The DWmegawad Club plays: Realm of Chaos 25th Anniversary Edition

[Celestin]

MAP16: The Wolf's Hour by Jim Bagrow

 

I'll be honest, I don't like this one. The start is a wide open field with hitscanners of all kinds, reminding me of TNT's parts I disliked. The archvile trio that appear here was better, it was fun to juggle them all at once around a rock. The Wolf's Hour then dips down again in quality, leading you through a series of caves with tanky monsters, including an archvile that was a pain to take out when I ran out of rockets; I had to run up close with an SSG, fire a shot and run back behind cover.

 

The ending, though, is awesome - a massive imp horde versus a mastermind, with a bonus BFG to clear the stragglers. It's an energetic conclusion to an otherwise weak map.

[Cutman 999]

MAP31 - “The Mansion” by Slava Pestov

 

If you can stick the definition of "boring" next to a doom map, it would probably be this one. People say this is a breather, i can get it, but is just a complete nothing map and not that relaxing after you think about it for more than a second. Monsters are arranged randomly, extremely easy to get stuck into things and just cleaning them up with your ssg like ist nothing, the layout is extremely square even for 1996, with doomcute trying to distract how mid it looks, ist just not as bad as something like pharaoh just because it's not completely broken like that map is.

 

2/10

 

Btw @Cammy this midi is a remix of legion of the lost? I found the melody midway through the song.

 

 

 

MAP32 - “Nowhere to Hide” by Rob Berkowitz

 

Courtyard the way 1996 did. I like that different from other slaughtermaps, this map is about more managing your resources and find ways to unclog the densely populated crowds, instead of purely managing the big threads like many other slaughtermaps made their foundation on. Is not actually hard, but a good adrenaline rush and spectacle to dismantle. After finding and eliminating the commander keens, you are free to clean up the rest of the hordes with impunity, just be careful with the exit lmao, it starts bombastically, ends in less than 5 minutes, only nostalgia has a better map32 of this scale.

 

Also, wtf with the midi, is like an amalgamation of an snes song with touhou like melodies, i love it.

 

9/10

[UUN4]

MAP13: Bloodlands

Nugget Doom 2.3.0 | -complevel 2/vanilla

UV | Pistol start | No saves

K: 70% | I: 90% | S: 60%

The initial horde of enemies at the start of the level is pretty daunting, but I found it best to let them infight and run past them to grab the rocket launcher and plasma rifle ahead before using those weapons (plus the chaingun to conserve valuable ammo) to deal with any stragglers. The early SSG and supercharge was neat to find after hearing the faraway door sound and then noticing the open water hole. The (initially) incredibly dark room containing the yellow chaos key was pretty daunting (partly because I'm not a fan of darkness in the first place), but that was small potatoes versus later fights which had hordes of enemies (I'm tempted to call it kinda like slaughter, but I have zero experience in slaughter maps so don't quote me on that) accompanied by pairs of arch-viles. Another notable part of the map was the fork of 3 paths peppered with chaingunners and revenants, and the rooms being guarded by pairs of mid-/high-tier monsters (including a pair of arch-viles). The voodoo doll room was unexpected and pretty scary versus chaingunners and a final surprise arch-vile; definitely made me try to think on my feet a bit differently than usual (basically trying to bodyblock the arch-vile in the exit cubbyhole to minimize collateral damage). If the previous map wasn't any indication, the difficulty ramp-up is becoming pretty noticeable now.

 

I may play more later today, and I'll edit this post if I do.

[VoanHead]

Got done w/ my finals now. Now back to this.

 

MAP 15: INFESTATION (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart)

Holy shit look at the amount of monsters in this map. This took me roughly 37 minutes to complete. There’s just a lot to say. For starters, I cheated when getting the BFG secret and just IDCLIP-ed my way in, I fucking suck at hitting the switches fast on time, sorry! If there’s one thing that I want to say about this map is that it’s really symmetrical, on top of already being lengthy. The main attraction is the gigantic lava pit where the massive fights take place in. Everybody here should be calling me Samus the way I’m supplied with so many damn rockets for me launch at my enemies, especially the giant swarm of cacodemons reminding me of another certain alien eventually comes in after getting the red key. One issue in this “not all the way to RC2” is that I think I found the first softlock: if you’re not careful in the small room where the pain elementals and cacodemons fly in, in front of the cage that’s the platform where the cacodemons rise up, you can easily get stuck in there w/ no way to get out besides IDCLIP. The only 2 fights I didn’t like where the giant lava room where you essentially kill arachnos/knights, flip a switch, then wait for a wall to lower and blow up barrels to kill hitscanners. That shit felt redundant when it was repeated like 3 more times. The fight where you get to the tower can be entirely skipped if you have an eye for secrets and get out w/ the secret exit, but it felt like it went out on a fart with the 2 cyberdemons and clusterfuck of revenants by the normal exit. Overall, solid map, symmetrical in some areas, but disappointing ending.

 

MAP 31: THE MANSION (Woof!, -complevel 2)

Aight, I’m sorry but I broke my pistol start streak and did this map w/ the weapons carried earlier from before b/c I’m a little tired at the time of typing this up and wanted to go to bed ASAP. I know, but I’m just exhausted from all of today.

Doomcute galore! This map is a break from all the action that has occurred and let’s you just soak in the relaxing vibes this mansion provides. Let's not forget how chill this midi is, it reminds me of Eruyt Village if Cammy has ever listened to that before. As stated before, you get to admire all the doomcute like the library room w/ the desk & book, to the dining table in a different room, the bedroom, and the bathrooms where it seems like the Pinkies are all shidding together (or they could just be surrounded in a circle hitting the vape/dab pens like how college students did it in bathrooms when it was the rage in 2019-2020). Only two archviles you get to fight in this map. Majority is mostly just hitscanners. Don’t forget to grab the yellow key to get to the secret exit.

 

Side note; I know the pwad is yet to be finalized, and idk if sounds crazy to ask if this wad will ever get a spritefix? Like yk how there’s that thread that shows the clean up on the sprites of DOOM (ie the broken super shotgun frame sprite for example)? Or does the pwad already come w/ fixes like that already?

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 16: The Wolf's Hour 

by Jim Bagrow

 

Jim Bagrow goes out on a high note with this map set within a, get this, battlefield! The midi here is also great. It starts out with this tribal and probably sacred rhythm before at some point, it becomes dominated by xylophone and indeed, it touches on the emotions of some group of people or the other. Moreover, it's really nice how we start in a cave overlooking a battlefield. Although we do wish we'd found the Super shotgun earlier although we can't be sure if that was blindness or its location. There's some annoying SSging of Barons but not too much, and we end up skipping over an arch-vile in a cage because we thought we'd return and there were Barons and Mancubi everywhere anyway, with Imps in the side cages. We took a stupid amount of damage in the following cave from the hitscanners but no matter, we end up excploring around and finding a teleporter behind a waterfall taking us to a hidden Supercharge. And of course, that ending is ridiculously overcooked. Like why place the BFG behind that massive horde. Nevermind, the map ends here, shorter than Bagrow's previous efforts but no less fun reakky,

 

 

 

[VoanHead]

MAP 32: NOWHERE TO HIDE (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

What a banger of a level. As the name implies you’re going to be doing a lot of running around to avoid enemies and have monster infighting be your source to whittle down the numbers. At first I didn’t understand what I had to do in the outside area but as I looked closely I saw some hanging keens. Using my big monke brain, I did the logical thing and fired at them and went on a mad dash to get the rest. Once I got that done, I finally had access to the exit room w/ goodies and used the invul to get back at the cybershakers roaming around giving me all that trouble during my keen hunt. I was lucky enough to kill 3 of them grouped together w/ the BFG, while the rest were taken out by monster infighting. This map is a killer good time. I never played DK64 so I don’t really know the resemblance of this midi being inspired of the bonus themes of DK64. Maybe I’ll give em a listen some other time.

 

MAP 16: THE WOLF’S HOUR (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Aight and we’re back to the regular levels. This time this was a more lowkey map. I’m ashamed to admit I died way more times than I should’ve when I collected the red key and fought 3 archviles for it. It’s a bit tight on bullet and shotgun ammo this time around, and you’re given way more rockets than you’ll ever be using right at the end. The end fight is what stood out to me as it’s a big fight w/ a fuckload of imps and 1 mastermind. If you’re like me, you can bully the mastermind by making it infight with the imps and watch as those same imps surround it and claw it to death. Once that’s over, sneak behind the imps and blow them all away w/ the two BFGs stored in the back. Not a bad map.

[Cilian]

Map31-----------------------------
This map felt pretty odd, it's a mansion with doomcute and all, it's not very difficult for the most part (a few teleporting archviles can be annoying), and the midi doesn't match what I thought this map was trying to be so I felt a disconnect. By the end of the map I thought it actually made sense, the map is not very detailed, fairly empty in most rooms, doesn't try to be very engaging combat wise and just odd. You will have to backtrack here a bit, especially if you missed a not hidden switch like me, which gives you some time to notice this. The atmosphere is kind of """"""creepy"""""" and the fact that there isn't that much gameplay and the map is short helps. A bit surprised it's chill for other people, but I can see why. I wouldn't replay this but it was a good surprise

Map32-----------------------------
What the hell, in the gameplay department every other map wishes it could be this fun. I think this is some of the most fun I had playing doom. It's slaughter again, but better than the wad's previous leanings. The whole map is basically one big arena with cyberdemons, spiderminds and lots of fodder. At the beginning you get the BFG but only have 600 cells with no refills until you unlock the exit room, but to do so you need to kill every commander keen on the map which are sprinkled around the outer arena - so you use the your currently limited BFG to clear your path and push through enemies while hunting for keens and after that's done you get access to the exit room which has lots of supplies - ammo, megasphere and invulnerability sphere. You grab these and head back into the arena but now with mass murder in mind. With the invuln you are able to kill the enemies very efficiently and after you entered the exit room pillars where keens were lowered, and on them are stacked 600 cells and invuln on each so you can restock whenever you need to. So the rest of the map is hunting down enemies and restocking on ammo and invulnerability in time. If this sounds like a fun speedrun map it's because it is, it's so fun that a non-speedrunner like me just sat there replaying this map over and over again. The final time I got is 02:57 (UV-max), don't think it's impressive but I got my sub 3. I also need to say that the way the midi accompanies the action of the map is amazing, really helps to sustain the adrenaline making it even more fun to replay trying to go fast.

To be fair not all maps need or want to be adrenaline machine kind of map like this map is so I don't know how to compare it to the other maps, but it's definitely my favorite of the wad by far.
 

Spoiler

31 attempts to get this demo. I'm still not a speedrunner and don't plan to optimize this crazy, but I had fun. roc2532m257.zip

 

[Pechudin]

So uh Eviternity 2 happened so I kinda dropped out of this, sorry. I have some saved up plathroughs so I may post them.

[cannonball]

MAP16 - “The Wolf's Hour” by Jim Bagrow

Last time;

 

Quote

To be honest I was not too keen on the start, I died half a dozen times due to being sniped by chaingunners. The fact they fired instantly whenever I peaked out from behind the columns was not great (they didn't when monsters were in their path sigh).
The archvile was well placed though which is something.
The tunnel section was boring.
The area after the red key yet again suffered from the hitscan pain, the chaingunners are a real screw you moment.
The final room, Jim had obviously given up, 10 imps, you serious :P
Overall it is the best of the entries by Bagrow, with the less WTF moments, the shorter map in general and the more consistent theme, at least it makes it more playable than the other disaster zones.

 

This time;

 

Funny really, I didn't have any issues at all with this one, in fact I would go to say that I actually enjoyed this map. The start is frantic but I didn't get pulverised by hitscan, the triple archvile trap is a good jolt of adrenaline, beyond the red door I was able to skip pretty much everything, triggers the imp takedown of the mastermind, rocketed the remain imps and returned to the tunnel section with the BFG to clear the rest of the monsters. This is a brisk and fun map, despite the monster count saying otherwise. I suspect that Cammy really pushed on with the positives of the original and added extra meat at the end, good job.

[Celestin]

MAP17: No Escape by Antoni Chan

 

This felt very rough, so I had to check out the original. Turns out, No Escape used to be even more square, ugly and featured some questionable ideas.

 

The map is a key hunt branching off a central hub. Aside from the obligatory hitscan barrage, there's this dark corridor where you have to run or get blasted by archviles (the original used chaingunners instead, so I see this as a massive improvement), which leads to a dark cavern. This and the three cyberdemons that you need to fight by the exit are the most memorable moments of No Escape. I appreciate what the remastered version added, it's definitely has a better lighting and more interesting encounters, but you can only do so much with a given source material.

[Cilian]

Map16------------------------------------
Not much stood out for me in this map. The beginning was annoying to dismantle in a good way, the triple archvile ambush was fun and the final room with mancubi that distract a spider masterind while you are rocketing through imps to get to the BFG was also fun, but everything else was a bit forgettable for me.
 

Spoiler

Map17--------------------------------------------
I'm impressed by how much filler this map is stuffed with.. Lots of enemies sitting behind corners, lots of enemies sitting on every turn in a tight corridor, all die the same - dodge a few projectiles and SSG until it's dead. This map also has almost no ambushes to mix things up, you pick up a key and expect something to happen but no, it was free. You can just see how much the map would benefit from them when you get to the only ambush in the map that teleports in a couple of archviles. The ending was a bit underwhelming, when I saw the two cyberdemons I thought there will be lots of enemies for infighting and crowd control but it turned out to be just E2M8 but with two cyberdemons instead of one, which are much more thrilling to fight than play the rest of the map but still. There is a notable moment in the map though, the room where you run through a corridor before archviles can zap you, that was cool. And it doesn't end there, you end up on a very cramped and uncomfortable island where you have to kill two chaingunners to secure it (not even fully, there's an arachnotron watching out for a small part of the island so you can't hide there) and in the meantime a group of cacodemons are approaching you. The cacodemons' ability to fly is really threatening here with the obstacles on your island, the cacodemons fly uncomfortably high and you can't hide. I died a few times here trying to rocket them after get too close. The midi carries the map a lot when you are playing the more dull moments, it's very good once again.
 

Spoiler

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Cilian
ugh while editing the text adding and removing words I accidentally did "in a not good way", I intended to say the opposite

[Cutman 999]

MAP16 - “The Wolf's Hour” by Jim Bagrow

 

Liked this map way more than map 14, plays like a map the Casali's could make, only more linear and uglier than actual Casali maps. That triple archvile ambush is a wake up call, other than that most fights here end quickly and don't overstay their welcome. Fuck map 31, this actually feels like a breather mostly because the map is pure cleanup, and combat setups are simpler than map14. While not as good as map 4, this map doesn't lack in anything other than aesthectics, which for benefit of the doubt aren't a complete schizophrenic array of textures like the other Jim Bagrow's maps were. Idk why I feel I listened to this map's midi before, maybe is similar to another song I listened.

 

7/10

Edited December 17, 2023 by Cutman 999

[Cutman 999]

MAP17 - “No Escape” by Antoni Chan

 

Another good map. I like the tricky start, the close quarters caco and chaingunner surprise, not that switch on that horrible staircase but that's beside the point; that archvile surprise and many more. Unfortunately, the map loses some air at moments, and specifically I mean the corridor with mid tier enemies, other than that some good enough combat here, ends in 10 minutes and I can't ask more than that.

 

7/10 

[SiFi270]

Gosh I fell behind. But I promised I'd say some words about Map14. But first.

 

Map12: That Resident Evil precursor game that was based on a movie

You know that big door south of the diamond building? I'd like to recommend having it close downwards instead of upwards, so that players in the way of it won't see this:

Spoiler

Map14: Now I see I should have saved the joke name I gave to Map09 for this one instead. Ho ho ho.

Okay, so. The original. More specifically, its penultimate room, with all the barrels, but not for long. I'm pretty sure the drop's much deeper in that one, and the elevators you're counting on to get you out of the damaging nukage? Also damaging. Pretty sure it was 20 at a time. And because it's such a long way up, they rise for something like ten seconds. Let's hope you have good health and armor! No? Well maybe there's some earlier in the level, that you were saving for an emergency like this. Oh wait! Once you drop into this room, you can't backtrack. Also there are mancubi spread out throughout the nukage pool that never get close enough to walls for an infinitely tall explosion to sort them out.

 

That was what made me hate Map14 more than Map04, and as expected, Cammy demonstrated why its flaws were still fixable enough to keep the map's layout intact.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 17: No Escape

by Antoni Chai

 

I like how this midi sets a mournful, yet energetic tone, and transforms into something a little bit more positive at the end. The map itself is quite colorless though. There's the Arch-vile alley, the ambush the last time we return to the central room after all the chambers have opened up and perhaps most of all, the triple cyberdemon ambush at the end. Can't say we did a good job, quite a poor one to be quite honest. Couldn't access the medkit in the chamber of crimson with the arachnotron though.

 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Azure_Horror]

I am still here, but Eviternity 2 happened...

 

I'll need to catch up eventually, this is WAD is too much fun to drop.

[cannonball]

MAP17 - “No Escape” by Antoni Chan

 

Last time
 

Quote

Compared to maps02 and 11, this is flatter, blander and more primitive and frankly after the initial skirmish which is nullified by the easy to spot secret, this map just becomes boring. I didn't take one hit after picking the rocket launcher room. The repetitive "ssg"ing and dull bland corridors really dragged and the cyber which was hopeless at troubling me from the windows, I just went meh and put it out of it's misery.
I preferred the last map to this as at least I didn't fall asleep half way through. Sorry Steve :)

 

This time;

 

Well there is still a lot of dead air in this one, like the entirely first section of the map, and the area behind the red door are simply there to grind meat. The section beyond the blue door offers a shock as the mundane and rather bland corridor shootout is interupted by first the archvile gauntlet and then a caverns room that feels like it was ripped from a completely different universe. The ending is nerfed hugely by the very obvious BFG secret.

Overall this is an improvement on the original but ultimate so much of the original mapped was at the point of being un-salvageable, so we have probably the best case scenario without having to rip the whole map to shreds.

[VoanHead]

MAP 17: NO ESCAPE (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Love, love this midi. Shit gets me really pumped up. Too bad it was used on this map, which I thought was not so good imo. The only part that I liked was the archvile run for your life dark area behind the blue key door. The 3 cybershakers in the last fight wasn't really hard but moreso annoying, spent all my plasma ammo on the BFG that I had to super shotgun the trio. I don't know what else to say about this map.

[Steve D]

Map18, Dead Radio by Steve D & Cammy

Kills - 87% Deaths - North of 15

 

Are you ready for Realm of Chaos meets Alien Vendetta meets Hell Revealed? I hope so, because that's what you're gonna get, along with one of the most extreme difficulty spikes ever. 

 

Indeed, it seems almost planned that way. Alien Vendetta has a bunch of easy maps until Ka-Pow!!!! along comes Map18. The batch of RoC25 maps I played through before RC1 was completely different and much closer to the originals. With this map, Cammy has decided to go his own way, throwing overboard the anchor of attempting to make small improvements to the old chestnuts and instead unleashing his passion for slaughter. Thus, Cammy is now, truly, using the original maps as "a base" to build additional levels. And he can do that because the copyright/permissions in Realm of Chaos say you MAY use these levels as a base to build additional levels, but you have to ask permission first. Not only did Cammy get permission from me and Rob, he also tracked down every member of the RoC team except Jason Fowler and got their permission. Yeah, he did that. Fuckin' amazing.

 

For those who've played the original, it's much the same until you reach the cross-shaped nukage room. It is much larger than my version and I wondered how Cammy was going to fill all that space. As I found out, he was going to do it with hordes! ;D

 

I should mention here that Cammy has played the 5 maps I've done in Realm of Intensified Chaos, and so has cannonball. I mention this mainly because Cammy and I are sharing some features across the mapsets. In this case, he is using the Plasma Gun secret from the RoIC version.

 

I found the nukage room fight awkward because of the limited non-toxic space and the way the Cybs seemed to dominate the safe lanes. I was also annoyed at all the hanging corpses in the side rooms because they made it hard to see the incoming rockets. At one point I wasn't sure I had enough ammo to kill everything that didn't die from infighting or under the giant crushers, so I made a new save, went into God Mode, and discovered that I had plenty, though I wanted a lot more cell ammo. After I finally got through this fight I pretty much sailed through the following arenas, though I decided there were way too many monsters for me to kill in a timely manner, thus my relatively low kill count.

 

Although this map represents a major departure from the original, being for one thing loaded with ginormous rooms, Cammy still performed detailed visual enhancements to the old architecture. All this and a wonderful, driving midi, too!

 

Personally, I think more cell ammo should be provided before the big nukage room fight to make it less frustrating and so we can avoid peek-a-boo fights around the corners, which seemed to take forever. I'd also consider thinning some of the later hordes, because after a couple BFG blasts you can run past most of the critters without even having to shoot.

 

I also have to say that I'm very impressed with how rapidly Cammy made the changes, These are not minor tweaks, but instead major architectural and gameplay revisions. Well done!

Edited December 18, 2023 by Steve D

[Azure_Horror]

Map 17 No Escape

 

After completing Eviternity 2, I am back to the Realm of Chaos Anniversary edition. So: during the whole run of map 17, I couldn't help, but compare this map with final Eviternity 2 episodes.

 

For the most part, No Escape, focuses on smaller rooms and simpler geometry. But this all felt very welcome after expansive Celestial Eviternity 2 levels. I love epic journeys in Doom, but compact and cozy battlefields are fun too. Yet, such smaller designs are often exchanged for grander things... And thus map 17 of ROC-25 arrived in a perfect time for me!

 

It also helps that the combat feels extremely engaging on No Escape. The beefier monsters are quite readily deployed, yet they didn't feel grindy to me. Some elusive art of Doom-crafting is definitely involved here...

 

My favorite fight is probably the toxic chasm after the Blue Door. Only a few monsters are placed there, but each of them feels dangerous: the gunners are immediate threat, the spiders and the rev keep the player moving, the flying cacos are ready to strike from an unexpected angle due to all the verticality in that location, and two Hell Knights add a little bit of additional beef to the whole encounter. A very fun place to juggle Super Shotgun and the Rocket Launcher.

Another very notable sections are the Archvile Gauntlet and the 3-cyber finale. Both fights felt very Eviternity-ish, BTW! Like surprisingly so...

 

All in all, this map was very fun, and it resonated surprisingly well with Eviternity 2 WAD, which I played earlier. After playing Eviternity 2 and No Escape, I keep wondering about deploying Eviternity 2 custom monsters on the smaller arenas... Those new 2023 Astral Arachnos could be surprisinly great in such maps... But I digress. No Escape is a great level!

 

Map 18 Dead Radio

A shorter text for now...

 

For the most part @Cammy's version of Dead Radio feels like a Go2It-style map. There are some grand and terrifiying setups, but also a lot of liberty and resources is provided to the player. The pressure on the player can be alleviated by choosing correct strategies, and engaging the monsters in a right order. There is no hardcore modernist "Fly or Die" tests, despite the map including very dangerous monster compositions.

 

Notable differences between Dead Radio and Go2It:

- Unlike Go2It, Dead Radio is not a secret map.

- Crucially, a lot of additional resources on Dead Radio are placed in secrets. Without secrets, the map becomes much more hardcore and demanding!

- On the other hand, Dead Radio is notably shorter, and thus demands less endurance.

 

Personally, I had a jolly good time playing Dead Radio. But maybe some adjustments could prove useful (like providing more non-secret healing overall, or 2-3 additional rad suits here and there, or a non-secret invuln somewhere in the Nukage Crossbridge fight).

That said, the map does feel comparable to map 04 in overall difficulty (4 archviles at once > 3 archviles at once, and other stuff like that), so maybe the map is perfect as it is now...

 

P.S.: By the way, this would be a perfect map for mixing in Eviternity 2 Astral Mancubuses, Hardhat Zombies (Former Corporals?) and Necromancers. Good old Annihilators and Nightmare Demons would also feel at home here.

Edited December 18, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[Cilian]

Map18---------------------------------------
I think I wouldn't be negative about this map even if its creator wasn't in this thread. It's a fun map, slaughter again. It starts low scale, shotgunning and chaingunning enemies, and I think it's a bit boring when you have to grind down healthy mid-tiers (probably don't even have to if you skip them and come back with bigger guns) but it doesn't last too long. The map really begins in the area with the blue key arena where you are given a lot rocket launcher and lots of rockets for and then a bunch of imps, hell knights and two cyberdemons teleport in. The fight can be tense if you don't know what you're doing and it's pretty fun. I like how once you can get out of the room you can just do it and not bother killing the remaining enemies and cyberdemons because you never have to come back here, lol. Since that room the map continues to unleash its ambushes on your nearly non-stop, always keeps you on your toes and doesn't get boring.
 

Spoiler

Also unrelated to this map but I continued playing map32 and managed to get 02:21 uv max (if I just went for the exit as soon as it was open it could go as low as 0:5X). Random surviving enemies are actually a massive problem now and it's very annoying how many runs they kill. The two major improvements that lowered the time was improving the route to kill every keen and actually having a plan for the cleanup phase.

 

[Celestin]

MAP18: Dead Radio by Steve Duff

 

Another large map that leans towards slaughter. Compared to MAP15, Dead Radio is much harder. It's rather slow at first, taking out small groups of monsters or rooms with fodder enemies. That is, until you reach the nukage pool with the blue key. The place gets overrun with imps, hell knights, revenants and two cyberdemons, creating a massive opportunity for infighting. It's the very moment where Dead Radio stops messing around. Get used to this, because it's not getting easier.

 

Unlocking the red key brings you back to one of previous rooms, this time with another horde that include two archvile (the boss monsters can be ignored, you can telefragged them with a secret). As for the multistage battle in a slime tank for the yellow key, I think I'd enjoyed this more with one additional radsuit. Or the point was to trigger all the available monsters ASAP instead of killing them piecemeal and I was just too slow.

 

I like the new midi, it reminds me of ROTT a bit. I like this map, with the only complaint being its heavy use of gray textures - a lot of maps in ROC uses them as well, so it kinda blends together.

[Cutman 999]

MAP18 - “Dead Radio” by Steve Duff

 

An Alien Vendetta techbase, this map feels like a massive difficulty spike compared to anything seen to this point, it forced me to savescum at some points to complete it and not lose my time. Although in paper I like the map because of its challenge and visual coherence, in execution is so-so. Some big fights involving archviles happen in large spaces with no cover at all, the one when you got the red key is the most bs of the map because you can't delete the viles with the bfg yet. Boss monsters seem to exist mostly to grind gameplay instead of infighting, like the ones from the previously mentioned ambush. In that slime pit, I felt there wasn't enough radsuits to kill the final big ambush there, but that can be some sort of skill issue on my part. Otherwise, i like most of the map and its a good wakup call. Btw great midi once again, i feel it could fit ancient aliens somehow.

 

6/10

Edited December 18, 2023 by Cutman 999

[VoanHead]

MAP 18: DEAD RADIO (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

The fuck is the title of this map implying? I say turn up the radio or pass me the aux b/c this midi is a fucking banger. Those first notes sound reminiscent to that one DWANGO midi (I think it's called hitfloor.mid?) and the whole rest of the song feels like a mix of that midi w/ Fear Factory from David Wise once again. Onto the map itself: wow, I love the step up in difficulty here. Way more boss monsters are present, and the main highlights of this map is the 2 green slime fights of slaughter. The one thing I didn't like is that the plasma rifle was kept behind a secret and I was mostly well stocked on ammunition for it, and my monke brain was too stupid this time around to figure out how to get it. Oh well, looks like I didn't really need it since I was well stocked even after finding 3/5 secrets. I like the comparison some people made between Go 2 It and this map, as it does rip a page out of Plutonia via having tough fights but giving you lots of supplies to deal with the enemies. I shit you not, I exited the level w/ 200% Health and 200% Armor. If this was more jungle/brown themed then it would've certainly fit right in with Plutonia.

[rehelekretep]

trying to catch up!

 

map11 fda

over way too quick. strange yellow key secret...

map12 fda

ammo deprivation hit hard, but a cool map. that vile reveal lol

Edited December 18, 2023 by rehelekretep

[cannonball]

MAP18 - “Dead Radio” by Steve Duff

Last time;

 

Quote

I like maps which are unapologetically grey, it looks sterile which I kind of like in some instances. The green section complimented it quite nicely, no wacky clashing, just clean.
The layout was a bit suspect though with the connectivity being primitive and leading to a lot of backtracking. The secrets were a little strange also as they appeared to just open up along the way rather than you having to do anything.
The cross slime section was a little dull but the rest of the gameplay was pretty solid with some pretty cool looking areas to boot.
It's an all right map, better than the last few.

 

This time;

I will assume that some of the layout issues have been sorted.

Just a note - a revenant closet didn't open up for me in the blue key area, as such I could not get 100% kills. 

 

Fair to say that this one does the same thing as Map15, but with much better results, the big fights do take place in large areas, but they are smaller and more nuanced, as such the fights become pretty darn hectic, though I will say that despite the bark, the bite isn't too bad if you are used to more modern wads. In the end this one ended up being pretty darn fun and Cammy's improvements see this one head towards the top of the pack. In short the map is just good fun once the party dtarts in the blue key room, and yes I crushed both of the cybers in that room, which of course saved ammo to spam at everything else later on. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by cannonball

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 18: Dead Radio

by Steve Duff (and Cammy)

 

I can't pretend to know...what the title is referring to exactly but just like the last Steve Duff map, this builds up gradually until it's a non-stop thrill ride for the rest of the map almost! The aesthetics somewhat recall Icarus at first with the narrow silver hallways, which transforms into green and then a full on-slime room at the end. The midi sounds like a fairly generic sci-fi thing, mostly. Celestin mentions ROTT, which might have something to do with it because for instance, I love "Going Down the Fast Way" while "Excalibur" sort of feels like we wouldn't be worst off if it was never made, nothing personal but I don't really like the repetition in that latter case. This one doesn't really have that but it was still kind of easy to tune out because of all the other quality music.

 

But anyway....starting out, we're charged by Revenants with little ammo to take them on with so it becomes necessary to find a way out. Slowly, we find ourselves acquiring quite a bit more ammo (including rocket boxes showing up several rooms before an actual rocket launcher) before an encounter with a few Arch-viles not unlike something from the last map. But that's not all. Enter a room with  large storage tanks, hit the switch and prepare for masses of Imps, along with a couple of Cyberdemons! I swear this is something out of John Romero because we don't really need this. It didn't help that one of the Cyberdemons did his best to avoid the crushers like a plague (though not entirely but he probably took more damage from the Revenants that also made their way in)

 

After that insane encounter, things pick up but are basically managable....at least until we get to the red key and a Revenant and Spider Mastermind are revealed and some enemies come running in from the next room. We were stuck here for quite a while before we realized that getting the Mastermind to infight with everything was mostly a massive waste of time since they trickle in rather slowly.

 

The room they come from turns out to be the open hallway with the Revenants at the beginning, and 2 Arch-viles along with a fair few Hell Knights, Imps and Revenants can be found here, along with a Cyberdemon that arguably should be taken out because we spent too much time with the damn Mastermind, because this Cyberdemon fetish should have limits because his ability as a turret is fairly dependent on whether we care to run down that hallway.

 

Now, maybe y'all think the map is over by this point. Au contraire! There's a series of marines standing for unexplained reasons next to a teleporter which takes us to...a massive slime pit. Mucus Flow reference? But in any case, Cammy once again goes full fucking bore in a manner that I can guarantee wasn't a thing in '96! More concerning was the lack of rad suits found here. Yes, one could theoretically get through without knowing and using all rad suits, but like Steve says, there could be quite a bit more cell ammo anyway!

 

 

 

 

And now, a bullshit digression!

 

It also kind of illustrates an issue I'm starting to find here. This megawad is starting to get more consistently Alien Vendetta than Alien Vendetta was but in a number of ways, probably easier. And strange as it seems, this fairly straightforward brand of slaughter (that's not painful and as door camp-y like Hell Revealed, thank god) is the sort of approach that's not even in every modern megawad. Something tells me that Nostalgia doesn't do this anywhere near as much despite its moments, but then, take a look at Cammy's Jamal Jones map and it all makes sense. 

 

And I think I understand at least part of the motivation why: many of these maps seem to have been incredibly underpopulated in the original versions and greater monster numbers seem to be a greater way to rectify that. That being said, I dunno if I'm the only one who looks at this as an evolutionary step between Alien Vendetta and latter Scythe II, though seeming much fairer than anything in those wads. Sorry for my grumping, I just keep thinking this isn't quite how the maps got updated in Realm of Intensified Chaos, despite enemy numbers I'm sure were boosted. It's kind of like if someone decided to update Memento Mori by turning the overall gameplay into something akin to Speed of Doom. I have nothing against it, but it seems to come from a modern Doom culture that likes throwing tons of foes at the player.

 

Just kind of interesting. And no, I don't feel like saying what I thought of the best map so far because I spent enough time with this. See ya.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[VoanHead]

MAP 19: PORT FURY (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

This map starts off inoffensive at first, some rather meh fights that you have to deal with w/o any armor whatsoever, and it starts off feeding you lots of rocket ammo but no launcher in sight first. By this point, you know that's a rather peculiar sign of things to come. From then you're tasked with dealing w/ a bunch of other enemies in a narrow, cramped passage, but once you're out of that place you finally get to see it... the big flooded city. Ripe with lots of monster infighting, and two of each boss monsters raining rockets and bullets on your ass. Don't be like me and waste any plasma ammo on the cybershakers, they later get crushed to death, but you'll have plenty of ammunition still left over if you decide to do it anyways, so it's entirely up to you. I took em out b/c they got annoying. What really elevated this area for me was once again the good old cacodemon swarm that surrounds you after going through a rather awkward area in the map to progress things further by hitting switches and letting them come out. Call me Samus again, b/c I wound culling all of them w/ plasma from the BFG and rockets too. Once I was done, I gawked at the big sector ship for like 30 seconds then decided to make my way through the exit after getting past a cyberdemon and a pair of archviles that the BFG made quick work of them. The last remaining fights felt like filler after such a bombastic fight out in the liquid filled city/port. It's the moment that is the crown jewel of the map.

 

I'm having plenty of fun playing throughout this megawad. Some highs, some lows, but overall not a bad pwad. This is coming from somebody who has never touched the OG at all. Cammy has no doubt done a great job overall doing this by himself w/ revamped maps and original midis made for these respective maps. No wonder it took a long time to push out, he was taking his time making sure this got out in good quality.

 

However, I think I'm going to pull out of this month's DWMC now. I do feel bad for cutting this short with 21/32 maps played so far, but my impressions of it have been pretty damn good. Unfortunately, it's down to two main reasons why I'm pulling out:

1) IRL stuff that's going to keep me busy, since we're also nearing the holidays.

2) I'm reaching a bit of burn out on DOOM once again, and feel like I just need a break.

 

I'll finish this pwad some other time, waiting on a final release to idgames. Perhaps for another DWMC in the future I will fully complete the month. See ya fellas! Happy 30th for DOOM & Happy Holidays!

[Cilian]

Map19-------------------------
The very start of the map made me wonder what's with this wad always having hitscan hot starts in maps, but if you survive it then you're fine because the map has plenty of health so it's not a big deal. The beginning was fine, nothing wrong with it and the progression was kind of cool. Then you finally get to the slaughter part of the map that makes the kill count so high in the city area but I found it rather boring this time. After I found out that you can easily maneuver around all threats and run in circles in this area indefinitely without taking much damage my reaction to the area was not that of seeing a threat but seeing dirt you have to clean up, because that's what it turned out to be for me, janitor work in an area with lots of monsters. It's not to say that I was completely bored here, evading enemies while running around the arena still has some fun in it but after map18 showed us what kind of tight and tense fights it can do I expected something more.

I liked the southern part of the map with some building closed behind two huge gates. After mopping down the bottom enemies you get enough of a view of the building from all sides, then you ride an elevator to a high ledge near that building, fight some enemies there, jump from the ledge into a window of this building, fight off monsters that were waiting for you there in very close quarters and then escape avoiding crushers in an area that was visible from outside of the building through cages. I liked that little adventure bit. So, after it's over you get the BFG and big cacoswarms are revealed in the city area. I felt about them the same way as the initial wave of enemies in the same area, janitor work, but this time it at least was much more satisfying as you have a BFG and there were no annoying pain elementals and homing fireballs to worry about.

After dealing with the swarm you make a return to the non-slaughter beginning areas of the map with a pretty cool sudden transition. The areas are repopulated with easy fights but they do their job of letting you know that you are on the right path. The exit room was a bit anticlimactic but I don't mind it much.
 

Spoiler

I try to be honest but keep making maps sound worse than they actually are. Don't know if reviewing is a skill or I'm just dumb!

 

[Celestin]

MAP19: Port Fury by Steve Duff

 

Dead Radio is followed by another map with a ton of monsters. I wasn't grabbed initially, as it starts with a lot of incidental combat. Also, the aesthetic side is all over the place, going from techbase to caves to tan brick structures. 

 

Then you try opening a door, only to drop down into a gigantic fight in the harbour, complete with a doomcute freighter. The biggest threat are two archviles that like to stay in the crowd, on the other hand, there's nigh-infinite supply of ammo, several supercharges and ton of room to move around. It's a great setpiece and the most entertaining part of the map. Sadly, the rest can't match its excitement. The warehouse, aside from another use of Nazis in Duff's map, is forgettale, the cacodemon clouds that appear afterwards feel grindy even with a BFG (I'd personally add something to spice this one up) and the rest is once again, incidental. Still, I had fun with the port massacre and the new midi has this sailing vibe that fits here well.