Community Chest 3

I luv this! you rock yay

Nice doomlevels, well done! 4/5

Like its predecessors, CC3's quality varies, but unlike them, it doesn't have any crappy levels. None of the maps are masterpieces either, but the average quality is surprisingly high. When comparing it to the other fall '07 megawad, 1monster, it becomes clear that CC3 has a lot better gameplay. Most of these levels are pretty fun to play, especially my favorite, map18, a nonlinear level in Doom1 style. 5 stars.

Looks even better than a Tormentor667 map, plays even worse. Needs the monster count reduced by about half. It's like if KDiZD, Eternal Doom, and Hell Revealed had a baby megawad with the worst parts of all three. 3/5

Very good, the levels are all well done for the most part, and some of the later levels [28, 29] are quite a challenge on UV, but beatable with the right strategy and lots of save/reloads. Maps 21 and 22 seemed somewhat out of place for the final third of the megawad, but overall nothing detracts from the final product. A very enthusiastic 4 Stars, download and play this if you have the chance!

it's really interesting how Community Chest as a series evolves and gets better each time. this time around almost every map has custom music to compensate for their slots and the mappers are all relatively experienced to the point that none of the maps go below mediocre tier. quite a few decide for nasty gimmicks, notably Token Arch-vile MAP28 is the biggest one for loads of teleporter ambushes. you then have marathon level MAP12, as well as the slaughterfest marathon MAP29, bet you didn't expect to see this mapper name pop up given his work in Dimensions of Time was way before this megawad.

 

once again it helps to look at author styles, since this Community Chest like the ones before it actually features multiple maps from some authors. Green Herring for instance will use hitscanners and weird bits of geography, he co-authors several maps here. Andy Leaver, the project head and the usual MAP17 slot-taker has made three maps, with usual distinction of orthogonals at points but here he branches out considerably in rocky geography especially in the non-MAP17 maps. Dr. Zin goes for the adventurous route in his maps, mostly being cavernous and spacious, although combat may leave some hanging. Dutch Devil's maps are straight to the point, as are TVDV's. Atlantis Rising (MAP10) is somewhat annoying with the puzzles and that one cyberdemon, otherwise the waterworks make an interesting concept. I still don't like Use3D's maps, with MAP01 being the worst. Soap on a Rope isn't a household name in the community but he tried especially with MAP14. doom2day goes for the general retro route overall.

so despite the obvious mixed bag and shit nothing here really is awful even if I don't like certain mapper styles. progression works fine for each map and so does the gameplay, making this one perhaps the first Community Chest to be consistent to some extent.