THE ABYSS

I tried my hardest to play a good amount of this one just to have the rights to put a review but I could not bare anymore after I completely explored level 3 and gave up out of being lost. I understand this wad has a puzzle gimmick going on but when I got to level 3 I almost thought my game was bugged because they literally copy and pasted the entry room...like why?

The detail was OK at best considering it was 1996 but with games like Duke Nukem and Quake out, and even comparing to The Ultimate Doom the level design and overall detail is just garbage and cryptic for no good reason.

Just for the sake of poking fun I will also say when I opened up the readme and read "I'm your average heavy metal freak" I had a feeling I should have just turned away.

Not recommended.

Played with crispy doom on UV

Great mapset for puzzle lovers and secret hunters!

Starting on a kinda silly map, we are throw then into some seriously puzzleish maps full of secrets and really interesting layouts.

This is top notch material for a megawad made on 1995, probably on par with the IWADs at how carefully made are the different areas and how deliberatelly different are one from another; even when there are some monotexturing here and there, the sights never get tiresome.

There are plenty of really unique aesthetic choices for the time it was made, like spiralling starways, circular shapes, interconnected areas, and most interesting of all, a well thought implicit contextual storytelling through all the maps.

Its undeniable how atmospheric this mapset is. There are subtles details here and there hinting a much bigger picture, like the broken walls on map two, or the slowly tech transforming environment.

Its just amazing!

For what i recollect from my own experience, here is the story:

The players is some kinda archeologist names Míklos, whot thought would find a way to be rich on some ruins.

Unfortunatelly to him, a demonic horde suddenly attacks him, making him go deeper and deeper into this ancient ruins. There are hints of a greatly advanced technologically lost civilization on every maps, but the demons seems to have rampaged them. Also, there are some strange cult signs on some maps.

Míklos reached further and further into the different places of this lost civilization, finding some really high tech computers. To his surprise, they lead him to Stone Henge.

Now the truth is more than obvious, a cult is trying to use the hidden super technology of this lost civilization on this ancient ruins to summon demonic entities from another dimension. They are also trying to tame them, making the super technology to create illusory temples to watch them. So the only way to stop them is destroying the core of their technology.

After long battles, Míklos deactivates the hidden machinery that was fueling the invasion, and the illusion fades. With the trick demantled, Míklos find his way to the church of the heretical cult.

After annihilating all the cultist, Míklos realice that he is now traped on this ancient ruins. The cultist know that he would succeed, and so, they prepared a coffin for him with his name.

He will never return to the surface again.

For me, this is one of the most underrated and underappreciated mapsets out there.

There is tons of originallity on this maps, and for the time they were made, they are obviously far above most of the project of their time.

Its kinda a shame that the authors of this mapset decided to stop mapping at map22, as they thought that the player base was moving into Quake and dooming was a lost cause.

Even so, they kinda completed this project.

I can't stop recommending this mapset to anyonewho knows how to appreciate old mapsets. You will have a surprise with this one!
And for the new players out there, just try it, even if the maps seems uninteresting at first, there are plenty of juice in here to taste.

Hidden megawad released in late 95'. Cool design. Fast play.

Nice megawad, relatively small maps with small monster counts, nice texturing, overall entertaining

This is an awesome wad, and was everything I believe a Doom wad should aspire to be... new midi music, engaging classic gameplay, no crazy slaughter map nonsense, and lots of pretty great puzzles you have to solve to progress. Until of course you make it about six maps in...

Then it goes to hell. The map design fizzles out and suddenly you're playing an average wad with no music replacements, no really gripping aspects, it's just... bland and tasteless. BUT, I say download it. Play it, enjoy it for what it's worth. The first several maps are truly fantastic.

This is a decent enough megawad if you're in the mood for some knockabout fun which won't push you anywhere near your limits. 

Most of the levels have under 100 monsters even on UV, and many have closer to 50. In that respect, and in its very compact and straightforward nature, it's very reminiscent of Perdition's Gate.

I completed it in around five hours and only died three times on UV, though in retrospect ought to have used pistol starts for a better challenge.

A bare three stars is maybe a bit on the harsh side - closer to 7/10 probably.

Done with these settings:

- Crispy Doom 5.2.

- Ultra-Violence.

- Continuous combined with pistol start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

Not everyday I see much appreciation for the earliest era of mapping, as many people have acknowledged its primitive essence and moved on to more contemporary stuff. However, from time to time I find relics that could still keep enjoyable for anyone, such as this solid piece of work from 1995. The Abyss is a collection of maps that look like ripped off from the Master Levels, except by just two authors, one who passed away a year ago. This does have a conceptual theme that can be extracted from the maps themselves, as some sort of dungeons and/or mines you explore in depth, though in short periods of time. Apparently, the authors set a series of goals regarding to the aesthetic side, and that could be noted perfectly. Sure, the texturing is minimalist, most of it is green marble, wood, grey rocks, besides a few custom ones (most notably the cross on the wall) and colorful windows from Heretic, but a lot of care in alignments, sometimes placed dynamically. Other bigger contrasts are lighting and geometry variation, both giving the maps a classic appeal, less boxy design (lots of spiraled stairs!) and more interactive with the environment. You'll find more than one example of light switches a la "The Focus", comically useful to see the intruders better. This wad comes with several tracks of no genre in particular, including a waltz-piano song, but most maps don't have custom music or uses recycled iwad tracks. I would suggest to add them on your own, thankfully I had a pack that a fellow user sent me a while ago. 

It's kind of amusing how these maps work as a whole. For a megawad that creates the impression of having no connection between each map, there's a "slightly" obvious sense of continuity that anyone is going to notice regardless of their gameplay decisions. More specifically in how supplies are distributed, leaning towards comfort for continuous players, and those who decide to pistol start will have to conform with a very limited arsenal depending on the map, sometimes only stolen from zombies and other times scavenging through secrets and ignoring enemies, while they keep filling in other types of ammunition without nothing to use them. This, however, can be interpreted as a sort of "challenge", even though the maps favor a casual easy experience. Rarely you come upon a tense situation, although I saw myself praying not get chipped to death a few times, or sandwiched by barons. Progression on the other side might put an impatient player off in cases, often requiring some switch/key hunting or random walls to push, but the key is to take a good look at the environment (or the automap, if that's possible), most if not every piece of wall minimally different from the rest leads to somewhere, and at least you could find alternative paths to complete the maps, which implies non-linearity in a silly way, if that's your thing. Since the maps are short, taking no more than 10-15 minutes blind, it's nothing to feel offended in my opinion. 

Secret-wise, expect them to be simple and contain from just a few stimpacks and maybe a zombie inside, to an essential weapon to defend yourself from big threats. The majority are hinted, just think of a typical 90's wad in that regards. I must admit though, a few were very cleverly hidden, like in one I needed to pay attention to the lighting contrasts in a room. For favourite maps, not going to pick any in particular, as I enjoyed them all pretty much the same, even if I wasn't so fond of the gameplay in a few later maps. I only wished there was a more proper conclusion to the wad, apparently the authors lost interest in filling the rest of the slots, but we get what we get.

Overall, a neat antique wad I'd recommend to any player akin to the iwad difficulty, or if someone can't (or doesn't want to) afford the Master Levels, this will hopefully fill the space. I mean, don't be fooled by the age, sometimes a little 90's simplicity is good for the soul. My rate is 7/10.