What is Romero's absolute best map if you could only pick one?

[David Asaad]

The entire sigil.

[HQDefault]

I think it's a testament to how much people like Romero's levels that even though the title says "if you could only pick one" and so many people can't seem to do that.

 

Now I'm curious to know if there's any particular Romero map that people DON'T like.

 

(I'm predicting someone will say Industrial Zone but that one is honestly one of my favorite Doom 2 maps)

[Yandere_Doomer]

E5M5 is one of them, i get a creepy vibe from this one (music helps ) and pretty much the rest of sigil

Edited October 14, 2020 by Deathclaw886

[Maximum Matt]

49 minutes ago, HQDefault said:

Now I'm curious to know if there's any particular Romero map that people DON'T like.

Tenements

[Starduster]

For me - either Doom E4M6 or Doom 2 map29. Sigil has some nice levels as well, but not any favorites of mine.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Starduster

[Egg Boy]

Probably E4M6 on most days, and E4M2 on others.

[HAK3180]

2 hours ago, HQDefault said:

Now I'm curious to know if there's any particular Romero map that people DON'T like.

 

(I'm predicting someone will say Industrial Zone but that one is honestly one of my favorite Doom 2 maps)

 

I say Industrial Zone, but not to answer your question, but the OP's. It's easily my favorite Doom 2 map and easily one of my top 3 iwad maps.

[Shredosaurus]

I can't remember a time that I didn't know how to play Doom. Somewhere in the mid-90s, when I was still in the single digits in age and sleeping over at a friend's house, his dad showed us Wolf 3D and Doom in a sort of conspiratorial way after the mom had gone to bed. I certainly haven't played every day or even every year since then, but I knew how to tango with monsters, how to "unf" at suspicious walls, how to reduce demons to goo ever since that session like it was instinct.

 

I've always academically understood the idea of E1M1 as a near-genius tutorial microcosm of the gameplay, but every revisit to the game since that first day (too long ago now to even be sure if it was E1 or in fact even DOOM 1 that I saw that evening) has drawn on instincts long embedded in me; E1M1 didn't feel like a smart map, it felt like the easy first level that I blast through to start getting to the meatier bits.

 

As playing through Eternal recently gave me the itch to start playing with the classics again and really get into fiddling with source ports and wads and start checking out what was going on with the scene for real for the first time (and even make an account here, first post, heeeyyyy!!), I've inevitably started to talk my new-ish s/o's ear off about the game, the dev history, the influence, all of that stuff. She occasionally plays video games, but has and makes little time for them, and almost completely sticks to the realms of comfy abstraction in platformers and puzzlers, your Supers Mario, your Babas is You, etc. But whatever combination of my jawing about Doom nonstop and spending increasing amounts of times futzing with things in source port command lines and so on made her come over this very week and say, for the first time, "I want to shoot a monster in Doom."

 

So I loaded up Ultimate Doom on a port and started her on E1. "Where do I go?" she asked, upon being greeted with that blue carpet and its ominous gory decor.

 

"Just look around," I said.

 

Other than having to tell her literally what buttons did what - she had NEVER played an FPS before - and to point out after the angular acid bridge room that "Hey, does that wall look a little different to you?" - she completed the level with 100% kills and 66% secrets. By halfway through M2, she was mowing imps down with the secret outdoor chaingun.

 

And yeah, she was playing on ITYTD, but that was her own call to start that way and she doesn't have the FPS reflexes developed, and anyway that's what the difficulty options are FOR. The point is this: I watched before my very eyes as John Romero reached out a guiding hand from the year 1993 to turn my lawyer girlfriend into a Person Who Plays Doom in the span of less than five minutes simply by way of the construction of the game's first level.

 

So yeah, E1M1 is his best map.

[Dr. Toboggan]

E1M7 is 10/10 map design, mediocre difficulty

E4M2 is mediocre map design, 10/10 difficulty

 

Sigil is 10/10 map design, 10/10 difficulty

[spineapple tea]

E4M2

[silentzorah]

E1M1: Slipgate Complex.  Wait, that's Quake.  Eh, whatever.  Still my favorite Romero map.

[Steve88]

Against thee wickedly,  e4m6 is probably my all time favorite doom level. E4m2 is a close second.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Steve88

[holaareola]

If I were make to make an objective pick, it must be E1M1 for all the reasons that previous posters have so eloquently outlined.

 

If I could only pick one for me, E4M2. I love this map. From the gameplay to the composition of the main area and how you incrementally move forward to that bright opening in the roof up ahead, it's all fantastic.

Edited October 15, 2020 by holaareola

[ZeMystic]

E1M9, E5M1, and E5M5 are my all time favorite Romero maps. E1M9 is fantastic with it's square design, a nice small hub and really funny secrets. E5M1 is amazing because of the Midi (Thanks Jimmy!) And the shootable switches that lift the platforms, aswell as the red lightning void that you can see on the outside of the secrets. E5M5 probably has the best atmosphere in all of ultimate doom, and amazing combat with the Cyberdemons.

Edited October 15, 2020 by ZeMystic

[Scuba Steve]

11 hours ago, silentzorah said:

E1M1: Slipgate Complex.  Wait, that's Quake.  Eh, whatever.  Still my favorite Romero map.

It really illustrates Romero's brilliant ability to craft levels that showcase new features and "teach" the player new skills without resorting to tutorials. Just like E1M1 in Doom, Slipgate Complex is a perfect showcase of Quake's abilities; in this one level you have shootable switches, swimming, enticing the player to jump on things, forcing you to advance by touching a switch without pressing a "use" key, a spiral ramp that showcases room over room, a plethora of secrets utilizing all of these new abilities, several new weapons... again, it's a masterclass of introductory level design.

[Jello]

John Romero's best map will always be his facemap.

 

<3

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

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