Bloody steel

IMO, this wad is a must try. The level is design is so beautiful, with a unique aesthetic and so much attention to detail. Great effort has been put for this. The first 5 maps are the core of the wad: (post-)Soviet industrial areas, underground facilities, a factory and a mining complex, all done in a very realistic style, and I love it. On the maps you'll find all sorts of cool stuff like Soviet propaganda posters, TVs, soda machines, various furniture and other neat things.

But after map 5 the wad changes direction drastically, instead focusing on old/ancient architecture. Map 6 is a really nice mansion, map 7 is an antique temple... I've only made it to map 7, on ITYTD, because...

As with most modern wads, the difficulty hates casual players. Well, not immediately of course, but it escalates pretty quickly, and by map 7 it becomes the true Modern Wad Experience (TM), with swarms of enemies, arch-viles on every step of the way, frequent cybers, combined with being put into traps where it's hard to dodge stuff coming at you. Everything the hardcore crowd needs!

I should mention, even on early maps the enemy traps are often trollish. Be prepared for enemies to suddenly pop up all over you. I hope you have a plasma gun at hand!

The music in this wad is... sometimes fitting, sometimes it doesn't fit so much that it becomes funny. And most of the tracks are MP3s that are compressed to like 64 kbps, which results in poor quality with a very audible artifacts. I found that even funnier... tho most people probably don't.

Anyway, all in all, a very beautiful wad with a really cool stylistic, but later it gets difficult. Even if you're not a true hardcore doomer, I still recommend playing at least the first 5 maps, you won't regret it!

One more thing: play on GZDoom (or GLBoom+). The text file says "engine needed: prboom-plus", but PrBoom+ or Eternity will work only for the first 6 maps, and you'll get segmentation fault on map 7 if you keep playing on them. Besides, the wad uses some features like hi-res images which work only on GZDoom, so play on it.

"Very good set of maps. The design is pretty good, huge layouts and immersive experience that looks like you're really there. You play in differents and beautiful settings such as a huge facility, mansion, destroyed city among others. The gameplay also is fine, tough battles sometimes but always fair, the author provides enough powerup to deal with the monsters. Favourite map for me is MAP 07, a huge slaughter oriented map that takes at least 45 minutes to finish. If you had to play only 1 map you should really play this one.
 

Very interesting wad with a high level of detail and plenty of custom textures. Strong gritty industrial theme with an impressive sense of place and realism achieved in a Boom-format set. Plenty of variety as well, with gameplay ranging from low-key and claustrophobic to slaughter in large arenas. Time travel and surrealism in the final stretch makes for a pleasant visual surprise. Art. 4/5

I really enjoyed this pwad, it caught me the different atmosphere that create the lots of custom textures, giving it a Soviet industrial feel, played it with mod The Trailblazer

Ten huge and detailed maps with challenging, often slaughter-tier gameplay. The gameplay is very chaotic, having you typically surrounded on all sides by enemies in various positions, requiring you to keep on the move and find cover where you can. Most of the levels have a very cool ruined, post-industrial aesthetic and have you exploring decaying cities and facilities. In two of the levels you travel to different time periods - a European mansion and ancient Greece. I found these two to not only be very ugly, but have unfun gameplay as well (Europe for being stingy with ammo; Greece for being awkward to move in). Thankfully the rest of the maps both look and play great.

Takes a few levels to get into it but man does it really deliver. Excellent grand level design and superb music choice, which gets better with each level. The design of a lot of these levels remind me a little of Eternal's style. I look forward to seeing more from Memka. 5 stars from me.

MAP ARE GREAT GAMEPLAY SADLY IS BORING SO 2/5

I normally like detail, but the levels look very goofy here. Gameplay has its moments, but not consistently good.

super

I don't care what anyone else thinks.This wad is great.I realize that not everyone likes a certain type of wad,but shouldn't you nice people save your harshest criticism for terry wads?

Pretty good stuff. Something of rocky start, with a linear hitscaner-infested opening map. Second map is already a big improvement, and it just keep getting better. Map 4 is my absolute favorite: large, sprawling and superbly detailed industrial complex that reminded me of Monster Hunter maps in all the best ways.

Architecture: 5/5 Layout and flow: 5/5 Gameplay: 2/5 I'm sorry, the maps are superior in both appearance and flow, but the amount of monsters makes it almost unplayably hard even on HNTR difficulty. Pissed me off several times. Still, because of your efforts, I have to give a 3 in general, you deserve.

"I never understood why people consider this a flaw." Probably because overdetailing can lead to the layout looking uglier and messier than intended, or situations where the detail is actually a hindrance to gameplay

"Overdetailed"? I never understood why people consider this a flaw. This WAD is a perfect diamond, a gem in the archive. Everything it does, it does well. Excellent accomplishment.

Pretty beautiful maps imo, however, some of the levels were frustratingly difficult to the point that I was thinking of not finishing the wad. There are some real toughies on this one.

revisiting Bloody Steel, again the pacing of this one tends to be a lot slower than you'd expect. the opening level shows you likely chugging through hitscanners, though what's in store for later is likely to steal the show. the levels get progressively longer, with industrial themes and high-res graphics making things look a little more snazzy than other sets. then you get the death exit in MAP05 that leads to the Mixture of Ages duo of maps. the first is a rather long mansion crawler which is nasty with all the enemies around the area, while the second one brings loads of slaughter-like scenarios, a few areas like the town are rough because of the snipers everywhere. The White Sea, the final official map, is more of a Serious Sam-style level in that it's linear and gets progressively harder, until you destroy the beast within. the bonus map isn't anything to write home about.

 

perhaps the biggest issue is that, apart from the pacing being a lot more sluggish than usual, there's quite a few thing bugs in the maps that prevent me from getting 100% kills or items (I played on lower setting), and MAP10 seemed to be lacking the blue key, while the yellow key was used to get to the exit. interesting for at least one play, but apart from the detail don't expect to be completely wooed.

Very good wad, russian mappers should learn A LOT from this guy. One thing that is REALY bad, you compressed music WAY to heavy.

This wad remembers me of my dreams I had: good times! Many details. 1 minus, because you cannot jump, what the heck, man?

So... map 1 is sort of scrapyard/slums environment that manages to be ugly despite overdone detailing. Worst of all, it's super linear and gameplay is awful: hitscaners sniping from everywhere and monsters spawning right in front of zou. Map 2 is this underground facility that is a bit better designed but still ugly and annoying (less hitscanners tho). I couldn't go on... Grimy-dirty industrial environments reminded me of didy's excellent mohu1 , but in that "I wish I was playing that much better wad" way.

Hell good mapping, but I am afraid it is doom stock monsters friendly, custom monsters might be overkill. Back to mapping, I believe that Big Memka + Didy qualify enough for those classic/j_rpg mapping textures. Sorry if that is taken as an insult (I usually consider those rpg maps as a medium of progress or etc w/i rpg games, all atmospheric-like and all), but damn it is a lot of mapping effort. It's definitely more of linear walkway than the Monster Hunter Ltd series, but it's good in its own way. ~3/5

I don't agree with everything, like the slaughterfest intuition, but this one is still a premuim wad. great use of textures (and more) and everyone will take it's advantage, it might be too hard, though. 5*

I'm soooo disapointed. Only 10 levels... 5/5

Decent if heavily flawed episode. It definitely is reminiscent of Monster Hunter duology both in Build engine sensibilities and visual style, only with some Soviet dystopian touches and much less polished visuals. HOWEVER, these maps are far less exploration-driven and significantly more difficult. Sadly, this is not the kind of difficulty I enjoy as it is often result of problematic enemy placements and dickish traps.

This is actually pretty good. It does leave a bad first impression, that first map feels and plays like a demake of some Modern Warfare level. However, everything after that is significantly better. So, don't be discouraged by opening map and just keep going. This wad is very much worth a playthrough.

Level 6 is my favorite so far. As I always play with iddqd, monster killing is far second to map design. You sir, have made maps that favor those who just like to explore, have puzzles and memory challenges and are beautiful to walk around in. Make more like these. I may have to get boom port just to see if it is any different than zdoom (my port for all maps) Barbara