Hell Revealed

A WAD so awful and tedious that when I played it a second time recently, I just modified the damn thing to replace barons with hell knights. Much better experience, but it was still a bad WAD.

----I HAVE OPENED MY EYES----

I just beat this WAD for a second time (UV, full 100%, pistol start, no saves) as a sort of "skill check". On top of getting better (especially at SSG'ing Cybers lol) I started liking this set a lot more than after my first time through, when I considered it bad to mediocre.

I guess I'll start with the difficulty, which tends to get overhyped by many. The only difficult maps for me were 13, 18, 24, 24, 26 and 30, and out of those only Post Mortem requires a good amount of mechanical skill. The rest is just luck and strategy. Despite all that, there are more reasons to download this than just challenge, like the creativity on display.

Yes, I know that creativity doesn't mean a lot when the gameplay isn't good, but the off-the-wall ideas in HR are mostly presented in an actually enjoyable way, and they are part of what makes it such a more memorable experience in comparison to some more "conventional" megawads of the era. The great ROTT music definitely helps it stand out as well.

Going back to gameplay - many people call this set "grindy", which is not the case if you know what you're doing. In most "grindy"maps there are ways to significantly reduce the grind required by skipping areas and revisiting them with better weaponry or more ammo. But of course there are exceptions, like maps 20, certain parts of 16, 21, 23, and especially 26. There's also praise to be given to the layouts, which are much more intuitive than most other 90's maps.

Regarding the aesthetics, it doesn't look bad. The visual style is clean, and the new graphics are good. A lot of maps simply look nice, so there's nothing to complain about here.

The only big blemishes on this WAD are maps 23 and 26. They fucking suck - no way around that. Thankfully they're outnumbered by the good ones. My personal favorites are maps 1, 9, 10, 11, 15, 32, 17, 22, 27 and 28.

My next big goal is revisiting Alien Vendetta under the same rules (maybe except all items), but it's gonna be a while until I do that.

Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv's Hell Revealed was about as hard a megawad could get back in 1997, but you never would believe so looking at the first few maps. Maps 1-8 and 10 are cordial and pleasant enough levels which aim to make you feel powerful and almighty, slaughtering many foes into claustrophia enducing layouts where you won't have much room to move. Hell Revealed likes its tight corridors and hallways and they will be a recurring motif until the very end of the level set.

Starting with Map 11, Underground Base, HR finally reveals its hand. Prepare to fight off waves of beefy enemies like barons, mancubi, revenants, archviles and cyberdemons, all with very little supplies and weapons at your disposal. You have to be expected to have a good eye for secrets to even get the basic tools you need to do your job, at least when playing on Ultra Violence difficulty. Levels like Last Look at Eden (MAP13) and City in the Clouds (MAP14) almost play like puzzles, where you must figure out what the developer intends you to do. Fail to figure out the correct route? Have fun killing hordes of mid-tier monsters with just a shotgun and chaingun! Even then, following the correct path usually just gives you a super shotgun, which only slightly lessens the tedium factor. Throughout all of Hell Revealed, you will be constantly circle strafing in square or circular rooms, slowly shooting down hordes of beefy monsters with the SSG until several minutes later, everything is dead. This prospect gets even worse when level layouts are often devised to make infighting more difficult to happen than it should and the overbearing presence of Barons of Hell, which rule this WAD with an iron fist. Maps like The Path (MAP16), Hard Attack (MAP18) and Judgment Day (MAP20) commit to a grind-heavy mindset where battles are very slow, meticulous and painstakingly boring to win, which is the one factor that likely ages this WAD the worst.

Hell Revealed is often criticized for its very crude looks, but I find it oddly charming and it has a strong visual identity. For better and for worse, you all remember the searing pink skies, Arachnophobia (MAP7)'s layout, where you fight spiders inside a giant spider, the heavily fortified areas and courtyard of Last Look at Eden, the circular ramparts of Gates to Hell (MAP15), the Doomcute flourishes of The Siege, where you start inside a cozy house that demons can't invade. It also has some stunning looking maps, like the future base of Ascending to the Stars (MAP23) and the experimental Afterlife (MAP26). It does make up for some of the more flat and brown maps like Chambers of War (MAP10) or Hard Attack (MAP18). The music of the WAD is taken straight from Rise of the Triad, but its soundtrack runs out around MAP20, where the rest of the journey must be undertook with the default Doom 2 music (with the exception of some ROTT reprisals at MAP27 and MAP29).

While Hell Revealed mostly commits to grindy gameplay, the script does deviate a few times throughout the level set and these moments tend to be the most memorable. MAP9, Knockout, will give you a boxing tutorial where you will be expected to punch out over 200 imps, saving the shotgun and chaingun for emergencies and monsters you can't punch out. It sticks out in a weird way in the MAP 1-10 stretch, being the only big challenge in an easy lot of stages and its gameplay never gets replicated. Mostly Harmful (MAP32) hints toward the slaughter gameplay that would get perfected by the community years later and finally allows you to go nuts with the firepower, which is needed since an unreachable Icon of Sin will be spawning new monsters constantly, forcing you to stay on the move. This remains one of the better uses of the IoS in a WAD and the concept would be reprised much later in Ancient Aliens' MAP18. Everything Dies (MAP19) is an easy gimmick map to like: you get all weapons, ammo, health and armor at the very beginning, but nothing else after that. You need to stay resourceful and minimize risk to reach the end, but its encounters shy away from cheap gotcha! moments and are fun to plow through. Resistance is Futile (MAP22) is a great fast-paced slaughter map that gave birth to many imitators throughout the years and might be HR's single most influential moment. Post Mortem (MAP24) is half puzzle, half brutality incarnate: you will be cremated at the seems until you figure out where to carve a footstep through this Living End homage flooded with Hell's worst of the worst. The main difference between Post Mortem and maps like Last Look at Eden is that Post Mortem doesn't shy away from giving you supplies and ammo, you are given all the tools you need to reliably succeed and it's up to you to get them and methodically chip away at this hell cave scenario. Dead Progressive (MAP25) builds around Dead Simple and makes it a much more compelling compact level with tight and snappy combat. Afterlife (MAP26) features a dream world where you walk through space and find some distorted pockets which warp you to hostile arenas. Once you're past them, don't relax yet; archviles will resurrect ghost monsters that will keep hounding you until you can finally find the exit...

So Hell Revealed can be great when it wants to, but it also can leave really bad impressions. The Descent (MAP31) is... an elevator descent that lasts way too long and can easily be cheesed by standing on the teleport marker. The rest of the level is so flat it could have been made in Wolfenstein 3D and features cyberdemon fights in tiny rooms, which always are a big gamble. Hard Attack offers some thrills with the teleporting cyberdemon duel, then wastes all of its goodwill on its fort rampart section which is packed with so many barons and revenants (and not remotely enough ammo to take them on). Judgment Day (MAP20) emphasizes the worst of HR's grindy gameplay mentality, making you fight so many heavies with just a shotgun and chaingun (the super shotgun is hidden away in a secret area). Ascending to the Stars (MAP23) is likely the cheapest map in the whole set, piling in ambushes where you either can't do anything to protect yourself (that elevator ride down in a chaingunner filled room is all based on luck) or the tedium required to power your way through them will make you want to tear your hair out (the penultimate archvile room is the worst the whole WAD has to offer, as backing away from the archviles will force you in a teleporter pad you will have to teleport through roughly 500 million times). Hell Revealed (MAP 30) is the worst Icon of Sin fight there could be and likely will ever exist. Featuring a quad-demon spawner, several archviles in the back, a cyberdemon patrolling the lift you need to ride and hordes of revenants on platforms, you'll be lucky to even be able to land rockets in the Icon's brain and not kill yourself trying to pull the trigger. 

Hell Revealed was a very inspirational megawad for its time and some of its lessons were put to good use by other contemporary mappers, especially for projects like Kama Sutra or Alien Vendetta. Thankfully, the lessons that were pulled from Hell Revealed had more to do about how maps like Resistance is Futile, Post Mortem and Mostly Harmful were great map concepts that needed to be revisited at all costs and less emphasis on "super shotgun kills baron good eventually yay". As a full project, it's very uneven. The first episode is mostly on the easy side and isn't favored by most Doom veterans, but later on, the grind and dedication required to beat some of these maps can drive people up to the wall. Hell Revealed has lots of value as a historical artifact but has too many sags throughout its running time to be equally enjoyed gameplay-wise. It's a difficult WAD, but its difficulty often stems from resource depravation and grindy encounters, which is a tough sale today. 

An all-time classic, HR used to be a rite of passage, the hardest thing out there and the progenitor for a lot of gameplay still seen today. It took me over a decade to fully beat it, and its difficulty is now somewhat 'standard' today. Worth a play for 'wad historians' to see the early tropes of what later shaped countless wads. It has however aged quite a lot, and like Scythe, the first third of the wad is very different to the rest.

Sometimes, life poses a serious question to you. "Is it all worth it?" "Is there a God?", "What is the meaning of life?" 

Hell Revealed asks you "How many Barons of Hell is too many?"

592. 

Whilst this wad has aged pretty badly and some maps were pretty bad from the time of release. There is still a lot of charm to the set and there are some real gems in terms of maps buried within this dinosaur. Maps 22/24 and 26 stand out against the rest for offering a solid challenge or offering something unique.

It is worth a play for nostalgia purposes or see the inception of some mapping tropes that still exist to this day.

I'll give this wad credit where credit is due. Into the Gate City in the Clouds, The round crossroads, Underground Base, Last Look at Eden, The Black Towers, Siege, Resistance is Futile, Dead Progressive, Top Hell, and Mostly Harmful,  All are great classic levels with memorable designs if not basic design visually and in terms of action. But way too many levels rely on giving the player too little ammo and health and locking the player in a small room with high-tier enemies. Anyone can do that. I'd give it a 5 out of 5 but again, the levels listed are excellent, but many others are junk and not fun to play. 

Also many levels feature a symmetrical design that confuses even vet players.  And a lot of design choices had already been done to death at that point anyway.

Nothing fancy here!

Just another slaughter maps in which you keep reloading saved games until you figure out a plan to beat the map.

As if the slaughter is not enough, in later maps you'll face ghost monster which you cannot kill!!

I played this at UV + Brutal DOOM.

Not my preferred style of play but I have fun and I am too young to die. Map 27 was my favorite. I love Rise of the Triad midis.

Hell Revealed was very important to the history of level-making (and in particular hard level-making) but it mostly just doesn't hold up. I can forgive bland texturing or default music in an old school wad, but many of the levels are just not that good.

+'s: Classic for the ages, a few really challenging fun levels.

-'s: Lots of slog, shotgunning barons, some very bland texturing/architecture, some straight-up bad levels (map 21 comes to mind)

A few good levels... 24:Post Mortem, what the designers themselves describe as the hardest level in the pack. I think this is a great level in the context of hard gameplay and undeniably influential. 26:Afterlife is also a good challenge, I don't love the ghost demons that appear towards the end but I think the rest of it is solid. 32:Mostly Harmful is also pretty fun, although it is pretty much a micro slaughter map.

All in all I would not recommend this pack unless, like myself, you want to have an opinion on all classic wads: Eternal, TNT, memento mori, all of them! But there are better ways to spend your time, and hell revealed 2 is a more fun level pack imo.

Does not hold up very well and will make you contemplate cheating just to get rid of all the Barons of Hell but is a classic piece of Doom mapping history. My biggest influence whenever I'm working on a WAD is certainly this. Highly worth trying out if you like shotgunning Barons.

I enjoyed this WAD when I first played it back in the day, and after replaying it I still enjoy it. I think it is remembered after all this time for a reason, and I find it to be worth checking out today. 

Heh. I think this wad is a little bit overrated, and i personally don't understand all the hype which revolves around this. But well-- there was no decent map builder back in 1997 so i suggest it's simply much harder to create beautiful map at that time. But still-- not good enough for 5 stars, at least according to my standard.

Not the greatest and hardest megawad that i always remembered, for sure.

In truth, here are some really stinkers, but hey, its vanilla, its followed the all time beloved plutonia, so lets chill out and call this a perfect ten, ok?

EEWWW! NoT!

From the get go, some cool maps, that could have a little more details but, this is doom, man, just kill everything that moves. Then, the mappers started to get the grasp of mapping and start to pull some good maps from map12 to map20. Then they become dicks that only like to use barons of hell, but again, thats ok, they wasn't pro and didn't study Plutonia properly... maybe?

Then come some really good maps24 and map26... and thats it, the remaining maps are just easy fillers to end the damn thing.

But, Hey! I wrote a good dehacked patch for it, that follow the story of the megawad pretty closely and surely is worth enough the $500 i spent on it.

Thanks Yonatan Donner and his friend Haggay Niv. You guys made something that is and will be remembered forever as a staple on.

At least is better looking than the damn Plu...Oh Shit!

Here we go again!

So, I recently finished Hell Revealed and it was, Bad!

I don't know where to start, I don't know why did I even bother playing this game, even though I heard that the game didn't age well, but I played it out of curiosity, and the first half of the game was boring as piss, it was bland looking , it looked more like an amateur made these levels, I know who designed these levels and I won't talk much about them, that doesn't matter right now, what matters is the game was boring in the first half, until halfway the game it gets harder by the time you progress, there are some good maps in this game but most of them ranges from bad to boring to unplayable.

The problem for the most part of HR is that the developers were more concerned about putting more barons in the game where you have to take care of them using the SSG, which I found it boring and stupid gameplay, it's not so fun at all, the more you find a Baron Horde, the more I groan, the last few levels ranges from stupidly designed maps to decent, and Map30 of this game can go to hell.

This game was meant to be harder than Plutonia, which means the combat get more tense and the maps get larger by the time you progress, but the difference is Plutonia is a lot more fun and more engaging than HR, HR just ranges from boring to stupid, there are some hidden gems beneath the crap that I got, when you die in Plutonia, you wanna get back up and try again, in HR, when you die most of the time you want to quit the game, I don't hate HR becasue it's a mindless Slaughter Mapset, I hate it becasue this game sucks, I played a good amount os Slaughter maps, and they're fun to play and well balanced, but in HR, there are a few Slaughter maps that I enjoyed, and that's it.

I would give the game the lowest 3/10  I could give to the game, because at least there are some good maps and a few decent ones in there, to me HR is a case study of how not to make hard maps or Slaughter maps at this point..

My top 5 maps

32,15,21,22,25

My top 5 hated maps

30,24,26,14,31

Pretty good megawad with a slaughter-ish second half. It has balanced difficulty, with most encounters being fair and playable. Very few ambushes! Also, it's surprisingly good with Project Brutality, for its powerful weapons and enhanced enemies. Only the two secret levels were too difficult to play with PB and in two more levels I had to iddqd  through the beginning to get the monster count down and the framerate up to two digits. The rest was fine and entertaining because the gameplay was much faster than in vanilla.

"32 new high-quality very detailed levels"

OH RLY?! I don't think so

But anyway 5/5

At first I stood away from this wad and marked it as "for speedrunners only". It was a comment by @Nine Inch Heels on a statement of mine that inspired me to play it. I simply decided I can't be called a good doomer if I haven't played something of the real deal. And after Requiem turned out not to be "the real deal" for me - and last time I even rage quit on map 27, because that wad is milking me out of ammo and I have almost no luck infighting monsters - All i could tell myself was "Bring it on, Hell Revealed. My body is ready." 

I didn't expect to enjoy the wad this much. I jumped in the deep on Ultra-Violence and was telling myself "I'll do it. If needed, I'll play on lower difficulty. I must play it. I must see what level I'm at." It all justified common opinion - if you don't rage quit on map 13, you can easily beat the wad on UV. I enjoyed everything. Every level, every battle, every puzzle. So much tactical thinking requiered on levels with great design and full of fair fights. 

Yes, that's why I love Hell Revealed. Unlike some wads like Scythe that also place you in lite-slaughter situations, this wad always gives you a fair fight. The maps that were simply a fight with an army of monsters never bothered me see this gimmic, because the fights were so fair. Just watch your corners if you face revenants. 

The best part was the enjoyable fights with cyberdemons you're presented to and the fact spider masterminds are finally used by their purpose. My favorite maps turned out to be Cyberpunk (27), The Path (16), Top Hell (28), Ascending To The Stars (23), Afterlife (26), The Gates Of Hell (15) and 20, I forgot its name. 31 and 32 are cool and really do the secret maps gimmick in a great way, but I like other secret maps more. At least they still posess the unique concept and won't drop my rating. 

My least favorite map is Post Mortem (24) for the reason of the total monster placement of it. Especially the pain elementals, the constantly "respawning" mancubi and the fact some fights require reversed meta. (Not killing the arch-viles or revenants first.) But Hell Revealed (30) rivals it, because this is the only unfair map in the wad. It still leaves that bitter taste in my mouth that I needed to cheat to beat it on HMP and UV and completed it without cheating only on HNTR. Laugh at me at your will, I anyways am the laughing stock of the world and everybody wants to laugh at my failures and tears. This has been my whole life, just that. 

Other maps I turned out to hate: Knockout (9) - Tyson forced, 18, I forgot the name - too much tedium on that ledge you have to fight new monsters on 3 times (and they tell me I make tedious maps), and 25 - a good breather, but too boring for my standards. I seem to have more fun playing big convoluted maps than small simple maps. 

Speaking of the latter, Another reason for me to give 5/5 is the constant switch of gears you have with Hell Revealed. Just look at it! Maps 9, 10 and 11 are complicated. 12 and 13 are simple. 14 and 15 are complicated. 16 and 31 are both simple with 32 being also complicated. 17 and 18 are complicated. 19 is simple. 20 is complicated. 21 and 22 are simple. 23 and 24 are complicated. 25 is simple. 26 and 27 are complicated. 28 is simple. 29 is complicated and 30 is simple. That's what I mean by switching gears. 

5/5, 10/10. HANDS DOWN GOAT! 

Ok oldschool WAD, turns into tedious slaughter later on.

 A very hyped up megawad that I've seen some praise like its the messiah of all mapsets. Despite the hype, it does not by any means live up to the praise. When it's good, it's good. When it's bad, it's a chore to get through. When it's ugly, it's downright hideous, with Map07 being one of the ugliest maps I've seen, not to mention the weakest Dead Simple clone I've had to play. Honestly only about 5 maps out of the 32 are good.

functionally a terrywad on UV. love slaughtermaps because of the precision and strategy required to control so many enemies but this has no care of design in any element. sucks and is ugly

Played this on HMP difficulty and found it very manageable, despite having read quite a few reviews which implied that it becomes almost impossible by halfway, even on this setting. Quite honestly, it was a very fair and enjoyable challenge and I didn't find the gameplay or the graphics dated or disappointing in the least. Levels 24 and 26 are mightily tough, but well executed and satisfying to complete.

It's also worth pointing out that the wad is very generous in its provision of health, armour and ammo. No 'resource management' nonsense here, LOL.

The only reason I've not given five stars is level 30. Never really felt that the IOS is a worthy or even legitimate element of Doom, and its use in this wad, as in one or two other megawads (eg Alien Vendetta, DTWID2) illustrates the point. It's very doable on the two lowest levels, but the step up in difficulty in HMP (and presumably even more so in UV) is staggering. You'll be lucky to get onto the platform (or anywhere near it) more than once on most attempts, and the authors also introduced a timing issue into the rocket firing, which doubles or triples the difficulty. I finally managed to complete it after about 100-plus attempts, but needed to save twice in the process.

Disappointing that so many megawad creators have apparently felt obliged to use the IoS in their final level.

Hell Revealed is one of those mapsets that became famous for its difficulty. In my opinion, HR is an excellent WAD that has stood the test of time and remains something that delivers a slighlty dated but fun and very challenging experience.

Many of the maps offer something memorable in them. Most of the best maps are in the third episode, such as MAP22, MAP24 (probably my favorite), and MAP26. If I had to pick out a worst map, it would be either 18 or 20. Detail throughout HR is pretty sparse and simple, but never bad looking or otherwise offensive. Out of the two mappers, Yonatan is easily the better one, featuring better layouts, more varied encounters, better decoration, etc.

The thing that makes HR so famous is its difficulty. I found that despite its age, HR has one of the smoothest difficulty curves of any WAD that I have played. It starts you off very easily, but slowly raises the stakes until you hit the iconic slaughter of the third episode. Generally speaking, each level is just slightly more difficult than the last in such a way that you never really feel overwhelmed or unprepared for what lies ahead. HR is very hard, but almost always in a fair way. There are a few spots that feel unfair, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

The gameplay that is offered is different from what most people are now used to. The maps seem to focus on mid-tier enemies such as the revenant and baron. My biggest problem with the gameplay is that at times it really shows its age. HR seems to come from an era just before people learned that shotgunning barons isn't very fun. MAP20 is one level that really suffers from this. However, between the parts that drag is pure gold. Far from the BFG spam that is the stereotype of slaughter, the BFG remains a rare treat and you have to focus on your RL and SSG for most of the dirty work. Because of this, I found that HR requires a lot more strategy and planning. I spent some time on several levels with -nomonsters planning for the chaos ahead. HR is tricky but very fun and rewarding when you finally succeed.

Overall, Hell Revealed is an iconic mapset that captures some of the origins of Doom's more difficult side. It is something that everyone should try, and if it gets too hard, don't be afraid to tone down the difficulty since "after all, that's what difficulty levels are for!"

Another classic megawad has been finished.

Since it's obviously going to be compared with Alien Vendetta, one of the first things I noticed during the progression is that it's pretty well balanced, there's no surprise levels where the difficulty spikes, it's consistent from start to finish. It has aged well, perhaps even a tad better than AV, but there isn't really anything remarkable about the layout or the texturing of the levels, and as expected the gameplay is the focus which, for the majority of Hell Revealed, is solid. However, there are a map or two which have mediocre gameplay, most notably MAP18 Hard Attack. The problem of this map are the ill designed enemy encounters, which take place in a few cramped spaces at the beginning, and the focal point of the map relies on an extremely poor kind of infighting. You have to climb a wall using an elevator, and the said wall is full of Revenants, Hell Knights, and Barons. The most efficient and economical method of passing this area seems to be allowing the Cyberdemon to take care of the enemies who come down when you activate the elevator, but takes a lot of time, not to mention that there are a few waves of enemies, at least one when you need to reach a room, and another one after you return from it. There are also 4 Cyberdemons in a room with a switch who keep teleporting and occasionally fire a rocket at you. At least it's a rather short level which looks decent at the very least, but these are the only qualities of the level...

Either way, with the exception of MAP18 there aren't any other poorly designed levels, all the others are fine and fun enough, save for, perhaps, a few rooms here and there that are almost completely dark in MAP26 and MAP29. MAP26 also features ghost Imps and an intriguing design, seemingly taking place somewhere in space, but extra care is advised here since loads of enemies are present and the encounters themselves are rather brutal. However, the usage of the previously mentioned ghost Imps is not very good. In fact, Icarus did a better job with them in a map which used ghost enemies for almost its entirety. Here, they're little more than an annoyance. They don't add much to the experience and also feel out of place, an attempt at adding something more unique and unexpected that ultimately doesn't pay off.

The levels are more or less created in slaughter style, therefore they all share a couple hundreds of enemies but the numbers don't go into the thousands from what I remember. Some of the encounters are rather merciless, and the authors surely loved using Hell Knights, Barons and especially Arch-Viles, this combination being one of the toughest in Hell Revealed. And towards the end the Cyberdemons make a significant amount of appearances, but shotgunning them was quite fun, and more exciting than Barons. You could also rely on the Rocket Launcher and the BFG to take them out, but the maps don't seem to offer enough ammo so that you can keep using them for almost their entirety, and that's actually a good thing, it wouldn't be fun otherwise. On the other hand, they most certainly offer copious amounts of shotgun shells.

My favorite level is probably going to be MAP28. It's a rather short and straightforward level despite its size, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of the map and the textures used, and it was neither very difficult or easy. This level is followed closely by MAP16 which features lots of browns and red, but not particularly exciting encounters so it doesn't stand out in this respect. Still, I loved its look and overall gameplay nonetheless, there's some really beautiful bloodfalls, although technically there are better maps in the megawad. MAP30 of Hell Revealed is a typical Icon of Sin level, but it's a fitting conclusion to the journey.

While the encounters are generally good, certain enemies are underused, while others are overused. Hell Revealed seems to mostly rely on boss tier or just generally tough enemies. This means that enemies such as the Arachnotrons, Chaingunners, Zombiemen, Shotgun Guys, Spectres, Pinkies, and Imps are encountered much less frequent than Hell Knights, Barons, Revenants, Arch-Viles, Mancubi, and Cyberdemons, with the Pain Elementals and thus Lost Souls on the middle ground. If you hate hitscanners or otherwise just these enemies in general you're probably going to like this, however due to overusing the strongest demons the encounters do become predictable, and on a few occasions boring. Luckily, their placement and usage is still good most of the time so the encounters themselves are still exciting, preventing them from falling into boredom, keeping you focused and careful, yet they could've used more variety. This is something that AV avoided and in consequence, the enemy usage there is slightly superior.

The megawad also introduces a few new music tracks which are combined with the vanilla Doom soundtrack, so it's not a complete replacement. It also features a new red status bar, intermission screen, menu background, ENDOOM screen, and a couple new sky textures which are just gorgeous. However, there are no new sounds or enemies introduced.

As about the difficulty, having played Alien Vendetta as well as Ancient Aliens before (and I must mention that AA tops both AV and Hell Revealed) it wasn't very difficult for me, except for the occasional unforgiving encounters. Despite this, it's certainly not targeted at average players but most certainly can be completed by them, even on UV since it's not nuts, regardless of whether you're going for it blind or not. It also doesn't involve a lot of trial and error, especially compared to the other 2 megawads I've already mentioned, save for MAP24 perhaps, which takes a while to understand the first time you're playing it, but after that it's fine. It's perfect for experienced players but in no way impossible or ridiculously hard for everyone else.

All things considered, it's a solid classic that's definitely worthy of its status. It's fun, challenging, beautiful, but most of all fair, and it has aged pretty well, some of the levels doing this even better than AV, although I consider the latter superior overall, which is why I'm giving Hell Revealed 4/5 stars, while Alien Vendetta got 5/5. And despite my comparisons between the two, I'd very much let them stand on their own and speak for themselves.

I remember really liking Hell Revealed years back, thinking it as among some of the best megawads out there and even today it does hold up to its classic title. Now visiting this megawad again in 2018, the flaws became more apparent and honestly this megawad is half the time fun and half the time a chore to play to through. It is fun in coop given the high amount of enemies, sure, but playing on UV single-player, the quality of the levels are rather inconsistent.

In the first episode, Hell Revealed doesn't start off so bad, while it's pretty brown and green all around, the mapset does sufficiently in introducing you what kind of mapset you'll be playing, and it won't be an easy one (at least for the more casual Doom player). So overall, the first episode is good enough, I really like MAP07 with how it's shaped like a spider and you have to fight many Arachnotrons and a Spider Mastermind. Of course, while the first episodes sets forth that the WAD will be tough, that doesn't always mean it'll be tough in the sense that it'll be painfully hard. In fact the first episode is pretty easy overall if you know well what you're doing, nothing too bad though. That's where the second episode comes, where the quality starts to show its inconsistency and the not so pretty texturing of the maps. While some maps are open and allow some exploration such as MAP14 and MAP15, among my favorites of the mapset, others are just cramped and has you fighting in cramped hallways with no ammo for your other weapons. With most of your ammo being shells, if you want to be conservative with your ammo, you'll have to find yourself attacking Barons with a SSG or using a SG against Mancubi from a distance. And when you find yourself doing this for 30 minutes or more in 1-2 levels every now and then, it makes Hell Revealed a rather tedious experience. It's a shame there isn't more maps like MAP14 and MAP15 since to me they offer the best of Hell Revealed, and maps such as MAP18 pretty much comes off as tedious and annoying rather than say difficult.

Speaking of the difficulty, it's weird how some maps have plenty of Cyberdemons and other tough enemies to some maps suddenly having next to no Cyberdemons and mostly Imps instead of Barons. The third episode opens up with a fresh look and a cool skybox, of which you pretty much get supplied with all your weapons and full ammo, however instead of starting off with a difficult map, there isn't a whole lot to worry about in MAP21 as you can just go back to the beginning of the map for 200% health and armor in case you take damage, killing any sense of intensity here. Then MAP22 appears and suddenly you are back to hundreds of enemies around every corner with tons of Cyberdemons waiting to get you. There could have been so much more to the second and third episodes, I especially like MAP26 here but instead most levels are just drab and tedious to play as they don't hold up a consistent difficulty curve and even if maps do get tough, sometimes they don't have the resources you want to get through them. It doesn't help that some of the levels have nonsense encounters, which often brings more frustration than (a good) surprise. I should also mention that the secrets are nothing really clever, for the most part they're obvious push the wall for resources that you need secrets, and rarely is there any interesting ways to find them like MAP15's secret switches to get to MAP31.

Overall, while Hell Revealed isn't really a bad megawad, it really hasn't aged well 20+ years later, surpassed by more modern WADs that refine the gameplay style of Hell Revealed, with more consistent levels to boot. Hell Revealed is worth checking out for the historical factor, but if you're looking for a good series of high quality levels, you're better looking elsewhere as I don't feel motivated to play Hell Revealed again after this.