Tyrant

Very consistent and unique, short but a lot of fun

The first 4 levels are very fun romps with a good difficulty curve, never taking too long to get into the action. The author favors large spaces with lots of monsters attacking from multiple directions. Although there are some areas that are designed so the best option is just to snipe from a corner, which I consider a negative. The texturing is clean & consistent, and there's a lot of nice directional lighting. It also gets bonus credit for doing something Ive never seen before - torches that SUBTRACT light, creating untraditional shadows.

However, the finale map is a very jolting shift to slaughter gameplay. You're placed in a relatively small arena and have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off (no BFG) as high-tier monsters teleport in constantly from every direction. I gave up when some kind of Archvile teleported in too. Im not a slaughter fan anyways but it seems like it wouldnt even be well-designed for fans of that gameplay, as the arena is very simplistic and the enemy spawns seem chaotic/random .

So overall I would give 5 stars for the first 4 maps and subtract a star for the final map. 

Excellent visuals and well-designed levels of moderate difficulty. A very competently executed mapset.

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Doom 2 -- SP -- Boom

In a sandy kingdom outside of time, underneath a golden sky, a lost warrior uncovers the secrets of forbidden temples and uninhabited palaces.

Tyrant is a 5-map set with an Egyptian theme. Playing in ZDoom is recommended, due to the atmospheric text screens between the levels that gradually uncover the backstory, explaining who the titular tyrant is and what's our hero's role in the whole affair.

I enjoyed playing this from beginning to end. The visual theme is highly appealing, especially the beautiful shades of yellow that adorn the sky and the torches. One cool touch are the gray torches that cast shadow rather than light. The maps themselves are carefully polished. The difficulty is rather moderate, challenging but not unfair and not requiring Doom-god like skills; the maps lend themselves well to a blind saveless playthrough, which should take you about 45 minutes from start to end.

Definitely recommended. One of the overlooked gems of 2017.

[Originally written Dec 2018 for The /newstuff Chronicles]

just here to give it 5 stars

GREAT setting used here, and the overall gameplay isn't that bad either.

I like me some Egyptians. This WAD plays very ok, looks exactly as advertised and has consistent gameplay.  Visuals are a bit bare but maybe this fits the theme?

Fun!