Kama Sutra

Great stuff. Should probably switch Hard Target and I'm just a Doom Addict's sequence because it sure is hard to top Hard Target's absurdity. 

i found the first half a bit of a chore to get through, but around map14 or so it really started to pick up and became an absolute blast to play through. i found that it had gameplay very similar to that of alien vendetta, which is great cuz i absolutely loved av!

it doesn't take itself very seriously, which adds a lot to its charm and helps it stand out quite a bit. it's full of doomcute, strange midis, and gimmicks, but i found that just helped add to the overall experience

Gusta: Hey, boy, wanna have some fun?

P41R47: Hmm, are you talking to me?

Method: Who else, little fella?

P41R47: Well, yes! I wanna have real fun?

Gusta: Now, my kid, remember! We don't like pussies!

P41R47: Ok, sir! I'm not pussy (*whisper* still, ''i always think hey, not to rough'', when i want funk)

Method: I don't trus him, Gusta. He is too green.

Gusta: Let his little fella do the ''thing''

Method: Ok, Gusta! (hands the boy a VHS). Now, go home! Take care of you, little fella!

Gusta: Remember... we don't like pussies!

Method: Also, you don't know us, ok?

P41R47: ...Ok... sir. (walks away a little worried).

Some time later, in his home, little P41R47 played the VHS he was handed.

...

...

...

and then...

PIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKAPIKA

Some time later, Gusta and Method saw P41R47 in the street.

Method: Check out, Gusta. Thats the boy, remember?

Gusta: yeah, he looks... weird?

Method: Totally! He is... too THIN... and he... lord!... he have NO HANDS!?

They look each other.

Both at the same time as they clap their hand in the air: OUR JOB IS DONE!!!

Proper review:
Simple, one of the best vanilla megawads i ever played. Too much neat ideas in every map. Too much real fun!
I even made a dehacked patch and a new statusbar to satisfy myself and have funk around ;)

Amazing!

One of my favorite megawads. Unique, humorous, memorably, and featuring lots cutesy sector work, such as toilets, helicopters, chairs, and the such, all of which are entertaining to see. Oh, and let's not forget it also has the best IoS fight ever (props to Gusta's girlfriend for serving as reference).

The early levels (from 1 to 7, with the exclusion of the 5th), compared to the rest of the megawad, are very low quality. Not to say they're bad, but they're not levels I'd like to replay when I think of what else KSutra has to offer, or what initially comes to mind when I think of this wad.

Gusta and Method were the level makers of this wad, Adolf "Gusta" Vojta making most levels for the wad (23 levels), and three levels in collaboration with Jakub "Method man" Razák, who alone made merely 6 levels. 

Method's levels are easily the lesser the megawad has to offer, being the most lacking in overall quality, and with gameplay and progression ranging from dull to irritating, and are solely the reason this isn't a 5/5, but a 4/5 for me.

As for Gusta's levels, I found his progression with level design was visible, with almost every next level outdoing the previous. They're the most unique, fun, and slaughterful.

Gusta and Method boy didn't aim for "pretty visuals, pretty enemy placements, pretty mindblowing mechanics, etc.", they simply aimed for making the levels fun, regardless of what sacrifices. Though they're easier than the usual late-AV or HR level, they're still challenging, and if you're an avid classic lover like me, you'll easily spot the specific inspirations taken from the classic megawads the authors claim to be fans of. And Duke Nukem 3D. What was taken from that is most visible.

4/5, give it a go, but don't be put off by the early, or Method's levels. This is an essential experience to every player who's taken interest in classic Doom community works.

Kama Sutra is a classic megawad, brimming with original ideas and exciting challenges. The levels are highly varied and sometimes include DoomCute decor that lends them a characteristic, whimsical mood.

The battles often involve large hordes of monsters, but the difficulty usually doesn't reach slaughtermap levels, since it's often easy to trap the horde behind a wall or a monster-blocking line (although this has the unfortunate effect of trivializing certain encounters.) The final levels suffer from an overuse of perfectly symmetrical layouts, forcing you to fight the exact same battles twice.

It's boring

"The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment in life."

Therefore, Kama Sutra has been finished, played through GlBoom+ on HMP difficulty. So what do we have here, what bizarre positions do demons take in this megawad? Or is it the player the one who performs them?

Kama Sutra is a 32-level megawad with a gameplay focused design which later on features various slaughter maps of varying difficulty. It comes with new music, textures, menu background, and one new enemy, returning from Wolfenstein 3D, the Schutzstaffel.

The main feature of the levels probably lies in their inspiration. All levels in the megawad appear to have been inspired heavily by the Hell Revealed duology, both aesthetically and gameplay-wise, with enemy encounters and traps generally very similar to that of the HRs. Techbases, cities, castles, caves, and hellish locations are visited in the journey. The enemy count ranges between a few dozens, hundreds, to little over 1000. At the end of the journey the IoS awaits the player for a final confrontation, following the choice of the duology.

The difficulty curve is the traditional kind, starting easy and becoming more difficult as you progress, with an occasional spike. But there's more to it than that. It appears Kama Sutra has been balanced primarily for UV, although lower difficulty settings are implemented. They do not seem to have been properly tested, and as such, some maps are unusually empty or easy. Additionally, the difficulty itself is inconsistent. Towards the end in particular it's easy to run into a level that is abnormally easy, only to run into one that is exponentially more difficult immediately afterwards. Some maps also offer a ridiculous amount of resources so that you never have to worry about managing your ammo or health most of the time, if at all. This is especially obvious when played continuous, but even without playing this way, there are often a lot of Megaspheres, Soulspheres, ammo, and medkits in the maps. More than you'll ever need.

Another problem with the maps would be the repeated gimmick across some of them, namely the teleporting barrels which explode right in front of you, thus claiming your life almost instantly. A cheap way to kill an unsuspecting target, as this can only be avoided with previous knowledge. Moreover, MAP20 has an inescapable trap, fooling the player to enter a cage in an attempt to gain access to the yellow keycard. Both of them are poor design decisions as they do not require the player to do anything to avoid them, unless they have previous knowledge of the maps.

The soundtrack could be described as having a little bit of something for everyone. More atmospheric, action oriented, metal, tracks from various games, covers of popular songs by various artists or bands, a lot. But this does not become a problem as the music is used in levels that actually fit what's going on and the general mood of the maps.

All in all, though certainly with flaws, Kama Sutra manages to be a memorable experience from the beginning to the end with its fun maps and overall decent enemy usage, and is also a worthy spiritual successor to the duology it heavily takes influence from. It is likely better than HR2 in particular, which was a disgrace, but not the first. HR2 did get better down the road, but that's about it, it was mediocre overall (particularly during the notoriously bad first half). KS also features a few maps from the duology after MAP20, but I'm letting you discover which on your own. Keep in mind that KS is best experienced on UV difficulty as most effort was put into it, HMP and potentially lower settings suffer from insufficient testing and less than ideal balancing. Now get your BFG and impress those demons with your moves.

I used to think that this wad is just some overrated slaughterfest but after giving it a try I can admit it's derserves it's praise
Many maps trying to imply real life places and they did a creative job on it. (my personal fav was map 15 and map 29). Also loved how each of the maps had some creativly made props (derailed train, helicopter, crante etc...)
The only map i dislike is map 28. (Booooring)

The game play is spot on off course. Every maps have enough monstra to have satisfying slaughter.

Not sure if the idea of making a Hell Revealed style megawad means to make maps relatively small crowded with hundreds of monsters and ambushes -sorrounded by powerful monsters with no place to take cover-, sometimes with several archviles, looks more like a mapset for sado-masochists, more like SlaughterFest style.  Maps layout looks decent and textures look fair tho.

how Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta are still considered the classic examples of "build-up-to-slaughter" type gameplay is proof of how much people often imitate their style. your new wad is a Hell Revealed 3 or an Alien Vendetta 2? neat, but then again, why don't you title it something else and perhaps not make your gameplay too similar to those two wads.

that's why Kama Sutra is so good, it's a fresh dose of vanilla megawad with the same type of curve, but with much more of the fun factor. many of the maps have weird concepts to them, like the secret in MAP03 (not the secret sector you start out in), MAP08's usage of "time" which involves lighting, the 3D bridges in many of the maps, as well as the Heretic homages that make them into slaughtermaps. combining silliness into serious wads is difficult, but this pair of mappers manage to do just that and make the whole experience wonderfully enjoyable. it can get real tough though, some dastardly monster placement ensures that you've got to play things a certain way. the last stretch of maps is easily the hardest. some elements do remind you of Duke 3D, especially the earth levels which are pretty nice. the novelty of some of the levels (MAP15) is wonderful as well.

i'll admit, MAP28 I don't like as much anymore. they went overboard with the turret monsters there. it's also much larger than its contemporaries in Post Mortem and Dark Dome and will certainly take a while. still not a bad wad.