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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Unholy Realms & Zone 300 (simultaneously!)

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Cynical said:

Map 27?!?! That one is possibly my favorite in the wad, despite the leaky radsuits and weird buggyness! That layout is sweet! And it's got awesome Arachnotrons!


I'll explain when I get there ;)

UR Map25 - "The Bitter Fortress (Anger)": Breaking up pace (somewhat, at least in texture theme) is a small castle map that primarily features action in the courtyard. Finding the invul secret can make the start mind-numbingly easy but conversely means the final battle becomes that much more vicious—speaking of which, it can be the hardest finale in E3 thus far if you can’t survive the initial bout of infighting (or fail to retreat like me). The map fits snugly in the middle of hell’s descent, not being too hard or easy, and being of a relatively quick length. Visuals do the job here with the classic black n' red combo, and I really like the look of the overarching red rock in the background (although I wish the top wasn’t as flat).

Z300 Map25 - "Hellucination": Didn’t really enjoy this one too much. Neat theme of using only a handful of opposing textures and flats but I felt like ammo was a bit too restrictive. That doesn’t make it a bad map at all, I just felt uncomfortable with the amount I had to chainsaw & punch. I liked the use of the AVs at the end.

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And since I'm at the top of the page, thoughts on next month's megawad? We're going with classic this time again and since I don't have a strong preference, I guess it's time to sate Demon's unyielding appetite and vote for Vile Flesh.

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dobu gabu maru said:

And since I'm at the top of the page, thoughts on next month's megawad? We're going with classic this time again and since I don't have a strong preference, I guess it's time to sate Demon's unyielding appetite and vote for Vile Flesh.


Perhaps I should have waited on my Let's Play of it then x)

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IIRC, Vile Flesh was the first PWAD I ever played (as I've mentioned before, Demon of the Well got me into Doom in the first place), so playing that again could be some fun nostalgia.

The flipside of this is that I've still never beaten Hell Revealed on UV. I only recently set rectified this for Alien Vendetta, so the DWMC would give me a good excuse to go HR-ing.

I think I'll vote Vile Flesh, though.

EDIT: That is, of course, assuming that my vote counts, given that I didn't really play along with either wad in my first month in this thread, heh.

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dobu gabu maru said:

And since I'm at the top of the page, thoughts on next month's megawad? We're going with classic this time again and since I don't have a strong preference, I guess it's time to sate Demon's unyielding appetite and vote for Vile Flesh.

Memento Mori 2

Hell Revealed would be fine too, but maybe it's too soon after Kama Sutra.

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Unholy Realms MAP21 - "Ashen Layer (Purgatory)"

I don't say it is an easy map. It isn't. For example the archvile part entertained me for a long time. I was just surprised by the apparent drop in pace. Will episode 3 be different? I suspect the high-octane standard will get back, though. Probably soon.

Very nicely executed berserking practice. Like MAP21 of D2INO :). In fact, it isn't easy to decide which of these two I like more. But I'd choose D2INO's. Ashen Layer gives a strong impression and seems like a very highly professional work, and I enjoyed it very much. "Nirvana" (D2INO MAP21) is from my view just highly professional work :), plus it provides gameplay that is much more OK with me, and also its visuals seem... more... free. Without the apparent forced attempt to "be perfect, or be nothing", typical for the most professional maps of all. That's just my view.

MAP21 of Unholy Realms definitely attracted me to continue into the depths of the last episode.

MAP22 - "Halls of Fallen Undesired (Lust)"

During this map, the action quite returned, but it didn't happen immediately. Which I appreciate, even though it let me be uncertain for some time, yet maybe I appreciate the map even more for this aspect.

Great one, for sure. The layout nicely consequently opens - again. I haven't found the secret, as well as I haven't found the cyberdemon, who I had heard at the beginning. Maybe I should be glad, though. :)

I get the impression that the general detailing style got accustomized to the fact these are hell levels, it got "rougher" etc. yet still remains astonishing.

TOP QUALITY, I am saying now, when I don't yet know the following levels.

MAP23 - "Cliffs of the Consumed (Gluttony)"

Truly hell map here, and truly well-done too. I don't have anything to say about hell maps in general, as I enjoy some and don't enjoy other. But hell maps of this kind are very satisfying to me and I'd be glad for playing more of them. In Unholy Realms. Or not just in Unholy Realms. :)

The initially encountered mancubi are placed very well, I must admit, they actually killed me several times. You know, I entered the map with low health and had to restart. Particular fights and encounters are all great, except one - when an archvile teleports out of a cage to somewhere, and I didn't know where. I already criticized that in previous maps, as I actually dislike that. Fortunately, I found and killed the archvile soon, because I turned and ran back.

I didn't bother with the final cyberdemon and just grabbed soulsphere and exited. Thank you for letting me do that, I'll raise the map's/wad's rating for it. :) Gluttony...

All for now. I am enjoying E3 so far well. Even better than E2, you can guess why - no particularly intense nerve-wrecking moments. Yet.

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Yeah I will support a vote for Vile Flesh, will be fun to see what Alfonzo and co think of it :P
Also by some miracle I will catch up here

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Unholy Realms Map22: Halls of Fallen Undesired (Lust)

Hmm, well while I think that this is a pretty enjoyable map, I do agree that it feels like a break map of sorts. It's quite easy and laidback which is something I definitely appreciated after the stressful map21. Not really any tricky spots that I can think of, even when not playing it very safe and I had no problems getting exits here (not that sort of problems at least, other kinds of problems yes). The BK battle has potential to be one but the secret invuln sphere helps out a lot and when you get the infights going, it gets pretty simple. The Cyber's rather simple too, although you gotta watch out for the Rev missiles in addition to dodging the Cybers rockets. The Mancs at the end are possibly the hardest part and especially if the Archie teleports to the ledge on your back. You're also probably low on armor at that point so you can't absorb that many fireballs. The AV on your back/hail of fireballs from the Mancs killed one of my legit runs at least, if my memory serves me right. But I did like the combat overall, even if it wasn't very difficult. Love the way Snakes lets monsters roam freely around the map, makes surprising encounters possible. There's not much room for wanderers here though, other than the Cacos and even they usually gather around at the same spots, but just generally speaking as it's been a reoccurring theme in this wad. I did have a bit of a surprise here though since I was not expecting a Caco behind the blue bars at all as you can see in the vid.

Visually it's very nice in my opinion. The color scheme of dark/light gray and red, which is used here, works really well and pleases the eye. I can definitely see this being some kind of a modern base in hell. The little bit of lava near the end felt a bit out of place though but that's pretty minor.

Alright, so the Good and the Bad are taken care of, but what about the Ugly? Well, about 75% of the time, the fucking Cyber and his 4 Rev bodyguards didn't show up for reasons unknown, which obviously ruins my max attemtps. I had a garbage first exit with everything dead and after that a dozen attempts where the Cyber didn't come out to play. I was ready to throw in the towel but thankfully I finally got him to appear again with the rest of the demo looking pretty good as well. Kinda annoyed that I missed one of the cell packs in the BK-yard, would have most likely meant a sub-7min exit hehe. Funny thing though, I did actually notice something was different when I changed to plasma after the blue bars and that's why I hesitate jumping down a bit. Shows how well I learnt the map after all those "failed" attempts I guess. To sum up, it's a fine map if everything goes right but the Cyber issue is a bit annoying to say the least.



Found another cool speedrunning trick too. It's actually pretty obvious when you see it but it's not as easy as it looks. The AVs blast doesn't lunge you forwards when running towards him so you have to time the leap right to get to the tele. I had some problems getting there at first so I thought it wasn't even possible and had a crazier route in mind where you AV-jump to the YK ledge first, then AV-jump to the exit-area ledge from there. Tried that a handful of times and while it's possible, it was very tricky and I went back to attempting the tele-jump pretty soon. For the record though, I think that that double AV-jump route would be way cooler ;) Here's a speedrun using the tele-shortcut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dDA9AUYMY

Aaand I'm fine with Vile Flesh next month. Have never even played it actually so it's high time.

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Damn, this speedroute (telejump) shouldn't have been possible... there was a different (cooler :P) trick planned.

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Zone 300: Map 25 - UV, pistol start

This was one of the most boring maps in this wad so far. Each room uses the same textures & pretty much the same layout, imps stand on the platforms & there will be a strong monster or two before you grab the key.

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UR Map 25 -- The Bitter Fortress (Anger) - 103% Kills / 100% Secrets
Hmm.....I see there's been some discussion as to whether map 22 or map 23 is the real 'breather map' of E3, but now that I've come this far I'd personally say it's actually this one that's the breather.

As was the case in Greed, Anger treats us to another small-ish, utilitarian Hell-bastion, although this one ascends towards its central point rather than descending towards it like the latter. If anything it's even more austere in both appearance and design than the Keeper's Castle was, being characterized by long, clean, unbroken lines which generally meet at right angles except for in the more finely-shaped northeast corner--indeed, on the automap it essentially looks like just a big square block with one crumbling corner. Its floor surfaces are generally as broad, flat, and unbroken as its walls. Even the decor is very spartan, with very little ornamentation in the vast majority of the fortress except for some modest torch-frontices in corners of the interior. It doesn't look bad by any means, but it's certainly unassuming, at least by the vivid standards of this particular genre of bloodcrimson-and-ashgrey Hell map....the most visually striking aspect is probably the strange natural(?) stone arches that rise over the outer walls. Music felt vaguely Heretic-y to me this time, although I didn't really notice it much after the first minute or two. I saw some small texture misalignments near the key pedestals, but nothing very noticeable.

But, yes, I think it's a pretty easy map, at least relative to its neighbors. Ammo is quite well-judged; I had enough but never felt well-stocked, but there's adequate armor and plenty of health afforded by the two easy soulspheres. This seemed like more than enough...because the playing surfaces are so broad and clean, and there's so much space in the area where 90% of the combat takes place, the marine can have a field day here. True, there's little real cover out here, but there are also few hitscanners (only one exterior chaingunner that I recall, and he was the first to die) and less of a revenant presence (hence less presence of dogged tracker-missiles) than in map 23, so a decently agile player stands a good chance of being able to avoid serious damage in most battles. In fact, I would go so far as to say that one of the two cyberdemons (or, hell, maybe both) probably could have done well as a spiderdemon instead, since this is exactly the type of environment where the unwieldy mastermind has potential to be a credible threat. The deployment of monsters in general also makes them quite prone to infighting, particularly where the heterogeneous group that begins materializing on/around the marble demonface slab on the middle terrace is concerned.

Speaking of monsters beaming in, something that I really want to compliment about this map (and a number of others in Unholy Realms, really) is the way that there's a sort of delayed activation to a lot of the monster teleportation--in the majority of PWADs (and IWADs, for that matter) this mode of monster deployment tends to be more or less instantaneous and generally has an obvious trigger; but here the actual appearance of monsters is timed such that the player has probably already left the area where the trigger itself was found. This gives this fairly pragmatic contrivance of gameplay a much more natural, cinematic feel (I particularly like the cacos that phase in from just over the ramparts), and enjoys a lot more scope for catching the player off guard. I really wish more mapsets would take this tack.

Anyway, I suppose it's true that things do get a bit clusterfuck-y around the point where the inner walls come down (as in several other UR maps, this is largely a function of the presence of arch-viles + little effective cover), but the invulnerability artifact handily negates the danger of this sequence. Sure, I guess it's a secret, but it's a very easy secret, and so I feel justified in taking its presence into account in assessing the map's overall difficulty. All else aside, I was entertained while playing this, but I wouldn't say it comes any closer to topping map 22 in overall fun-factor than the previous two maps do.

******

Z300 Map 26 --Valley of Brimstone - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Feels rather fragmentary even by the naturally small standards of a 300-line mapset, although some of the action in the main area is okay. Even with the map being as tiny as it is, the offshoot that you travel down to flick the big skull switch still feels rather like filler, but the placement of the cyberdemon in conjunction with the gasbags and the late-to-the-party arch-vile (surprised to see one used that way, that's very unusual for Paul) makes for a decent couple of minutes of combat. There's a big multilegged serving of ExitMeat blocking off the way out again....I reckon I've been habituated by years and years of PWADing not to be as put-off by seeing spider masterminds used this way (since it's hardly uncommon) and so somehow am not as troubled by it as I might've been if it had been a room full of Barons or something, but it's still pretty poor placement all things considered, since the doorway is too narrow for it to even by able to fire on you much unless you stand directly in front of it. I also didn't find the secret until after everything was dead, but killing everything's not too tough even without it, especially if you don't forget you have a chaingun like I did.

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Zone300 MAP25: Hellucination

The strongest thing one can say about this map is "the blue and red is memorable" which doesn't say much about it. It's basically an uglier MAP09, with a central hub with key doors, each leading to a new hallway wrapping back to the hub for a new key. Unlike most, I liked MAP09 because it was different from the similar designs before, but this one really shows the weakness of the design. Nothing here is particularly interesting - the most interesting part is the first corridor, with its 20% damaging lava (ugh) and difficulty having lost souls in the way while imps snipe at you. The smart plan is to just run through as fast as you can, I think... the rest is even more dreadful, as it's either demons in hallways wide for only one, or maybe a shooting gallery of imps. The AVs at the end don't provide any challenge either. And the red/blue is... well, an interesting design choice, but not one that really works for anything IMO. 2/5

UR MAP25: The Bitter Fortress (Anger)

Without having played the last five maps yet, I do agree with DOTW that this one feels like another breather map, and much like last episode, the same design cues keep popping up. Another large open area with most of the monsters is the biggest test, clearing the initial area takes out about half the level's monsters. The monsters did most of my work for me - lots of infighting possible with little effort. Some AVs teleport in that can be a pain, but if dealt with quickly, no big deal. There's also another cyberdemon sitting on top of a portal exit that can be run by easily. Despite the name, I wasn't too angry... I think there was a little bit at the start with "why aren't these lifts high enough??" and then a bit in the middle when I realized I had to pick up the invuln secret to get to the cell secret. 3/5

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MAP26 Valley Of Brimstone

*Regular Run*

Ooh, cyber near the start. Lotsa damaging floors. Cacodemons and pain elementals. An archie and a spiderdemon guarding the exit. This sure will be quite the fun level. Also quite reminiscent of Scythe's MAPS21-24. One could benefit from having cells from previous levels, but also from the secret close to the switch that lowers the bars to the YK where cybie resides. It can be challenging when pistol starting though. I do use cybie's rockets to kill some of the cacos, instead of SSG'ing them, before finishing off everyone with cells. Archie teleports to my starting point, and if you're smart, you can fire rockets at his teleport destination and rush-kill the guy. Spidey can't move in his pen so he's easy cheese. Pretty tough otherwise. Final Time 2:20.

*Reality Run*

Well, I ain't no disco king but I sure dodge well once the cacos are released, again trying to get cybie to kill some of them. Acted quickly because I wanted to keep safe with radsuits. In the end, I ran dry on cells so I finished the boxed-in spider with my SSG. Final Time 2:55.

As for next month, I'm probably gonna really drop out this time to work on some things of my own.

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Unholy Realms

Map 24

Fuckin hell this was a bastard. The start seemed to be a massive roll of the dice to survive being shot at by nearly every kind of projectile. As usual its the chaingunners who are the biggest pain in the arse with their non-dodgable bullets and practically no cover. Having gone through most of the map first time and found myself unable to do the last battle for lack of health/ammo, I had to re-start over and over just to get that one attempt that didn't involve dying or using all of the medkits. The yellow key bit is weird with that bridge forming an invisible monster wall, not sure what the thinking was in having only melee monsters on the other side, unless the idea is to punch them all to death with berserk in order to have enough ammo to finish the map. I don't think it would have made much difference to me, I left the yellow key zone without killing any of them and still didn't have enough to kill the last cyber. The biggest pain in the arse of the whole map was the penultimate fight with 2 archviles and cyber sniper - with all the shit flying at you, you can't stand still for a moment, which makes what little cover there is against the viles useless. By this point i was on little enough health that any mistake was fatal, so it was a case of endlessly replaying from saved point over and over until getting a lucky break. I don't look forward to playing this map again any time soon.

Map 25

Another bastard, this time largely from a lack of ammo. I found it a bit of a puzzler working out how best to get through without running dry. There's a secret invul that teases you for the best moment to use it, I think i may have squandered it too soon. Finally picked up a BFG but didn't stick around to kill anything with it. If there is one thing I have learned from this map it is to avoid putting regenerating sniper towers in my future maps. I've used them before but now I am coming to realise they are a bit annoying, in the sense that once you know they are regenerating you leave them to last, and then clearing them out is a bit of a grind.

Map 26

This was a fun one, lots of stuff to kill, places to run and ammo and health liberally sprinkled everywhere. Definitely a step down in difficulty after the last two, there is enough space and cover to escape from any situation so its mainly about foraging for weapons and dodging fireballs to begin with, then a bunch of mini battles around the keys. I ran out of ammo at the end (had to laugh out loud at the exit cyber) but I killed enough stuff to not feel bad about leaving a few behind.

Wow, is that me caught up with this wad? I might leave zone 300 to another time, I think i'd enjoy that one more if I was playing through it non stop rather than in little bits.

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Looks like Demon's getting his Christmas wish in November as Vile Flesh is the frontrunner. MM2 and Hell Revealed are pretty good bets for January so I'll keep 'em in mind.

UR Map26 - "Village of the Unblessed (Heresy)": It’s a curious decision to give an acoustic midi track to this map, given the hectic nature of it (not that any of these maps have been calm, really). While it does provide a nice contrast I still don’t think it fits overall, as it slides somewhere between an intermission screen and a vacant cavern in my mind. Oh well.

Our second-to-last playground is a big one, giving the player potentially little problem if they play well enough (and maximize BFG usage). Pistol start is fun running around and searching for how to nab the starter weapons, and the “pick the gun off the shelf” moment is used here again for the SG which we should all be used to be now. No encounter really “got” me even though I died to stray manc & chaingunner fire, and even with the quadruple AV warp in things stay very manageable since there’s a myriad of places to hide (and they group up pretty easily). Good use of visuals and geometry here; nothing gets a bad mark in my book. This map seems like it would be a tun of fun to try and speedrun, so I’m eagerly awaiting Veinen’s video.

Z300 Map26 - "Valley of Brimstone": An interesting map in theory. The damaging blood makes it so you have to be conscious where you move around as the cyber-turret pelts you from afar, and keeping the cacos around for infighting is the key. The AV and mastermind at the end is pretty nasty and to be honest I fled from the whole affair, as I didn’t feel like bringing down the two bosses through safe but slow means. Honestly, this would make a pretty good “boss” map for any of Corfiatis’ other works.

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dew said:

Damn, this speedroute (telejump) shouldn't have been possible... there was a different (cooler :P) trick planned.


Wow, now that is interesting. Guess I'll keep looking for more routes if that one's going to be fixed in the final version, although it's not like the telejump is overly easy or anything.

Unholy Realms Map23: Cliffs of The Consumed (Gluttony)

Alright then, gluttony it is. This was alright, not bad but not great. Reminds me of Scythe/Scythe 2 hell maps a lot, which is certainly not a bad thing. The difficulty is middle of the pack but again the lack of a second armor means you'll need most of the health that's available. I went for a riskier strategy in the opening minutes but I felt it was almost easier to just make a dash for the RL rather than wait out in the cave for the Revs and Cacos to trickle in and take them out one by one with the SSG. Rest of the map is no big deal, especially if you find the BFG secret. The biggest complaint would be those assholey crushers that you have to reverse platform through.

Oh yeah, I also had some monsters not teleporting in -kind of problems yet again. The chamber full of Imps didn't work properly on -cl2 for some reason so I tried with -cl9 and it worked every time.



There's the token speedrunner trick route I found too. The trick is very, very easy to pull off and I got this exit in like 3 mins but I got a feeling that it's pretty final ;) Did it on Nightmare for the heck of it and it's a second or two faster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWo9CqKmP28

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Zone 300: Map 26 - UV, pistol start

This map felt very easy compared to several of the previous maps. I got slightly nervous when I first saw the Cyberdemon, but then I realized that there were no other monsters except for the 3 demons, very surprising considering the starts of most of these maps. Clearing out the hallway to hit the skull switch was easy, found the secret. The very small caco & pain elemental swarm was the hardest part of the map for me because one of the pain elementals was attacked & started releasing a ton of lost souls while I was dealing with the cyber. Killing the Arch-vile & Spider Mastermind was really easy because I still had plenty of plasma ammo.

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dobu gabu maru said:

Looks like Demon's getting his Christmas wish in November as Vile Flesh is the frontrunner. MM2 and Hell Revealed are pretty good bets for January so I'll keep 'em in mind.

Huzzah! I've been wanting to replay Vile Flesh for a long time now, and I felt it would be fairly well-suited to the DWMC format, since after the first handful of maps it starts to vary widely in theme from map to map, and should offer something for most tastes at some point in its expanse. Lots of really tricky secrets and other neat stuff to look for, too.

UR Map 26 -- Village of the Unblessed (Heresy) - 93% Kills / 0% Secrets
Essentially an ongoing skirmish in a large yard littered with ammo, healing, and assorted demonic detritus, 'Heresy' seems very simple at a cursory glance, but has more going on beneath the surface than one might expect. As the stats above show, I was unable to find the secret and did not achieve a full killcount (even with some buffer from arch-vile resurrections), suggesting that either there's a map malfunction or the secret I missed somehow involves a significant number of monsters....something about this map leads me to suspect that it's the latter, in this case.

Aesthetically simple, the Village proper is a cluster of ramshackle wood and metal structures in scattered array evincing little sense of planning or organization beyond all surrounding a sizable fount of blood. As far as thematically adhering to its title goes, that it's a 'village' is fairly obvious, at least by the highly abstract standards of Doom, but again the extent to which it carries a 'Heresy' theme is largely up to the interpretation of the beholder--noticing that the land on which the Village sits is almost completely barren and devoid of life, I imagined it to be an infernal reflection of the vestiges of a once ordinary earthly village beset by drought and famine, which in desperation turned to human sacrifice and other dark doings in search of relief (the fountain of blood a symbol of this). Structurally the map is mostly pretty simple, even crude in places; it's neither layout nor architecture that carries this one, but rather lighting, texture selection, and the calm brooding MIDI, which seems to have some nods to 'Waiting for Romero to Play.' All told it's no showstopper, but it does the job.

Action is mostly very simple, just a lot of flat-ground open-air combat that gains most of its feel from the way some of the waves are a bit unpredictable in composition, origin point, and most of all timing; while there is a lot of blood to be spilled, it tends to come in a slow steady flow rather than in great nerve-inducing bursts. I suppose there are couple of traps in the yellow skull ambush and the earlier cemetery 'surprise', but both are pretty gentle and shouldn't be too much trouble for most players. Weapon acquisition is a pretty simple feat here, with most equipment present on regularly undulating flesh columns in the public square; I believe the time-limited run for the SSG (which can be done immediately if you know where it is) is the most involved task in this regard. Ammo and especially health are plentiful, maybe even a little too plentiful on UV....I was playing very poorly tonight (getting surprised by revenant missiles left and right) but still survived the first attempt, and honestly probably didn't deserve to. One other criticism about the action that comes to mind is that I really don't like the monster-blocking line that keeps ground-based foes from cornering the player in the yellow skull corral, but other than this it's simple and enjoyable stuff with no real gimmick to it.

Being able to walk along the top of the fence enclosing the village is obviously a designed speedrunning trick, but in this current version it can evidently cause a couple of gamebreaking problems: for one, from atop the fence it's possible to drop down behind the gargoyle-faced switchplate in the northeastern corner and become irretrievably stuck; for two, if the western enclosure with the red diamond switch (the same enclosure opened by the gargoyle switch mentioned above) is open, walking along the fenceline behind it (and particularly directly behind the switch) seems to sometimes cause the walls to insta-raise back into place, again leaving the player irretrievably stuck if s/he activated them while dropping down here. Finally, in PrBooM+ complevel 2 I noticed that 90% of the surfaces in the map apparently cannot be struck by hitscan weapons (or at least they show no impact-puffs), though enemies can still be damaged by them, and rockets seem to behave as normal. This is not an issue in complevel 9 (or in Eternity, where I first played the map).

I'll look forward to Veinen's maxdemo of this one, if for no other reason than so that I can see where that damned secret is....really has me stumped.

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Demon of the Well said:

I'll look forward to Veinen's maxdemo of this one, if for no other reason than so that I can see where that damned secret is....really has me stumped.

I took a peek in the editor to find it (it is really well hidden), and recorded a quick -nomonsters demo that shows it:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/lfoqx58312lllu0/ur26.lmp

(Prboom-Plus complevel 2 obviously)

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Oh, shit. The platform raises back up so quickly, and is far enough away when triggered that it makes no sound. I figured something would teleport me up there, not that the thing itself was a teleporter.

Incidentally, trying this myself, this secret involves a visual bug. When you teleport back out of the secret megasphere area, if you look around before leaping down, there's some pretty severe sky/cutoff issues to be seen, particularly over in the direction of the lion switch outside of the cemetery.

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UR MAP26: Village of the Unblessed (Heresy)

Reminds me a bit of the other "sandbox" maps like MAP16 and 19, but without the medium/large structures in the middle. I find it a bit funny that I found the secret fairly easily, but had to resort to the editor just to find the damn yellow key... yeah, the berserk kinda shows it, but I hit the graveyard switch really early, and never noticed what it changed. Took five loops around the level before I gave up and cheated. :P

The cyber is really useful to help thin out the monster herds. Nothing too difficult except maybe the multiple AV release after grabbing the yellow key, but definitely enough monsters to keep you on your toes. Pretty good looking map too, lots of interesting structures. The music is a bit of a strange pick, as a hectic/energetic track would make sense. It's amazing how much the music can affect the feeling though; I definitely took a slower pace on this map than I would have with a fast track. Music reminds me a bit of some of the slower tracks in FF7, like "Off the Edge of Despair" (though it might just be the MIDI instrumentation). 3/5

Zone300 MAP26: Valley of Brimstone

Damn, a cyber and a spider? Not sure if there's even enough ammo to kill them both by normal means. A decent-looking level, though really short - a quick loop to a switch, another short loop to the yellow key, and a couple of rooms inside the yellow key door. I ran like hell from both bosses and all the flyers... maybe that's intended, as killing the Spider could be a bit monotonous, but it still felt cheap. I dunno. 3/5

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MAP27 Dissect

*Regular Run*

Awkward angles make things difficult here. The imps can be ignored for later; I instead gun down a corridor of monsters, watching some of them infight in the process. Funny enough, I use the berserk to kill only a baron of hell, the one on the lift, and use rockets on the demons. With the messy layout, the flying monsters actually become annoying, to the point where I ride the lift back up again to take some of them out instead of waiting in the corridor. So in short, an ugly level. But at least the music is HELLA AWESOME. Final Time 2:53.

*Reality Run*

The start is rough because of imps and a revenant who sees me immediately if I even get a glimpse of the corridor. Had to take him out first, then the imps, then it's on to the corridor. I would've punched the demons had a revenant not been included though. The caco/PE ambush was still annoying, but this time I didn't have to reride the lift. Nothing else important afterwards. Final Time 3:02.

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Map25 "Sinister Contact"



A Gothic, Heretic-style track influenced by Memento Mori (Doom Metal band). It was actually unintentionally Heretic themed, I was just aiming for something that wasn't the usual Rock, though this still has guitar in it.

Map26 "Eerie Inhabitants"


Indeed, a nod to "Waiting for Romero to Play," and inspired by Testament (for both instrumentation and name). Originally I had a faster, more tense track for this, which I think it was "Sinister Contact," but Snakes wanted something similar to D_ROMERO. I gotta say, it does set a unique tone and pace for the map compared to what I thought.

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UR Map27 - "Serpentine (Violence)": If the last map starts out as hectic, this one is straight up lunacy. Forcing the player to move around its treacherous cliffside while being bombarded with ballistics is downright ball-busting, especially if you’re trying to look for weapons down in the scalding lava. While I think the northern arena is a bit too easy thanks to the two generous soulspheres, the rest of the map refuses to relent, especially the dangerous revenant pools at the end (which got me many times thanks to the layout of the area and pressure to maximize the radsuit use). A fun, nutty map.

So what makes it one of my least favorite of E3? It doesn’t feel like an Unholy Realms map. See, Knox has a tendancy to make trappy levels combined with nice fluid arenas. Here, the map feels too big for a UR style map and pushing the player north, then all the way south is counter to what we’ve experienced (even though there have been directional dichotomies, like with MAP24, but not to this extent). The map isn’t “bad” by any means and others can feel it fits well in here, but to me this one sticks out like a sore thumb in a series of maps that gel well with one another. No hard feelings against skillsaw, as I did have a bunch of fun.

Z300 Map27 - "Dissect": I’m always a fan of visceral levels and this map has a sublime look. I really like the white rocky flat combined with the rest of the intestinal nightmare, and the music is a great fit here as well. Only thing I wasn’t keen on was the gameplay—it starts off easy enough with a mixed horde directly in front of you begging to be cut down, followed by an overly consumptive fight with cacos and PEs, the 2 AVs lying in wait in case you try to run. I didn’t feel like there was a method to the latter fight and the disparity in difficulty is certainly aggravating. Good looks at least.

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Unholy Realms Map24: The Keeper's Castle (Greed)

This was a rather tough map to max. Looks innocent enough but the Archies and the Cybers are major pains in the ass here: Archies due to their placement and Cybers due to limited ammunition in the map. Indeed, it seems like there's a shit-ton of ammo everywhere as you start but it's merely an illusion since without some kind of management plan you'll easily run out when the two Cybers join the party. I had one attempt where I completely run out of everything with the second Cyber still breathing. Now obviously when I preach ammo management, I get a juicy instant Cyber telefrag and exit with 60+ shells but that's not something you can really expect to happen every time. Certain measures can increase the chances of a telefrag though, i.e. leaving the two Mancs alive limits the Cybers movements but sadly the Mancs are very eager to start trouble with other hellspawn and die as a result.

The YK wing is definitely the lesser of the areas here. It's more annoying than hard really with the "sniper" Revs and Archie and dealing with them was a bit of a chore. Also the monster blocking lines under the bridge means the teleporter side of the pit becomes a clusterfuck of Lost Souls and Spectres that only a moderate rocket spamming session can solve. The other side of the green magic door is far more intense and interesting. The Archie duo in the RK pit is devious to say the least. There's very little cover from their attacks and you must pay attention to the Cyber behind you at all times so that you don't get literally shot in the back. I used this pretty suicidal strategy in dealing with them in the demo but whatever works I guess hehe. Worked much better in my previous failed attempt though so it has potential to be pretty effective.

Visuals are good as always and I like how the RK yard changes in shape as you progress. I encountered only one technical problem in all my attemps, it's pretty minor but I think it might be worth checking out. As you probably know, sometimes when straferunning across a teleporting linedef it's not triggered and you just run through. Well, if that happens with the linedef that takes you to the secret PG ledge and you're not fast enough to backtrack, this happens: http://i.imgur.com/pEYFYUW.png?1. Nice view but there's no way out once the wall is back up.



And yes, there is a speedrun to be made as usual. You'll actually need a key this time (unless I'm missing something significant) to release the first Archie in the yard to propel you to the exit. I even spiced it up a bit and went full pacifist this time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R0fmw7g_f4. Seriously though, pacifism means no Spectres to plow through in the YK pit area and shooting makes no difference in the second part so it's probably even a bit faster than UV-Speeding.

Another busy week coming up but I'll try not to fall behind more. Briefly scouted map25 and it felt much tamer than this one so that's most likely coming out tomorrow at least.

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dobu gabu maru said:
And since I'm at the top of the page, thoughts on next month's megawad? We're going with classic this time again and since I don't have a strong preference, I guess it's time to sate Demon's unyielding appetite and vote for Vile Flesh.


I should actually have some free time next month.

Vile Flesh likens itself to Eternal Doom, so my vote is "not Vile Flesh". I have free time, but nowhere near that much free time (or that much patience, frankly).

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Vile maps get medium-big with MAP12 and really massive after MAP19, but before that they are quite smallish compared to Eternal.

DSDA speedrunning records (UV Max)

              Vile    Eternal
MAP01         0:54      3:25
MAP02         2:35      6:48
MAP03         2:42      9:48
MAP04         1:36     13:12
MAP05         6:14      5:37
MAP06         4:04      7:41
MAP07         4:15      6:27
MAP08         2:11      8:11
MAP09         4:15      9:22
MAP10         5:00      9:03
etc.

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vdgg said:

DSDA speedrunning records (UV Max)

              Vile    Eternal
MAP01         0:54      3:25
MAP02         2:35      6:48
MAP03         2:42      9:48
MAP04         1:36     13:12
MAP05         6:14      5:37
MAP06         4:04      7:41
MAP07         4:15      6:27
MAP08         2:11      8:11
MAP09         4:15      9:22
MAP10         5:00      9:03


... heh

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UR MAP27: Serpentine (Violence)

Wow! Quite the spectacle, and it follows up with some damn good action, too. I'm playing on continuous, so I didn't have to worry about finding weapons, which definitely made things easier. The arachnatron placement on this map really stands out - I made sure I took them out (lots of rockets at long range while on the move, like Brett Favre on a rollout!) but ignored most of the other baddies in the main area. The battles are bloody, but thankfully, the monsters used are relatively on the small side (still lots of imps/demons) and there's plentiful ammo, health and green armor. There's a little bit of "where do I go now" after the blue key switch, and the map bogs down a bit near the end by just having huge groups of revenants and little else in the last section. I like the jumping puzzles to a certain extent, but wanted to just run through instead of trying to take out all the revenant swarms, especially with the lava/radsuits making space small. Also, the map lags whenever looking at the lavafalls on software ZDoom - this might be because the lavafalls seem to be split up into many sectors to create the shadow effect and offset the lava texture a bit. Small complaint, though. Yeah, it feels a bit different from Snakes' other stuff, but I'm okay with a bit of variety aftering noticing some of the same design points come up over and over throughout the WAD. 4/5

Zone300 MAP27: Dissect

Certainly an eclectic mish-mash of all the skull/flesh textures, but I think it has it's own sort of charm; same for the music. Starts out with some decent action, though I ran out of ammo by the time I got to the first two barons and ran down the hallway, where I thinned out the hordes with the help of my Friendly Neighborhood Arachnatron. Happily gave the finger to the baron on the lift, grabbed the red key and then was off to the races... cuz damn if I'm gonna sit around and fight all those Pain Elementals and Arch-Viles. 3/5

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Zone 300: Map 27 - UV, pistol start

This map was okay, it was one of the more interesting looking ones & had some nice music as well. The opening fight was easy enough, followed by a run down the hallway killing everything in front of you. The fight after grabbing the red key was giving me some trouble so I ran down the flesh hallway got onto the lift & fought everything from there. The Arch-viles didn't give me any trouble because I only woke one up at a time.

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After previewing a Vile Flesh ep. 3 map (map 22, "Ungod") I'm really starting to regret my vote... that was pretty much intolerable (actually didn't finish it; attempt 1, I ran out of ammo completely against the Cybie, attempt 2, I got splattered by the Cybie after running into a pillar while trying to strafe. Wasn't willing to spend 5 hours shotgunning nobles to try again.)

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