23/11/2014 @07:30:40 ^08:43:52

Palenque A replacement map01 for Plutonia. Almost a remake - if you squint you can sort of see the same areas, but all mixed up. It is smaller, more compact, and has more intricate architecture than the original - by compact, I mean, does that thing where you revisit areas from different angles when bridges have raised; the route crosses over itself. Difficulty is probably about the same as well. There's more teleporting monsters, including a couple of archviles, but they were fairly obvious to anticipate. You still have the "get rocket launcher, mobbed by revenants" part, which was the only place I died, and it was my own fault.

I Give Up On Trying to Map 1* A sequence of tiny rooms with a lot of detail. Nukage base theme. Quite cramped, feels like a 1024 map, although it is not. I always like the "fight your way to a key, fight your way back through repopulated areas" mapping trope, but it is a bit too small, and too overdetailed.

* I am sure I have posted about igiveup.wad before, but apparently not? The name is very familiar, and I know I have played it before because I remembered the first secret. Perhaps I decided I could not be bothered to write any reviews that day, and so did not finish it.

Hangar 2001 - Ultimate E1M1 Remix A faithful recreation of E1M1, with only minor differences in layout from the original, but retextured like a Quake level (it's brown). Some additional secrets and a lot of crates. You would be forgiven for thinking that it is a derived work but it claims to be from scratch. Worth a look, but also feels rather pointless; not the author's best work (that would still be Containment Area)

Ring of Death An ancient map consisting of inner and outer "rings" and a central core. The inner octagonal ring, which is earthy and open to the sky, has too many tree stumps. They get in the way. The outer ring is square and more technological. Larger monsters, but also bigger weapons, can be found at the corners. The central core has the highest monster density, powerful items on pillars, and the exit key in the very centre. You can bypass the need for the key with co-operation from a second player - and also with strafe50, but I am sure the author wasn't aware of that in 1994.

Lost maps 20-odd maps that seem straight out of the mid-nineties. Most are small and not too hard. An exception is map15 which is an enormous switch-hunt, smothered in monsters, with a shortage of ammunition and desperately little health. I had to thoroughly abuse savegames to get anywhere on it, unfortunately. Some remakes of Doom2 IWAD levels, but in completely different styles. I didn't hate this wad as much as some people do, but then I tend to like mediocre mid-nineties stuff and will happily play through shovelware CDs...