Southern Cross (Gold Edition)

How to make a great wad and turn it into crap - overload it with lost souls and pain elementals hiding behind cacos.

Fun, quick unbiased mapset. It's not overly spectacular in some sections including the last map, but it carries over some consistency in Doom 2 techbases with a bit of an odd progression to it at times. Definitely recommend ZDoom-based ports as some textures were strangely missing in PrBoom+ when I tried it out, and the new music is really only available for the above mentioned. I should also warn it's possible to get stuck in the soulsphere room in MAP05 simply because there's a walkover line found only outside that opens and closes the door to that area which could trap the player.

Great Maps, i enjoy them a lot :)

Playability notes: In spite of suggested boom-compatible capabilities, ZDoom-derived ports should be used to avoid texture problems and to play the correct music. Pistol start is unreliable, so play continuously (if at all).

Southern Cross: Gold Edition should have tried to imitate E1's style more closely, as that would have at least been playable. There are occasional homages to some of the architecture, and attempting to recreate the aesthetic in Doom2 is at least a rare performance. Of course, this review is centered on gameplay, and the gameplay here would be best described as a trainwreck: completely scattered, leaving in its wake no discernibly intelligent design, and burdening the player with the clean-up of its wreckage.

When I first downloaded this I was expecting something remotely resembling the layouts that made E1 so famous, and maybe a more conservative use of Doom2 enemies to slowly build up the progression and keep things simple. The actual mapset is far from simple, though to describe it as complex would suggest that significant consideration was given to the gameplay. I find that hard to believe, as I searched for anything that would provide a stimulating gameplay experience and came up empty. The enemies appear to be placed with theatrics in mind: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It's hard to pinpoint any one thing as lacking, so I'll do my best to summarize:

• Intra-map progression is practically non-existent after the third map, and is quite shaky before that point. You'll find most enemies in no particular order, splayed out in open areas and crammed into closets without regard to what kind of ammo you may have. There are two interesting map starts (M1 and M8), but these are either copied ad nauseum or incredibly avoidable.
• Several levels have significant secret caches just before exiting. This isn't necessarily a point against it, but it really sinks in the idea that pistol starts were not balanced. What is a point against, however, is having some levels with obvious pistol-start setups as if tempting the player to try it every time: don't fall for it.
• Player resources - weapons, ammo, and health alike - seem to have been an afterthought more often than not. Sometimes you're collecting ammo for weapons you haven't even seen. Neither surplus nor deficit have anything to do with difficulty. I found a box of shotgun shells that was impossible to pick up, wedged into the corner of a room. The weapon placement is the occasional thing that has purpose, with "that one chaingunner" acting as the chaingun pickup for the level or an SSG next to a baron, but this is overshadowed by the 30 enemies I would have to suffer through to reach it.
• Mostly due to the above, expect to provoke infighting a lot. Now I'm a big fan of infighting, especially used as a means of progression, but here the enemies are far from in useful positions to make that work. Half the time the monster closets and ambushes infight naturally! At other times enemies have to be roped around the level to get useful infighting out of them. All the while this seems to have nothing to do with the progression, and if you're not able to run past enemies then they're deliberately in the way to use up what little ammo you might have. I would call it clever if I wasn't getting punished so heavily for getting hit all the time (taking more damage on average is a natural consequence of infight gameplay).

The first two levels are decent, mostly relying on scarcity as a means of difficulty. Once you hit the third level, however, you realize that this wasn't intentional: the general balance is simply not there. Later on you'll be swimming in plasma for use against low-tier fodder, but rockets are a precious commodity to be saved in case an arch-vile happens to be in a hard-to-reach spot. The final level itself is sort of a slap in the face, giving you a BFG alongside other weapons and 3 enemies to fight them with! Two arch-viles and a cyberdemon, and they're not even in the same room! I think E3M8 gave me a more interesting time. (And I just want to point out to an earlier review that there are no difficulty settings implemented, so no, "Hurt Me and plenty of other difficulty suit a casual play" is not a valid case here.)

I recommend that you don't download this at all. Realize that when I rate this as the lowest tier in quality, it is not something I do lightly. I continued all the way until MAP08 hoping to see something good come out of this. Playing through Southern Cross: Gold Edition was depressing. You will probably have a better time with an OBLIGE map using random settings.