Veeda Vidlak Posted February 6, 2023 E2M5 Hey, another level I like. E2M5 picks up where E2M9 left off*, continuing the higher quality fights and map design compared to the first four. If you’re playing continuous you won’t see this map won’t have any trouble but from pistol start this one has some teeth. Angelo actually tries to kill you at the start, surrounding your suddenly not so safe starting room with windowed shotgunners. I’d recommend just running through the door immediately because killing them and camping in the beginning isn’t a viable option. You’ll run out of ammo and get hemmed in. Encouraging this aggression is a blue armor right outside, allowing you to take hits and withstand a bit of nukage burn. Definitely the best opening so far, pushing the player to get moving or get dead. Moving on, you’ll discover we’re back to the MARBWALL/techbase fusion theme but it looks better this time. The map design is more advanced, the nukage fits in well, and the techbase parts are kept to their own areas, making the aesthetics look less slapdash (it’s not high art, but it improves on the earlier maps). You’ll also discover the level is very light on health for the first half. If you get off to a bad start it’ll be a while before you can recover (a berserk pack in the tech area). Oh, unless you’re daring enough to jump into the nukage pond, which pits you against much of the enemy count but has radsuits, medkits, and a soulsphere/megaarmor secret you can get if you take out its guardian. This is good design, rewarding risk with meaningful payoff (reminds me of Romero, actually). The difficulty eases for the remainder of your stay, though there’s nothing wrong with the gameplay. There are more barons and cacos to trudge through but at this point it’s clear to me a lot of this is OG Doom’s limitations. I liked the blue tech section with the crusher, which gives you an alternative to grinding by letting you satisfyingly compress barons into paste. I also liked how you can engage (and be engaged by) the enemies in the nukage area from multiple spots on the map. Side note: said nukage room is one of the better-looking sections of the megawad so far. This is two good levels in a row and the first one I have no major complaints about (though the automap weirdness continues the random problems trend). We’re settling into a nice groove which hopefully continues. *If you idclev25... E2M5 actually gets skipped if you come in from the secret level, but hey, details 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
dististik Posted February 6, 2023 E2M6 Had a look at the monster count and was pleasently surprised to see the jump back up to the 200s. While I said e2m3 was the first map with some teeth, and that may still be true, it may have been a more apt descriptor for this map as it was the first to kill me. The mazes had me rolling my eyes going through them and while I eventually figured out the route to the teleporters, I figured I was entering the wrong one since the switch it teleports you to didn't do anything I could immediately notice and I forgot my Doom 101 course to check the back of it for actual progress. I was dreading going back in for secrets but was plesantly surprised when I found all 5 outside of it. The big damaging floor courtyard and more windy hallways was better than last map's lacklustre combat and while I talk smack on the spider demon it did appropriately punish my carelessness, being the monster that killed me. That said, with a little bit of leaning on the plasma and spacial awareness the rest of the map cleaned itself up nicely. I didn't get 100% kills since I'm sure the ones I'm missing are goobers back in the maze and y'know they can stay there and live out their lives happy and undisturbed by man. Quick aside, my biggest mapping pet peeve of putting a key right in front of the door it opens has a cameo in this map, not sure why the blue key door doesn't just open normally... 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 6, 2023 E2M6 - Another Demonic Mansion Ok, that name really sucks, but with this entry, we have definitively left techbase design and into a new abstract wonderland, mostly wood but with some areas of marble and wood as well. The structure here is easily the most interesting so far. While vaguely hub like and consisting of linear progression, the individual sections have enough complexity to them that a serious step up can be detected. The central pool is....nice, although it's once again blue poison, no lava because it's all filthy UAC propaganda. The monster count is also higher than any other map so far. Close-quarters combat is once again, everywhere, but monsters aren't just slapped down, expecting the player to know that they're behind the door. Although one might want to doorcamp if they want to not risk severe hitscan damage but this isn't Stronghold from TNT, although also viciously difficult on Nightmare due to the general crampedness of most rooms. A plus side is that other than two locations, you're never fighting more than roughly two Cacodemons at once. They're ubiquitous as ever, but other than the one area with the cage and nearby plasma rifle, things never get close to getting tedious. The so-called "3D-maze is one of the more interesting parts. It's the sort of creativity that could only have come from Doom mapping's early days, though similar efforts tended to be far more drawn out and tedious. There are two different paths that culminate in a caged area of red brick and lava. At a certain point, a Spider Mastermind will also appear in the middle! The plasma rifle is located in a location with 2 Barons that might hurt one quite badly. Not as bad as a little white area toward the last keys where we were blocked by an Imp while trying to escape and thereby toasted by a Cacodemon, forcing a rewind. The numerous lifts are kind of cool, but they do start to invite the question of gimmickry after a little bit. The main problem with this map is its almost too abstract for its own good. Less of a problem are the sections of floor in the last room that plunge down into Imp closets, which is probably slightly overdone. Still, the secrets are getting better and better, even if Angelo hasn't broken his habit of tagging middle sectors secret for no reasons. I may have been slightly miffed that the Barons escaped, but the thing is, ammo was running quite low at this point so it would probably have only been possible to kill one of them at any rate. lmd_#1kill26.zip 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
Book Lord Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) E2M7 DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves Angelo Jefferson did not beat around the bush with this E2M7, one of the biggest and longest levels he designed in his Number One Kill series. The layout was reminiscent of Tom Hall maps and consisted of three large areas branching out from a central hub, corresponding to the skull key quests. The resources provided in the first area seemed generous, consisting of a shotgun, a backpack, a chainsaw, and if you have watched the demo you know of the secret with a Blue Armour and lots of shells. The player should not rejoice too much, since that arsenal was the maximum offensive power at his disposal for most of the map. I do not mind using the basic weapons, but the chaingun should not have been delayed for so long. Once the first wave of beefy enemies and the elliptic courtyard with a damaging blood pool had been cleared, the only possible direction was to the east, as long as the player did not get soft locked in front of the yellow door. Since that trap was intended for a later stage, Angelo should have placed a yellow door on the island at the centre instead. Linedef type 76 closes the door for 30 seconds, so the player can actually get out if he knows it and waits patiently; the author tested these maps on his own and either did not notice the bug or deemed it acceptable. It was a shame, since it ruined a map that must have required a lot of work at its time. Spoiler The labyrinth with blinking lights in the eastern section was an eyesore, and I wish there were Light Amplification Goggles on UV as well, at least in a secret. It was no coincidence that the in-built demo ended in these tunnels, in front of unseen enemies. Two switches must be pressed in the dark halls, revealing enemy closets and the way to the RSK. I found the rocket launcher but no trace of its ammo, so I continued to dispense pellet bursts at everything on my way. There was a series of crushers inspired by Containment Area, including a secret that I missed, and barrels that should be blown up carefully for the mightiest effect. Spoiler The red door section began with a series of bloody fights on staircases. I was so happy with the Berserk pack that I wanted to punch everything, receiving some hits in return. I found healing in a (trapped) secret I remembered from my first playthrough. The BSK chamber featured arguably the most brutal set piece in the whole episode, a wild assortment of monsters in a small room where the escape route was devilishly blocked, circle-strafing was hindered by blood pools and steps, and instead of rockets there were bulk cells without a corresponding weapon. A carryover plasma rifle would have helped in the context, but my single segment ended here. I defeated the teleporting horde on a second attempt. Spoiler The blue skull allowed me to enter the western wing, where I finally found rockets along with many Barons to use them on, but there was a long way to the YSK glowing behind vines. The following courtyard surrounded by hitscanners and the cavern behind a lift reminded me of Bloodfalls. The invisible column with the Soul Sphere could be operated like a lift and did not count as a secret. The quest continued in a marble area, where a nasty Sergeant notified the existence of a fake wall on UV. A rising floor trap from Indiana Jones squeezed me just behind the door, as a punishment for ignoring the bloody mess on the floor. The marble shrine was one of the prettiest places in Number One Kill, and the arrow pointing at the previously mentioned fake wall, now concealing an open passageway, was suggestive. The YSK was found shortly after. Spoiler I backtracked to the hub and entered the yellow door chamber. Trying to open the locked door revealed a surrounding corridor instead, filled with monsters behind grates. A juicy BFG was gained without much hassle, as the teleporting guardians were annihilated in an eye blink. The progression here became a little obtuse, sending me back to the starting room and forcing me to return to the yellow door, easily vanquishing the horde that had repopulated the level. A spine hallway from The Spirit World ended the hostilities, and half of the secrets were behind some of its walls. E2M7 was an ambitious, almost epic map for 1997; Angelo Jefferson filled it with decent IWAD homages, original ideas, and tough encounters. Unfortunately, it overstayed its welcome, suffered from insufficient weapon variety and awkward design choices, and featured notable bugs. Deeply flawed, but still worth a play. Edited February 8, 2023 by Book Lord corrected statements about the yellow door softlock 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Helm Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) E2M7 "No further interest" Woo wee this is sure... competent! This is sure some ultimate doom stuff! This is sure some more ultimate doom, more shotgunners and cacos to single barrel and hurtfloors and crushers because that's all we can do. At least there's a BFG down the line in here to deal with the last chunk of baron and caco redeployment. I have kind of turned on this mapset and it's curious because the more narrowly functional it becomes the more dour it feels for me to seek more of it out. Obviously these feelings about vintage doom 1 pwads aren't new, but I had hoped that by staggering this particular playthrough on a daily basis I could keep it fresh for myself. It seems about 350 udoom enemies in a crusher / hurtfloor keyquest hub map is where my psyche draws a line even if I only have to play one map a day. This isn't particularly tough but I go and give my life to a crusher anyway because I'm not paying attention. The blinking lights section of the map probably killed my spirit way more than any demon could and after that full carelessness. The deterioration of my initial plan continues as I just don't feel like shotgunning everything again and just rewind out of the crusher death and carry on to complete the rest of the level. I have no pride attached in the foray anymore and when I reach the exit I don't even make a half hearted attempt to seek out a stack from the secrets or get 100% kills. In fact I shudder at the idea of pursuing 100% kills in a map like this, though there's nothing really offensive about it on the face of it. Besides of good therapist fodder for me, I think the criticism is that for this sort of vestigial kind of doom 1 gameplay I find it hard to believe any single map should have more than ~100 dudes in it. If the layout is made expressly to evoke expedient routing, if the flow is good, you can earn more numbers, but if it's just 2 zombies a shotgunner and a couple of pinkies around 40 different corners, I reach the point of no further interest in fully exploring this thing. You can literally make or break a layout such as this with 300 enemies in it by putting more barrels nearabout to where the clusters are and at least then giving the player the far more exciting prospect of taking out small squads with good barrel play. But we're not there, yet. We are in 1997. This is an interesting phenomenon for my own development, it's good to examine where the cynicism starts to seep in in response to mapping tropes of the era and where the mind comes to some sort of arresting conclusion that 1. there isn't anything much more going on in here than what I've seen so far and 2. therefore it isn't worthwhile to engage with it experientially in a very thorough manner, as if I am actually trying to survive and come out intact first and foremost. Basically, the spell that is broken is that most rarified emotion where you are playing some mapset and because it's so engrossing it feels like you're playing the only mapset that temporarily exists, and this is the only doomguy in this moment, and they either live or die here. That's a sensitive thing to capture and it takes mastery to prolong and the best of the best find profound ways to ingress in such emotions. The gradient between 'if I die in the video-game I die in real life' to 'I just need an exit' to ultimately 'I will tntem and idclip and look at nice architecture like a tourist' is a deep one and once you start slipping, sure, rewind. Sure, iddt to check everything else out. Sure, 'engage' with this as 'content' in some way, but there definitely ain't no doomguy fighting for their life in this anymore. Back to the narrower point, this is a 1997 udoom wad where a mapper went from amateur ambition to competent facelessness and as such it blends in with the broader era it belongs to rather than having a particular unique personality to it. As an experiment I wrote my writeup without refreshing on footage this time to see if I felt at all about talking about geo, encounter design or the flow of this thing just from the top. The things that have stayed in my brain are: annoying crushers, ~300 enemies to pay some attention to, narrow corridors and hurtfloor open ups, thank God for the BFG, lots of secrets on the way to somewhere that would make a rehearsed run through this place trivial. The personality of this mapset is that it wants to feel foreboding and unwelcoming and dark and scary, but the gameplay tools needed to reinforce that theme aren't there (for my playstyle and ethos at least, ymmv) and most of theme resides in crushers and hurtfloors and rote pinch ambushes. That's pretty much my high level on what this feels like. This is probably the most together map in terms of texturing and variety of theme, I guess, but once again the impact of that is that of reaching a populous aesthetic and blending in with the quality of similar work of vintage. I miss the window nonsense of map01footage Edited February 7, 2023 by Helm 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
Andromeda Posted February 7, 2023 15 hours ago, Celestin said: E2M6 A handful of enemies guarding the exit pit should not be a problem, but for some reason, some crossed the exit and teleported out to God knows where, so I missed 3 kills. They actually teleport to a room with a crusher, so if you wait a bit they should all get killed. 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
Monsieur E Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) E2M7 256/378 kills, 0/7 secrets, 17:37 This is such a trainwreck my only response is that I would unironically suggest anyone who enters this map to go "idclev 28". Let's run down some of the obnoxious "features" this map has. -> Tedious grind because of course -> Health will be kept at a premium while you have to dance with shotgunners around corners you can't predict and with heavies -> Armor is at a premium too -> The chaingun, perfect for cutting down the hordes of lowtiers that populate this map, is kept away from you for 2/3rds of the map -> The plasma ammo you are "generously" fed is irrelevant for most of the map until you get the BFG towards the end which is only of use if you really want to get all the kills. -> The stupid blinking lights have returned, now in addition to an extremely annoying maze loaded with demons and cacodemons where you have to hunt for switches. Halls of the Damned provided the player with a light amplification visor which could be used for its less claustrophobic and lower in monster density maze. (Apparently this map gives you one too, on HNTR lol) -> I was gonna mention here the yellow skull door room softlock but it seems to open after 30 seconds, corroborated by a commentator on Onemandoom's blog of the wad. Doesn't really matter since I imagine several players will be frustrated and it was irresponsible either way. -> The crusher in the marble area seems to be permanent, so if you walk back after activating it, you're stuck. -> What is the point of hiding the progression behind a fake wall that you highlight with a bright arrow on the ceiling later and if you find it on your own, it's blocked by a wall anyways. -> The monsters again teleport on teleporters they seem they shouldn't be able to use and feels awkward when they drip one by one. -> The hub is obnoxious, with a moat of damaging blood while a cloud of cacodemons and lost souls you either waste your time grinding out or run past risking them damaging you later. -> 378 enemies really? And it took me 17 minutes in game despite minimizing the grind and trying to make for the exit as soon as I could. The only worthwhile encounter in this map is the blue skull key, everything else is outright terrible. E2M7 tried to soar higher than the other maps preceding it, but unfortunately, had the greatest fall. Edited February 7, 2023 by Monsieur E 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 7, 2023 #1KILL - E2M7 Sorry Angelo, but you should definitely be sued for attempted murder on the doomworld community for making this painful blinking labyrinth. Moreover, the surprise crusher on the yellow key's path was a very bitchy move, and it don't even kill if you have too much HP! Joking aside, as some reviewers said, this level relies way too much on shotgun usage despite the high monster count. You can grab the BFG earlier than I did but I don't think it really changes the adventure because the powerful ammo mostly helping getting rid of the beefier monster faster. However, E2M7 still deserves the silver rank in this wad, behind E2M9 because it has much substance to offer and some combats were well designed for a 1997 wad. I especially have a soft spot for the brutal blue key's trap where I almost died with my poor shotgun. There are also some tiny slaughter scenarios if you unlock the blue armor's secret near the BFG I really enjoyed. I don't know if it's intended or purely coincidental , but I love all those subtle references to Iwad's maps such as the serie of crushers in which one of the them hide a secret , or the fleshy corridor leading to the exit with its fake walls. I can mention the large circular outdoors which directly makes me think of Doom's E3M7. After playing most of Angelo's maps, He seems really attached to the iwads and does not hesitate to make various tributes to iconic passages in his maps. Despite, some stupid designs I mentioned above and the usual grind, E2M7 is for me the most accomplished map in this wad whereas I still prefer E2M9. Grade : B+ 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
Celestin Posted February 7, 2023 E2M7 This is probably the most uneven map of the set. It's rather large and varied when it comes to individual areas, but also sprawling and grinding, due to a reliance on shotgun. The maps follows a linear keyhunt formula, where paths leading to each key radiate from a circular courtyard filled with poisonous blood. 2 of 3 keys require clearing out the opposition with only a pump-action and it gets stale really fast. First is the red key, where the dark, flickering maze from E2M2 makes a return. Have fun trying to kill spectres where you can't see a damn. Not everything here sucks, I like the light pillars illuminating some sections and the hallway lined with crushers was a welcomed reprieve from weapon 3. The path to blue key leads to some bland wooden corridors, the key proper is located in a marble room. When picked up, a ton of monsters teleport inside, so I recommend running back and up the nearest stairs. They don't seem to be able to walk up and there is a good chance barons will kill most of them. Up next is the yellow key. While you can finally find a chaingun and rockets are getting more common, this part contains one thing that nearly made me rage-quit: a crusher right behind a door. Guess who forgot to save and had to restart the map over... I know it was marked with a crushed corpse, but I've lost like 25 minutes and the perspective of repeating the grind was discouraging. Anyway, the yellow key was not that far away. With a full set I returned to the central arena, right when a bunch of crap started to teleport. I was well supplied with rockets, so I ran in circles to get everything to infight and blew the remaining barons up. I have to admit, the yellow door trap got me off guard - if you try to open it, walls open around, revealing enemies. There's also BFG (first in the wad) in the next room, but there isn't much to use it on, except maybe enemies in the fleshy corridor leading to the exit door. Considering previous attempts, E2M7 is an ambitious map, but I don't think it achieves what it sets out to. It would greatly benefit from different weapon placement to smooth out the more tedious elements. 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
dististik Posted February 7, 2023 E2M7 This one was alright, I guess. Over 300 monsters but an overwhelming majority of them were killed with the standard issue shotgun. Light level 0 makes a return but somehow not as bad as e2m2 and the map gives you a relatively early rocket launcher but then doesn't give you rockets for another 20 minutes to the point where once I had ammo I forgot I had it and was still shotgunning barons and pistoling cacos. Unsurprisingly, the chaingun speeds things up significantly and the BFG near the end was fun to use on the large amount of teleporting-in enemies. When I first saw the structure in the middle of the main courtyard I expected the walls to drop down with a cyber behind it but we can't all get what we want, I suppose. Speaking of those teleporting in enemies, after the main lot of them filed into place I had a real struggle getting the last four or so out. Thankfully I was able to widdle that number down to 2 but there's a caco and a shotgunner in the first teleport trap that absolutely did not want to join the festivities; the latter wasn't even alerted at all to the point where I opened the editor to check if maybe he was accidentally flagged as ambush and nope, he just gained a will of his own this session. Good on him, but that means 100% kills was once again a miss for me. 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
Ralgor Posted February 7, 2023 E2M7 Angelo went all out for the penultimate level of this episode. It's large, with more than 350 monsters on UV. This map continues the increase in the author's skill of mapmaking. The textures here seemed better chosen. There are a couple fights that stand out. The first is the blue key fight. I was expecting a trap, but I wasn't expecting a trap of this magnitude. It was, up to this point, the most fun I've had with this mapset. Imps, cacodemons, pinkies, and even a baron all teleport in to the room after you grab the key. Some of them will try to block your escape, but if you're quick you can escape and deal with the horde at your leisure. The next one is the finale fight. A swarm of monsters teleport in after you hit the final switch to open the hallway to the exit. This fight was really fun, since at this point you should have the BFG9000. It felt pretty cathartic to go crazy with it on all of the monsters after not having it all episode. This map has a few flaws as well. The first, most minor one is the fake wall that is required for progression in the green area with two doors. A bright arrow will point the way once you hit the switch that opens the door behind the fake wall. The fake wall is pretty pointless, other than to try to surprise you with a shotgunner. In that same area, going through the door will drop a crusher on your head. If you're trying to peek around the corner like I was, it will end your run right there. In my case, it didn't even kill me, but I still had to reload. It felt like the author just wanted to make sure you died at least once on this map. It was mean and unnecessary. Another very minor flaw is that the timed-close door to the final area is repeatable. You can teleport out, but it's annoying when you're trying to clean up the final monsters in the map during the finale. If you enter without the yellow key, you have to wait until it opens again before you can leave. The final flaw is just the dark wooden tunnels in the east. It seemed worse this time, due to the nature of the blinking these sectors use. It is completely impossible to see here, even with a good monitor. It forced me to try to wake monsters and drag them back to a lit area to kill them. It slowed down the pacing and was generally boring. If I could stop there, I'd give this map a B, despite the flaws. But it has a few technical issues as well. The first one being the fact that you can soft-lock yourself in the room where the player starts. The door leaving this room is opened by a single-use switch, but the outside of the door has a regular repeating door action. So if you accidentally close the door, then you'll find out later in the level that you're stuck. I ended up just noclipping past this because I didn't know why the door had closed and wanted to just continue the level. Another issue is that the teleport closets for the initial fight in the blue water room are badly designed. Noise doesn't make it into the closet, so the monsters wake up when they "see" you. Unfortunately, if the monsters begin to in-fight for any reason, they can go back to sleep pointing the wrong direction. If that wasn't bad enough, one of the cacodemons is too big to fit over the teleport line. This makes getting 100% kills difficult. It's not impossible because you can kill the caco with rocket splash damage, but you have to save many rockets for it. It's absolutely not worth it. The final issue is the way the finale fight teleport closet is designed. The linedefs to trigger half of the fight can be hit any time you enter the blood pond room, but the monsters will be asleep and so they won't teleport out. The teleporter doors will then close. When you finally trigger the final fight, the doors will open again as you run across those same linedefs, but will still close after a short delay. It's possible you will have to run across the lines multiple times to get all of the monsters out. It could cause you to miss some of the monsters since they might not all teleport out at the proper time. The large number of flaws and bugs can't completely dampen my enjoyment of this level, thankfully. I still like E2M9 better overall, but this map has the best fight. Grade: C P.S. The auto-closing door before the yellow-key door can't soft-lock from what I can tell. If you wait next to the door for 30 seconds, you'll hear an opening sound. At that point you can use the door to open it. It's still a pretty bad experience for the player, but I managed to avoid this in my playthrough. 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) E2M7: Stygian Industrial Zone This map is almost entirely indoors, despite the presence of the skybox at several locations. It's also easily the most complex map design-wise so far, although not without its share of oddities for instance, the red key door located not far from the start, which is probably kind of useless but probably makes a sort of sense if you're drawing what effectively are structures series of red lines, or the Supercharge which appears to be floating in the middle of a certain caged area that could've put an end to me if I'd been more careless. Maybe it's supposed to be an outdoor light of sorts but it's thematically enough out of place, it's really hard to be sure. Doubt it's some sort of sacred location though. Anyways, despite the monster count approaching 400, this never approaches Hell Revealed amounts of slaughter, except in a few locations and you've still got enough room to move that the comparison is minimally applicable at best. Though this proves to be something of a hot start where it seems like we've been captured by the demons who somehow failed to take our pistol away. But enemy threats are never really overwhelming and while it certainly gets grindy in sports, there are usually a fair few ways to alleviate that, for instance, taking every opportunity we can to chainsaw the Cacodemons, although if there are other monsters nearby, that may be ill-advised. The large and damaging blood lake with the shed in the middle that might be a Limbo homage does have quite a few Lost Souls and not a pittance of Cacodemons but it honestly wasn't that bad. Thinning their ranks until it's easier to dodge indoors might be the best move. Although whatever you do, DON'T head down the YK hallway because despite the promise of no bugs, it's impossible to return if we head down prematurely, which naturally, was something we did. How we spaced it out when having read about it a couple of times by now is probably best not dwelled on. Anyways, this hodgepodge of literally or almost literally every kind of hell area has you going back and forth, side to side and pretty much every other direction on the quest to progress. The largest challenge might come from the blue key room which certainly has the feeling of something designed for continuous play and actually is the only area where things get positively Hell Revealed-ish. Retreating backwards in the face of the demonic fury here is actually strongly advised here. There also some serious combat with half a dozen Barons and several Cacodemons back in the Limbo pool, though if one actually pushes on the unusual bar leading to the BFG room, the supplies and enemies within can actually be accessed, and it's possible to cut seriously on the grinding, which is something we did not do. Little wonder then, after teleporting back to the start of the room and rocketing the holy hell of large packs of weak monsters that there wasn't even enough rockets for three of the Barons. The secrets are almost getting better. There are many walls one can probably tell are transparent because enemies walk in and out of them. Which doesn't explain why there's a hidden door in an area of marble that actually blocks the way to a critical door until you've gone through the door over here and hit the switch at the other end. And of course, there's the E2M2 homage in the crusher hallway which people who've played shores of hell a lot will quite likely recognize. Speaking of which, the 'surprise' crusher seemed obvious because of the low height of the ceiling there. This map is.....kind of there, I suppose. I don't really like grindy maps so much and this one really wasn't that bad, but monster counts are supposedly quite a bit higher in the the Next Generation, so we'll have to see about that and if most places continue taking a turn for the abstract. If this map has a major flaw, it's how the sense of place either completely departs from it in certain places or how some areas such as those of wood look incredibly generic or how the IWAD homages are even more meh than usual. All the same, this probably proves around 3rd or 4th best. A strong accomplishment with a solid sense of clever traps that don't necessarily go over that well because Doom 1 monsters just have only so many uses. lmd_#1kill27.zip Edited February 8, 2023 by LadyMistDragon stupid typo 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Veeda Vidlak Posted February 8, 2023 E2M6 Speaking of trying to kill the player. While the starting room (two secrets this time!) might prime the player towards another MARBWALL sortie, you’ll soon find this level to be nothing like what has come before. Jefferson’s ambitions (and the monster count) rise yet again in our 6th entry in the (regular) map list, which brings with it both new successes and new concerns. Upon leaving the beginning you’ll come upon a familiar hitscanner party and an unfamiliar wood and red brick framework. This isn’t the first architectural change of pace, Angelo mixes up the textures in this outing and while much of it works, some of it really doesn’t, which we'll see shortly. After clearing this area out enter the red brick room to trigger three lifts that lower, revealing cacos and alerting hitscanners up top. Take them out to proceed to the most contentious part of the map, if not the whole megawad thus far, the maze. This section is a GRAY 3-tier labyrinth filled with monsters, ambushes, lifts, and blue torches that allow fighting but block progress. You can go up any of the initial three lifts, though the right one won’t get you far, and must determine the order of operations to get through while shotgunners, imps, demons, and cacos harass you in all sorts of ways. After figuring that out, you’ll come across a multitiered red/cage walkway area of sniping enemies and three teleporters spread amongst the three tiers. They all take you to the same area (the center of the opening wood room) which I’ll get to in a moment. Ok, so, taking into account when this level was made, I’d describe this entire section as “galaxy-brain” map design. The intricacy is impressive, the lifts and monster closets are implemented well, and the tension derived from fearing getting blindsided is very real. But… it isn’t fun to play. Working your way through is awful (to say the least of needing to do it again, which can happen) and the runtime balloons from all the lift waiting. The area also looks wonky. The gray walls clash with the rest of the level theme and the torches stick out even worse (the red walkways with the cages look good though). Finally, getting all the kills here is miserable. There is a closet of two shotgunners that you will miss unless you go out of your way to open it (requires activating a linedef in the red brick area by blue torches then backtracking) and there are two cacos that chill down in the lava that are an utter pain in the ass to take out. I have to count myself among the maze’s detractors because despite being diligently made, I disliked traversing it every time. Anyway, once past this part the level is quite strong. Taking one of the teleporters puts you in an enclosed box and hitting the switch reveals a plasma, hundreds of cells, three barons, and several lost souls and cacos. While this is a great fight, make sure that before you hop off the platform you hit the switch behind the one you just used, else you will need to go through the maze again (weak). Also, the area opened up (by the back switch) has the blue door with the key sitting right in front of it. Tossing a five-yard penalty flag for that. The rest of the map consists of surprisingly perilous combat, involving cramped quarters, well-positioned ambushes, and a memorable spider mastermind. Notable examples include the cacos and imp closets opened after getting the red key, the Waste Tunnel like imp drops, and the group of chaff enemies that block your retreat from the spiderdemon. If you have a weak weapon out for this last one you can actually die, as the big girl’s chaingun will shred you if you can’t get out of her sightline. The ending doesn't make any sense though. It's a handful of imps and two barons that get whisked away (and crushed) if they cross a certain linedef. Maybe they had a plane to catch or something. I gotta say I’m… impressed. Despite the maze being rather horrid to play, its still worthy of respect and the level as a whole is both solidly designed and quite dangerous. These last few levels have been pleasant surprises after the expectation cratering maps E2M1-E2M3. Again, I’d rather a mapmaker try new things than maintain a baseline of safe and boring and I’m willing to put up with some aggravation in the meantime. E2M7 Ugh. … Well, that “willing to put up with some aggravation” was put to the test here with an arduous behemoth that absolutely did not gel with me. This level can be properly split into five sections. The start, which ends with a shotgun grind at the map’s hub (a large, bloody lake with a bunch of cacos and lost souls). The red key section, which is hopefully the worst thing I see this week. The blue key section, which is a passable dungeon crawl that ends in another grindfest (quite dangerous if you don’t bail fast enough). The yellow key section, which has some neat looking areas but nothing notable combatwise. And finally, the ending, which is a BFG rampage that is easily my favorite part of the map. I’m not really up for narrating a playthrough or anything like that for this one. I will list some lowlights. 1. Having to wait 30 seconds for the wall that lowers as you approach the yellow door to rise again (yes, this isn’t actually a softlock, just a waste of time). 2. Having to cheat for real with idbeholdl in the red key area because the godawful flashing maze was giving me a genuine headache. 3. The fight for the blue key looking like it was going to be a banger but then I discovered those two bulk cells that implied a plasma romp were just a cocktease. You have to grind all this meat with berserk and shotgun. 4. Having to awkwardly kill a caco that failed to teleport into the water room with the chaingun (there’s a narrow angle you can hit him at). 5. Wandering around after the final BFG slaughter waiting for the last few enemies to trickle in. It’s worth mentioning that this list doesn’t include things like the crusher on the way to the yellow key or the softlock with the door in the first room that were sore points for other reviewers. Also, despite the higher monster count, the combat feels like a step down from E2M6. At no point did I feel particularly threatened here, with its most dangerous moments being gotchas like the crusher or cheap shots in the maze. The blue key fight could be deadly, but I’d always just run off and kill everything from the stairs, which they can’t really cross. This litany of problems is a shame because the map has a strong, ambitious design and some proto-slaughter fights like the BFG parade. Unfortunately, in practice this level was the worst experience since Elixir from last month, largely because of the migraine maze. If I ignore that entire section and just look at the rest of the level, I’d put it in the upper half, but with the same criticisms as prior levels (too much discordance in texture themes, too much grindiness, too many random mechanical/level design oddities that should have been caught in testing). Hopefully the final level is a good one, ending this episode on a high note before The Next Generation. 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Book Lord Posted February 8, 2023 E2M8 DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves The starting room with a full stock of weapons and ammo informed that the endgame battle was near. At least this time pistol starting was not a problem, and I quite enjoyed being afforded some real firepower. I dared the imposing marble temple in front of me and enjoyed the slaughter. The first Cyberdemon disintegrated all the lower hellspawn that came in his way and confronted me in the withered garden outside. Dodging rockets was quite tense with those irksome trees, but the best was yet to come. Spoiler The temple was one of the nicest visuals Number One Kill had to offer. It cannot hold a candle to anything contemporary mappers can do, but for 1997 it was grand, a sumptuous hall built by some badass demons. Two keys must be collected to proceed: even when unnecessary, Jefferson wanted the player to follow a linear path, first to the east to collect the BSK, then to the west to find the YSK. If the intermediate rooms felt superfluous, both key chambers featured interesting gameplay situations. The Imps shooting from behind the MARBFACE texture, hinting at a secret, distracted me quite a bit while I was shooting down the Cacodemons. Moreover, the Baron that teleported right behind me when the closets opened caught me completely off-guard, and he delivered a crushing melee blow. Spoiler The YSK was guarded by a Spider Mastermind in some kind of monster museum. The Partial Invisibility helped me avoid the boss hitscan attack, which would have been deadly in a coverless space where I could only instigate infighting and shoot plasma to stun the spider. I liked the herd of Pinkies that invaded the hall after picking up the key. The shady staircase behind the locked doors was not so exciting, though it built up tension for the finale. The RSK part contained some awkward elements: a switch revealed a room with an inescapable damaging pit full of Pinkies and Cacodemons, but instead of going there I was supposed to turn back and check a signposted closet that had opened and contained the RSK. Nothing wrong with it, but I could have done without a stupid death in the pit. The double secret here was either clever or plain stupid; I did not find it anyway. Spoiler The last confrontation took place on a terrace shaped like the series’ trademark arrow, borrowed from Star Trek: it featured a second Cyberdemon, a couple of Barons, and Lost Souls behind the player, blocking the path to the ammo stashes. It would be trivial if there were no invisible columns, stopping both the Cyberdemon’s and Doomguy’s attacks, with high risk of splash damage if using rockets. Not a commendable expedient, but it shook up the Cyberdemon boss fight routine. In my opinion, the finale was a solid map. Spoiler 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
Book Lord Posted February 8, 2023 (edited) Regarding 8 hours ago, Ralgor said: P.S. The auto-closing door before the yellow-key door can't soft-lock from what I can tell. If you wait next to the door for 30 seconds, you'll hear an opening sound. At that point you can use the door to open it. It's still a pretty bad experience for the player, but I managed to avoid this in my playthrough. Thanks Ralgor and everybody else that went deeper into E2M7 soft lock problem. I remember reading the Onemandoom.com comment and then realising that it was a 30 seconds door, a trick that ours truly happened to like a lot, but I completely forgot my knowledge (did I really know it, then?). I checked the map in Doom Builder 2 and the description of the Linedef type 76 did not mention the 30 s, though it still said it should "Open" after closing. It doesn't cancel the problem by any means, but at least it cannot be called a soft lock. I suspect Jefferson considered it an acceptable map feature, even though he could have avoided the problem by changing only a few things. 14 hours ago, Monsieur E said: -> What is the point of hiding the progression behind a fake wall that you highlight with a bright arrow on the ceiling later and if you find it on your own, it's blocked by a wall anyways. On UV, everybody knows of the fake wall because there's that pesky Shotgunner to shoot you in the back. Lower difficulties do not have monsters behind that wall and you are unlikely to notice it. To my mind, the arrow was a nice expedient to show the way in that context, and it might count as the reward of the abstract ritual that you have performed by pressing the switch on the WOODGARG altar with pulsating hearts. I found it a decent piece of Doom storytelling, but I can see how playing this map on pistol start for the first time would result in being largely irritated by it. I played it on continuous the first time, and found it annoying; I replayed it on pistol start for the DWMC, I knew what to expect, and still it was a drag. It is a shame, because with a little more experience from the author and a few tweaks it could have been a really good vintage map. Remember that today is the occasion to play Number One Kill Extra, the E3M1 replacement that was published on the same day as Number One Kill. It is a short map that bridges the gap between Angelo's apprenticeship with Ultimate Doom and his violent outburst in The Next Generation. To avoid a triple post, I will place my review here and come back later with the final thoughts. E3M1 – Number One Kill “Extra” DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves Angelo Jefferson released this single-level PWAD on the same day as his full episode replacement Number One Kill, advertising it as a level “with the same quality as #1kill”. This compact but action-packed E3M1 resumed the action where the previous episode ended, showing progress in both the visual construction and the encounter design. Pistol start was the only way to play this map and the ammo balance was tight, forcing the player to abuse infighting at every opportunity, to conserve rockets for the sturdiest opponents, and to not be wasteful in general. Spoiler The beginning was quite threatening with the sheer number of snipers out of the window and the trio of Cacodemons approaching from the distance. For some reason, they could not enter the building, but killing them right away depleted almost all my shells. With such a limited supply, breaking into the next room required an aggressive attitude; I also lured the Demons out and lost them behind fast doors. The mass of enemies on the upper level could be thinned out with the help of barrels, but there was still a Baron of Hell to use the shotgun on. The wings led to the BK and to the chaingun, while the central door presented an inviting rocket launcher, obviously protected by a large Pinky closet. If there was something lacking from this map it was a Berserk Pack, or at least a chainsaw. Spoiler The key-operated switch opened a path to the outside, blocked by a dozen of monsters. The small buildings hosted a squad of Sergeant sharpshooters, a Baron duo, the RK, and a non-secret Combat Armour. The second key opened another room full of monsters to kill, but it was only the second-last ambush before the exit. The Extra map instantiated the steps forward made by the author during his Ultimate Doom endeavours and could only bode well for The Next Generation. Edited February 8, 2023 by Book Lord 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Monsieur E Posted February 8, 2023 (edited) E2M8 125/141 kills, 0/4 secrets, 6:54 Fortunately, #1kill sticks its landing. This map loads you with a large supply of resources and suitably packs the opposition in clusters. The first room in the castle was has you dueling against a cyberdemon and a couple of weaker enemies including a cloud of cacodemons. It's an enjoyable encounter which I liked to play aggressively trying to hose him down with the plasma rifle. The flanks harboring the blue and yellow key were alright, standard combat that was enjoyable simply because we weren't held back in regards to heavy weaponry and ammo, particularly the spiderdemon room where it was fun to try to get her to infight and to rocket down the small herd of pinkies that are revealed later. The dark staircase segment was a mess though, it's repetitive and the infinite height of the cacodemon placed before the segment with the red skull key was nasty to handle if you accidentally fell in while the cacodemon was floating further up. And the teleporter being blocked by a bunch of infinitely tall monsters was obnoxious and rather unnecessary when it only served to confuse progression. The final encounter was alright, another cyber duel with his baron teammates and lost soul support, along with conjuring hell magic to summon random invisible blocks you or the enemies can get stuck on. It was a weird decision to add them but was more silly than annoying. --#1 Kill Extra E3M1 126/135 kills, 0/0 secrets, 5:36 The improvement arc continues! #1Kill Extra is honestly my favorite map of the set; it's just good, clean, and relatively fast paced fun. Enemies are often placed in clusters which you can exploit using the rocket launcher and the modest rocket count provided early on. The ammo count here felt well calibrated, not too excessive nor deficient. I also like the segment with the outdoors as it was a nice change of pace. Honestly, it's hard to go in too much specifics when my draw to this map was that it felt the best optimized combat wise and lacked the tedium of the prior maps in 1kill.Overall Thoughts 1Kill has ups and downs; but ultimately I think it suffers from being a udoom pwad, thereby lacking the dynamics introduced in doom2, making the meat of its gameplay dull, tedious or both. The maps looked alright and had some interesting concepts, but also some terrible ideas that reasonably are attempted less often nowadays. I think this wad is best played continuous. But for what it's worth, I enjoyed #1kill as a piece of doom history and it had some good moments sprinkled throughout and the maps generally improved from the first map to the last, so I have hopes that 1Kill TNG with the added doom2 benefits, continue this upward trend. I'll just rank the maps than do a top 5 since there are only ten maps or so. Spoiler E3M1 E2M5 E2M8 E2M6 E2M1 E2M3 E2M4 E2M2 E2M7 (also the hardest) Edited February 8, 2023 by Monsieur E 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Helm Posted February 8, 2023 E2M8 "Wait, what?" I decided to pistol start the last one, and how fortuitous I get everything in the starting room. So much for the courageous marine that makes it here slowly stacking from map01. I guess I do tell a lie... you could have come here with a BFG continuous and that makes enough of a difference. The opening imp forest is already more themed and cool looking that most of what we've seen before and then it narrows up to a proper cyber arena where the prudent thing would be to cause infighting. Already we're dealing with more complex problems and more crafty solutions, so I'm having fun! I'm glad I made it at least to the end so I can see that a couple of more explosive fights can redeem the mood of this set, for me. Starting with proper equipment already helps the pace immensely. We enter the imposing, actually beautifully crafted marble pillared room that serves as the fairly good cyber showdown room (besides the torch Things, honestly). Confident if not a bit conservative, though the windows that allow you to clear some fodder in the branching paths beforehand are a welcome addition. The room branches of to a false choice as only one side is accessible for key 1 with fairly normal encounters culminating in a demon room with a Bruiser Brother teleport ambush (knew they'd show up again) and then side 2 for the other key where you meet a cybermomma and caged monsters. I elected to sort her from a distance with plasma. In there there is a secondary pinky horde that shows an actual desire to murder you, for which my solution was to find a good corner sector and cheese away. The path back with both keys converges to the dead cyber arena, and it's time to push towards the map's endgame. The symmetry creates some expectation and you get to revisit the place where the hub pulls together. The kinds of encounters we've experienced on this map so far are varied in layout, monster makeup, with the big boys making a showing and complicating things in a good way. This is by far the more entertaining map in the set, and a nice challenge to not die to hurt floor or crusher to. I suppose the secret map comes second after this one. This is, whoever, where the map shows the various deficiencies of all prior maps in one culminating twisting hallway that is 1. narrow 2. very dark 3. needlessly complicated by malfunctioning doom machinery 4. has a grindy, repetitive caco encounter to slow it down and most crucially and importantly 5. is obscure in telegraphing what it wants you to do. As a vibe it's interesting, and I like the partitioned doors, but as a method to switch up the pace and feel of the ending of this map set I am not sure it works. The energy of the playthrough is diminished, but the damage is not fatal, it just throws that vital, I guess to the mapper, note of bewildering confusion to an otherwise linear challenge map. Anyway, after an eternity the caco floor rises and we sort out the fodder to be shown to the final arena, replete with another cyber, the last pair of barons and additional fodder, of which the combination of lost soul and invisible boundary gets me strangely instagibbed... As I set to get my cyber to infight with the barons, I bump into invisible barriers, right next to a lost soul, and catch a rocket and instasplat. I rewind from there and nervously try to clear the room to engage with whatever invisible doom oddity I was bouncing into but the map ends after the cyber dies and I don't get a proper chance to investigate. I was playing in -cl3 and with -nomusic no further parameters, so who knows what's going on there, eager to read the other play reports after I submit this. This is almost great! It needed some playtesting and some more sharpening and especially that final arena, if it's a common bug and not just for me, that's a bad way to end a set. I did enjoy this one more though and it kind of brought some more confidence back in me that I can still enjoy some udoom if there's guns and cybers and interesting layouts in there, at least. As we move onwards with the investigation of the body of work of our mapper, I can only extend time-traveller hopes that they go and focus on these higher tier encounter designs and change ups of fun fights in fun layouts for the sequel and they discard some of the terse legacy of hurtfloor perimeter crawl, twisty little maze with passages all alike, and broken myst puzzle. I would be totally down for working and correctly telegraphed myst puzzle, though. I also wonder how life would be like if you could take one of those standard issue shotguns and somehow tie two or two and a half of them together and perhaps it fires a bit more slowly but it does like 3 times the damage and more close up spread. It'd be a cool gun, perhaps I have to make a mod or smth footage 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Doomy__Doom Posted February 8, 2023 17 minutes ago, Helm said: especially that final arena, if it's a common bug and not just for me There are 5 untextured square pillars 128 units tall in that final room. 4 are 128x128 and the one you got stuck on is 64x64. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Helm Posted February 8, 2023 Just now, Doomy__Doom said: There are 5 untextured square pillars 128 units tall in that final room. 4 are 128x128 and the one you got stuck on is 64x64. A good answer but there is another, harder question, which is 'why?' 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Andromeda Posted February 8, 2023 17 hours ago, dististik said: Thankfully I was able to widdle that number down to 2 but there's a caco and a shotgunner in the first teleport trap that absolutely did not want to join the festivities; the latter wasn't even alerted at all to the point where I opened the editor to check if maybe he was accidentally flagged as ambush and nope, he just gained a will of his own this session. Good on him, but that means 100% kills was once again a miss for me. If it's the sergeant that I'm thinking of, he can only see you once you hug the walls in the northeast of the room. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Ralgor Posted February 8, 2023 (edited) E2M8 I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one. It's broken and bad. The one bright spot in this map is the first fight in the great hall with the cyberdemon. That was fun. If the level ended right there I'd have given it a B. It really should have ended right there. On UV, killing the spider mastermind on the west side ends the level early. I can't imagine that was intentional. And you don't have to kill it yourself, a horde of pinkies will helpfully do it for you. So you not only have to not kill it, but you have to save its life if you want to complete the level. It took me several tries to figure out that I was going to have to actively protect the thing. (Side-note after writing this post but before posting it: I'm not sure if this is a bug in dsda-doom or what. The other play reports posted so far don't seem to list this as a problem. I'm going to look into this a bit more at some point and may edit my post later if need be.) (I suddenly realized that the problem with the above is that I initially played the level on cl2 without realizing it. I had changed my Doom Runner profile to cl3, but not until later. This is one of the few behavioral differences between cl2 and cl3 and I didn't realize it at all until after I had written this. Woops. I'm not going to straight up delete what I had here before just in case someone already saw it.) The arena for the final cyberdemon has several invisible pillars in it. This makes it difficult to dodge rockets. I managed somehow to kill the cyberdemon the first try, but it was a very close call. This is just a terrible idea for a cyberdemon fight. Since you can't kill both the spider mastermind and the final cyberdemon, 100% kills on this map is utterly impossible, even with cheats. Thanks, I hate it. This brings down my opinion of the entire episode. Grade: D E3M1 This map was released separately at the same time as the previous episode. I was a bit worried it would be a map that was cut from there, and due to the uneven quality of that episode I was dreading this map a bit. The initial hot start up through the next room is pretty fun, but after that it gets a little boring. The map is very straightforward to navigate, so there's nothing to distract you from the grind. There's nothing after the first room that felt particularly threatening. You do get a rocket launcher and chaingun here, but not enough ammo to use them indiscriminately. Most of the map has you just using the single barrel shotgun on everything. The texture-work is pretty good here. The map looks better than most of the maps in the previous set. Overall, I'd say it would be an average map for the previous set, mostly due to the lack of any technical issues and better texture-work. Grade: C #1 Kill & #1 Kill Extra Summary Overall, the Doom 1 maps of #1 Kill are very uneven in quality and filled with technical issues. I chalk this up to a new mapper still learning and from using old janky map editors. There is definitely a noticeable level of improvement between the initial maps and the final ones, especially in texture-work. At the same time the increased level of complexity in the later maps seems to cause more technical issues to slip through, which mars the experience. One of the biggest problems with this map set is that it's way too stingy with higher level weapons. It gets pretty grindy at times because of this. Playing with pistol-starts definitely makes this worse. Other than the grindiness, I didn't find pistol-starting these maps to be that big of a problem. I didn't have any problems running out of ammo or finding anything too hard to complete. In fact I didn't find this map set to be particularly difficult overall. Favorite map: E2M9 Most disliked map: E2M4 Edited February 8, 2023 by Ralgor 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 8, 2023 (edited) E2M8: In the Belly of Beelzebub This map is about as linear as a final map probably should be. It also features easily the best visuals of the wad so far. From the semi-circular blue-key chamber, gazing out at a courtyard we'd better not miss, to the opening courtyard filled with trees, to that ever-so-impressive chapel with the first Cyberdemon, containing columns that a decently-close inspection will reveal some serious care and effort was made in their construction. Anyways, this proves to be a banger front-to-back. It was definitely wise for Angelo to do more than a simple boss arena because he could then go all out on a number of concepts without stretching them out too much. Despite the presence of a few small rooms/hallways of white connecting other areas, there's still a monster or two that should probably keep us on our toes. Highlight would include the aforementioned chapel fight, the combat around the blue key, and the showdown with the General. Unfortunately, killing her ended the map for me a few seconds after she was killed, making a blursphere....necessary? Really too bad, because this was easily the 2nd best map so far and I really wanted to see if the rest of the map largely met the promise of the rest. Unfortunately, this was because I played on complevel 2. Probably a good thing though, because that invisible barrier near the last Cyberdemon sounds like all kinds of BS. Final Thoughts. #1Kill is interesting in the sense that it forecasts both more difficult Doom wads later and still showcases many 90s tropes. Overly-large rooms can be occasionally found, oddities like the lift maze of E2M6 (which is quite modest compared to similar locations in other wads, mind) and room/hall/room structure tends to predominate to such a degree that combined with Doom 1 monster limitations, will probably prove tiresome to most modern players. At the same time, the various attempts at raising the difficulty above the average of Doom wads at the time are largely successful. Comparisons to Hell Revealed are probably a little bit overstated, though this seems to have actually came out after that former wad. Rather, this is dependent on high-density monster combat that nevertheless isn't amateurish room-stuffing like early slaughter wads, some modern stuff, and dare I say it, Hell Revealed (there are plenty of reasons why that has aged poorly). Yes, there will be a fair amount of shotgunning Cacodemons and Barons, especially if we are playing from pistol-start. But to be quite fair, there are other wads (again, Hell Revealed, I'm sorry to be beating on some guys that have been gone from doom from close to a quarter of a century, but honestly, they might agree:D) that are even worst in that regard. #1Kill's strongest quality may be that these sections rarely or never go on for too long. That's admittedly a subjective quality, but those who have played other slaughter-lite wads can probably understand what I'm trying to get at. Visually speaking, it's fair to say that the personality could be a bit lacking. A sort of hell theme with techbase elements scattered throughout and the presence of several different themes in E2M7 fail to change that overall impression. Belly of Beelzebub was probably the only map (and probably Deimos Waste Management accidentally mostly) where there were signs of something more intriguing. Otherwise, there are largely promising maps mixed in with more stereotypically 90s stuff (latter being E2M3 and E2M5). Overall, I liked this one. It was difficult to say if any of the maps were ever actively bad (other than E2M2) but every map either had something approaching interesting ideas or (much less so in the last half) a sense of place that almost, though not quite, made up for it somehow. Having a higher-than-average tolerance for 90s wads certainly didn't hurt either. #1Kill Extra UAC Outpost There's...really not much to say here? Just further refinement of what has come before so far makes this better than all but two of the maps in Number One Kill. Visually speaking, there's certainly more attempt at making something that doesn't lean too much of monotony. Despite a careless lack of anything but shotgun shells in the second half, it's definitely possible to minimize the amount of time grinded before that. And this map does try to get at us from the jump. A Baron practically at the beginning, along with a smattering of shotgunners and Imps, along with a Caco or two certainly prioritize moving with the general initial lack of ammo. Although the final pair of claustrophobic traps turns downright Hell Revealed, and that feels like something that'll never go away entirely. The Lost Souls hanging out of the window to the right of the exit are laughably helpless though, and feel a touch pointless since there won't be much time for any of them to float through. Flow is utterly fantastic for the most part, although there might a somewhat-empty area or two. It's very possible to miss the rocket launcher, although using it on the pinkies and spectres here is probably not advised because of the overall paucity of rockets. They are probably best utilized at the entrance to the the half-baked outdoor area with around 4 Cacos or so initially. This will curve around to a tiny outpost with a couple of Barons of Hell below some structure which has demon faces on it for whatever reason. Feels like a makeshift detention facility of sorts. The shotgunners nearby do have the numbers to mess us up though. It wasn't really too bad though. And the ending was sufficiently intense if nothing else. I'm not that impressed with this map, although it does seem like The Next Generation might be something with more consistent quality at the least and perhaps a more consistent level of intensity not seen so much in Number One Kill. lmd_#1kill28.zip lmd_#1killx.zip Edited February 8, 2023 by LadyMistDragon adding how i played e2m8 on complevel 2 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Celestin Posted February 8, 2023 E2M8 I think the wad ends on a high note, though not without flaws. The starting room gives you a full set of guns minus BFG and down below is what I assume to be some sort of park and an entrance to the main attraction: another stronghold filled with monsters. I like this section, as imps tend to blend with the trees, making an otherwise trivial arena more engaging. Once inside, I was greeted by a marble hall staffed by a bunch of monsters and a cyberdemon. You all know how it does: run around, get everything infighting and finish of the rest. To progress further, two keys are needed. The blue path leads to a cramped room with barons and cacodemons that are best melted with plasma. The yellow one culminates in what I assume is a monster jail guarded by a mastermind. Hope you have cells left, because picking the yellow key releases a horde of pinkies, which nearly killed me. The next section is not the best, a dark staircase which probably exists only to tick off stair builder from "mapping tools I need to learn" list. It feels copy-pasted and cacodemons slow down the pace greatly. The final, red key is on top, a nearby switch lifts a pinky-infested platform, allowing to enter the final arena. The final challenge of #1 Kill is a fusion of final maps of both Knee-deep in the Dead and The Shores of Hell: a star-shaped arena with two barons, a cyberdemon and lost souls. It would be a piece of cake, if it wasn't for some weird invisible walls, but in the end the final boss was defeated. So. #1 Kill felt like a journey with a novice mapper, who, as the wad progresses, gets better and better at creating Doom maps. While it is a wholesome story about self-improvement, I don't think I will return to this map set. It is, after all, a set of rookie maps from the 90's and let's just say it's not my thing. There is only so much you can do with the Ultimate Doom iwad. I am however intrigued to play the sequel, as I want to see how Jefferson used the extended enemy set of Doom 2. Best map: E2M9 Worst map: E2M2 E3M1 A bonus map of some sort, E3M1 throws the player into a techbase, which somehow made its way into Hell. The visuals set it apart from the rest of #1 Kill, but the combat is the real star here. Sure, it's still shotgun-heavy (there isn't much ammo for chaingun and rocket launcher), but Jefferson throws much more enemies at once than in the base episode. This makes the combat feel much more dynamic than the slow corridor crawl of previous levels. If that's how The Next Generation is going to play, with larger enemy roster to spice up the combat and super shotgun to reduce tedium, I'm all for it. 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
Helm Posted February 8, 2023 E3M1 I went ahead and tried this one as well and I quite liked it. It's more streamlined than the rest, still very shotgun shotgun but at least there's no obvious confusions with the layout, I believe the lack of secrets actually helps a lot with the flow. It was not just painless but kind of enjoyable. I am beginning to sense an incline from this point onwards that gives me hope for the rest. This isn't anything insane, but it's not hugely dated either which means it hews closer to some fundamental principles that still make this sort of stuff fun to play. If for the further wad this same sense of momentum is retained and more interesting vistas or machinery is introduced it might balance out towards a recommendation. Looking forward to an SSG, as mentioned. footage 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 8, 2023 #KILL - E2M8 And here it is. The boss map with its menacing stock soundtrack. This time, Angelo got more ambitious than ID software team by proposing several boss fights and a tad of exploration. This map also benefits of fancier aesthetics with grand halls, luxurious red carpets and more decorated windows. About the first cybie fight, patient players will me awarded with effortless infighting to trigger between the floak of cacodemos and the cyberdemon. Once the cybie cleaned the room for yourself , achieve him from the outside courtyard with your brand new arsenal you obtained at the very starting room ! Very cheesable fight for sure , but your mission isn't done yet. The Mastermind from E2M9 and E2M6 decided to take her revenge in the most pityful way. As the previous boss, camp at the entrance door and use your shotgun if you don't feel comfortable wasting your most precious ammo for those unoptimizedly placed monsters. However, the small army of pinkies which get released once you approach the yellow key may kill the intepridous players. At last , after you crossed the endless stairs sequences and waited for the rising floor in order to reach the last teleporter, the ultimate fight gets more tougher because... of some strange kind invisible impassable linedefs/sectors which can block your movements by surprise. I honestly didn't dare to look for the goodies located in the corners of the arena and I preferred to defeat the final boss with my weakest weapons in safety instead. It's not the best E2M8 I have ever played , but it's a solid work from a mapper which doesn't stop upgrade his mapping skills. Grade : B #KILL - E3M1 And the bonus map , which features the classy hellish red sky. We return to the happy shotgun fights to crown the ultimate doom series. However, Angelo decided to be way stingier with ammo than usual so that you have to prioritize your kills, exploit the infights, explosive barrels and advance with caution if you don't want to lose health such as snow under sun. The RL's ambush can be extremly nasty if you're not the kind of person which flee miles away each time he picks a suspiciously placed item. The pinkies has sometimes the gift to stuck you in the most atrocious way when you're under armed. Nothing special to note about the rest since the level ressembles as an introduction map for a hypotetical harder episode for Ultimate Doom but I'm happy Angelo eventually decided to switch to the Doom II's features. The last thing to note is how Angelo improved the aesthetics, especially the detailing which got more precise and sharp. The textures beautifully shines with the dark red sky. It's without doubt the prettiest level in the whole Ultimate Doom opus. Grade : B+ Short thoughts about the Ultimate Doom #KILL opus Let's be brutally honest. Angelo's Ultimate Doom maps didn't age well in terms of way to create difficulty. Maybe, it was releveant 25 years ago when the average doomer was still struggling killing barons but now it just consists to mindless shotgunning which quickly gets tiresome. I played many 90's maps which had a lot more pronunced weapons variety despite not being as challenging. Now , besides the grindiness, it's a solid work which never gets disappointing because the levels never stopped getting more substantial as long as you progress. I always felt that Angelo was constantly improving. Most of my favourite maps are located in the later slots whereas the most unnotable ones mostly figure among the first ones. About the aesthetics, it unfortunately doesn't match the Iwad standards to me. The maps are more abstract and simple and lack of personnality.They have no gimmick or iconic passages to make them really memorable (example: the fake exit in E2M6 of Ultimate Doom). Anyway, I can say #KILL ranks above the 90's standards in this field because the layouts don't resemble to a distorted child drawing such as many many amateur maps from that decade. #KILL however demonstrates that the shovelware stuff from the 90's , despite being dull compared to the modern standards , doesn't necessarly resemble to a a mindless mess as Benjogami caricatured it in his own way in "Down the Drain". Making decent-looking levels in the 90's wasn't an impossible task. As a shovelware enthusiasts, the grade I will to this wad will probably be higher than it actually deserves. I will give a B. It's dull and dated, but perfectly playable and not so demanding in terms of combats and progression. I could describe this episode as a low-budget version of Doom. My three favourite maps 1) E2M9 - A great caslte map with ton of space and an accentued sense of adventure 2) E2M7 - The longest and possibly hardest map in the set. It has some cool traps and entertaining small slaughter scenarios with the BFG. 3) E3M1 - The most visually advanced map in the set. It shows how much the mapper has progressed. My three most disliked maps 1) E2M2 - The sections in the darkness were irritating. 2) E3M3 - This level is way too short ! 3) E2M1 - It's the first map. Fun and punchy but not very convincing as an opener. 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
dististik Posted February 8, 2023 A quick aside before my post for today, I'm going to have to fall just a pinch behind the rest of the pack since at least during the week I can only really fit in one map before I have to head to work. That said, I can easily fit in two this weekend so I'll use that time to catch up. Additionally, I'm going to save my final thoughts on #1 Kill for after I beat e3m1 tomorrow. 5 hours ago, Andromeda said: If it's the sergeant that I'm thinking of, he can only see you once you hug the walls in the northeast of the room. Ahhh, darn. I'll have to try a bit harder to get him to come out next time haha. E2M8 This one was good! Still a bit rough around the edges in some places but you can sort of see the natural progression in Angelo's mapping throughout the WAD, putting e2m9 after this one, which I think is pretty neat. Giving all of the weapons at the start and an additional plasma gun in case you missed the first in a secret while showering the player in ammo would typically make me laugh at how much I have left over at the end but I feel it's fitting to inspire that high speed action I feel like this map was going for. The first cyberdemon fight and the spider mastermind fights were fun to let loose an endless stream of plasma without feeling like I was wasting ammo and it feels like combat in general this time around was a lot more centered around the rocket launcher which I find significantly more fun to hold down the trigger while using against the shotgun so I'll happily take it. The only really big complaint I have is the final arena has weird invisible walls? that I got caught on a lot which when there's a cyberdemon in the same room can be a bit (a lot) annoying, not to mention the times I didn't know I was standing behind one with the rocket launcher and ended up doing his job for him. Ended up just extremely carefully baiting the cyber into killing his pals, lost souls notwithstanding, then found a relatively safe loop to run in circles around him dumping plasma on him until the hard-coded boss exit triggered. One more map in Ultimate Doom then onwards to Doom II! No intermission screen at the end of episodes in Doom 1 so this will do for my final results tally. 8 Quote Share this post Link to post
Book Lord Posted February 8, 2023 (edited) Final Thoughts on Number One Kill We have just played through the first amateurish work by Angelo Jefferson, a guy that shared the same fate of many others in the 90s: he tried Doom and got hooked, played the hell out of the official game, and wanted to kill more demons to his liking. When he put his hands on an editor and became aware of the online idgames archive, he felt compelled to create his own “franchise” starting with Number One Kill, a full Episode 2 replacement that aimed at challenging gameplay, elaborating on the experience of Thy Flesh Consumed and Doom II. More of a trip down the mapper’s evolution than a fully-fledged Ultimate Doom experience, the megaWAD began with unassuming maps choosing marble as the primary texture, a typical expedient for beginners. Tech-base textures require a precise alignment for a good visual result, and I remember having the same problems when trying to use poor old WADED in 1997. Except for the weird E2M2 with its zero brightness sectors and Pinky abuse, the first chunk of bite-sized maps was breezy enough to flow smoothly. The secret exit to the imposing "castle map" E2M9 was not only hidden in an insane way, but also improperly placed on E2M4; maybe the author did not know that the destination after the secret map was hard-coded, or he considered the E2M5 skip as part of the secret level bonus for continuous players. I was impressed by the creativity of E2M6, which contained an infamous “spaghetti factory™” maze but was positively crazy in its arrangement. The E2M8 finale was well-paced and better than most Cyberdemon boss levels that I have played. Since I have already completed Number One Kill on UV-fast continuous, I replayed it on normal UV but on pistol start, with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything). My memories were quite accurate, and I navigated the maps with no need of reloading, but the length and harshness of E2M7 eventually got me. Except for that specific case, the levels were approachable on a pistol start, with ammo never being a concern as promised by Jefferson, at least if shotgun gameplay was accepted as the bread and butter. Some levels would have benefited from additional weapon variety, as exemplified by E2M6, E2M8 and E2M9. A tad repetitive with its texture patterns and naive use of lighting, the focus of Number One Kill was the combat, which was better than what is typically found in PWADs from 1997. Still, the progress in layout complexity and ambition was constant throughout the episode, culminating in the later maps and in the “Extra” E3M1, which acted as a prequel for The Next Generation. Despite the minor fame that the Doom II megaWAD gained among speedrunners, this episode had been largely neglected by the community, with E2M2 being the prime suspect for early refusal, and E2M7 being more than what a casual player could chew. Continuous play surely relieves the pain on that slot, and after trying pistol start it is my recommended way to enjoy Number One Kill. This is an optional though instructive introduction to the punchy gameplay pursued by Angelo Jefferson, fully expressed in his following, more substantial mapping effort. Best maps: E2M9 E2M6 E2M8 E3M1 – Number One Kill “Extra” Special mention map: E2M7 Edited February 8, 2023 by Book Lord 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
Ralgor Posted February 9, 2023 (edited) Just a heads up... apparently "#1 Kill: Next Generation" actually has THREE secret levels. It's just that one of them is part of MAP01. So MAP01 actually contains two levels, with two different exit switches. I'm going to write about them separately later. Quote Levels: 20 +three secret(one map consist of two levels) Edited February 9, 2023 by Ralgor 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Veeda Vidlak Posted February 9, 2023 E2M8 Hooray, a good finale! Presented as an assault on a hellish command center (with the usual #1Kill techbase elements), E2M8 ends the wad about as well as one could ask for. No switch hunting. No icon of sin (thank you ultimate doom). Just two boss fights and some side work that wraps up in under ten minutes. You start out fully stacked with all the non BFG weapons and a ton of ammunition, then jump down into a gnarled courtyard with imps and sniping cacos. Take them out then head inside for boss fight #1, the better of the two. Here you have an immense marble hall with giant pillars, a big red carpet, and a cyberdemon backed by a sizeable army of imps, cacos, and hitscanners. Do whatever you want here! It’s fun! After this you have two quick forays to grab the blue and yellow keys. Neither path is challenging but the yellow key one ends with a satisfying spidermastermind encounter followed by wiping out a horde of pinkies. Another good time. The level weakens after this, leading you on a bothersome dungeon crawl up dark, cramped stairways laced with time sink cacodemons. At the top you have a red key switch and a pit that’s a deathtrap if you don’t hit the (switch behind the) red key switch first. Making this worse is that the red key is behind an obvious out-of-place wall that doesn’t open immediately. You have to leave the room and come back, which in the meantime can trick the player into thinking they should jump into the pit first. A bit rude if you ask me, and to add insult to injury, the floor takes a comically long time to rise up. Now we reach the final fight which… has a problem. It’s a rooftop rumble against a cyberdemon, barons, and lost souls that references both Phobos Anomaly and Tower of Babel. That’s not the issue, nor is ammunition (you get cells and rockets to kill them however you like). Rather, there are invisible (untextured) pillars studding the crown-shaped rooftop, which block both movement and projectiles. This is lame. If you aren’t careful (I’d recommend checking the automap), your run will end in some asinine fashion like getting nuked while strafing into a force field. Getting killed this way will surely sour one’s opinion of this map and Jefferson should have noticed this in testing (unless this was done intentionally, which would be irresponsibly mean-spirited). Personally, I’d recommend sticking close to the arrow, which keeps you away from all the chicanery. Final thoughts Number 1 Kill’s finale couldn’t be a more appropriate ending to this wad. Jefferson’s improvements in gameplay and visuals are on full display yet the experience was hindered by a couple oddities. This is the primary detrimental theme of the wad, consistent yet ever diverse. Every level seemed to have one or more eccentricities that added unnecessary negativity to my playthroughs. It’s a very 90s nuisance that would be eliminated with more modern playtesting and while it was aggravating at times, I find it kind of charming in retrospect. Maps were quirky, flawed, yet showed steady improvement, culminating in a satisfying final level and a great secret one. I gotta say I’m looking forward to The Next Generation to see what Jefferson has in store for us. Favorite map: E2M9 Not a surprise, E2M9 is close to a universal pick among club members and for good reason. It’s large, impressive, well-designed, and has interesting combat scenarios. Softlock aside, this one lacks problems and is the most complete level of #1Kill. Least favorite map: E2M7 Any map with a section that makes me want to take an Advil is going straight in my doghouse. Its other traits are kind of irrelevant at that point, but a more consistently weak level would be E2M2. Lets move on to TNG… Err, wait, before we do. #1Kill Extra (E3M1) First, we have this standalone level, still using ultimate doom and released after #1Kill. Unsurprisingly, it’s a more mature outing, lacking in random issues and showcasing more focused combat. Right off the bat you're under fire and need to get moving out of the tunnel your in or risk getting pinned. This room is open to projectiles from all over the outer area so run through the door and leave these guys for later. The next section is the deadliest part of the map, with lots of movement restricting enemies on the lower floor, a baron guarding the stairs who can be quite tricky to slip by, and shotgunners draining your health from the balcony and lower windows. It is deceptively easy to die here, as with no armor there are a lot of ways to get killed. Getting picked off by hitscan, being caught in a stray barrel explosion, or taking a finishing blow from something capable of dealing 60+ while trying to squeeze by them. After this you have a series of dedicated encounters, along with clearing out the beginning room and surrounding walls. First is a (technically optional) pinky swarm, then three fights against a baron(s) and its entourage, triggered by the blue and red switches or guarding the red key. The red key area has a shotgunner hut you really want to take care of first, as clearing it out nets a blue armor that will trivialize any remaining combat. You’ll also want to keep an eye on the playing area during the red and blue switch ambushes lest you get cordoned off by pinkies. If this level has a weakness, its that the combat, while more developed, is still generally grindy. The pinky ambush at the rocket launcher is particularly bad, as with no berserk, chainsaw, or extra rockets you are forced to shotgun all 16 of them. After that you have 10-13 rockets, which is enough to smoke exactly one of the three baron laden encounters you have remaining (I’d recommend the third one, its the most compact). For the rest, its single shotgun time, along with whatever remains of the 150 or so bullets you get in this level total. Also, there's a collection of pointless lost souls outside the window near the exit. They can't reach you so they only serve to annoyingly screech about, practically begging doomguy to shut them up. Solid map, and the higher emphasis on fights is a positive sign. Certainly a damn sight better than Hell Keep, that’s for sure. 7 Quote Share this post Link to post
Ralgor Posted February 9, 2023 DSDA-Doom v0.25.6, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/saves, complevel 2 MAP01 - "Entryway" As I mentioned in my earlier post, this map actually contains two "levels". I'm going to write about each separately. I don't really think this was a great idea. Many wads have a MAP33 that is only accessible by using idclev or equivalent. I guess Angelo didn't realize he could do that. MAP01A - "Entryway" A simple opener for a megawad. Unfortunately, we're limited to just the shotgun and pistol here, which makes me sad considering we just played 10 Ultimate Doom levels previous to this. We don't even get a chaingun! The shotgun is hidden in the first room as well. That's all you get in this level. I'm really ready for an SSG. The level is mostly filled with Doom 1 monsters, though we do meet our first Pain Elemental and Hell Knight here. The appearance of those Doom 2 monsters is really the only thing that makes this level a Doom 2 level. There is one of those split doors like we saw in E2M1. I liked this one a little better since we don't need to go through it multiple times. There's also a similar outdoor secret with a soulsphere, also very much like that same map. This secret is much easier to find though, and has a mega-armor in it. Overall this map is similar in quality to the last maps of the Ultimate doom levels. I enjoyed this for what it was. Quick and simple, like a MAP01 should be. If you plan on moving on to the secret level in this map, I recommend saving the secrets so you can go into the secret level with 200 health and armor. Grade: C MAP01B - "Entryway Secret" Oh boy, I think we're getting a taste of what "#1 Kill: The Next Generation" is really about here. To get to this secret level, you have to know that there's a shootable wall in the secret room in the hallway before the first exit switch. The only hint you get is what is displayed on the automap. That unlocks the SSG (finally!), which is guarded by a mancubus. Behind that is the teleporter to the secret level. This area is MUCH more difficult than the "real" MAP01. I'm honestly not sure why the author thought doing this a good idea. It will be obvious from the stats screen that you missed something. People could get the hint from the text file, but it's not included in the zip. Make sure you're done with the main level before you go in, since you won't be able to return until you're done with the whole thing. This secret level has four arch-viles, and they are well placed to cause you misery. They always have some sort of vanguard with them, so killing them before they zap you can be a challenge. There is good placement of enemies here in general. The difficulty is higher than anything we've seen from Angelo previously. The SSG is the only provided weapon with enough ammo and damage to kill everything. You do get a berserk pack and a rocket launcher, but you don't get enough rockets to use the latter on anything but very high priority targets like the arch-viles. This makes it a bit grindy, especially trying to kill the two arch-viles in the final trap. They will resurrect things you already killed, so you really have to prioritize them. I found the first fight with the arch-vile to be the hardest fight in this level. Once I get past that I made it to the end without dying. There's a megasphere toward the end that will be useful for continuous players, but is mostly too late to help pistol-starters. I really liked the transparent cages with the two hell knights and one arch-vile. It let you know what you were going to be in for later. The arch-vile can also resurrect enemies through walls if you kill something too close to his cage. At the end, you end up going through a teleporter that takes you back to the original level's exit switch. If this is what we have to look forward to later on, then I'm pretty excited for this wad. It's hard, but not too hard. Grade: B 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
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