04/05/2005 @23:32:49 ^02:34:37

Everybody go and vote tomorrow

I don't care who you vote for but you are a hypocrite and have no right to complain about the government if you don't take each and every legitimate opportunity to go and do something about it.

Aphorisms on being blown up by cyberdemons

Okay here is a hopefully brief review of Kama Sutra. I played this megawad using lots of savegames and carrying ammo forward, although I think the intention is that you play each level from scratch. But, who cares.

The maps have a unique feel to them. They are apparently doom2.exe compatible and have been checked for visplane overflows. You'd be forgiven for disbelieving this, though. Nearly all of them have scenery by the bucketloads. Huge expanses of water are common. There are bays, coastlines, the city maps have enormous skyscrapers on the horizon, etc. This sort of atmosphere makes this wad worth playing by itself. There's also lots of realism, fake 3d bridges and other things you can only do with masses of self referencing linedefs, that sort of thing.

The gameplay is pretty hard. Even when you're carrying ammunition forward you're up against it. I admit I skipped a few levels or cheated my way through them. It's Hell Revealed skill level, or often above it. Mostly I only got through with luck and lots and lots of savegames.

• Map 3 has a bay with a sailboat and a really stupid secret area which the title hints at.
• Map 5 starts off in a cave system and you think it's going to be all cramped and awkward until you emerge into an enormous outdoor scene with a bay and a lighthouse and all sorts!
• Map 8 has this cute "passage of time" gimmick. There's this part with a clock that you keep coming back to and as the level progresses that area gets progressively darker and the time on the clock gets later and later.
• Map 11 what the hell I'm in an electric chair! Aargh!
• Map 13 is in a city. I really like the part where you get the blue key. You're on top of a towerblock with this view of an enormous urban landscape. It is very impressive.
• Map 14 is even more impressive. I don't know what it is about huge maps that have huge height differences, but it looks amazing. Scythe-style overhead roads as well.
• Map 15 is a sports centre. Amazingly I've played Doom in a swimming pool before but never on a tennis court or a running track.
• I skipped the secret levels. The first one is a harder remake of Hell Revealed 22 and I would die within five seconds of starting it so I decided to go back to the end of map 15 and press the normal exit switch instead. Of course this made doing map 32 impossible.
• Map 16 is called "Leeds Castle". This made me go "huh?" The weird part is it does feel like a tourist attraction!
• Map 17 is a puzzle level and I skipped it because it was really annoying
• Map 18 is like a souped up cross between Alien Vendetta 6 and 24 (the new 24, not the old one). Imagine that. This is an incredible map, I could hardly stop grinning.
• Map 20 is a fortress or a factory or something in a valley. The trap on the red key is fierce and I don't know how I managed to get past it. It's probably the hardest map that I didn't cheat my way through or skip outright. It also features a gap in a wall that has the alarming property of being traversible in one direction only with no moving parts.
• Map 21 starts in hell and has more archviles at the start than I care to imagine. And you have to charge past them.
• Map 23 features a battle with five cyberdemons at once!
• Map 24 has a funky cutscene ending that exploits old Doom2 quirks like voodoo dolls and zombie exits (so it won't end properly if you don't run it in PRBoom's compatibility mode)
• Map 25 is basically another remake of Hell Revealed 25 UPDATE (9/9/2005) No it isn't. It has similiarities, like how you come out of an earthy hole at the start, and the descending arches with dozens of revenants behind, and the general feeling of being a small map so stuffed with monsters you can hardly move, but it's nowhere near similar enough to be called a remake.
• Map 27 is like a lot of smaller maps in space connected by teleporter. It is a weird gimmick map and I didn't like it.
• Map 28 is an oversized remake of Hell Revealed 24 and was too hard for me. I got through it in the end but only by watching a demo and using the cheat for infinite radsuit. There's over 1700 monsters, but the worst part is most of it is poisonous.
• Map 29 is another amazing map for scenery and it appears to go on forever. Starting in a brick fortress you end up going through a city which descends into hell. The bit where you jump into the abyss is exhilarating.
• Map 30 has to be seen to be believed! A few years ago I'd have probably killed myself laughing but I don't know. Now it just says "made by eternal virgins". However I admit the blood made me laugh. (Okay okay this map is a joke, but still, they thought it was a good idea for long enough to make it...)

In summary, you should play this because apart from one or two points it's up there with the classic "hard" megawads like HR, AV, Scythe, etc. (from all of which it draws influences.) Very good.

PS Oh yeah I forgot they're doing demos for it at a site called Ksutra-N