Suspended in Dusk

Beautiful vanilla experience. SiD made me feel again 12 years old behind my 486. Really nice, tight and clean base design like I did not see for a while, quite balanced difficulty (UV could have been harder for my taste, but hey, you can't please everyone and I can probably blame my careful approach abusing sniping around corners.. at least I had to think here and there about ammo conservation). Playtime 1-4 hours. Good job, mister!

Awesome small map set focusing on tiny corridors and exploring huge interconnected maps. I really, really enjoyed traversing the different maps and although they are very, very crammed and chock full of nooks and crannies, I rarely got really lost. Sure, once I got a key, I had to find that specific red / blue / yellow door again, but as with any exploration focused games, it is best to remember where important locations are in a map.

What really amazed me was the look of the maps. This is the perfect amount of vanilla detail, imho. Every room looks detailed without being too crammy or confusing. All maps have a very concise look and clear sight lines, which makes navigation really easy and overally just fun. Monster placement also makes good use of all the crammed corridors, the windows, the corners, etc. by placing monsters in a way, that they more often than not surprise you from behind a corner. It's best to slowly and methodically proceed through those bases and take your time. This is not run and gun Doom.

Absolutely gorgeous in all aspects, amazing works.

Breathless!

I'm still processing this materful achievement.
The maps feels organic themselves, with subtle transitions between places. Texture work here is at it highest point, with deatails and details everywhere. I don't see any other wad that did what Espi did with Suspended in Dusk.
Just thinking of a megawad in this style blows my mind.
But unfortunatelly, that might be impossible, as that star disappeard from the firmament.
Thanks Espi for this amazing work.
I hope that, someday, somebody take the torch you left.

Rest in Peace, Espi.

Probably, not the top cacowardworthy mapset by today's standards, but still very solid. Levels are complex and full of details, perfect ammunition balance, there are no bland "box-rooms", no boring layouts, however, maps two and three may be too difficult to navigate. Because of the labyrinth-like design and lots of backtracking, exploration becomes quite confusing as you discover more and more rooms. Also, there are lots of claustrophobic rooms, which I personally hate in Doom. But the wad is good nevertheless. Definitely try it!

Recommended if you want to shoot cacos for half an hour with a single barrel shotgun. Little challenge, no surprise, bland design, boring encounters. Seemingly well made if that counts for anything; 1 star for doom, 1 star for the tidy corridors.

The detail in this wad is just amazing. It is very realistic. If there would be a base in real life, that's how it'd look. That realism does make things a wee bit boring, because in reality breathtaking locations are not common.

I also liked the choice of soundtrack. The music creates a nice atmosphere.

Having said that, this is not the most atmospheric map out there. It feels more like a maze, rather than an atmospheric location. Perhaps, more lighting contrast is required, maybe more texture variety, difficult to say.

As for the gameplay, it is mostly weak. Design wins over gameplay many times over. This episode is about showing off detailed maps rather than delivering a fun gaming experience. In many cases it's just plain boring. The final boss is probably one of the worst designed bosses of all time - a Cyberdemon stuck in a small room, shooting at you and constantly hiding behind walls.

Nevertheless, I do sometimes load this wad up, with a -nomonsters flag, and wonder about...

R.I.P. Espi!

Only a couple of levels, 4 to be precise, but I found them to be boring and uninteresting. The 3rd map in particular is ridiculously long and highly confusing, no fun to be found there, for me anyway. The enemy placement is pretty good but some enemies are highly overused, in the last map especially, which is an Archvile party basically.

The levels don't stand out from my point of view, at all, there's nothing particularly brilliant about them. The gameplay is not fun either, in fact it's annoying most of the time due to the structure of the levels, which as I previously mentioned, is very confusing. The final battle is also poorly designed due to the Cyberdemon constantly moving left and right (going behind solid walls) which only makes the fight unsatisfactory, and unexciting. There's also 2 keys for 2 doors, and neither the road to reach them nor the fights themselves add much to the overall experience. I honestly had to force myself to finish this, hoping the ending will be epic, but it wasn't. I am glad this is not a 32 map megawad or something similar, but with a couple more levels, because I would've dropped it after the 5th or 6th map.

All in all, I found this wad to be nothing more (or less) than mediocre. There's a lot of detail to the levels, and they're not ugly (except perhaps for a muddy area in the last map), but that doesn't redeem the wad for me due to the bad and simply boring (tiresome in the case of the 3rd map) gameplay. I may sound harsh, but that's simply just how my experience was with these levels.

The detail is amazing, and sometimes is overdone in some areas. i'm even amazed that this is compatible with the Vanilla DooM. Somewhat an underrated wad if it weren't for the weird new sounds and combat. The combat is pretty hard to play with, and i ended up dying multiple times due to the lack of ammo supplied in the maps. Aside from that, 3 stars for the detail, and 1 more star for Vanilla compatibility. This wad is recommended to anyone who is willing to punch Arachnotrons with their fists in an attempt to kill them.

Wonderfully detailed, intricate and atmospheric maps, unfortunately marred by combat that is either very pedestrian (even by classic standards) or somewhat tedious and slow paced. Worth a look but limited replay value.