JOW: Jason Wainman's 30 Levels of Doom II

four months and a date that goes back about 24 years tells you quite a lot about JOW. this infamous levelset is known for its boring and badly designed hallways and its liberal usage of SS troopers. layouts are flat, monsters are never flagged deaf and are always facing east, no secrets in any maps, and nothing design-wise is made to be interesting. Commander Keens are present behind cages, and the author despite saying that these are the "hardest ones you will encounter" practically spoon-feeds you any chance he gets. you'll get every single weapon in each level, with supplies stocked in many rooms, rooms that have a cyberdemon, spider mastermind (of which one of both is in every level), barons of hell, and even cacodemons will have multiple powerups, usually invulnerabilities, invisibilities, and megaspheres, plus other supplies making it pretty much impossible to use. arch-viles are super-rare and there's no pain elementals in the entire wad either. levels are real large and will have hundreds of enemies, so theoretically the carnage is actually quite worthwhile and makes you feel overpowered despite the lack of challenge. backtracking is still a problem.

would you believe me if I said there were actually memorable maps in this compost pile? yep, 10, 20, and 30 are all very short, while MAP12 is actually super simplistic and boring with the multiple "going in several rooms" thing. MAP24 took the overall longest, while maps with a lot of open space like MAP08 and MAP22 are very hectic due to no monsters being flagged deaf. it's also quite surprising seeing these maps compared to slige when they are much bigger in design. should you play it? only if you want to see for yourself just to see why people hate it.

So bad it's good. 

End of maps tend to be marred by three keys and their associated doors being scattered in remote parts of the mazes, often requiring traversal that far exceeds what came before, despite most of the monsters being dead. So IDCLEV to next once you've cleared most of the map.

Waaay too much ammo, power-ups and health.

Hurtfloors do not hurt you.

Spider Masterminds and Arachnotrons are usually clipped into geometry, as the author was not aware of their sprite size.

Key locations are too predictable. Once you unlock the first keyed door, you will always receive the next key immediately in the room you unlocked.

Levels are poorly implemented and pathed, meaning that you will be doing a lot of backtracking.

Very large maps on average - but without much visual variation between maps.

Extremely easy on UV, due to the above issues.

Somehow, I still played through it all - and while being pretty poor, I still had little bits of enjoyment feeling so overpowered.

[2/5]

Too many very very loooong corridors that sometimes lead to dead ends, many useless empty rooms where a huge "?" appears above your head thinking "what am I suppossed to do in this room?", connecting rooms sometimes with openings and other with doors, seriously, to put an opening and next a door that leads to the same room?  And when you finally find the key or skull you needed the door is at the other edge of the huge map...

What's the point of putting lots of rooms connected by tiny corridors trying to use ALL the Doom textures in every different room (including Wolfenstein textures) ?  And over 10 Commander Keens in every map, that do nothing, they don't open secret doors, nothing....

Also, I think I needed more weapons... even with Æons of Death 6.66 with lots of weapons the ammo was full all the time cause of the mysterious obsession of dropping huge loads of ammo in every corner and also powerups... did I mention you got more than 5 invulnerabilty spheres on every map?

I've seen better maps generated by SLIGE, because I find it hard to believe that these maps were made by hand. You get generic room after generic room with some possessed zombies and SS Officers scattered around. The SS Officers are common enemies too, with Wolfenstein textures and doors all over the place too. You'll be playing the first map thirty times here (as in all the maps feel the exact same), of which all the maps are long, boring, and frustrating to go through, not worth your time.

Too many Wolf3D textures, too rectangular architecture. Also quite a tedium, given the size and length of even the earliest levels. Too bad not a single mappixel within them craves for a minimal amount of replay value. Some okay fights can be pulled off here and there, but it's literally all and everything remotely nice about it.

Hard to believe these maps were hand-crafted.