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Pretty charming map similar in style of "No Rest for the living" (for the little i've played of that wad), is a centric-chaingun gameplay map with a easy-going vibe on first half and a more menacing monster placement in the second half, all map is almost pretty stingy with ammo and health, so be careful of don't waste it too much...

I recently started my journey through the Doomer Boards Projects, checking the Doomworld threads and downloading a few for a quick look, but now I'm determined to play them all and catch up with the rest. After all, having played DBP1 and 2 I can say that the quality here is not only solid, but amazing. Circle of Caina lives up to its name. You are going to do circle strafing, a lot. One more map compared to the previous release, DBP2 follows the Christmas theme with an amazing collection of winter textures that convey a perfect feeling of cold and demonic Christmas. The quality of the maps is as great as the previous delivery, showing not only a great consistency in its control but also an excellent capacity to produce solid deliveries, after all, there are more than 20+ DBP already and all of them seem to be of excellent quality. I must admit that I prefer Monuments of Mars, not so much for being a quality divergence (both maps share the same quality) but for the fact that the Circle of Caina gameplay can be a little less... merciful.

For a first map this is pretty impressive. I could definitely identify the influence of No Rest for the Living, a mapset I really enjoy and would love to see more maps in the vein of. My main complaint for the map is that - until near the ending - pretty much all of the monsters are placed in front of the player and the gameplay consists of simply moving forwards and clearing out what's in front of you. The combat picks up slightly near the end, with the fight just after the blue key door (of the Hell Knight, along with a Revenant that teleports in just as you're getting started) is the highlight. The layout is fine, with progression naturally looping from key pick-ups to their corresponding doors. The most exciting part of the progression is dropping down into a nukage pit near the end of the map to make your way to the blue key, although - and again I have to mention the limited gameplay here - it feels like the mapper doesn't take advantage of the player's vulnerable position when they're down in the nukage as there isn't enough exciting gameplay to raise the tension. Aside from those complaints, I think it's pretty good! The map is quite well-made from a technical standpoint and I found the visuals to be decent enough. Wasn't a fan of the music though, unfortunately. I'd love to see the mapper play around with the visual style of No Rest for the Living and give us some more maps, with spicier gameplay and perhaps a little more space in which to play around in and explore - I definitely think this wad shows a lot of promise!

One of my favorite maps to play. Fantastic design, layout, detailing, progression and thing placement. This felt like something straight from No Rest for the Living and exhumes quality! It also had a great song choice.

Here goes yet another wad. I don't have much to say about this wad to be completely honest. It follows the design of the original Doom quite closely, and so does the gameplay, therefore it does reach its goal of making episodes that could be easily mistaken for levels created by id itself. I don't have any maps to dislike or hate, and like in the original game, my favorite levels are mostly from E3 due to the surreal look and great use of colors. It also includes a custom background and start/end mission screens. Not mind blowing and cartoony looking but still nice enough, and they're also animated. Beside the cartoony look, there's no real complains to be made here. It doesn't feature new music, which is something I expected to see in such a project, but oh well. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars from me is the fact that, especially in E1 from what I managed to see, there's quite a number of misaligned textures which had become a bit irritating at some point when I started noticing them more and more, and did this unwillingly, which means they're quite obvious during normal play (without looking specifically for them). And there's no E4, but perhaps I'm just asking for too much here as this was probably beyond the scope of the project since neither Thy Flesh Consumed nor No Rest for the Living from Doom 2 were part of the original games at release but added at a later time. All things considered, it's a great wad and well worth your time, but with some visual annoyances. Otherwise, no serious bugs or flaws.

Well...first of all, the message conveyed to Kate in this wad is clear enough, even if many players or users don't know of her, which is nice. With that being said, time to analyze the maps. The look of the maps are what makes this mapset a nice looking experience. I really liked the looks of some items, it makes it so adorable but the maps are that but adorable. The first map serves as a sort of introduction for what comes ahead. There's also that new weapon which replace the plasma...that was a really cool weapon. Perfect to kill durable monsters or take them out several monsters at once. Traps that aren't hard to get caught, medium difficulty (Jimmy likes to make the maps balanced which players can appreciate that) and some nice music can be enjoyable for the rest of the maps (I liked the music of the last map). Ah...talking of the last map, there are some gripes that are worth mentioning. The heart platforming can be frustrating if the jumps are not timed correctly and dying a lot...not the ideal way to stop a player. Maybe doing a teleport action instead of killing the player might be more.....apt. Next? the archies...if the player doesn't know the advantages of the archie's attack mixed with invulnerability and kill them instead, the player will be forced to kill himself or cheat, which is also not ideal I'm afraid. I know that's a tad late for some future updates but....who knows :) The very last area where there are rainbow clouds and that sprite goes back to the main purpose of the wad...which is to remember and convey the mapper's feelings to her, as a farewell. And, I'll admit, it was touching. Soulsphere? Ok. 4 barons with a death exit? That surprised me :D Overall, it's a good mapset which I can recommend to other players to try it themselves and also...enjoy your life at the fullest...unexpected situations can happen before you know it, so cherish it as long as you live. Thumbs up!!!

Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv's Hell Revealed was about as hard a megawad could get back in 1997, but you never would believe so looking at the first few maps. Maps 1-8 and 10 are cordial and pleasant enough levels which aim to make you feel powerful and almighty, slaughtering many foes into claustrophia enducing layouts where you won't have much room to move. Hell Revealed likes its tight corridors and hallways and they will be a recurring motif until the very end of the level set. Starting with Map 11, Underground Base, HR finally reveals its hand. Prepare to fight off waves of beefy enemies like barons, mancubi, revenants, archviles and cyberdemons, all with very little supplies and weapons at your disposal. You have to be expected to have a good eye for secrets to even get the basic tools you need to do your job, at least when playing on Ultra Violence difficulty. Levels like Last Look at Eden (MAP13) and City in the Clouds (MAP14) almost play like puzzles, where you must figure out what the developer intends you to do. Fail to figure out the correct route? Have fun killing hordes of mid-tier monsters with just a shotgun and chaingun! Even then, following the correct path usually just gives you a super shotgun, which only slightly lessens the tedium factor. Throughout all of Hell Revealed, you will be constantly circle strafing in square or circular rooms, slowly shooting down hordes of beefy monsters with the SSG until several minutes later, everything is dead. This prospect gets even worse when level layouts are often devised to make infighting more difficult to happen than it should and the overbearing presence of Barons of Hell, which rule this WAD with an iron fist. Maps like The Path (MAP16), Hard Attack (MAP18) and Judgment Day (MAP20) commit to a grind-heavy mindset where battles are very slow, meticulous and painstakingly boring to win, which is the one factor that likely ages this WAD the worst. Hell Revealed is often criticized for its very crude looks, but I find it oddly charming and it has a strong visual identity. For better and for worse, you all remember the searing pink skies, Arachnophobia (MAP7)'s layout, where you fight spiders inside a giant spider, the heavily fortified areas and courtyard of Last Look at Eden, the circular ramparts of Gates to Hell (MAP15), the Doomcute flourishes of The Siege, where you start inside a cozy house that demons can't invade. It also has some stunning looking maps, like the future base of Ascending to the Stars (MAP23) and the experimental Afterlife (MAP26). It does make up for some of the more flat and brown maps like Chambers of War (MAP10) or Hard Attack (MAP18). The music of the WAD is taken straight from Rise of the Triad, but its soundtrack runs out around MAP20, where the rest of the journey must be undertook with the default Doom 2 music (with the exception of some ROTT reprisals at MAP27 and MAP29). While Hell Revealed mostly commits to grindy gameplay, the script does deviate a few times throughout the level set and these moments tend to be the most memorable. MAP9, Knockout, will give you a boxing tutorial where you will be expected to punch out over 200 imps, saving the shotgun and chaingun for emergencies and monsters you can't punch out. It sticks out in a weird way in the MAP 1-10 stretch, being the only big challenge in an easy lot of stages and its gameplay never gets replicated. Mostly Harmful (MAP32) hints toward the slaughter gameplay that would get perfected by the community years later and finally allows you to go nuts with the firepower, which is needed since an unreachable Icon of Sin will be spawning new monsters constantly, forcing you to stay on the move. This remains one of the better uses of the IoS in a WAD and the concept would be reprised much later in Ancient Aliens' MAP18. Everything Dies (MAP19) is an easy gimmick map to like: you get all weapons, ammo, health and armor at the very beginning, but nothing else after that. You need to stay resourceful and minimize risk to reach the end, but its encounters shy away from cheap gotcha! moments and are fun to plow through. Resistance is Futile (MAP22) is a great fast-paced slaughter map that gave birth to many imitators throughout the years and might be HR's single most influential moment. Post Mortem (MAP24) is half puzzle, half brutality incarnate: you will be cremated at the seems until you figure out where to carve a footstep through this Living End homage flooded with Hell's worst of the worst. The main difference between Post Mortem and maps like Last Look at Eden is that Post Mortem doesn't shy away from giving you supplies and ammo, you are given all the tools you need to reliably succeed and it's up to you to get them and methodically chip away at this hell cave scenario. Dead Progressive (MAP25) builds around Dead Simple and makes it a much more compelling compact level with tight and snappy combat. Afterlife (MAP26) features a dream world where you walk through space and find some distorted pockets which warp you to hostile arenas. Once you're past them, don't relax yet; archviles will resurrect ghost monsters that will keep hounding you until you can finally find the exit... So Hell Revealed can be great when it wants to, but it also can leave really bad impressions. The Descent (MAP31) is... an elevator descent that lasts way too long and can easily be cheesed by standing on the teleport marker. The rest of the level is so flat it could have been made in Wolfenstein 3D and features cyberdemon fights in tiny rooms, which always are a big gamble. Hard Attack offers some thrills with the teleporting cyberdemon duel, then wastes all of its goodwill on its fort rampart section which is packed with so many barons and revenants (and not remotely enough ammo to take them on). Judgment Day (MAP20) emphasizes the worst of HR's grindy gameplay mentality, making you fight so many heavies with just a shotgun and chaingun (the super shotgun is hidden away in a secret area). Ascending to the Stars (MAP23) is likely the cheapest map in the whole set, piling in ambushes where you either can't do anything to protect yourself (that elevator ride down in a chaingunner filled room is all based on luck) or the tedium required to power your way through them will make you want to tear your hair out (the penultimate archvile room is the worst the whole WAD has to offer, as backing away from the archviles will force you in a teleporter pad you will have to teleport through roughly 500 million times). Hell Revealed (MAP 30) is the worst Icon of Sin fight there could be and likely will ever exist. Featuring a quad-demon spawner, several archviles in the back, a cyberdemon patrolling the lift you need to ride and hordes of revenants on platforms, you'll be lucky to even be able to land rockets in the Icon's brain and not kill yourself trying to pull the trigger. Hell Revealed was a very inspirational megawad for its time and some of its lessons were put to good use by other contemporary mappers, especially for projects like Kama Sutra or Alien Vendetta. Thankfully, the lessons that were pulled from Hell Revealed had more to do about how maps like Resistance is Futile, Post Mortem and Mostly Harmful were great map concepts that needed to be revisited at all costs and less emphasis on "super shotgun kills baron good eventually yay". As a full project, it's very uneven. The first episode is mostly on the easy side and isn't favored by most Doom veterans, but later on, the grind and dedication required to beat some of these maps can drive people up to the wall. Hell Revealed has lots of value as a historical artifact but has too many sags throughout its running time to be equally enjoyed gameplay-wise. It's a difficult WAD, but its difficulty often stems from resource depravation and grindy encounters, which is a tough sale today.

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. Nice mixed bag over here. First of all, snowy ambient in Doom is awesome, definitely one of my favourite custom themes. Some neat use of the textures and details, also a lot of misaligned walls and a few HOMs here and there, which I didn't care so much to be honest. Maps have caves, castles, mountains, platforming and even damaging water (perhaps too cold for doomguy's feet?), and a great usage of light variations, notable in the caves, a feature that made gameplay more enjoyable. In addition, a great collection of midis, of which two tracks were, unusual for the game (maps 12, 14). There are a couple of things to mention in terms of progression. On one side, most maps start similar, and excluding the bigger ones, all are pretty straightforward, so chances of getting lost are practically null. On another side, I'm not too sold on the difficulty's progression. I had way too many troubles in an early map, compared to the rest of the wad, which had it's ups and downs in monster placement. For example, in map 01 you get to kill lots of enemies in very open spaces, not hard at all but there are further maps that could have fit better in the first slot. As for map 03, this was the toughest of all for me, making the subsequent maps a cakewalk until slot 13. Between those two, there are several maps that fit their slots but also other ones, particularly 07 and 10, that lack substance and purpose, and could have perfectly been in slots 01 and 02, or expanded in some way. In regards to pros, exploration and puzzles are not only present but main factors in several maps. One of the standouts is map 12, the Boom one, obscure switch-hunt but plenty of nice tricks, like shooting ice columns to reveal enemies (one thing, at the mancubi tech room, there are two panels, to open the door hit the panel without the tiny switch, but hit the upper side, you have to either jump or use something to reach it). When I think of secrets, map 08 stands out as the secret-hunt one of the set. You need to find your weapons, otherwise you are bound to ignore every living being. There's another map where a secret is crucial to solve a puzzle for progression, you have to find a switch that enlighten the way to reach some switches, I actually liked it because it was very useful, but I get it can put off some players. Most maps don't have secrets, uh whatever. My favourite maps are 08, 12, 15 and 32, this one is a bit of a joke map so don't take it seriously. The others are ok, and I didn't like maps 07, 10 (both too short) and 16, another typical IoS with timed lift, too many cube shooters, which leads to too many flying crap, and a lame start (seriously?). Anyway, kind of liked it overall. The puzzle and exploratory maps worth it, I'd recommend those above the rest. And (continuous) players, use PrBoom+ complevel 9. My rate is 6/10

Team TNT, when making their first megawad, TNT: Evilution, brought the innovation, at silly as it sound, of big maps, really big open maps. Something that people didn't know was possible withing the engine limitations. But they went even further after that, making Icarus: Alien Vanguard and Eternal Doom. In both, they showed us that maps not only could be big and long, they could also be puzzle-ish and challenging. On the other side, Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv brought the idea of harder maps with a lot of monster density. Maps specifically designed by a speedrunner to speedrun. And with a lot of ingenuity, this couple of mappers make something that to this day is regarded as a breaking moment on map making. Years later, a little team of mappers combined those two branches of mapping into one monstrous megawad. Led by Anders Johnsen, some first timers and some veterans make a megawad that to this day, and possibly forever, will be regarded as the best megawad ever. Starting with a low key that promises a lot of fun to come, the megawad blend the different mapping styles perfectly on every map with a cohesive look of orange, brown and green, with a few touches of different textures here and there. What can i say that it was already say abouth this megawad? it has everything!!! Good map design with godly ideas, awesome encounters, awe inspiring visuals, and most important of all, its really fun to play. The story of the megawad is a bit there just to not use the original text screens, but it works and, even if not the better out there, it feels rewarding when they come. Something about a double cross the aliens make to the UAC and now they make a last attempt to invade us. Anyway, the highlight are all the maps maybe, there is no weak map o the mapset... but i found some uncohesive desicions here and there. For example, going from techbase to medieval to techbase, to medieval, then egyptian, then medieval, then techbase and then kinda medieval hellish is rather strange, but it works...not at a narrative level, but it works somehow. more specific highlights: EPISODE 1: -map04: Seclusion shows a good starting where previous map ends, and thats a neat touch, also the maps is really awesome. -map05: Crimson Tide has an awesome feel to it. I only see something similar to it on TNT:R map04: Blood Factory, but here it works a lot with a kinda Doom2 map14: The inmost Dens feel to it. -map06: Hillside Siege awesome episode ending map, and the Hillside is wonderfully made. -map08: Beast Island the first explorative map and is an awesome really inspiring map with a lot of height variations. -map10: Toxic Touch the waste tunnels of the castle we found on map08, simply amazing design with a great use of lightning contrast. -map11: Nemesis. Gigantic map, remind me a little to Joe Pallai's 2002: ADO E4M6: Dementia. But where that map fails, having an obscure progression and being a slog to kill all those barons, Demesis made it good with all the Doom 2 bestiary use at it full extent. Great experience. And awesome episode ending. EPISODE 2: -map12: Entropy is a great opener for sure, the starting area is awesome and the rest of the map is wonderfully made with a lot of teleport traps that make for a good challenge. -map13: Suicidal Tendencies, probably one of the most round up maps of the set. Looks good, plays good and have a lot of challenge. -map15: Bulls on Parade, awesome map with a lot of interesting details like the computer area, or the garden outside. The elevator down is a highpoint on tension for the map. -map31: Killer Colours. simple and amazing use of recolored textures that make one hell of a map with some neat encounters and color coded enemies, too. -map19: Alien Resurrection, starts simple, but gradually unfolds into a wonderfully detailed map. Highlight the end corridor with thoose hanging bodies over the bridge. -map20: Misri Halek, deemed as the best map ever made, it is for me a great achievement, especially under vanilla limits. The starting area is just mesmerizing, and the mountain climb is just awesome. But aside from that, it is a little oppresive, as most action is took underground, and it goes a little longer than one would expect. Aside from that, yes, i haven't see any map like this anywhere else. EPISODE 3: -map21: One Flow over the Caco's Nest. Linear and fun map with hellish touches and nice rooms to look at. -map23: Blood Sacrife, starts like a followup to map10: Toxic Touch, and then unfolds into a great castle like map. The castle area has awesome details, like the fake 3d bridges that could make for a confusing progression, but its beyond awesome. -map24: Clandesite Complex, ehhh totally out of nowhere tech base map. Fortunatelly, its the best tech base map on the set, with a lot of height variations, good encounters and nice visuals. Love when you have to take the route down the sewers. That part is simply amazing! -map25: Demonic Hordes a map divided on different areas, all of them awesome looking. Starting hellish looking then going for a more Heretic styled area, with a nice building that kinda looks like a graveyard, and then a town square that leds to more side areas. The hillside chaingunner encounter is one of the best looking secrets i have seen ever. -map26: Dark Dome. Sincerelly, i hate Post Mortem style of maps, supposely they are inspired by Doom2 map29: The Living End, but they don't play at all like it, and Dark Dome is a really hot take on that style. there is almost no safe space, and one could run into a lot of ammo waste. But well, it is fun and really challenging. -map27: Stench of Evil, linear and fun, with a totally lovable Thy Flesh Consume aesthetic and even an easter egg referencing it. -map28: Whispering Shadows, long and sprawling map that comes and goes back and forward but is fun and totally good looking. -map29: Fire Walk With Me, probably my favourite map on the set, a lot of great visuals, and awesome encounters. The hanging imps, just that, just that make this map awesome. -map30: Point Dreadful, even for being a simple IOS map, it have some interesting things, like the strange sound that plays when you reach the portal, and the totally evil Romero speech that sounds at the IOS. Aside from that, hell, its really hard to find the timing to shoot it, and that fucking elevator is really far away. This mapset proves and stood to time like no other. Awesome adventure, awesome challenge, awesome visuals. Every mapset that come later tried to be the next Alien Vendetta. But to this day, no mapset dethroned the king of all megawads. Thanks to all the AV Team for this marvelous megawad. You guys surely spend a lot of time on these maps.

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. Sweet literal flashback to Doom II, a set of fun maps of nice consistent quality. The story is comically lengthy, like nothing you'll usually expect to see in contemporary wads, and I took my time to read it (too tempting for tl;dr). It's fascinating how much thought the author put into something most players generally overlook, and in spite of recalling little of it, the plot starts after the incidents in Plutonia, scientists researching ways to prevent the resurgence of the Icon of Sin, but due to outdated technology, they sent the marine back in time to help to complete their work, once again. What I wasn't expecting is to find the initial map quite familiar (I didn't do my research, as you can see). These maps are re-imaginations of the iwad levels, but with a slightly different design perspective. Yes, techbases, sewers and miscellaneous man-made buildings are back, even the classic "O' of destruction", they constitute the first and longest episode, though in a more new-fashioned, higher quality way in terms of layout design. The later section is thematically hell, my favourite since the author combined darker shades of grey/brown rocky areas with classic hot red textures, giving it strong visuals. Part of the new music is remakes of classic tracks from the game, which accompany the journey in a nostalgic way. The rest go well in their spots, such as the "Hell" maps include one of the most quiet tracks I've ever heard, very nice. On another side, the new sound effects, which are supposedly enhanced versions of the original ones, were a welcome change in general, like the cyberdemon's death now sounds more explosive. There's a "clean" version out there without the added SFXs, if anyone dislikes them, not that they impact gameplay wise. Much of the combat is alignments of incidental cleaning and classic setups corresponding to the map's slot, that means plenty of homages (super shotgun debut in map 02, the confined zombies at the start of map 04, the helpless spiderdemon under a crusher in map 06, the famous barons vs. cyberdemon infight simulator in map 08, the zombies closets in map 10, etc.), even though the maps aren't built around them. With a higher monster count than average, the levels are still far from grindy scenarios, any casual player can feel at home playing these maps, besides the difficulty peaks near the last entries. That is not say they lack strong opposition, but the balance is adapted to encourage exploration, and to be careful mostly with hitscanners and the occasional horde in tight quarters or special trap (like the dark corridors that turn into lava in map 13), while you experience flashbacks continually. The hell maps seem to be fresh design, perhaps some The Living End vague vibes in map 13, but a deviation from the homages, which is a nice change considering the start/exit connections from the first episode kind of wore out after a while. If something valuable to rescue from them, is that the author put health and/or ammo pickups for free, presumably for continuous players' commodity. To my surprise, the hell episode doesn't contain any single former human type, not that I missed them, they reappeared in the secret maps. Secret-wise, on this side there's plenty of nice secrets to find. Not much like misaligned textures or fake walls, a sign of good variety which includes hidden switches in many ways, and generally easy to figure. A thing I noticed, players' possible major obstacle could be to find armor for free, specially pistol starters. If you don't see one anywhere, it'll most likely be hidden. For favourite maps, could be 12 and 13, though the techbases were fun too. I'd pick 14 up until the inopportune boss fight, but that's just a personal distaste towards that kind of gimmick. Overall, thumbs up! I find it accessible to anyone looking for throwbacks maybe, or moderately easy maps with simple difficulty progression. I wonder how the other original levels would have been interpreted here, but I guess we'll never know, unless there's a sequel somewhere. Anyway, my rate is 8/10.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 5.2. - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Pretty interesting for a very old partial conversion. It appears to be an incomplete release of what could have been a hybrid megawad/two-episodes wad, which is a shame because there're tons of cool new features. There's a story behind this mapset in the text file for enthusiasts of science fiction, something in the line of an utopia and the reality, the ideal world for the "inhabitants of Sverre" is what the player sees as chaos, and they have to decide on which side are they on. It's downright about dooming the planet's creatures, nothing outside the ordinance, but I guess a little bit of projection adds to the atmosphere: since they live from killing, you'll have to adapt to their ideals, even if that means to abandon yours. Anyway, aside from my vague interpretations, there's some understanding of the story in the visuals as you travel through buildings, caves, mountains and a spaceship. Texturing is generally decent, I really liked the deep blue water and grass textures as well as trees and little details here and there, like the damaging sector in the cavern map, hard to see though. The first view of the spaceship's interior is neat, the cavern's connections too. There's plenty of weird/nice new sound effects, and apparently more custom music than maps though, one more reason to wonder what the author used to have in mind for the rest, they all sound particularly fitting. As said above, visuals are solid as long as they give you a clue of where you are. The layouts however, not so much. I did appreciated the distinctive floors simulator in the last map, for example. It's the way the maps interact with progression. I wouldn't call them "puzzles" exactly, but it's important to explore the most of the maps if you want to complete them. Even more from pistol starts, which are doable but possibly not what the author thought of. Things like the slow tall lift in map 06 which you'll have to take more than once to grab resources, or the boring mini-rooms in map 04 that don't have a purpose whatsoever, could maybe bring down players who chose to start each map separately. It's kind of unbalanced, if you consider in the first map you can drown in ammo, but some of the later levels require some weird decisions in order to kill everything. On a positive side, maps take little time to solve and your only obstacle will be to identify mandatory fake walls and secrets. The combat doesn't precisely pose any real pressure, that is if you take a good look of the new sprites. Of all of them, the pinky/spectre replacement is the most outstanding, a sort of carnivorous creature that chases you underwater. It's a bit of a dickish design, specially the "spectered" version, since they aren't visible until they emerge to bite you, but still a cool concept. Another interesting sprite is the floating parasite, in the place of the lost soul. There is a (dead maybe?) version too. It didn't take long to realize they explode from a hit, much like barrels. Weapons have a new form too, their behavior is the same, and they're decent in general. I assume because the mapset is incomplete, not all of the beasts make a presence, and some barely register. A pity, but what can we do... Secret-wise, well it's an obviousness to say a few of them are intentional to exit the maps, that used to be a common design choice in the earliest era of mapping. My advice is to check the automap frequently, and treat walls as if they aren't all solid. It's nothing too intricate, though. Also expect the unexpected, because a few require to walk on a certain linedef or push a random wall, I could access some and others not. The content inside of them was, surprising. Overall, it wasn't that bad, as a partial conversion it offers some decent content, to say the least. I don't know if to recommend this thing, it hasn't aged well at all, and it obviously failed to become a "classic". However, fans of old-school story-based wads could have a good time, I suppose. Anyways, my rate is 5/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9. - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with a fist start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. One of the most atmospheric wads I've ever played. The level of artistic design is impressive, the connection between the many new textures, details and layouts is worth of looking. I can't simply describe what's the ambient theme about, it's a sort of dark, rocky planet, where apparently monsters came from different dimensions to construct hotels and read books... yeah well, that's my interpretation, and I don't have complaints about the overall designing, except for the blue dimension in map 04, that was bad for my eyes. I also didn't enjoy its track, somehow it gave me the wrong vibes, but the rest of the music tracks went well with the mood of the maps. On a gameplay side, I could say it has its old-school/90's vibes. There's a strong feeling of adventure, given all the visual/audible effects that can be seen/heard throughout the mapset, modernized because of the time the set was made, but most clearly that mystery factor when the low count of enemies can still catch you by surprise at any time, while not being unfair, if I exclude a couple of instances with archviles. However, besides a few particular and memorable circumstances, the combat is generally low-key incidental, not as trap-based as Plutonia (despite the "Congo" rendition), but many sneaky bastards camouflaged in corners and fastpops. Said memorable cases include a battalion of barons in a switch-hunt trap, a deadly slaughter on a circular lift, a puzzle-ish big box where you release as much enemies as you want, and other situations not entirely focused on killing something. With that said, the pace of the maps vary a lot between each other, there are shorter maps where combat is the notorious side (hopefully you have fun punching the first shotgunners), and longer maps for prolonged linear exploration with intricate progression (basically, switch hunts), although I wasn't a fan of the only story-based map, simply because it felt inconclusive. About the extras that Hell Ground comes with, like meteorites, something I've never seen before in a non-ZDoom wad, very cool. Even though I didn't get a chance to test their effect on doomguy, I'm guessing they could smash him instantly. The living missiles could have been deployed in more hilarious situations, it was really funny to see an arachnotron mad at one, even more when the missile crashed and the spider kept shooting the wall lol. Similar with the dark imps, a tanky much faster version that shoots green fireballs, their usage is very limited, but I won't complain about that. A thing that didn't impress me was the ending in the last map, a bit anti-climatic and not very intuitive to solve, apart from a few monsters that had it hard to teleport in the area. Secret-wise, there was a huge secret quest in the last map I have a lot of fun with, where one of my favourites includes a soulsphere, which when you grab it the lights cut out and suddenly you're being observed from above D: ... The larger maps come with tons of secrets along the way, not super tricky to find nor mandatory ones, thankfully. I'm curious about the purpose of the secret in map 06, perhaps useful if you start from that map and play continuously, but who does that for only two maps?. Anyway, favourite maps, 01, 03 and 05. I'd add map 07 if it wasn't because it ended poorly imo. Overall, just great, anyone with a casual-adventurous mindset should definitely try this. I'm not saying I enjoyed everything here, but I'm grateful for the experience, so my rate is 8/10.

Lived in the amazon jungle And got captured by poachers And spent the rest of my days with cute kittens 420/10

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset - Saves every 10 minutes or so. 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.

And thus Scythe 2 endeth, played through PrBoom+ 2.5.1.5 on HMP difficulty. Been a while since the last time I finished a megawad and especially wrote a review, but here it is at last. And what better way is there to start 2019? What a journey it was, it's almost sad when you remember it's over. So, what can I say about it? Well as I do with all my reviews we'll first take a look at what it is and what it introduces. Scythe 2 is a 32-level megawad and the sequel of the popular megawad made by Erik Alm centered around fun, skillful, and engaging combat. It comes with a new background menu, new textures, new music, and new enemies, namely a tougher, pink, flying Baron of Hell who fires Mancubi fireballs and Revenant rockets, and a very fast, deadly, but weak marine equipped with a Plasma Rifle, a difference from the original which did not introduce new enemies. Scythe 2 follows the philosophy of the original Scythe, that of skillful but fun and engaging combat without descending into the pits of frustration. The levels have a more modern look, are larger, more detailed, and also explore more styles and themes than the original did. It starts with a few medieval-looking levels and gradually progresses to Egyptian ones a la Epic, techbases, cavernous as well as natural ones in the vein of Plutonia, and eventually culminates into hellish levels with a tough MAP30 consisting of over 700 enemies, no traditional Icon of Sin boss battle or new enemies reserved specifically for it. The slow exploration of various themes and styles contributes to the immersion and narrative, giving the player a sense of purpose and logic to the progression as opposed to merely visiting a bunch of locations which do not connect with each other in any way, apart from being designed by the same author and bundled into the same package. The overall atmosphere and experience is also greatly enhanced by the new, very creative soundtrack, there are also much more new tracks in Scythe 2 than there were in the original. The quiet and mysterious maps are even more mysterious and the more combat intense ones more epic thanks to it. The difficulty increases nicely in steps, with a few notable exceptions where it spikes a bit in order to build anticipation or lay the the groundwork for the upcoming episode or map, ranging from fairly easy to difficult, slaughter-esque in the final episodes. When it comes to the design of the levels, they's not only more variety, but also less experimentation and risk compared to the original. For instance, there are no timed levels in it as opposed to the original which had MAP28 "Run from It" where the player was tasked with escaping and unseen enemy he could not fight. However, it does include suicide exits after a certain number of maps when the theme also changes. Some of them are pretty creative, such as the one seen at the end of MAP25 "Forgotten City" where the player has to kill himself with the Rocket Launcher and let his body slide into the exit, which cannot be reached by normal means as the entrance to it is smaller than the player. Fascinating. The difficulty and balancing. Scythe 2 is definitely harder than its predecessor which is only made more obvious by the limited usage of its new enemies. Easily justifiable as the new Baron and Marine are very deadly. Which one is more dangerous is difficult to say as they both work very different in different surroundings. The Marine might be more easy to kill in open environments since a simple circle-strafing is typically enough to dodge his Plasma, but you might find yourself in trouble in tighter rooms where you may not be able to react quickly enough since he's very fast. He has low health however and usually a good SSG blast kills him. The Baron is especially deadly in tight rooms but depending on their design it's possible to use the environment against him, but he can prove just as problematic in open areas if he's covered by other demons, preventing the player from reaching him or even seeing his projectiles. Keep in mind that he does not appear to have any weaknesses and is tougher than a regular Baron. Despite this, Scythe 2 appears to be more forgiving with its enemy usage and placement than the original. Some traps from the original Scythe were a bit cruel, such as some Revenant ones seen on MAP24 in an area with barely any cover to take from their rockets. It should, however, be noted that I had chosen to play each on different difficulties by taking the author's advice, since he warns people that the levels after MAP20 can be pretty rough. And it's certainly true that some traps can be very deadly if you're not careful and don't expect them, so in these cases trial-and-error is usually the best course of action until and optimal, consistent tactic is found. So, it could perhaps be argued that Scythe 2 is less cruel with its traps despite having some rather difficult ones, but necessarily be easier overall. Also, did you just enter a room with some rather seducing resources and expect something to go down? Then you're right, certain traps are quite predictable. You might not know how exactly you're going to be ambushed, but you most certainly will be. I would say you should trust your instincts. There's also enough ammo so you should never run out of something you need if you pay attention to the game and don't pointlessly waste Plasma for example when something else might've been just as useful and easier to come by. There are some instances where the game seems to troll the player. The best example I can think of is a tunnel in which you find the yellow skull on MAP29 "Dust to Dust". If you decide to go further into the tunnel after picking it up you'll come across a few enemies and a Soulsphere, but the floor is very damaging. Even if you manage to reach it you'll probably waste much of your health on your way back so you're basically gaining nothing from the trip. What you need to do is to rely on an Arch-Vile to make you jump into a fountain seen on the surface (don't worry, there's only one in the whole level, you'll know it when you see it) to pick up a secret Radiation Suit. If you kill the AV before doing so it's best to just come back after picking up the yellow skull when you descend into the tunnels and forget about it, it will most probably not be worth it otherwise. My favorite levels are going to be those which comprise the first Episode, the Fourth, Fifth, MAP16, MAP19, MAP26, MAP27, MAP29, and MAP30. MAP16 "Mr. X" is a pretty interesting concept. It's the first map to feature the Plasma Marines and it acts as a boss. Technically, there are 12 more enemies in the level but they all die mysteriously, and you have to battle only the Marine, having started fresh after a suicide exit from MAP15. It works quite well as an introduction to the new enemy while being a boss level at the same time, and reveals the deadly nature of the Marine. MAP29 on the other hand is a relatively quiet level which sets the mood for the final battle that is to take place on the upcoming map. Just like with the original all maps play well and since its design is more modern it has aged wonderfully. It's fun, it's tough, it's fair, it's atmospheric, it's Erik, you have everything you need. My only problem would be the recurring afterlife motif. It makes a lot of sense for the later part but doesn't quite tie with the earlier one since you also explore some techbase levels, and you die in order to access them. Afterlife in techbases? I don't know how I feel about that, and yet, it might make sense if you look at it as a struggle in a seemingly never-ending nightmare where demons follow you wherever you go, the living shall not rest but neither shall the dead, doomed to haunt all sorts of places, many of which familiar, only to see them twisted into something different from what you remember by the same forces you keep fighting. Fight for eternity to finally be free. And thus the review endeth. A classic worthy of the title which everyone should play. It's the same Scythe formula but better, expanded, and more modern, an improvement in all aspects without making the original look outdated or irrelevant. It's easy to see how Scythe became the foundation for many modern wads with its formula and acted as a source of inspiration for many modders. They offer much but not at the expense of the overall experience, as in, making navigation difficult, progression cryptic or very confusing with no real sense of direction, or be unnecessarily difficult, which are all problems I have with both past and present stuff. Totally recommended.

I thought it was a pretty fun map with well thought out secrets. Wish there was more heavy weapons. Other than that it was fun. Game play reminded me of vivisection from Doom 2 no rest for the living. Also the boss sprite was acting strange. when it moves it turns into the Nazi guard sprite.