The DWmegawad Club plays: ConC.E.R.Ned & Draft Excluder

Go me, procrastinating so much that E1 is nearly finished before I've even started.

I know the first few levels of this set, but the last time I played, I was still trying to play everything on UV, so I never really saw much of it.
I think I'll try HMP this time 'round.

E1M1: Toxic Touchdown
| Kills: 33/33 | Items: 26/28 | Secrets: 2/2 | Time: 01:25 | Deaths: 0 |

Bit unsure on the two imp alcoves when you press the switch to open the exit, but aside from that, decent opener. Some nice use of barrels.

7/10

E1M2: Mutagenic Quarantine
| Kills: 158/158 | Items: 102/114 | Secrets: 4/5 | Time: 06:40 | Deaths: 2 |

Never really liked this map. Most of the large fights are pretty dull except for maybe one where barrels actually deal quite a lot of damage. Secret 1 I find is flawed. The only ammo you get is that dropped by the shotgunners, most of which you'll end up using on the monsters inside secret 1 itself, and even if you find secret 2, you're likely to run out when you try to tackle the central area. In addition that, monsters have a tendency to pile up at that door, so you either pick off a few from the window, or camp the doorway, both of which will inevitably require the pistol at some point, and neither of which are particularly fun. I feel like it would been better to have just ignored the secret entirely and gone straight to the courtyard.
The red key trap was significantly lighter than I remember it, with just six sergeants as opposed to like the entire area filling up again.
Barrels were very effective with the monsters surrounding the yellow key switch, but all of it seemed to very tentative depending on if some monster decided to walk right in front of you, of course by the time you've killed it, it's now too late because everything spread out.

4/10

E1M3: The Cleanser
| Kills: 108/121 | Items: 43/67 | Secrets: 2/5 | Time: 08:24 | Deaths: 0 |

This is better. Spent some time trying to find the secret exit, but it didn't happen. Not that it matters too much since I'm pistol starting anyway.
Some fun (but dangerous) chainsaw gameplay at the start, during which I somehow dropped from 100 to 23 health in about a second. I made a mistake this time and didn't have the rocket launcher for the red key ambush, which I usually find makes that quite a fun fight (not deducting any marks here). Other than that I don't really have much to say about this one.

6/10

E1M9: The Atomsmasher
| Kills: 200/202 | Items: 56/56 | Secrets: 1/2 | Time: 06:42 | Deaths: 0 |

Well, I mean, look on the bright side. At least it's a particle accelerator that's not a giant LINAC :D
I agree with the others though. While I didn't find the gameplay to be all that dull, except for the last baron which I thought was unnecessary (thanks rocket launcher + plasma rifle), I do think the map might have been fine without the key based stuff, and just one fight in that big central room. Good map though.

7/10

E1M4: Withering Gardens
| Kills: 150/151 | Items: 63/89 | Secrets: 1/4 | Time: 08:03 | Deaths: 2 |

The gimmick of having to kill those snipers about 5 times was kind of annoying imo, not least because this map, like E1M2 is one where you're given very little ammo to begin with, then by the end you don't know what to do with the stuff. The general feel of this map is more up my alley though, and aside from that moderate annoyance with the start, another unnecessary exit baron (and also a demon being a humongous knob-end by not dying to the first rocket, then getting right in my face as I fired the second, but that's not a map fault) I liked this one quite a lot. Cool stuff

8/10

e1m7
Got stuck for a little while because I'd neglected to flick a switch. Oops. Especially since it was on the other side of nukage. Fortunately I managed to find a rad suit elsewhere on the level and sprint back to deal with the issue.

Speaking of the nukage, there's a much less generous hand with the rad suits here and more forced crossings (including one that is not too obvious – fortunately for me I spotted it on the map).

Like e1m6, this is a level with some pretty nasty battles, but – on continuous anyway – you've got plenty of tools to deal with it. I even took on both cybers in this map in 'honourable' fashion: no cheeseweaseling today! I picked the presence of the exit one as soon as the map started: "Self," I said, "There's a cyberdemon in that there red thing."

This is a solid base level with some good fights, though I didn't like it as much as e1m6. That map felt a little more free-flowing somehow.

e1m7 - OMG THE PESTOV PLATFORM IS BACK. :DDD It made me a little happy inside. :)
And I recorded another video.

E1M5 -- Administration

With a name like that, how could it not be fun?

Super straightforward, not too much chance of getting lost in this bad boy. More about the fights than the level, nice mix of monster closets and teleports. I always appreciate secrets that are visible to the player before accessing them, like the soulsphere and plasma rifle here. More fun than wandering around looking for different wall textures. Plenty of rockets were appreciated with the number of Cacos and Barons. Glad to get the Soulsphere secret because I came off the previous level with less than full health, and without that I would have finished this level with even less.

Although I would have appreciated more administrative tasks suitable to the level theme, such as filing and data entry, shooting rockets down long corridors into monster faces was good too.

E1M7 - "Reactor"

Another map that was good (as in "OK, playable, stylish"), but AGAIN extremely generic and providing infinite possibilities to outrun enemies and skip vast majority of fighting, despite the fact that there are swarms of hundreds of enemies. They seem to be "just there", and my goal seems to be "just rush, or feel the tedium instead", and I'm not comfortable with it.

E1M7: Reactor
100% kills, 3/3 secrets

I was a little worried when I saw the two METAL-clad hallways at the start, as they seemed very blocky and un-detailed by the rest of the WADs standards, thankfully the rest of the level looks fine. The layout definitely has a Tom Hall feel to it in places, with lots of square/circular rooms connected by hallways, but all connected in multiple areas to avoid linearity. Aside from the large glowing reactors, lots of abstract rooms, as well... this map has one of the stronger IWAD feels for that reason, at least to me.

So, it's an adventure for three keys, though I had cleared out pretty much the entire level by the time I got the first, the red key. Turns out I had completely missed the blue key in the water, and, I think got stuck in the same spot as Capellan - missing the switch on the Pestov platform... probably because the damn thing is backwards, Cannonball you naughty boy. After spending so long searching for the yellow key, I got lulled into a false sense of security and was caught off-guard by the ambush there, heh. Also liked the secondary ambush in the sludge, though it's easy to run away from (but fun to use rockets, as the columns make a nice firing lane).

The only other negative I'd note is the use of block monster lines in the sludge area by the staircases... all the spectres ran out of the area only to be stuck and force-fed a steady diet of shotgun shells.

E1M6 - "Laboratory"
Ah, so this is where conCERNed gets serious about trying to kill me. Those initial cybs were well used to create an ominous atmosphere. Good stuff! I was definitely taken aback by just how monster stuffed parts of this techbase are. I reacted badly to the first bunch of monsters in the north-eastern section I came across and ended up moving forward and alerting the next lot. I ended up having to fight off most of them in the area and I lost quite a lot of health, but it was fun. The map does seem quite quiet after that though. I personally enjoy drip-feeds of monsters as well as floods. In particular the north-western section seems much simpler, with the larger running space.

The yellow key trap with the teleporting Sergeants was really nasty; I had the shotgun ready rather than the chaingun, and so I died from it. The two cyb rooms are well-designed; I screwed up against the cyb in the east and died. I found the western cyb room much simpler, as there were fewer sergeants and the floor walking barons helpfully distracted the cyb whilst I BFG'd it. The secret for the red key was straightforward (I'm habitually checking the automap) but really satisfying for what it revealed. I found all the secrets in this map - I think I'm starting to get used to Cannonball's secret hiding tropes. We'll see if this develops as the was progresses.

Anyway this is a much better level than E1M5 and I am in agreement with those who say this among the best maps so far. The gameplay is suitably busy and symmetry is diminished. I'm really going to have watch my step now on UV though. Good going Cannonball.

E1M7 - "Reactor"
Finally, a decisive break from the previous symmetrical and rather formulaic hub with side area maps, This big techbase is pretty non-linear and free-flowing. There are plenty of monsters to kill and some well-worked fights. The pillar with Cyb and barons on, with teleporting sergeants at the side was pretty good, but that neverending teleport trap near the yellow key really took a toll on me, until I broke out a plasma weapon. The red key cyb was good as it was unexpected, even if it is one-on-one fight with an obstacle between it.

The amount of nukage is problematic and I pretty much died outside the room with the sergeants on the walkway because of it. I had to nuke bathe to find a new rad suit in order to safely deal with them. Finally that soul sphere and computer map must be the best hidden secret of the episode so far. I feel I must've spent 10 minutes trying things to get to them. Was pretty satisfying once I finally found out how to get them :).

E1M7 - "Reactor"
So this was my first attempt at making a large non-linear sprawl type map, in the end it is just a collection of areas connected together, each key serves it's own hypothetical purpose (the yellow key area is for the toxic waste, the red is the central computing area and the blue key is the coolant area). That said I think the areas could better designed and stitched together to leave make a better impression. Again despite some rather fierce looking encounters, I managed to escape unharmed from all of them, even the mental yellow key teleport swarm.
Despite finding the secrets, I only left this map with a handful of bullets and a full shell count, all rockets and plasma were spent here. That said I was being liberal with their use at times.

E1M6 - Laboratory

So far the levels have been good fun, but I guess from here on the levels are going to be a lot more challenging, with not one but two Cyberdemons being thrown at you, one after the other. As a suitably sadistic twist of Demonic bad humour, you first get to see the faces of both of those suckers at once and hear their footfalls.

On this map there are plenty of small fry - Imps, Shotgunners, even the lowly Zombiemen are still making their appearance, which is one of the reasons I find Doom 1 WADs appealing. While the variety and toughness of the Doom 2 bestiary keeps one highly challenged and mobile, the Doom 1 bestiary encourages mappers to make more use of the human-sized enemies. This suits players like me who sometimes favour a more methodical room-to-room, dodging in and out approach to clearing out the level of monsters. Run and gun is a fun approach, but in the congested hallways of a Techbase it can get one caught on stuff or cornered by large numbers of demonspawn. Especially if they are reinforced with stronger demons like Cacos and Barons with air support provided by the ever-annoying Lost Souls.

By the way, my hat goes off to those who do pistol starts with levels like these. If I tried I'd probably give up in frustration. Double points if you only use a keyboard as a controller.

The number of bigger monsters like Cacodemons and Hell Barons has increased with this level, necessitating either more use of shotgun shells and bullets or the use of precious rockets or energy cells. This is a problem because this WAD has brought home to me just how damn tough the Cyberdemon is. And I'm facing two of the bastards!

Well actually, one now, because I'm saving a lot more now and hence I am forgoing my usual practice of trying to complete whole levels in one sitting. The fight with the Cyberdemon behind the blue door was a tense game of running around corners, popping off shots with the rocket launcher or plasma gun, dodging back before the Cyberdemon's rockets got too close, running back down the hall a bit to make the sure the big doors stayed open (or running back down the hall to get through the closing door if the Cyberdemon was following me), rinse, repeat.

Dealing with the second Cyberdemon will require a trick I've learned when faced with tough challenges in games: sit on it. Writing this has helped, because I'm already thinking of different approaches to attacking the problem - literally, in this case!

I'm gonna try a another door...

E1M8 - "Particle Accelerator"

Well, this was rather easy and not much engaging. All of the powerful monsters can be easily outsmarted by taking cover and letting them infight, and once they're weakened or you're in a safe position, kill them with a BFG blast. Atmosphere was typical for an E1M8 episode ender: Melancholic, trying to impress with build-up and a few epic-like big structures, but overally being a letdown in gameplay. I'm looking forward to more action in the following episodes.

E1M7 -- Reactor

My God, that yellow key trap was brutalizing, especially after having my health leeched by shotgun blasts to press the switch to even get into the room. I'm usually ultra-conservative with my ammo, but after dying for the tenth time in there I just started spamming BFG...

E1M8 -- Particle Accelerator

...and continued spamming it here. All those Barons laughed at me when I hoarded that plasma ammo the entire episode. Who's laughing now?

Loved the poison sign secret, when there was no nukage or other poison signs around. After some of the much more devious secrets, this one could have just said "SECRET DOOR." It's M8, after all, just want to kill things, not try to find some fancy shootable switch.

e1m8
On continuous, this is pretty much a case of 'hold down fire until everything stops moving'.

Design-wise, it's a pretty short and simple affair. Interesting to see that there is no BFG on HMP, whereas there is on UV and HNTR. Wasn't a problem for me though, since I brought one with me :) I imagine it would make HMP pistol start a fairly different experience to play than UV pistol start.

Overall, episode 1 of Concerned was solid work. Not every level was a classic, but overall it was an enjoyable Doom experience. I'm curious to see how things can be mixed up in the remaining episodes though, since we've already experienced all the weapons and monsters Doom has to offer.

E1M8: Particle Collider
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Uh, particle collider? I already visited the 'atom smasher' in E1M9... they're the same thing!

In any event, this is the attempt at the boss map. Since we've already seen barons and cyberdemons, wasn't sure what to expect, but it's basically just wads of barons, a couple cybers and a Spider Mastermind in the middle, all set up in a way that's very easy to create infighting, Gotcha! style. The loads of rockets and the free BFG on UV makes it easy to clean everything up before moving to the very sudden death exit.

Not too impressive, but boss maps are kinda difficult to do in Doom, so I can't really say I'm really disappointed.

Overall, E1 was solid - certainly some nice levels with good fights and layouts, though we really didn't get to see anything wild and crazy and out-of-the-box either. I do really like the secret design, right up my alley.

mouse falls on floor for literally no fucking reason, lands upside down by sod's law, and closes chrome. RIP write up on E1M5 and E1M6.
I'm just glad I don't write SteveD/DotW-length posts on maps D:

anyway, E1M5 was a 7, E1M6 was a 8, and I'm so using notepad for this from now on.

Okay, so I'm a day late with my catchup. But I finished the episode, so that's gotta count for something, right? :v

E1M4 Redux: I took this level nice and carefully after the shitstorm that was my last playthrough, and I think I like the map a little better then I did the first time around. The courtyard leading to the yellow keycard switches, which ended up turning into demonic Vietnam in my first playthrough, was just completely obliterated this runthrough. Still don't like the last battle, though it was much more manageable this time around.

E1M5-Administration: This is the point where the teleporter traps become stupidly common. It felt like every single thing I touched would spawn in more enemies to chew me up. I did like how the soulsphere secret worked though.

E1M6-Labratory: I think this is my favorite level of the episode. I never found the red key, so I didn't get the BFG, but rocket and cell ammo was plentiful enough that I didn't need it, and it gave the Cyberdemon fights that much more tension. Speaking of which, I really like the arena layouts for those fights, and the numerous Barons in the left arena certainly helped out while I cleared out shotgunners and ammo'ed up.

E1M7-Reactor: Never mind, this is where the teleporter traps get stupid crazy. (Specifically, right after the yellow key pickup). I ended up wandering around for an absurd amount of time looking for the blue key before I saw the lift. But whereas the Cyberdemon fight in that room is more of a "run the hell away" kind of fight, the second Cybie fight reminded me a bit of E2M8 continuous with the "circle-strafe the Cybie with the plasma gun" approach.

E1M8-Partical Accelerator: Well, at least there weren't any teleporter traps. It also had Sign of Evil, which is a plus. The Mastermind fight wasn't that interesting; I actually killed off all the Barons before circle-strafing the Mastermind to death with the plasma rifle. I honestly found the Baron fight right after more interesting. The part with the yellow keycard and the sudden death ending probably could have been cut out, I think. Did take me by surprise, though.

e1m8 - Well, better than I expected at least (no circlestrafing around a pack of barons). You are given a BFG and a load of cells so you can do your job very quickly and proceed to the next "real" map. Strange exit!

E1M6 - "Laboratory"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/9zob7z4cy671q2k/concern-e1m6-mouldy.lmp

Jesus, 2 cybers already, and its not even the boss map. I'm amazed I got through this one with no deaths, not sure I would have fancied restarting after an unlucky cyber rocket. Luckily there is plenty of map to play hide and seek with them, and enough weaponry that they aren't too much of a problem. I never did find the red key, I'm assuming there is some super firepower behind that door.

E1M7 - "Reactor"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ql90t79erl5bqrr/concern-e1m8-mouldy.lmp

Cool non-linear key hunt. I died on the 2nd cyber, so time for me to start saving. Playing through it a second time I realised its fairly trivial to run away from the first 2 cybers, although one will cause a nuisance if left to roam. The real problem I had was getting totally stuck looking for the yellow key. It turned out the switch to access the yellow key room was lit up as default, so I had assumed I'd already pressed it. There are identical switches elsewhere that light up when pressed, so that didn't help I guess. That and my bad memory. Anyway, the yellow key fight was great fun, using rocket launcher as a replacement SSG.


E1M8 - "Particle Accelerator"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/cu6752h7o9wla79/concern-e1m7-mouldy.lmp

Fuckin hell that death exit gave me a heart attack. I was wondering how this map would present itself after already having multiple cyber encounters. And lo, a mastermind has joined the party. Very awkward to get any infighting going here, I guess thats the idea. I was hoping to encourage some cyber crossfire on the mastermind, but I'd have killed myself getting that to happen. Not a bad end to the episode, its nice to finish on a short sharp battle.

Overall episode 1 thoughts:

A cool opening episode, throwing in the whole posse of old school doom monsters (maybe this was originaly going to be a stand-alone episode?). The locations are nicely realised with some measure of realism to help give a sense of story. Not that I've been following what the story is. Some kind of nuclear facility has been taken over by monsters? Thats enough story for me.

The Ride goes on...

E1M7 - "Reactor" Kills: 83% Secrets: 1/3 Deaths: 2
You know when a level is good when it is complex and a challenge at the same time. I actually had fun with this level overall. The visuals may be generic, but there are some well hidden secrets and great gameplay too. This level is where Concerned gets salty on the player with the hordes of monsters coming at you once you've gotten a key. Kudos to you, Cannonball.

E1M8 - "Particle Accelerator" Kills: 100% Secrets: 1/1 Deaths: 0
Well, the map's ending caught me by surprise when it just lured me to the two yellow key doors. Good map anyway.

Episode 1 overall
Episode 1 was a pretty good opening episode for this megawad, as it shows increase in difficulty with every map you progress through. It had mostly good maps and I had fun playing them.

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/6266265 = part 1 of my playthrough, covering maps E1M1-E2M4. (UV, continuous from E1M1-E1M3 but pistol start for the rest)

So far so good from cannonball. Nothing to be ConC.E.R.Ned about here, aside from my generic problem with Baron spam in Ultimate Doom wads.

Episode 1 was kind of a stroll, despite some good boss monster usage. Wasn't dull at any point though, although E1M8 may just have had a bit of an underwhelming conclusion.

Episode 2 was more like the cannonball I love and hate for his dick moves! Hard maps with fun in them! For some reason I particularly liked E2M4's visual design.

Hope that the other half of ConC.E.R.Ned is just as fun.

Suitepee said:

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/6266265 = part 1 of my playthrough, covering maps E1M1-E2M4. (UV, continuous from E1M1-E1M3 but pistol start for the rest)

E1M7 - best zombieman ever.

I played maps 1 through 6 today. Nice wide open spaces, but a lot of monsters to trudge through. Especially e1m3 and on. The traps were inventive but it seems to max out the best you can do with Doom 1 monsters. Having a shotgun with a hundred shells makes you want a supershotgun and miss your friendly neighborhood revenants. The freedom to move helped keep things from getting boring. I might stick it out through e2, but I suspect e3 will start to drag now that were seeing cyberdemons already but its cool to see Doom 1 get ramped up so much. Nice job so far cannonball :)

Capellan said:

E1M7 - best zombieman ever.

Probably the best death I have seen in a long while :)
I will try and watch this on catch up today.

Hopefully I will get to see the other parts live, no guarantees with an evening job and all, I really needed to spell check the text file (either that or notepad had a shit fit) :P

E1M8 - "Particle Accelerator"
A pretty short introduction for the spidermastermind here, does the map work? I guess it does to a degree, the sheer purpose is of course to make grabbing the BFG as hard as possible which effectively results in you winning as long as you use the available ammo sparingly.
Again visuals and the encounter could be addressed to make it more interesting though.

This episode is in the end a speedmapped episode dating back t when I had only really started to get into mapping, so the rather rough and basic layout was very much still the dominant theme, I guess the rather violent gameplay makes up a little for the big flaws within the set though.

E1M6: Laboratory - 100% kills, 100% secrets
As soon as I fired my first shotgun shell, I heard the unmistakable sound of not one, but two cyberdemons roaring around me. I knew I was in for a challenge. The map looks nice, and reminds me of something from Episode 2. I somehow had no trouble at all finding the secrets - I grabbed all five of them fairly quickly (including the BFG), which helped immensely with the two cyberdemons. The traps mostly involved a mass of teleporting monsters instead of the boring monster closets from the first few maps. Lots of barons here, but lots of rockets too. I love maps that utilise the rocket launcher as the 'main weapon'. The only issue I have with this map is the symmetrical layout - I would have preferred something a little more varied.

E1M7: Reactor - 100% kills, 100% secrets
I liked the idea of this map: here's the exit door, go find all the keys. This has been done in a couple of previous maps, but here, there is no clear path to each key - they're all hidden somewhere around the map. My favourite part of the map was the blue key pit with the crazy cyberdemon fight (although I did use the BFG from the previous map). I didn't like the large slime area though - that one room with the massive horde of teleporting monsters went on for way too long in my opinion, and I actually got myself killed with the rocket launcher there (first death so far). Also, I would have appreciated an extra radiation suit. Pretty nasty secret in that area too! I did enjoy the map for the most part though.

E1M8: Particle Accelerator - 100% kills, 100% secrets
This one was a little lacking in my opinion. There were far, far fewer monsters than even the first map in this episode, and although they consisted mainly of cyberdemons and barons, they didn't feel as challenging as some of the previous encounters (especially E1M4, E1M6 and E1M7). I think something could be done here to make it more intense - playing peekaboo with the spider mastermind doesn't feel right for an episode finale.

Episode 1 thoughts
This was a bit of a mixed bag. There were just too many obvious monster closets for the first few maps, and far too many teleporting monster ambushes in the latter ones. Some maps didn't have a very interesting layout (E1M9). I did love the more open maps though (E1M2, E1M3, E1M6, E1M7). Some maps felt pretty 'filler' and forgettable (E1M4, E1M5). I only died once throughout the entire episode, and the difficulty felt about right for the most part.

cannonball, I find it very interesting that you're playing through and reviewing your own maps, and I definitely look forward to playing your improved version of this episode when it's done! I've got some nearly 10-year old maps somewhere on the archives from when I was, like, 12-14 years old - I really need to replay them and see how much I have improved!

Anyways, I will be back in a few days with the first few maps of Episode 2!

E1M7: Reactor
This one was a lot of fun, barring two things: the never-ending teleport trap in the yellow (?) key room. Holy crud, every time I thought I was done, I'd head for the door and, fwizsh! more barons/imps/dudes start popping in. I also couldn't figure out the supercharge or map secrets in the nukage room: found a hidden shootable switch that...doesn't seem to do anything? Doesn't even seem to turn green when shot? Oh and look, my radsuit's run out. Great. I give up. Other than that, this map was an absolute blast for my run-n-gun preferences.

E1M8: Particle Accelerator
Eh. Another horde of barons to contend with. I could not for the life of me get anyone to infight with anybody (though to be fair, some barons camped out below the cybers and threw fireballs into the walls.) The Mastermind was a piece of cake on continuous, and I had enough rockets to finish off both cybers with ease. Then the next section opened up, and I'm like, crap, now what? I just used up all my big guns. And then boom! surprise death! Made me laugh, so it kind of redeems the map. :)

E1 OVERALL
All around, I had a blast. I'm a big fan of stuffing maps with lower-tier baddies, and this set had that in spades. Some nice and sprawling/interconnected layouts, too, which I enjoy. Good stuff.

Surreily said:

cannonball, I find it very interesting that you're playing through and reviewing your own maps

Author reviews are by far my favorite aspect of the club, as there's not really a lot of post-mortem stuff on here. Beyond that I also think it's valuable for the authors themselves, as there isn't a level-by-level analysis outside of kmxexii's stuff and the occasional /newstuff Chronicles.

E1M7: At times I feel echoes of E1M6 here, but this map is more disjointed, the areas not really feeling like they belong together. On top of that I don’t feel like it necessarily differentiates itself from the rest of the episode, blending in too closely to the previous two levels. It’s more fun than E1M1 but there’s still some design hiccups (like how easy it is to flee from the BK battle) that keep it from greatness.

E1M8: Ehhhh it’s at least something? Powell’s E1 closer certainly feels like a speedmapping idea, with a fairly uninteresting battle thrown in here against all of Ultimate Doom’s bosses. I do like the fake-out exit at least.

E1M8 - "Particle Accelerator"
The E1 boss map - this is vastly simplified when played continuously, especially as I already had the BFG from M6. There's a decent use of spectres near the start (although that rocky area is a tad superfluous). The introduction of the spider mastermind is in a pretty static Gotcha style fight. I didn't have too much trouble getting the boss monsters to fight; I simply got the barons to distract the mastermind, then once it's ignoring you, you can stand on the platform so a Cyb will hit it. Since that's the basic formula for getting the BFG, I'm not sure that sure it would be much different from pistol start.

Overall this is an ok boss map, in keeping with the simplicity of the original and conCERNed's overall ramped up difficulty. The secret here is quite simple, as several of them have been in the first episode. The unmarked ending is completely unexpected though. No demonic portal or anything? I also agree with the post saying we already visited the atom smasher on M9. I guess the actual CERN does have more than one particle accelerator though.

Episode 1 overall thoughts
I think it shows that this episode was speedmapped, as there are several mappping tropes that noticeably reoccur: the use of large, arena-like spaces; symmetry; lack of height variation; and "hub with side quests" layouts. The secrets are similar; once you work out the way Cannonball tends to hide them you know what to look for. Many of the secrets are very simple; some boil down to "Oh here's a poison texture, better press that". Similarly the 'shoot the blinking indented wall panel' trope became noticeable too. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though because I appreciate a graduation of secret 'difficulty', and finding easier ones is a good appetiser for finding more.

Of the maps I think that M9 and M5 are probably the weaker, more formulaic ones, whilst the latter maps are better, but none really were bad. Overall this is fun and a breath of fresh air for a Doom 1 megawad, with the monster count and scale being big departures from the norm. When you consider this episode was a speedmap, it's more impressive still. Cannonball did a good job.

E2M1 - "Collider Anomaly"

I like the start with damaging floors, demons and crushers, I consider it memorable. The rest of the map wasn't bad at all, either. Shame for the overly straightforward progression (and many battles being generic ambushes like those I've seen before), but I still thought that the map was a good episode opener.

There was a moment when I teleported into a (relatively) small room, hit a switch, several doors opened and both pinky demons and then shotgun sergeants entered the room. I wanted to use chainsaw on the pinkies, but shotgun was a better choice because of the sergeants. I thought this setup had an untapped potential.

At a certain point, an idea occured to my mind: Is the hub room (with 4 pillars, teleporter and a red key) supposed to be the ConC.E.R.Ned E1M1 room with 4 pillars, in a parallel world? But after I checked E1M1 again, I've come to a conclusion that it wasn't cannonball's intention.

e1m6 -

i played that one again after finding out how to get the bfg. the secret in a secret isn't hard to find, it's rather intuitive, but i went through that map being chased by a horde of barons and other creatures (without the ssg, i find the souls the most annoying enemy, don't like stuff flying into my face) because i held back on ammo, thinking i'll need all plasma for the cybs. a mistake, as there's clearly a truckload of shells from many shotgunners, you can plink away at the barons if you take care not to get cornered. and the cyb rooms have their bulk cells too. (yep, the titlepic is from here). sure, the bfg changes things a lot. but if i wanted to play it again, then i guess this map was fun!


e1m7 -

what i liked about it was its nonlinearity, the fact that you can go left or right from the starting room and find enough to be able to finish the map. although the room with the berserk and the cacos can be a bit overwhelming if you get there first (well, i insisted on punching those tomatoes to death as i was given the can of spinach) and then you should stack up before the yellow key ambush, which goes on for a minute or two... i changed the chaingun for the rocket launcher, then for plasma, and they still kept coming? heh. i use to play with the RDND and ketchupmod add-ons and the room was... like taken from the doom comic. nice map. large and sprawling, but with plenty of different, interesting situations, the most memorable map of concerned so far.

btw, i guess pestov platforms are those raising and lowering walkways like slava pestov made them in realm of chaos?


e1m8 -

a phobos anomaly on steroids. same music, same spectres getting in the way. barons don't scare anyone this day, so there's about 15 of them and a gotcha!-style infight. the exit made me flinch. didn't expect that!

I admit, I had the luck to see a blue line on the automap (in Zandronum, it's teleport), so that I've expected getting teleported at the end of E1M8. ;)