Tnt or Plutonia.

[Lykos]

One of my greates mistakes in Doom, was have played first Plutonia and then TNT. When i finished  the 32maps of Plutonia (spended more than 1 hour in map32) i felt like it opened a new doomworld to me, another dimension . So expect the same with TNT but no...TNT have only a few maps with good design (better than plutonia) and with some difficult, but the rest is like have played Doom 2, longer and easier maps. TNT have good and new music but u need more than that to be better than Plutonia. Bitter end in the world of the four IWADS. In fact i prefer Doom Episode 4 instead TNT

[Hisymak]

For me, the biggest difference between these two is that TNT has its own custom music for majority of maps in the mapset, while Plutonia doesn't and it relies only on reusing the vanilla Doom and Doom2 tracks (at least it used to, up until a Plutonia MIDI pack came up). The music is important for me and it's about half the experience from playing a Doom megawad.

I got both TNT and Plutonia in about the second half of 2000's (by the way these were the very first Doom megawads/level packs I got after years playing only Vanilla Doom2 maps and nothing else) and for some reason I chose to play through TNT first. It's been many years I played it, but I remember it was a good experience and the maps were overally good (with some really weird maps as exceptions), but the main thing was it was the first time ever I played anything new from Vanilla Doom2, so I did not have anything to compare with at that time, and I was just very excited about playing someting new after all.

After finishing TNT, for some reason I did not start playing Plutonia. The reason could be that it did not have any custom music, so this discouraged me from playing that. But then recently, after about 10 years, I got to know about Plutonia MIDI Pack, which I grabbed immediately and went to play through Plutonia right away. Playing Plutonia was a great experience, but as I say, the half experience for me is music, so the good music played its important role here. Regarding the map quality, it was fine, in similar manner how TNT maps were "fine". Cannot say with sure which of the two is better, but I can definitely say that TNT and Plutonia themes are different and distinctive from each other. TNT is more about military and tech bases.

[Mangcubus]

TNT has a few of my all-time favorite maps, but it's got a lot of garbage too. Plutonia isn't my favorite because of repetitive chaingunner spam but it's more consistent.

[jerk-o]

Freedoom2 > TNT + Plutonia

[Barry Burton]

TNT is great until you get to MAP08: Metal. Then it's just a slow downward spiral from there. Plutonia may be tough and bland but it's consistant at least.

[Dark Pulse]

First 2/3rds of TNT are pretty solid, but it dives off a cliff. Soundtrack is underrated, as others have said.

 

That said, Plutonia is definitely a challenge and the Casalis are fucking evil maniacs. It definitely had the stronger influence, as well.

 

Basically, both are good examples of the Doom community at the time, but in different ways, and both have strengths as well as flaws.

 

Both are good, both should be played, for entirely different reasons.

[Maximum Matt]

Okay, best of Plutonia and TNT (PluTNT?) - the best sixteen levels (one IOS level and one secret level from each)… which ones would YOU choose??

Go

[Toilet_Wine_Connoisseur]

Plutonia by a long shot. The deviousness of its traps and almost the trollish nature of its combat encounters is inspiring. 

[Andromeda]

9 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Okay, best of Plutonia and TNT (PluTNT?) - the best sixteen levels (one IOS level and one secret level from each)… which ones would YOU choose??

Go

Interesting challenge, let's see:

 

MAP01: System Control (TNT: Evilution)

MAP02: Well of Souls (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP03: Aztec (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP04: Wormhole (TNT: Evilution)

MAP05: Hanger (TNT: Evilution)

MAP06: Open Season (TNT: Evilution)

MAP07: Prison (TNT: Evilution)

MAP08: Realm (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP09: Abattoire (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP10: Redemption (TNT: Evilution)

MAP11: Hunted (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP12: Crater (TNT: Evilution)

MAP13: Nukage Processing (TNT: Evilution)

MAP14: Genesis (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP15: The Twilight (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP16: The Omen (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP17: Processing Area (TNT: Evilution)

MAP18: Mill (TNT: Evilution)

MAP19: NME (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP20: The Death Domain (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP21: Administration Center (TNT: Evilution)

MAP22: Habitat (TNT: Evilution)

MAP23: Tombstone (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP24: The Final Frontier (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP25: Baron's Den (TNT: Evilution)

MAP26: Bunker (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP27: Anti-Christ (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP28: Heck (TNT: Evilution)

MAP29: Odyssey of Noises (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP30: Last Call (TNT: Evilution)

MAP31: Cyberden (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP32: Caribbean (TNT: Evilution)

[printz]

Popular opinion is to play TNT, then Plutonia. That's the order of difficulty and level design prowess. TNT is the introduction to new official Doom 2 content, having its own distinctive level design. Plutonia is like the hardcore culmination of classic Doom — what "Thy Flesh Consumed" should have been to Doom 1, really (but Plutonia is really top quality in difficulty).

 

Do not forget about the Master Levels either! That's more Doom for you!

[Bob9001]

43 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

Interesting challenge, let's see:

 

MAP01: System Control (TNT: Evilution)

MAP02: Well of Souls (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP03: Aztec (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP04: Wormhole (TNT: Evilution)

MAP05: Hanger (TNT: Evilution)

MAP06: Open Season (TNT: Evilution)

MAP07: Prison (TNT: Evilution)

MAP08: Realm (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP09: Abattoire (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP10: Redemption (TNT: Evilution)

MAP11: Hunted (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP12: Crater (TNT: Evilution)

MAP13: Nukage Processing (TNT: Evilution)

MAP14: Genesis (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP15: The Twilight (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP16: The Omen (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP17: Processing Area (TNT: Evilution)

MAP18: Mill (TNT: Evilution)

MAP19: NME (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP20: The Death Domain (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP21: Administration Center (TNT: Evilution)

MAP22: Habitat (TNT: Evilution)

MAP23: Tombstone (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP24: The Final Frontier (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP25: Baron's Den (TNT: Evilution)

MAP26: Bunker (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP27: Anti-Christ (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP28: Heck (TNT: Evilution)

MAP29: Odyssey of Noises (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP30: Last Call (TNT: Evilution)

MAP31: Cyberden (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP32: Caribbean (TNT: Evilution)

Pharaoh > Cyberden

 

Other than that looks like a solid list.

[Maximum Matt]

11 hours ago, printz said:

Do not forget about the Master Levels either! That's more Doom for you!

And Maximum Doom. That's a SHITLOAD of Doomige.

[dr_st]

SHITLOAD? Is it a texture or a patch name?

[Can't play on Nightmare]

What is Vanilla?

[seed]

46 minutes ago, Can't play on Nightmare said:

What is Vanilla?

 

A term that refers to the original, unmodified version of a game with all its limitations, bugs, features, and so on.

[Maximum Matt]

22 hours ago, dr_st said:

SHITLOAD? Is it a texture or a patch name?

Kind of a general overview.  

[Doom-X-Machina]

I enjoy them both but I think Plutonia overall is a much more polished effort.

[Eurisko]

TNT because Plutonia is pure evil 

[Chip]

On 3/28/2020 at 5:03 PM, seed said:

I like quite a bit of TNT, but it simply goes down too damn hard after MAP20.

and the maps are too damn long IMO. 

[Someone277]

Plutonia if you want to suffer,

 

TNT if you want a more casual time. 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Someone277

[Zulk RS]

TNT all the way for me.

 

TNT is by all means much easier than Plutonia and I do like to play Doom more casually (though I'm no stranger to playing harder maps). I feel that unless you are going for a specific things like small times, 100% kills etc. Basically just playing a map and getting to the exit, exploring the level, using saves and killing monsters but not worrying if you miss some kills or secrets. If you're doing that, I feel like there is no one "real" way to play Doom. You can play it cautiously or aggressively and just have fun. While I played Plutonia, it felt like I had to always keep moving, always keep shooting and any attempts to camp in one spot and shoot things harmlessly or take things slow and just look around, stand around and wander around would result in a not very good time. Sure nothing was stopping me from playing my own way of being cautious, sniping things from afar and just standing around waiting for infights but whenever I tried that, it ended in me getting swarmed, chaingunned, boxed-in etc. With Ultimate Doom, Doom 2 and TNT, I was free to play as aggressively or as passively as I wanted without getting punished for it.

 

Another thing I liked about TNT's maps was how they looked and felt. Plutonia's maps did have more consistent quality and were better made. However I feel that TNT's maps had a certain kind of experimental and non-formulaic feel to them. Mount Pain is a blast when not Pistol Starting. The actual "Mount Pain" with the teleporting lost souls are awesome to look at if you aren't worried about 100% kills. The Prison surrounded by lava was cool. Human BBQ's Human BBQ was cool to look at. The Night Sky texture has got to be one of the best sky textures from the IWADS. The first room with the long corridor and scrolling face texture of MAP30 and the subsequent puzzle which can be solved either by looking at the map (modern sourceports) or by writing down Torch combinations from the opening map is a creative idea. When a TNT map failed, it failed HARD. "Metal" can go erase itself from existence. Habitat sucked hard. Basically TNT's maps felt more experimental than Plutonia's maps. Sometimes they were great, sometimes they sucked and sucked hard. At least Every single map didn't have archviles spawning in and chaingunners sniping you from half-way across the map. I can enjoy hiding from Chaingunner snipers, revenant homing missiles and Archie surprises so many times before I start getting annoyed and start longing for something different.