08/05/2014 @20:35:44 ^21:16:26

Derelict (version 1.1)

A wad with its own webpage, you don't see these very often. It's how I found it (via reverse image search of the archvile screenshot)

This is a single map, where you clear out an industrial town which has been overtaken by monsters. It's one of those late nineties realism maps where all the buildings are trying to be real-world locations like a bar, hospital, jail cells, and so forth. There are some new textures, the sky is quite nice but the walls are mostly Doom's GRAY* with Impact font written on them.

It's pretty easy, there aren't that many monsters. They all feature, but you're rarely attacked by more than a few of the larger types at once. However, the final part in the crystal caves (which, as the plot goes, the miners must have disturbed, triggering the invasion, etc.etc.) has some very cramped battles with difficult enemies (I think this was the only place I died, right at the end, to the last monster...)

There are some "cute" moments as with all attempts-at-realism maps, although I only got most of them because the author's site lampshades them. Usually this kind of thing just flies over my head. There's a chainsaw, just pick it up and carry on. I don't think "hmm, why is there a chainsaw in a hospital?!". Similarly, the gory scene in the jail cell went right past me as I long ago stopped noticing the gore in Doom. Anything not relevant to gameplay faded into the background years ago...