Hell Revealed

Done with these settings:

- Crispy Doom 4.2

- Hurt Me Plenty.

- Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

This was, something. One of the most (in)famous megawads from the 90's, which is mostly acclaimed for it's high difficulty and as a pioneer for slaughter gameplay, among other things. I can definitely see why this is still a well-known wad in the community, and to be honest my expectations were a bit higher than reality. Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that has aged, not so well. For instance, the aesthetics are very very simple, pretty much every single map has green, grey and/or brown textures with little to no detailing. Then there are a few exceptions with new textures (more brown) and neat effects with, for example, portals (map 26). But the majority of the layouts are squared boxes with stuff in them, and with stuff I mean monsters. Plenty of bumpy floors and some questionable positioned lamps. Yet none of these overly affect gameplay, and I get that the wad focuses more on combat, so my feelings are not directed to the visuals, or the music which is limited but real good...

As for combat, here is where I had my issues. The wad states from the beginning that is going to be a very populated mapset. But, this doesn't mean it will always be tough. There are many cramped fights as well as overly spacious encounters where any threat is missing. Monster placement is a complete mix bag, rolling on the bad side for specific types of enemies. The most affected one is the Baron of Hell, which 90% of the time is meant to be dealt with a SG/SSG via door-camping or to suppress monster count. Another one is the Cyberdemon in the similar respects, but times changes and I understand this monster used to be a more intimidating thing back then. To add more negative things, monster blocking lines eliminating any kind of danger (pinkies), lack of proper weaponry/ammo just to cut down the "grindy-ness" (thinking for pistol starts), and tons of optional nonsense encounters (I can calmly hit the exit button, and a spiderdemon appears miles behind me for whatever reason, why?)... Of course, there are interesting things to save from the whole mapset: tense situations with "bosses" were rare but I recall a couple with, a mastermind in map 12, and a cyberdemon in map 14; the ring in map 31 where priority targets are not just the usuals; infighting simulators, often high-tier vs. mid-tiers, particularly in map 23; a great The Living End-like map populated by so many archviles; a map starting into void, which looks iconic for the visuals.

Secret wise, if there's something I don't like is secrets you have to wall-hunt, via hit or shoot, to magically stumble upon one, and there's plenty of these. In addition, these kind of secrets usually contain something crucial to the maps they are into, such as weapons to reduce "grindy-ness" (the SSG in map 27 is, offensive). One standout is the pitch black maze in map 29, a pretty clever kind of secret with inescapable pits (not offensive at all personally talking).  

So, for favourite maps, only map 24 is the one I liked a lot, the rest vary in between good/ok/so so/please no. The worst one being map 30, I can point out at least 15 bad things in it from my POV, but whatever, IoS maps don't appeal to me. Afterlife (26) could have been another favourite, if I could grab the RL earlier. 

All in all, the mapset is just ok as whole, I'm glad I visited it to see what was Doom for doomgods in the earlier days, and I'm not unhappy with my experience. For recommendations, in short words, go for it on continuous first and, take advantage of your carryovers, otherwise, pistol starting might be too tedious with, barons. My rate would be less but, since it's an old wad, I think I'll give it a 5/10.

I have recently booted this historical WAD for a full, UV playthrough in single player. How does it fare now in 2017, 20 years after its release? Unfortunately, not so well.

This is a WAD full of contradictions. Sometimes the fights are numbingly easy - sometimes you are immediately surrounded by a flock of arch-viles and some rocket moo-moos. Sometimes the action stales and you become a stationary turret, blasting away doors-with-health - sometimes the action is packed with running around and picking off singular targets until you are done. Sometimes the levels have good design - sometimes it's really, really awful.

My favourites? The sandboxy city MAP14? The circular MAP15? There are more good levels here, but there are equally many poor ones.

I didn't know I remembered so many of those levels from ZDaemon days, where this WAD was hosted to death on many coop servers. This was a strange thing, because there are several places in this WAD where you can get the map stuck - and not only in coop, mind you, but also in single player if you act quickly or rashly. To this day I remember entering servers which were always on a map already stuck, awaiting admin action to push the game forward. With the "vote changemap" feature not being present at the time, it was an odd WAD to host. The authors provided items for 4-player coop, but also forgot that players die in coop and then respawn at the starting point, behind the wall/door/lift that closed forever.

This is a classic; a one of the pivoting points of Doom history, but it did not age well. I salute it, but I also walk away from it, glad that I'm done, without desire of ever coming back.

I had fun with the couple last levels, where the fights were more balanced and less boring.  The first half is a bit tedious.  I remember playing it and having a blast when it came out tho so I guess we are accustomed to better quality nowadays..

Legendary, enough said!