Hell Revealed II

oh Hell Revealed II, you are one of my more replayed wads, but even as replayable as you are, you're still not one of my favorites.

my opinion on the two Hell Revealed has changed a bit, and I think the sequel does improve in making some pretty decent levels. while there's less ideas and the detail is often still crap (bar MAP25, which seems to be the only one with some custom textures), this is outweighed by some more interesting combat scenarios as well as some excellent music tracks, the metal-sounding midis work well with some of the tougher outings. you can tell some of the authors went quite over the line with layouts, MAP19 is the biggest example of this, with a five-tier central area with four 3D bridges, of course there's more to 3D bridges as other levels like MAP24 use them (although that one doesn't do it well). aside from the 3D stuff, there's gonna be some interesting homages whether to the first Hell Revealed or otherwise, like Dis 2000, the aforementioned MAP24 which is the Inmost Dens III, Not That Simple II, The Path II, The Descent II, Hardcore (a Dead Progressive-type level), Siege II, and Resistance Remains.

gameplay of course is hard. believe it or not, the worst enemies in all of Hell Revealed II are actually the hitscanners, expect chaingunners in some real problem spots, or just about everywhere, and that includes ITYTD too. it's a rough ride all the way through the latter levels because of these things. chaingunners are real blatant in some levels, like MAP22 with its backtracking and its liberal chaingunner usage, which is even MORE liberal on a later map, MAP29. advice: keep watching your back at the last stretches of MAP29 for the chaingunner teleporter ambushes. that's just one example of a marathon level, so try to push through as much as you can there.

in a way, the difficulty is what makes this enjoyable, although some maps are much less forgiving and more tedious than anything. early maps like MAP04 and MAP05 are badly cramped. MAP12 is an easy standout for its huge wide open closets and some teleporting enemies, worst of which are the archies. MAP24 is extremely tedious due to its 3D bridge usage along with some annoying monster placement. MAP28 is another example of tedium with somewhat bad monster placement, although really it's the hunt for the switches in the map that makes it bad. these examples are of course offset by the nicer homage levels and the open slaughter/marathon ones that are actually decent.

to think that despite my overall opinion on HR2 not changing, I still use it as a nice testing wad for other mods and such shows just how skilled I am at things. it's got some crazy levels alright, just watch the hitscanners and where you are.