Castle of Doom

Not bad early-ish level, with a clear Hexen influence in the textures and satanic runes etc. There's a nice "metal catwalk" at one point (it's the jump mentioned in the readme). Suffers from a lot of early wads problems; it's mostly a maze, and there are inescapable lava traps, which simply aren't fun. It's been a long time since people thanked Raven Software; did Hexen really have such a huge following? I remember it being very dull.

Unusually non-linear and artistically not bad. I unexpectedly teleported to the exit after 19m without finding the yellow or red key (50% items); my 2nd attempt took 24m with 100% items. New textures are way out of proportion (e.g. door grilles above head-height) and lighting is haphazard: one entrance appears to cast a shadow & many bright areas have no light sources. Pegged door tracks, walk-through textures, all my pet peeves. Would like to give 3* but it's better than average for any era, let alone '97.