26/09/2009 @16:02:46 ^18:14:04

Mini-level megawad

This is a 32-level megawad of small maps. This in itself should be a cause for excitement.

It uses plain doom2 iwad textures throughout, is relatively low detailed, and has a certain lack of polish (moving doortracks, bits of architecture hanging from the sky) which all contribute to a rather old school feel. That is not unwelcome, though. Slightly more unwelcome was poor monster teleporter design (too slow as usual, and single-use teleporter lines) and the odd ZDoomism (the worst probably being you must somehow let a monster open a door from the other side in map21 because on your side there's a walk trigger in front of it. At least it doesn't make the map unbeatable, though)

Gameplay is tough; in fact I would say it can be quite cruel. I started off trying to do each map from pistol starts on UV, but gave up on that fairly quickly (map07 I could not do at all) Even on HNTR there were a couple of the later levels I lost patience with. Playing the wad with savegames one map after another I managed to get to map29, but haven't got past it yet. I need more luck and faster reactions, I guess.

• map03: a nice example of a rare design flaw in a map: an optional locked door. The red key is completely unnecessary - you can walk freely between both sides of the door without it.
• map06: vaguely reminiscent of Doom2 maps 2 and 5, this one took me at least 10 attempts to do from scratch. I very nearly gave up here, but finally got through...
• map07: just your average map07 with mancubi and arachnotrons, however the mancubi are so densely packed that I could not avoid death after only a few seconds on every one of twenty attempts. There's just no health. I quit doing the maps on UV at this point (and a few tries of map08, see below) and restarted using savegames.
• map08: doubly frustrating; low resources means you must play carefully, right up until the final trap which completely swamps you.
• map11: obligatory large pile of crates maze. Uses sector rotation too much. Very three-dimensional (height differences, jumping around piles of crates, that sort of three-dimensional)
• map13: ugh, repetitive...
• map14: a maze of wide rock tunnels in which you are given a BFG and chased by up to half a dozen cyberdemons.
• map31/32: two versions of the same arena-style map, the second having double the monsters of the first. You play the first wondering what all those empty stands are for... Note: you can't play the first one and skip the second one, there's only a secret exit in the first. It's all or none.
• map17: a train station, reminiscent of several other maps (Deimos Subway, etc.) More symmetry and repetitive gameplay, though.
• map19: more nice use of height differences in this slime-filled cave. High monster density though, you get closed down very quickly.
• map22: first obvious slaughter map.
• map23: surrounded by mancubi and 4 cyberdemons right from the beginning. Requires far too much luck.
• map24: your reward for suriviving the central area (starting in a building surrounded on all sides by monsters) is 4-way symmetry and repetition. And I thought map13 was annoying.
• map25: a rare example of a map whose initial weapon is a rocket launcher. On UV you're then surrounded by spectres. How do you avoid killing yourself? I have no idea! I brought all the guns from previous levels, fortunately. There's a chessboard in the central building. To my surprise, you don't get teleported into the middle of it.
• map26: caves and islands in a huge lake of blood. Exercise in long range battles. Too frustrating even on HNTR.
• map28: start on a ledge over a lake of poisonous blood, no cover, homing revenant missiles everywhere, must strafejump off ledge onto platform covered in imps, aargh...
• map29: giant dark red cave filled with every monster in the game. Teleports archviles in later. Mass slaughter. Even starting with full ammo and health I can't seem to get anywhere.

In summary, it's a megawad of small maps, which is good, but slightly buggy, and somehow just the wrong side of frustrating, to be great.

Communications Center

A small techbase map. Suffers mildly from overdetailed corridor syndrome: it's almost entirely made of corridors of varying widths, with relatively few windows, glimpses or other forms of non-traversible interconnection (I just made that term up) It is not overdetailed but the simplistic layout makes it seem like it is.

Gameplay-wise it is quite easy. Mostly the monsters are of the smaller variety, but apart from a hidden super shotgun you are not given any of the larger weapons either. It requires you to backtrack a lot more than is necessary, making the map seem more confusing than it should be, and artificially lengthened.* Still, once you know the layout it is fun and replayable.

* Naturally I had typed out a long diatribe detailing all aspects of what I saw as the odd flow of the map - the switch opposite the yellow key not lowering it but opening access to another switch on other other side of the level that did, or the way that the archvile trap on the red key was completely avoidable, and it was far more expedient just to teleport back - but it would probably have taken as long to read than it would take to play the map and see for yourself.

Selfish Series (Boom Edition)

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this modification is. Admittedly it's been several years since the last time I played this 7-level mapset, but having played through it again, there is no obvious difference from the one I played back then.

It still even has the broken archvile teleporter on map06 (selfish3).