyes, or forehead, of an IoS from awkward angles. Awkward, because it can only be found out through trial-and-error, shooting it randomly until it starts making noises. The only clue given by the platforms that need to be raised is that it's either the left side of its face, or right, nothing else. Certainly fun to shoot rockets randomly. The music is another interesting aspect in PL2. The most intriguing part being that it's literally all over the place. It features entirely new tracks from different sources, as well as Doom and Doom II. It makes no sense. Luckily though, the tracks do fit the maps they're used it, so this becomes less of a problem, despite still being there anyway. The new tracks seem to be more action oriented, unsurprising considering that PL2 places greatest emphasis on gameplay, and then the visuals and atmosphere, although it has plenty of that. Fortunately, these are also the only problems in PL2. For a community project with contributions from various authors the quality is fairly consistent, but it's also easy to tell when you're playing a map done by someone else as they all exhibit pretty different gameplay styles, design, and enemy usage, while also keeping in mind the core aspects of the original. This is always important but sometimes difficult to nail in projects, where quality consistency can become a real problem, and it's not without precedent to run into a few, or a lot of, fantastic maps, only to end up in a real crappy map, or maps, in the same wad at some point. The opposite is also true, the maps becoming too similar to each other to the point the player has no idea whose map they're playing because there's nothing to create contrast between them. Do you miss the Chaingunners, for instance? So do they, they're back with a vengeance. So, PL2 might not be perfect, and in some cases perhaps (slightly) worse than the original, but it definitely is worthy of the title and does justice to Final Doom's Plutonia Experiment while adding its own spin. My favorite levels are going to be the ones seen in the first half, plus MAP29. Yes, it drags on terribly, but the design and gameplay is solid so calling it awful based solely on that would be foolish and dishonest. So, grab your weapons and start reliving the Plutonian experience.