Doom 2 In Name Only

oh yes, one of the more anticipated megawads that ended up being mostly average, but why? with such a fantastic concept, making levels for each Doom 2 map by taking the names literally, what went wrong? the mappers who made these maps all took their own interpretations of each particular mapslot, and then we got a result here.

in most cases, the concept of a name is certainly there, Entryway is clearly an entryway. Waste Tunnels have waste and have tunnels. Tenements have apartments, Nirvana feels like paradise, Catacombs are easily catacombs, Bloodfalls have bloodfalls, Abandoned Mines seem abandoned, Industrial Zone definitely has the industrial vibes, and The Factory is certainly a factory. some of these do miss the mark, like The Courtyard which is difficult to distinguish which is the main "courtyard" (at least with The Crusher there is one major one, despite there being several more). other level names were cleverly interpreted, just look at The Focus and you probably didn't think an area that suffered from an earthquake. Suburbs you probably didn't really think the tunnel part of it would make sense but surprisingly it does. and Downtown, err, there's a "town" and the "down" portion being all that underground shit.

but you see, the big issue I have with D2INO may just be how the levels play. most are alright, but one major caveat is how long most of them take. why does Dead Simple just evolve into bitchloads of triangles? it's supposed to be SIMPLE. just cut out the rest. the aforementioned Suburbs has a few major monster problems with how they are laid out (that ambush of chaingunners plus the teleporting horde. many levels just pad on length with stuff that doesn't make them better. the worst of which are most likely Joseph Lord's maps, and most especially MAP27 (which is missing the crucial yellow key and an important teleport destination on ITYTD/HNTR). this is easily a mixed bag, one that was so unfortunate.