The DWmegawad Club plays: Hell Revealed 2

[rehelekretep]

not that impressed so far; key word is nasty. lots of traps, cramped corridors.

map04 is the highlight: like a nasty little puzzle box. demo should be quite entertaining

map01, map02, map03, map04

[TheOrganGrinder]

4 hours ago, Salt-Man Z said:

There's no shame in dialing it back to a lower difficulty level. I went with HNTR to avoid frustration, and as a result I'm having an absolute blast. (And I never play on HNTR.)

I find that, when I drop out of a WAD part-way, sometimes I'm feeling "I'm enjoying some aspect of this, but the gameplay is more difficult (or is challenging in a different way) than I particularly enjoy," and other times I'm feeling "I'm just not enjoying this," and the former can sometimes be solved by turning the difficult down a notch, but the latter really can't.

 

Like... I played through Sunlust and Ancient Aliens with the DWMC, on Hey, Not Too Rough, because the challenges of those particular mapsets on Hurt Me Plenty and Ultraviolence were above my skill level but I wanted to see what else they had to offer, and I could enjoy the cool, changing settings and the environmental storytelling and the encounters that were varied and engaging even if I absolutely was playing a smoothed-out, rounded-off, softened-up version of the intended gameplay.  I'm not really getting a sense of that here; I don't know that Hell Revealed II is or was trying to do anything other than challenge its players, and it hasn't yet shown an engaging variety in its environments nor has it demonstrated that it has more tricks up its sleeve than cramped encounter spaces and traps that feel like they're trying to test foreknowledge more than they are situational awareness.

 

For me, there isn't really a sense of some underlying enjoyable element of structure here that I'd be better able to appreciate if I turned down the difficulty; I've not played four levels of a WAD that I could see myself enjoying and appreciating better if only the encounters weren't "getting in the way of that," I've played four levels of a WAD that just isn't grabbing me, and the particular style of the gameplay and challenge has simply served to exhaust my patience sooner than it might otherwise have been depleted.

[DavitW]

MAP03: Shackled

Oh, This one really brought back some bad memories of this wad last time I played over 10 or so years ago. There's so many fuck you traps all around the place with little cover or room to maneuver, and the lack of room is a big problem present in this wad so far. The problem with these kinds of traps is there's little actual substance to them, They're basically designed to fuck over a first time player and next time through they're practically ineffective. Take the trap at the blue door as a good example of that, It provided little challenge as the only viable option I could think of is to run back across the bridge and slowly pluck the morons to death with your shotgun. Any actual threat from the trap is just hoping the player doesn't know it's coming and get caught by all the demons in the tiny area before they can run away. The room with the red key could have almost been interesting, but then I turned the corner into a fucking wall of barons and instead of feeling threatened my first reaction was "oh for fucks sake' realizing I had to blast through this roadblock with only my SSG. The general consensus here seems to be the same on that part as well.

 

MAP04: Reluctant Pain

A small map filled with fuck you traps, little cover or room to maneuver and design choices that are basically there just to fuck over a first time player. Yeah, Same thing I said about the last map but it applies here even more so. I'll be the first to tell you I suck at Doom but this feels like the kind of challenge that can only be beat with foreknowledge of the map. At this point it started to feel more like I was solving memory puzzles with Rockets and Archviles instead of actually engaging in interest combat with the hordes of hell. You could get that soulsphere in the acid pit but it's only good for about 40 health considering the hurt floor does 20 fucking damage, and don't even think about those rockets poorly hidden in the wall. First map was the best so far as it actually had interesting combat with monsters in a variety of situations. More of that and less "lol now your stuck in a tiny room with 3 hell knights dumbass good luck".

[Maggle]

The thing about Reluctant Pain is that foreknowledge doesn't help that much compared to Shackled. The death count I admitted to in my original post is already quite high for such a short map (5), but that was my second run. In my test run, the deaths climbed up so far I lost count. I must have died at least 20 times, and it's all the hitscanners. They do a really good job softening up the player so they have a hard time surviving the "main attraction". I still can't get over the 20 damage acid with no hazard suit in sight. Like, Seriously? I mean, really? The only way out of the acid before you extend the bridge is a teleporter hidden behind a slow-ass gate. There's not a lot of health on the map. There's the megasphere you have to AV Jump to, the soulsphere in the acid, and a pittance of stimpacks dotted around the place. Between that, and the onslaught of SG Guys and Archviles, and the fact that I still have to have enough health/armor to survive the ending portion. I can't afford to risk 40-60 health over fucking rockets! Are you kidding me?

 

Oh, and it didn't make it in my OP, but fuck the revs in the hallway, too. Man, I just love fighting enemies that shoot homing projectiles in a tiny hallway. In order to dodge effectively, I had to hug the door, and when one of them shoots a homing missile, I very quickly turn, open the door and duck back in the hallway. If I don't do that in time, I get hit. Yay! Goody goody gumdrops! So fun!

 

Fuck this level.

[tchkb]

37 minutes ago, Maggle said:

Oh, and it didn't make it in my OP, but fuck the revs in the hallway, too. Man, I just love fighting enemies that shoot homing projectiles in a tiny hallway. In order to dodge effectively, I had to hug the door, and when one of them shoots a homing missile, I very quickly turn, open the door and duck back in the hallway. If I don't do that in time, I get hit.

 

Not to defend this map, but dodging those rockets isn't that hard and certainly doesn't require such convoluted strategies. Here's a demo that shows some techniques how to do it.

h204-revtest.zip

Edited April 4, 2020 by tchkb

[Bauul]

Genuine first time playing this one.  It's been on my to-play list for a while, so seemed like a perfect opportunity!  Playing HMP, Continuous, on GZDoom.

 

MAP01: Ignition

Fun little start, the non-linearity was a nice touch for a Map 01.  The overall feel was perhaps a little basic - the self-referencing sectors were nice, but in other places the texture work was very basic.  None of the encounters were too difficult.  I didn't really understand the need for (as I found at least) three SSGs.  Maybe a multiplayer thing or something difficulty related?  I also never found the Red Key, so that was a puzzle.  So far so nice, but let's see what's next.

 

Also, does anyone else find the main menu replacement graphics almost unreadable?  Heh.

 

MAP02: High Voltage

Less open-ended than the first one, this seemed to focus on providing encounters around specific enemies.  E.g. open a door, here's a load of zombiemen!  Open the next, here's a load of imps!  It was fine I guess, but the only real challenge came from some really mean traps, like insta-popping enemies, being surrounded by HKs, and that mean teleporter where if you've woken the HKs up before hand it's almost impossible to survive.  I resorted to sniping them from a distance.  Found two secrets, both by accident.  Distinct lack of armor so far.  So far I've not been absolutely blown away - the architecture seems pretty basic, even if it is vanilla compatible.  Some rough texture choices and even some poor misalignment is a bit distracting.

 

MAP03: Shackled

More pseudo tech base stuff.  The authors seem to be big fans of plonking large numbers of the same enemy into a single group.  Instead of one Baron, it's five.  Which is fine I guess, although the combat encounters haven't been particularly interesting so far.  The AV-opening closet behind the player in the RK room would have been scary if the trigger line wasn't so far down the corridor I didn't trigger it until after I'd killed all the Barons.  From a mappers' perspective, I'm continuing to have issues.  Non-lower-unpegged door trims is a 101 mistake, and it's disappointing to see it in a wad as well known as this.  I'm continuing to find the texture use bland, but I also noticed the lighting is very bland too.  I see the impressive sector-lighting the authors have done, but it's like they were too hung up on "advanced" mapping techniques like pseudo-soft shadows and self-referencing sectors that they forgot to make the rest of the map attractive.  Hopefully the rest of the mapset will look better

MAP04: Reluctant Pain
Another fine map.  I liked being able to see part of the map from the start and then teleporting away elsewhere.  The AV use is starting to ramp up, which I'm thinking will become the norm here.  The RK trap took me a few tries, ended up luring one AV into a corridor and then dealing with the second out in the courtyard.  The fake exit tricks were a bit sigh-inducing.  Maybe it's just the result of playing this in 2020 rather than 2003, but "Psyche, it's not a real exit, here's three shotgunners!" doesn't feel like a heart racing trap, it's more just groan-worthy.  Unfortunately more imprecise texture usage and overall lack of strong lighting.  But I will say that the maps have a strong sense of cross-cohesion.  They very much feel like they're part of the same set of maps - even though I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetic, the authors are sticking very closely to it.

 

I'm wondering at this point whether playing this on HMP is muting the experience.  I'm not the greatest Doom player in the world, so I always default to HMP, but does removing the teeth from the encounters leave the rest of the elements of the mapset more exposed?  Or am I just still too early in the wad?  Looking forward to playing the rest!

 

Edit: After reading everyone else's thoughts, I agree with a lot of the sentiments, even if the things that really frustrated other people didn't seem to annoy me quite so much (which surprised me to be honest, as I'm usually quite picky).

Edited April 5, 2020 by Bauul

[Catpho]

8 minutes ago, Bauul said:

I'm wondering at this point whether playing this on HMP is muting the experience.  I'm not the greatest Doom player in the world, so I always default to HMP, but does removing the teeth from the encounters leave the rest of the elements of the mapset more exposed?  Or am I just still too early in the wad?  Looking forward to playing the rest!

Not quite sure tbh. For this DWMC playthrough i play on skill 4 first then dial it down to skill 3 and 2 just to see how it changes. There are some genuinely cool ideas on skill 4 that are non-existent in the lower skill levels (certain traps in M3 comes to mind imo). On the other hand, it's likely that you'll find Feragen putting 8 barons (challenge!) in a hallway on UV that only contained 6 on HMP, or putting HKs in really weird places. There are some ideas on HMP and HNTR that i think would better the mapset's pacing if they were on UV. It's been a time abyss between now and the last time i played HR2, however, so this is practically a blind playthrough for me as well, not to mention noob me not noticing certain things the first time around :P

[Arbys550]

Map04

I don't know how I don't remember this map from my first playthrough because this was, without a doubt my least favorite doom map I have EVER played. It seems the mapper was just trying to be as annoying as possible. Seriously. I absolutely hated this map. The end.

 

Ranking

Spoiler

Map02: High Voltage

Map03: Shackled

Map01: Ignition

Map04: Reluctant Pain

 

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP05: Insatanity

4:34 | 100% Everything

A tiny little map that still packs quite a bit of punch. I put myself behind the eight-ball early by suddenly becoming woefully inadequate at dodging baron fireballs (from a single baron in a wide hallway, no less!) and a dearth of health supplies kept me on edge the rest of the level. Very cramped and boxy, this one, with some very questionable design choices, like the blue switch that opens the blue door that... grants you the blue key? Or the mandatory secret escape from the red key room. I'm sure pistol-start was brutal here (exhibit A why I'm playing continuous) but then, I could probably say that about most of these maps. I haven't minded the prior levels, but this one really did feel like pure filler.

[DuckReconMajor]

9 hours ago, Maggle said:

But hey, it's worth a shot, at least. I don't personally know what these maps are like on HNTR, so they genuinely could be way better, I don't know. But if you want my advise, skip HNTR and go straight to ITYTD, because it has the same monster count, plus half damage which helps with early game claustrophobia and the ammo stock-pile you end up with helps with the later game slaughter. That's the only thing I can think of that could convince someone who finds this absolutely deplorable to stick around, at least a little longer.

 

What I've seen so far (which I've also seen in other wads) is that the gap from skill 2 to 3 is larger than that from 3 to 4 so I think HNTR is at least worth trying in this case.

[Horus]

MAP05 - “Insatanity”  by Jonas Feragen, Derek MacDonald

 

In a way these maps so far remind me of (a more dickish and less detailed version of) Congestion 1024. All the maps so far are very much close quarters, this one especially so. The real challenge on this claustrophobic map is dealing with the two archviles – then surviving the rest of the map with what little health you have left.

A couple of pretty notable bugs here – first that the blue switch doesn’t require the blue key, second that you can get softlocked in the room with the RK if the door shuts behind you. Well, UDB tells me there is a way out, but it’s a secret. So that’s not really any better.

 

The baron + chaingunner trap is actually pretty cool. You have to duck out of the chaingunner fire and pick your time to dash past the baron back to safety. Otherwise, a pretty unremarkable buggy map.

[Maggle]

Map05 Insatanity
100% Kills/Secrets
0 Deaths

 

I start this one with 2 shotgun guys right in my face. Classy! If I came out of the previous level with very low health (which is certainly possible), I could start the level just....dead. Fuck.

 

Other than that, it's a really short, pretty easy, and unremarkable map. It mostly keeps up the tight, claustrophobic, sudden encounters that have made up the WAD up to this point, but they don't put me through nearly as much pressure. I say that, but I briefly panicked and nearly died to the Baron that shows up, which would have been really embarrassing, because that's super preventable and I wouldn't be able to come here and make fun of the map for being too easy! Can't have that!

 

There's a secret that acts as a shortcut to a previous room that can cut down backtracking, which is a neat idea, but apparently that's the only way out? Which is not neat at all, if that's the case. The other just contains health. Meh. Colors are a little drab, unfortunately. It's some sort of sewer, where everything is pewter bricks and stone. The last few maps had a pretty orange/green color combination, whereas this seems to be missing that.

 

It's okay, but it just kinda exists. It's filler, but comparatively easy, which after the past two maps, acts as a much-needed reprieve. I can forgive its flaws, somewhat, because of this. There's an argument that could be made that Reluctant Pain is a better map, because, for all it's frustration factor, it's at least memorable. Whereas, the only thing I remembered about this map is that I start with two shotgun barrels pressed against my nose, because God forbid I get any time to think before shit starts mauling me. However, I consider this map better, because at least it didn't piss me off. 

 

For those playing along, the breather won't last long, so enjoy it while you can.

 

6/10.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Maggle

[galileo31dos01]

17 hours ago, tchkb said:

The row of 10 Barons

 

Okay but there are 4 barons maximum on UV, a total of 9 in the map, then less on lower skills, so where did you see 10? O_o

 

 

Map 04

 

Psss the patience I had to max this map is beyond me, at that point it was more about determination and considering the length of the map, it wasn't going to take my entire life. I'd have to partially agree that this is the hardest map, because an abomination of the third chunk had me stuck for days (not "Beyond the Sea", mind you). Yet if we speak of completion, this map has perhaps the strictest task to achieve such thing. The "good" part is, as said before, the map is very brief, consisting of micro moments each one charged of intensity, though repetition with multiple deaths made it feel less like a filler sort of challenge.

 

The soulsphere may seem whatever, and it certainly becomes unworthy if the hitscan attrition is too high, or if you soak too much toxic (in my book green juice should deal between 5 or 10% damage at most, but this is Hell from the get go so, yea). You can soften the pain if you snag the armor first, but that still doesn't numb the shitgunners. There's not a whole lot to rely on when the moment arrives, the vile-jump isn't hard to do, it's that you have to be strong enough. The author also dumps pain elementals into the salad, what's missing? Oh yes, the salt flowing in our veins. 

 

Past that, if you got the megasphere, there's a good chance that you're set to send them back home, providing that your ammo stock doesn't run too thin. The RK double archvile release is a bit scary, as well as the jump to the key, because elastic collisions!. If they start resurrecting obstacles in front of your only true camp spot, it gets hairy quickly and bad depending on your ammo situation. It's not that it's so simple to control an archvile's moves anyways...

 

There's a twist in the HK sandwich to gain more space. If you quickly position yourself on the teleport spot of your choice, a HK will skip a teleport line and use another because that's how the author built his monster closet. Doing this you start with two HKs which is 100% better than three at the same time. The fake exits, exist, nothing else to say.

 

If I don't talk about visuals is because I usually have nothing to criticize on purely brown maps. Looks garish because of the lack of nice light contrasts. Otherwise brown is a good colour. Some people called the map filler-ish, while I don't share the sentiment for the map alone (it's got teeth, leaving out the UV max mockery), several monsters were obviously placed to fill space, like a pinky, a revenant and a lost soul all behind doors so there's not a moment where you're not shooting at something.

 

Words from recording: #@$% auotaim and those PEs as well.

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by galileo31dos01

[Roofi]

 

Map 05 : Insatanity

 

 

So I have several remarks to make about this map and about HR2 in general:

 

. In the past I didn't like Sam Woodman's ambient music and I found Thrybse's metal music more suited to the wad. Now I think the opposite. I'm really fond of this mysterious atmosphere created by Metabolist's music

. I really love the use of textures in Hell Revealed 2 and especially the brown and metal textures. It's simple and effective.

 

About the map itself, I like this one. I remember it especially by its underground passage leading to a pentagram carved on the ground and the early passage with the 3D bridge.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Roofi

[gaspe]

MAP05: Wait, isn't that Icarus theme? :D Jonas Feragen here is paired with Afterglow, and you can see that compared to the previous levels this one has more sophisticated architectural and lighting details. The layout is very compact and again devoted to fights in tight places. The pistol start pushes you to risky situations, either face the wall of sergeants or try to take the RL and get a nasty surprise from the arch-viles. I would say that kind of motif was very prevalent on the first Hell Revealed too, and it will be kept in all this wad. The BK isn't mandatory to complete the level but you'll miss the SSG and a secret by doing so.

 

 

[Andromeda]

MAP05: Insatanity (Hell Revealed II)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

Cool name, shame it's not original. The opening scene reminds me of a section in Memento Mori MAP09, but less brutal (understandable since it has to cater to pistol starters). Much like the previous level, the challenge here comes from the health deprivation and it doesn't help that the only armor you'll get is hidden in a secret! Got many deaths here, mainly from losing too much health at the hands of the shotgun guys after the first door and playing poorly on the blue switch trap afterwards. The first time I decided to take it slower and corner camp the zombies I managed to beat the level, though I almost choked at the red key trap - nasty instapop heavy weapon dudes, a setpiece that's not watered down in HNTR when compared to UV! The caged enemies at the exit room feel like filler, probably the only part that I don't like about this level. It does end too quickly in my opinion, I would be down to two or three minutes more of gameplay but it's good anyway.

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP04: Reluctant Pain

MAP03: Shackled

MAP05: Insatanity

MAP01: IGNITION!

MAP02: High Voltage

Edited April 5, 2020 by Andromeda

[AFallingObject]

MAP05: Insatanity (UV Continuous)

The only part of the map that threatened me was the SSG trap.  Funny how that was optional for me as a continuous player.  I took it on at the end of the level for the added challenge.  It cost me about 10 deaths, but success was worth it.

100% Kills

50% Secrets

[Arbys550]

Map05

Wow. I don't remember this wad being that bad when I first played it, but if this keeps up it will become one of my least favorite wads ever. This one was terrible too (In my opinion of course). Why the hell is there no health? Also why are there little 8 pixel wide columns that do nothing but obstruct player's movement and make the map a chore to navigate. The beginning is door camping at its finest. The map itself is not that hard, but there's no health, so if you lose more than 50% health due to the huge shotgunner swarm you pretty much have to play reality for the rest of the map. It's just stupid design.

 

Ranking

Spoiler

Map02: High Voltage

Map03: Shackled

Map01: Ignition

Map05: Insatanity

Map04: Reluctant Pain

 

[Snikle]

MAP05 - Insatanity

Much easier than the last level, for me anyways. This is probably because I went exploring a bit at the beginning and found the SSG long before I actually had to go back to the red door to progress. The vile fight was easy , all the instapop chaingunners weren’t too bad, the tiny enclosed space of this level couldn’t really measure up to anything from the last level in scale. The starting room was designed pretty cool, really liked the look of it.

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP05: Insatanit

glBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 2 pistol start, no saves

 

Frustration continues, though there's much less the brunt of it on skill 2.

I tried to go into that SSG/chaingunner/hellknight room a few times and dying before later learning the room was optional.

A mentioned, that red key door locks you in but the misaligned texture shows you the secret way out, which was scary to fall down but ended up being mostly cleared by me earlier.

 

I always wonder how they get these fake 3d bridges working without issue, it seems like so many ways they can go wrong and not lift/lower in time. But they always seem to work and I enjoy them.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Snikle]

46 minutes ago, DuckReconMajor said:

 

I always wonder how they get these fake 3d bridges working without issue, it seems like so many ways they can go wrong and not lift/lower in time. But they always seem to work and I enjoy them.

 

There is one spot later in the WAD where the bridges are a little fucky, but I gave it a pass because it has like four or five of them on top of each other.

[rehelekretep]

map05 fda

this just feels like a straight rng-fest. with foreknowledge sure its probably a cake-walk. maps like that arent my cup of tea.

[galileo31dos01]

21 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

map04 is the highlight: like a nasty little puzzle box. demo should be quite entertaining

 

Lol I liked that moment where you stood for seconds looking at the mega. Out of curiosity do you record on default complevel?

 

2 hours ago, DuckReconMajor said:

I always wonder how they get these fake 3d bridges working without issue, it seems like so many ways they can go wrong and not lift/lower in time. But they always seem to work and I enjoy them.

 

They can render buggy if you don't double check in the editor and playtesting when something breaks or not. When I tested my first 3d bridges following a tutorial, I noticed how they can screw up easily with drawing lines somewhere else after the bridge is designed, because there's a step in the process that needs to be done very carefully and probably at the end of the map to avoid issues, and not every nodebuilder is okay with it. Anyways, cases where I've seen them "breaking" are Bloodspeed map 08, because there're gaps between fake floors the player can get stuck into, and in KSutra map 20 I remember watching a streamer fall inside the bridge, probably for the same misstep as in the Bloodspeed map. 

 

On multiplayer you can screw your partners :P

[rehelekretep]

recording on complevel -1 so i can use saves.

[DuckReconMajor]

3 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

map05 fda

this just feels like a straight rng-fest. with foreknowledge sure its probably a cake-walk. maps like that arent my cup of tea.

 

2 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

recording on complevel -1 so i can use saves.

 

Holy crap I'm watching now and you're actually saving and loading mid-demo. Has this been possible all along? Just on complevel -1?

Great demo so far btw.

[rehelekretep]

1 hour ago, DuckReconMajor said:

 

 

Holy crap I'm watching now and you're actually saving and loading mid-demo. Has this been possible all along? Just on complevel -1?

Great demo so far btw.

you can record on complevel 9, 11, -1 as far as i know

i believe it was added to the demo format with boom

 

just to add some info: you save as normal. if you want to re-load, you quit game and then restart the recording. im assuming it only works if you have overwrite demos set to 'on'

Edited April 5, 2020 by rehelekretep

[galileo31dos01]

Map 05

 

Now this qualifies as filler content in my eyes, which still isn't to say it packs anything of interest but also nothing we haven't seen before as pure combat ideas. The volume of sergeants increased and this is the only factor hard to dismiss when you have beef with shotgunners in general. Feragen keeps the peanut butter brown and I don't complain at all, I'm very on board with Roofi's comments on the simplistic colour scheme. The lighting details are decent enough, the pentagram is neat, yeah good little visuals. What is MacDonald's part though? Hard to tell, everything has the Feragen etiquette, or perhaps Derek drew the base and Jonas polished it, who knows.

 

Hell knights and barons in confined rooms, checked. Health shortage, checked. Something fleshy guarding a small door, checked. Oppressive-as-hell hitscanners, of course checked. For a map this short I didn't mind the armor scarcity for the first half. It doesn't add much of value when you finally find one, unless the surprise chaingunners get a taste of your blood. It was fun to pump a couple rockets on their faces. There's also that secret shortcut which I found cute, it's not usual to find hidden paths that are empty but useful regardless. 

 

Gonna rest points on two aspects of the map: why you make us grind two hell knights first without SSG so we can get it in peace? and then what's the point of the chaingunners in the exit room? I don't get the idea of these two, they delay progression (not the first time in the mapset, nor the last time) while you rub the SSG/Exit button into my face? I disagree! >:o

 

Anyways, I got a bit lucky with low burst damage there. No big deal again as it's a brief map after all. 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by galileo31dos01

[plums]

6 hours ago, DuckReconMajor said:

 

 

Holy crap I'm watching now and you're actually saving and loading mid-demo. Has this been possible all along? Just on complevel -1?

Great demo so far btw.

 

Full saving and loading is possible on complevel -1. (You can't quickload for some reason but you can quicksave, and load through the menu.) On cl9 and probably cl11, you can do it but it's a bit more work, details in a post I made a while ago here:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1294283

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by plums

[Horus]

That complevel -1 trick is really useful to know, thanks!

 

MAP06 - “Revival” by Mike Watson

 

I thought I might have to restart this one on pistol start because I left the last map on 4% health, but actually I was fine. This map may have a different author but it’s still very much on the congestion theme, and the hell noble dickery continues. Even with the health disadvantage, the extra weapons from continuous play really helped here. The secrets are pretty overpowered, a mean a soulsphere, megaarmor and megasphere on the same small map. And you have to have already cleared out the hardest parts of the map to reach them.

 

Thematically this is a weird mix of techbase and boxy rock and marble, doesn’t fit terribly well together and isn’t much to look at either. Probably the worst map so far.

[Snikle]

MAP06 - Revival

Hello Cyberdemon, goodbye Cyberdemon, not gonna stick around for the time it takes to kill you with rockets and the SSG. Megasphere’s not worth it, not with the other symmetrical secrets around it. Who designs a symmetrical map with the secrets being symmetrical too? Not that I’m complaining really, although I never wound up grabbing the blue amor there because I had just picked up the non-secret blue armor right beforehand. The starting/ending area with all those imps was fun, I love pumping shells and rockets into big groups of those fucks. Nothing too visually exiting here, although I did like the long northern room with the rocket launcher and the cyber-ass.