i played hell revealed for the the first time the other day and am kind of obsessed with it

[OliveTree]

ive been tinkering away at a mod that does some shenanigans to the doom arsenal for a while now, just for personal private use.

 

I was curious to see how it fared in a mapset I was unfamiliar with and that likely was very particular and unforgiving and finely tuned with its ammo/monster placements, and Hell Revealed always kind of had that reputation to me: that it was made by people who were very experienced w/ the Doom gameplay loop but also willing to do weird, experimental, untested and unaccommodating kinds of stuff with their encounters. Other than that, I had gleaned that it was "ugly" and "hard" and also "iconic", and that its sequel, Hell Revealed II, is more akin to a full on slaughter kind of experience, which wasn't so much what I wanted to test.

 

That was seriously the primary animating reason for me playing Hell Revealed, just a test run for this weapons mod. I'm pleased to report that the mod handled Hell Revealed pretty well, honestly. But more to the point: Hell Revealed kind of rocks ??

 

I don't think I've ever felt as energized about the concept of Doom mapping than I do right now after playing Hell Revealed. I've played and fallen in love with a lot of mapsets in the last year or so (like Autophagy, Syringe, Arrokoth, etc...), and in a general sort of way, those mapsets have certainly inspired me. I'm sure you could find traits of theirs in my recent map, Gibbous Node. But something about Hell Revealed was seriously like, a profoundly reaffirming experience for me.

 

For one: I'm kind of blown away by how some people call these maps "ugly"?

 

 

I was regularly pausing to admire these maps for their use of depth, contrast, readability and experimentation! I can see how when compared to absolutely transformative showstoppers like the sumptuously awe-inspiring Ancient Aliens, Hell Revealed can come up short. But these maps are nice to look at! And they respect what, to me, is really gorgeous about Doom 2, being the ability to make maps visually look like just a collection of drawn lines, shapes with flat faces, geometry....but to make way for the convergence of those elements to create something beautiful and visually exciting. I think Hell Revealed has a kind of math-y purity to its visuals, but its not low effort at all. There's a very mature level of variation and clarity in these maps, with a lot of attention paid to spectacle, legibility and fun! Sure it's not always highly tuned or highly decorated (although I'd wager they use enemies themselves as decorations to great effect), but Hell Revealed carries its own kind of exquisite aesthetic that, to me, is what I always respond to most when playing Doom 2 maps.

 

This helped to create a mapset that earnestly felt like a singular cohesive adventure, with crests and slopes of intensity and speed. It felt like I had been somewhere? I find many recent Doom maps sand the edges a bit, and don't allow or encourage the player to wander through shared spaces enough to latch onto them. But these maps had such a true sense of place, to me. I've spoken before about my love for certain Doom maps that are often bemoaned for being confusing or clunky. The riddling process of exploring Unholy Cathedral's various setpieces, and the spindly, overlapping weirdness of navigating The Chasm are genuinely some of my most cherished Doom mapping experiences. Hell Revealed was completely chock full of exactly the sorts of experiences I love and was just now referring to. I adored teasing out the titular Path in MAP16 and the similar maze two maps later in MAP18: Hard Attack, puzzling over the proper sequence of actions in MAP26: Afterlife and MAP14: City in the Clouds, and exploring the dense arenas of MAP24: Post Mortem and MAP28: Top Hell. These maps are as satisfying to explore as they are to fight through, offering well balanced brainteasers and unique, memorable environments.

 

The combat itself is also very fun in my opinion, but admittedly Im sure I'm not the best to talk about it given I played this mapset with a pretty drastically gameplay-affecting mod. I suspect my weapon mod actually made the combat slightly harder in some aspects (I went through and replayed MAP30 without the mod out of curiosity and it was like, transformative how much easier it was. also, fuck that map in general, by the way ksjdfksdjfksd), but it also allowed me to rely on strategies that literally don't exist in the base game. In any case, what I responded to most was just the experimentation on display. There's a lot of aggressive and ruthless encounters but equally so a lot of encounters feel...inquisitive? Like, the mappers really said "genuinely what would happen if I just put 6 archviles behind this door, is that a viable encounter?" and more often than not (for me) it was! I felt tested but I also felt like a test subject, and in that specific, infectious, "Dungeon master scribbling on graph paper" way that I've mused about before when talking about Doom 2. There was a genuine thrill and feeling of accomplishment to beating a lot of these maps, to me, and the scrappiness of a lot of the fights added to that. I felt connected to the mappers, in a way; I felt like I was answering a dare made by a real, other person, invested in seeing my reaction to their Tricks and Traps.

 

I guess this is all to say: I was surprised by how much Hell Revealed lived up to (and even surpassed, for me) its reputation. I just want to talk about it so much, I want to see other people talk about it! It's a feeling I've had before, in some senses (I've definitely wanted to commiserate about certain Megawads, including most of the one's I've named in this thread), but Hell Revealed, it has such a vibrancy to it that gave me a feeling genuinely very different than I was ready to feel. I want to make...so many Doom maps. I want to apply some of these thoughts, but more importantly, man I just want to experiment. I want to have fun. And I have been! And I suppose that feeling, as it applies to my experience with this megawad, comes more from the creativity, camaraderie and trickery than from the pure artistic prowess on display, or whatever. But I loved my time with these maps. Hell Revealed made me feel properly, actually inspired.

Edited April 7, 2024 by OliveTree
restored image links

[Kwisior]

My first playthrough of HR (UV, pistol start, saves) was fucking miserable. Did you play continuous or did the mod miraculously make it 10x more fun?

Then again, maybe you just have some eccentric taste.

[volleyvalley]

3 minutes ago, Kwisior said:

My first playthrough of HR (UV, pistol start, saves) was fucking miserable. Did you play continuous or did the mod miraculously make it 10x more fun?

Then again, maybe you just have some eccentric taste.

What exactly made the experience miserable for you? 

[DeafPixel]

Oh huh, its cool to see a unique take on Hell Revealled. Personally, im in the camp that finds it ugly and poorly-aged, but it definitely has merits. I think you definitely chose a lot of the most visually striking maps to take screenshots of. I do enjoy some of the sky boxes in Hell Revealed (I don't know why, maybe its just because I like the colour red). City in the Clouds is definitely interestingly surreal in a way Doom 2's default city maps dont quite accomplish. Afterlife is a genuinely incredible level on an aesthetic and gameplay level in my opinion, and Post Mortem isn't my favourite take on its concept but I enjoy it nonetheless. I'd describe Hell Revealed as an extremely mixed bag, but it has highlights (I mainly decided to skip the maps I didn't think I'd like.)

The combat is definitely less polished than modern WADs, but while I could do without SSGing barons of hell, there is definitely an interesting quality to the "siege" based type of combat in Hell Revealed that feels a lot more freeform than modern Arena-based approaches. I don't fully agree with you, but your take is interesting regardless

[OliveTree]

1 hour ago, Kwisior said:

My first playthrough of HR (UV, pistol start, saves) was fucking miserable. Did you play continuous or did the mod miraculously make it 10x more fun?

I played continuous! Whether the mod made it more fun is also a very real question. I will probably attempt a replay without the mod someday.

 

When I play Doom mapsets, my general playstyle is to play it continuous but manually loading each map I die on (so I "restart" that map with just a pistol). For Hell Revealed I didn't bother because being able to use the full arsenal was literally the entire reason I was playing, initially. That said, I ran out of ammo almost completely at the end of nearly every map in the second half skdjfksfjsdk. I can't say if thats normal or an aspect of my mod, specifically. Maybe one of you guys have some insight into that.

 

1 hour ago, Kwisior said:

Then again, maybe you just have some eccentric taste.

I definitely have eccentric taste lol, in Doom maps and in all other things.

 

54 minutes ago, DeafPixel said:

I think you definitely chose a lot of the most visually striking maps to take screenshots of.

This is an interesting comment to me. I spawned into basically every map and took a shit ton of screenshots for this exercise. Here are a few that didn't end up in the OP, for instance:

 

 

I wasn't trying to choose the most broadly nice looking screenshots I just wanted to limit it to a smallish number so the thread wouldn't have TONS of these screencaps in it. I personally think each map is kind of striking (in the manner I laid out in the OP) but I definitely see how some are more, I guess, traditionally pretty. Still I just enjoy this sort of very abstract, geometric aesthetic, and again, in terms of legibility, negative/positive space, sightlines, etc, I think these maps are all nice to look at.

 

1 hour ago, DeafPixel said:

while I could do without SSGing barons of hell, there is definitely an interesting quality to the "siege" based type of combat in Hell Revealed that feels a lot more freeform than modern Arena-based approaches

Yeah. Personally, I am honestly surprised by the degree to which "too many barons" is a common critique of these maps. I was personally never tired of them, but I also didn't mind single-shotgunning barons in Sigil so I might just be built that way. I was exhausted by the high cyberdemon count in some of these maps. There isnt usually a novel or interesting way of fighting them so it's just tedious to me. The later maps tend to have tons of them and it's kind of like, a chore?

[volleyvalley]

Pretty much every level in Hell Revealed has simplistic, but rock solid and sometimes straight up striking visuals, so I don't get @DeafPixel's comment about that.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I've always found Hell Revealed to be a bit ugly in a lot of places (not hideous though, and it has plenty of good looking maps) but it certainly looks better than Hell Revealed 2. HR 1 is like a 7-8/10 for me overall, while its sequel is miserable in almost every way except for the music.

[Kwisior]

4 hours ago, volleyvalley said:

What exactly made the experience miserable for you? 

A number of the maps either has too little ammo or not enough powerful weapons to deal with everything without it getting boring.

For example the beginning of MAP13, pretty much the entire MAP14 (it doesn't even have the SSG), MAP16 where I completely ran out of ammo, MAP23 where clearing out a single room takes ages, or the grand grindfest called Afterlife (which does look good, I admit).

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it in any capacity. For instance the first 12 maps are alright, and maps 15, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28 and 32 are all very nice (the list will probably get bigger after my second playthrough).

However, these are unfortunately the shortest ones in the WAD, so most of the time I wasn't enjoying myself.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Kwisior

[Roofi]

Hell Revealed is incredibly advanced for a megawad made by only two 15 years old people with the rudimentary softwares .

 

Also it brought very memorable concepts. Even nowadays you can find some tributes to "Resistance is futile".

 

Also I think people who really dislike HR 1 are simply not fan of 90's wads in general. 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Roofi

[volleyvalley]

2 minutes ago, Kwisior said:

A number of the maps either has too little ammo or not enough powerful weapons to deal with everything without it getting boring.

For example the beginning of MAP13, pretty much the entire MAP14 (it doesn't even have the SSG), MAP16 where I completely ran out of ammo, MAP23 where clearing out a single room takes ages, or the grand grindfest called Afterlife (which does look good, I admit).

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it in any capacity. For instance the first 12 maps are alright, and maps 15, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28 and 32 are all very nice (the list will probably get bigger after my second playthrough).

However, these are unfortunately the shortest ones in the WAD, so most of the time I wasn't enjoying myself.

Yeah, I can kind of see why you are feeling that on your first time of playing Hell Revealed. This megawad definitely gets much better, if you know about the secrets, so alot of the maps benefit about foreknowledge, and then using the secret items effectively, which might or might not be your exactly your type of thing, it sure is for me.

[zokum]

The software back then wasn't that rudimentary. It's a slightly different way of mapping than what I think many people do these days. I tend to do 90% of my work in the 2D mode, and it works 90% like DETH back in the 90s. The only thing that is faster is texture alignment and judging vistas. You no longer have to node build in order to see what the overall effect looks like. You still have to start up Doom once in a while to gauge lighting properly. I would use batch files to build maps and launch doom for me. Command line can be quite efficient :) That also made it easier to see how you were doing limits-wise if you were working on big maps. I'd sometimes chain different tools like bsp and zennode in order to build the maps in more complex ways.

Some of the other editors at the time were less capable than DETH. I think I used v3.92 a fair bit if I'm not mistaken. Kim Malde used for some time a dual setup, one computer for editing and one for possibly hot reloading the compiled maps. Even if hot reloading isn't used, aligning and fixing texture errors is a lot quicker when you can play the map on one pc and edit on another. Today's solutions are better, but it wasn't the dark ages back then. The biggest difference is how good the 3d view is for most of the work and how quickly you can build and launch maps today. Back then being good at visualizing the map based on the 2d was an important skill. If you're not good at that, the tools may seem primitive.

[WaKa]

I have a love/hate relationship with Hell Revealed, so my "love" side is happy to see more people appreciating the good parts of it. I wouldn't say the wad as a whole is a looker as some maps can be kinda rough. But a few maps are fantastic, I love those pink skies and I think the massive structures help a lot in making you feel like a little ant battling a whole legion of demons.

That being said, I do recommend playing the wad again with pistol starts, because most of the maps are designed around them. Last Look at Eden, City in the Clouds, Ascending to the Stars, and Afterlife all play very differently when you have a limited arsenal. ESPECIALLY City in the Clouds where getting those weapons back is the whole gimmick. This is where Hell is truly Revealed (heh) and what makes me have that love/hate relationship. The maps can be pretty fun but also feel like a huge grind as the pacing is not as tight as it could be.

[Lila Feuer]

Classic wad, beat it twice via continuous, had no idea pistol starting was somewhat ill-advised, but maybe it'd make for a fun afterhours challenge. It isn't perfect by any means but it set a standard and I feel like the sequel missed the point most of the time.

[Gregor]

Hell Revealed is awesome. I recommend playing it on UV with pistol starts for the full-on experience. Best megawad of the 90s IMO and one the most influential map sets ever. It's the very definition of a classic. There is something raw and powerful about its level design. Like a Rammstein song. It accomplishes grandeur with very little detailing. A crude beauty that sucks you in and removes the need and desire for any eye candy. Just pure, unfiltered vanilla hardcore at its finest. Oh yeah, and the music is absolute killer.

 

My favorite maps are:

• Map 11: Underground Base - first "hard" map I ever beat on UV pistol, love the atmosphere and layout - the wooden tower room has a certain rustic majesty to it
• Map 13: Last Look at Eden - using the decino route for this one—getting into the yellow room before firing a shot—is always a fun challenge & as long as you cheese the blue key grab, the map isn't to difficult otherwise
• Map 15: Gates to Hell - The layout with the gates teleporting you to the different sections of the wheel surrounding the center room with its continuous circle strafe fight makes for an interesting level progression and lends the map a lot of character; the way to unlock the secret exit is also pretty memorable. I like how the doors between the at first separate areas open up one by one until the entire wheel surrounding the center room becomes one continuous area. And even though there are too many barons and Hell knights doing the window dressing routine, they do serve a purpose here of keeping the player from camping while they are inside the different sections of the wheel, and there's enough ammo to kill them all without a problem if you're not too wasteful.
• Map 19 Everything Dies - simple gimmick that nonetheless works to turn an otherwise unremarkable layout into a fun little challenge. This map just wants to play, it doesn't really want to hurt you.
• Map 23: Ascending to the Stars - tough but doable and not nearly as mean-spirited as its reputation if you take it slowly - that is once you made it past the slow crawl of imp slaughter at the start and survived the mad dash for the elevator with the rocket launcher on it behind the archie and its merry friends. The infamous chaingunner room you are lowered into is easy to survive if you saved the megaarmor for it - that makes the first big fight in the mancubus room with the spiderdemon a bit more challenging but as long as you keep moving smartly around the perimeter it doesn't take much skill.
• Map 24: Post Mortem - The most Hell Revealed map of them all - hard but fair with plenty of oldschool Romero vibes dialed up to eleven.
• Map 26: Afterlife - Hell Revealed's spiritual finale and perhaps its greatest accomplishment. The western arena is one of the toughest challenges of the entire wad (at least when done saveless) but the whole map just oozes atmosphere and the end is a simple, brilliant idea expertly executed.
• Map 27: Cyberpunk - I have a soft spot for this one, specifically the Cyberdemon maze. It's where I learned to master the fabled two-tapping Cyber technique.
• Map 31: The Descent - another guilty pleasure of mine. Apart from the stupid elevator fight, which I block most of the time until I reach the bottom, the map is a cinch to get through.

PS. Hell Revealed doesn't really have a sequel. The wad known as "Hell Revealed II" is by a completely different set of mappers that didn't have anything to do with the original Hell Revealed. HR 2 is also mostly trash that owes its "legacy" to its name, not its quality. It's hard and that's it. You don't need to play it. Only Yonatan Donner could make a proper Hell Revealed II and since he hasn't, Hell Revealed, just like The Plutonia Experiment, has pretenders but no true successor.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Gregor

[roadworx]

i actually really like how it looks, personally. it's not detailed and some of the color choices can be a bit odd, but ayyy it was the 90s baby! that was pretty common back then, hr1 isn't exactly unique in that regard. the mappers weren't artists, they were speedrunners who wanted a challenge :p

 

in regards to the gameplay, while the early maps do suck, some of the later stuff is actually pretty decent. you just gotta play it a certain way; you gotta figure out your routing, the secrets, and just try to get through the maps without trying to uv-max them. they still have their problems even when playing that way, for sure, but some of them are actually great when you do it that way.

 

i've started to come to terms with the fact that my tastes are rather eccentric as well (having the moellers and matthias worch being among your fav mappers of all time in 2023 is...yeah, a bit strange, i'll admit it lol), but imo hell revealed is a wad that, if you just move outside your comfort zone a bit and play a certain way, it can be great fun.

[Lila Feuer]

Yeah I don't understand the notion that it's ugly, it has an aesthetic and shockingly good atmosphere which I feel is heightened by the ROTT music, you would think it would be kind of cheesy or out of place but no HR is just classy like that, and like @Gregor said it has a lot in common with Plutonia in that it's this twisted yet beautiful work of a duo that were holding hands and bouncing good ideas off the other the whole time.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Lila Feuer

[OliveTree]

4 hours ago, WaKa said:

Last Look at Eden, City in the Clouds, Ascending to the Stars, and Afterlife all play very differently when you have a limited arsenal. ESPECIALLY City in the Clouds where getting those weapons back is the whole gimmick.

I can definitely see how those maps (esp City) would be very different with a pistol start. It's an interesting thing to try. I'm not sure I'll ever commit to replaying every map all the way through with pistol starts, but I definitely see myself trying a few choice maps, and maybe doing my typical "pistol start after death" type semi-continuous playthrough sometime (which would probably be indistinguishable from a pistol starting run after the first 10 or so maps lol)

 

1 hour ago, Gregor said:

Only Yonatan Donner could make a proper Hell Revealed II and since he hasn't, Hell Revealed, just like The Plutonia Experiment, has pretenders but no true successor.

This is something I've noticed a few other people make similar observations in this thread. It's very interesting to me. I feel like historically speaking, cultural osmosis indicated to me that HRII was smth of the more popular megawad. It's seemingly a bit more contentious than that.

 

55 minutes ago, roadworx said:

i actually really like how it looks, personally. it's not detailed and some of the color choices can be a bit odd, but ayyy it was the 90s baby! that was pretty common back then, hr1 isn't exactly unique in that regard. the mappers weren't artists, they were speedrunners who wanted a challenge :p

 

in regards to the gameplay, while the early maps do suck, some of the later stuff is actually pretty decent. you just gotta play it a certain way; you gotta figure out your routing, the secrets, and just try to get through the maps without trying to uv-max them. they still have their problems even when playing that way, for sure, but some of them are actually great when you do it that way.

 

i've started to come to terms with the fact that my tastes are rather eccentric as well (having the moellers and matthias worch being among your fav mappers of all time in 2023 is...yeah, a bit strange, i'll admit it lol), but imo hell revealed is a wad that, if you just move outside your comfort zone a bit and play a certain way, it can be great fun.

excellent thoughts all around roadworx :>

 

21 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

Yeah I don't understand the notion that it's ugly, it has an aesthetic and shockingly good atmosphere which I feel is heightened by the ROTT music, you would think it would be kind of cheesy or out of place but no HR is just classy like that, and like @Gregor said it has a lot in common with Plutonia in that it's this twisted yet beautiful work of a duo that were holding hands and bouncing good ideas off the other the whole time.

I think it's quite gentle on the eyes and I genuinely enjoyed inhabiting those spaces. The music definitely adds to that, yeah!!

[RHhe82]

I have yet to play HR beyond MAP03 - it’s always seemed to me a bit ugly mostly, but what’s worse: difficult in a tedious sense. When I watch playthroughs, it’s at MAP16 where I start thinking I have better wads to play.

 

But regarding HR2; based on watching playthroughs, it does look better to my eyes. I wonder why exactly it’s considered remarkably worse than HR1? I’m not disputing anything, but am genuinely interested…

[Grazza]

HR.WAD remains the second most important file for a Doomer to have on their hard disk. Gregor's post sums it up perfectly (though a little mention of the ultra-fun map25 could be added), so I'll just describe my first experience with HR.

 

I downloaded it from the Compuserve Action Games Forum (kind of the Doomworld of its day) a few weeks after it was released. I saw people going nuts about it (it was an upgrade from the Episode 1 release, so it didn't come totally out of the blue, but the scale of the upgrade was a bit of a shocker). I didn't have much time to play it right away, as I was about to leave the country for a couple of weeks. So when I got to the middle-of-the-mountains part of Norway I was headed for, I only had a small and clunky (though heavy) laptop to play it on. The laptop had a "nipple" mouse. At the time my mouse skills weren't so great in any case. So I was mostly just keyboarding through HR, with basically no strafing. But the maps were so awesome that I just devised ways to get through them despite these handicaps. I got up to map16 (how I survived map13 in particular, I cannot explain, and of course map11 was a bit of a problem too) before it was time to go home. I didn't see quite as much of the Norwegian scenery as I had planned, but had no regrets.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Grazza

[Lila Feuer]

1 hour ago, RHhe82 said:

But regarding HR2; based on watching playthroughs, it does look better to my eyes. I wonder why exactly it’s considered remarkably worse than HR1? I’m not disputing anything, but am genuinely interested…

Gameplay is often extremely campy, there are entirely too many monsters a lot of the time to the point it becomes boring to chisel through the hordes, and most of the remakes of classic maps from HR1 tend to play much worse than they originally did. Then there's shit like MAP28. I also ran out of ammo in MAP29. I ran out of ammo. In a slaughtermap/wad. Bruh.

You want artificial difficulty? Keep spawning Arch-viles, like a shitload of AVs, so they can aggressively revive everything you've killed in seconds so you're forced to kill them so you can then re-kill what you already shot down. Then as a mapper don't have the courtesy to reimburse the player so they start falling back on cutting things down with a chainsaw until they find more ammo. That was wild.

[roadworx]

7 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

Gameplay is often extremely campy, there are entirely too many monsters a lot of the time to the point it becomes boring to chisel through the hordes, and most of the remakes of classic maps from HR1 tend to play much worse than they originally did. Then there's shit like MAP28. I also ran out of ammo in MAP29. I ran out of ammo. In a slaughtermap/wad. Bruh.

You want artificial difficulty? Keep spawning Arch-viles, like a shitload of AVs, so they can aggressively revive everything you've killed in seconds so you're forced to kill them so you can then re-kill what you already shot down. Then as a mapper don't have the courtesy to reimburse the player so they start falling back on cutting things down with a chainsaw until they find more ammo. That was wild.

not to mention that it actively works to kill the player. i don't mean that in that it's just hard - wads like sunder, dimensions, or nochance are hard as fuck yet that's not really a problem - i mean that it is deliberately designed with the intention of killing the player as much as possible through a variety of cheap and irritating tricks that really aren't all that fun to go through, regardless of your skill. i suppose there's some skill required to do that, but honestly, even as a bit of a masochist, it just sucks ass to play. plus, a good chunk of the music being plagiarized...

 

hr1, despite its flaws, actually had a lot of interesting concepts and the combat serves its purpose well when you aren't looking to kill everything you see. hr2, on the other hand....no.

[Noiser]

This is a wholesome thread and I love it very much!

[Jayextee]

This thread has made me actually want to try HR1. Well, retry I guess; I attempted it many moons ago but probably wasn't in the right mindset -- followed by a HR2 attempt which was pretty much "nah, feels like I'll have to beat the first to be ready for this".

Maybe next, after TNT Goes Boom! which I'm playing right now.

[OliveTree]

13 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

This thread has made me actually want to try HR1. Well, retry I guess; I attempted it many moons ago but probably wasn't in the right mindset -- followed by a HR2 attempt which was pretty much "nah, feels like I'll have to beat the first to be ready for this".

Maybe next, after TNT Goes Boom! which I'm playing right now.

hopefully u enjoy it more this time if u do retry it :>

[Grain of Salt]

HR is good!!!!

 

15 hours ago, Gregor said:

HR 2 is also mostly trash that owes its "legacy" to its name, not its quality. It's hard and that's it.

 

Funnily enough, iirc in the first ever demo pack for HR2, in one of the text files the runner said something like "this is nothing like HR anyway, HR didn't have blocks of homogeneous monsters" :3

 

That said, I like both HR1 and HR2. I think they're both mixed bags, but they both have many fun maps and instances of clear innovation. They have completely different styles, and I guess a lot of people that like one are likely to dislike the other (you're not really going to get much power metal 2000s proto-slaughter in HR1, and similarly you're not going to get many plutonia-but-harder quasi-set-pieces in HR2). Both of them often have a kind of "have prior knowledge or die" approach that was common in older games (imo) but isn't very popular these days.

 

I do think that HR2 shouldn't really have been called HR2, and, like you say, only Donner and Niv could make a real sequel. I think this custom we have in the doom community of making "sequels" to things we weren't involved with is tiresome. At best it's mislabeling wads that should be seen on their own merits (HR2, Plutonia 2) and at worst it's just grabbing a popular name to artificially generate interest. If you're making a tribute wad just call it Hell Reviled or Protonia or something. Back To Salad Eggs. Eeveeternity. Tsundere.

 

Anyway here's a list of HR1 and 2 maps I like.
 

Spoiler

 

HR MAP01 Something about a gateway -- I just like this map because it's small and cute tbh.

HR MAP15 Gates to Hell -- Great layout premise imo. I like how it makes you fight a redundant amount of cybers.

HR MAP17 Black Towers -- I think this is kind of like a prototypical Kama Sutra level.

HR MAP18 Hard Attack -- Weird set pieces and rev spam, what more could you want.

HR MAP19 Everything Dies -- I really like the "series of set pieces and you don't get any health/ammo refreshments after the start" concept.

HR MAP22 Resistance is Futile -- Just a straightforward fun map. Grab the BFG, shoot stuff with it, dodge the seas of rockets and AV fire that will come your way.

HR MAP24 Post Mortem -- Kinda self-explanatory. It is post mortem, map24 of hell revealed.

HR MAP25 Dead Progressive -- Possibly my favorite HR map. I just don't like the silly things you have to do to get weapons at the start.

 

HR2 MAP01 Ignition -- Just a fun map you can play a variety of ways depending how you're feeling.

HR2 MAP04 Reluctant Pain -- Possibly the epitome of the small mean Jonas Feragen maps?

HR2 MAP09 The Siege 2 -- yeah!!!!!!!

HR2 MAP15 The Path 2 -- Again, the weapons situation at the start is a bit annoying, but I think overall this level is like a large, fun, evil pie.

HR2 MAP18 Excess Meat -- The cyberdemon set piece at the end is classic.

HR2 MAP19 Mind Trap -- Similar to map15 in how it presents a bunch of ways to go and resists being unraveled, and probably just kills you when you get to a sudden archvile appearance. The 3d bridge stack is really cool.

HR2 MAP23 When the Heavens Fall -- I think this map is pretty ugly tbh. However, gameplay wise it's pretty fun to blast through.

HR2 MAP24 The Inmost Dens 3 -- This is a weird level, but I like it. The end room kind of sums up what I don't like about 2000s hard doom maps, though. How do I beat this tough cyber arrangement? Find the secret invuln.

HR2 MAP28 Beyond The Sea -- Bizarre map tbh. Tons of opposition, no plasma weapons. But because of this it has a unique forbidding atmosphere imo. Kinda wish it wasn't so brightly lit, though.

HR2 MAP29 Hell's Cauldron -- Again, relatively uncomplicated blasting fun. With some traps that will basically kill you without prior knowledge. Oh well.

HR2 MAP32 Playground -- Try to shoot all the monsters. AVs will probably kill you. Try shooting the monsters again.

 

 

[plums]

32 minutes ago, Grain of Salt said:

I think this custom we have in the doom community of making "sequels" to things we weren't involved with is tiresome.

Ugh thisssssss. At least HR2 had the blessing of Donner & Niv. (I thought? can't seem to find anything that says that ATM.)

 

I think HR1 and HR2 both have their moments, but they're not at all similar, and neither is my favourite on the whole. But I can respect why people like them.

Except HR2 MAP28, that thing can go to hell :P

Edited October 13, 2023 by plums

[Roofi]

Hell Revealed 2 looks more like a darker edgier sequel to Requiem  due to the crampy layouts and heavy presence of 3D wizardry. Both wads are the cause of my obsession towards 3D bridges.

 

Lots of maps from the first Hell Revealed maps are extremly spacious compared to its sequel.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Roofi

[Foodles]

I played HR for the first (and to date, only) time maybe around 5 years ago now, pistol starting each level on UV without saves. Overall I really enjoyed it, several of the maps were quite challenging but not really what you would call slaughter, by today’s standards at least (I think the most enemies on a map is only something like 400). The best levels, from what I remember (like city in the clouds and afterlife) were like puzzles that you had to slowly piece together and when you finally beat it, it was very satisfying. I played through this very much with the aim of challenging and stretching myself as a player and to that end I think it was the perfect level of difficulty for me.

 

The first 9 maps or so were a little boring and it does fizzle out a little after map26 (which to me is the climax of the wad). I don’t really think too much of Hagay Niv’s offerings, not that they’re bad but the gameplay’s not as compelling as a lot of Yonatan Donner’s maps. Were they both speedrunners back in the day?

Edited October 13, 2023 by Foodles

[OliveTree]

6 hours ago, Grain of Salt said:

HR MAP01 Something about a gateway

truly a legendary opening map.

 

6 hours ago, plums said:

At least HR2 had the blessing of Donner & Niv. (I thought? can't seem to find anything that says that ATM.)

The doomwiki says as much (well, more specifically that Donner gave their approval) in its page on HR1, but it doesn't source this info: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Hell_Revealed

 

5 hours ago, Foodles said:

The best levels, from what I remember (like city in the clouds and afterlife) were like puzzles that you had to slowly piece together and when you finally beat it, it was very satisfying.

This was very much my experience as well :>

 

5 hours ago, Foodles said:

Were they both speedrunners back in the day?

From what I can find, Niv was not a speedrunner.

[Grazza]

7 hours ago, plums said:

At least HR2 had the blessing of Donner & Niv. (I thought? can't seem to find anything that says that ATM.)

I don't quite recall a "blessing", but they were aware of it, and gave links to it on their site:

https://www.oocities.org/hollywood/4704/hr.html

So a kind of weak endorsement at least. But that was back when the first episode - HR2beta - was being made, and at that stage it had a far closer link to the original HR. More thematically similar maps, and made by a team of mappers with a similar mind-set. I suspect Donner would have been less enthused about how the final release turned out. For the full megawad version, a bunch of other mappers came in, and their maps were further removed from HR - basically regular maps in a mix of styles and beefed up difficulty-wise with monster hordes. I suspect a number of these mappers didn't really "get" the original HR and/or had the view that it was just slaughtermaps (in reality, very few maps in HR are of that type).

 

Here is the original HR2's new page, via Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20000307224619/http://home.sol.no/~chrozo/news.htm