The DWmegawad Club plays: Memento Mori (play at your own pace!)

[cannonball]

Map08 - And the Dead Shall Rise by Orin Flaharty
This map annoyed me a lot, firstly, why is the platform the rocket launcher on a damaging sector? Makes no sense, at least the pentagram was more forgivable.
Awful layout with the red key door being in a not very obvious place, the one secret I found was a few medkits in a damaging blood sector (what!!!), and there was an imp for some reason wandering in the lava pit below.
Given the size of the map and the theme, I would have thought this would have been a safe bet to be decent, especially as the author did map05 which was solid. In the end this map is sloppy at times unintuitive and a pain in the ass. As least I have a rocket launcher now :P
Rant over

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Yeah, map 08 looks good, but plays crappy. The blue key is on a lift that isn't labeled too. And that rocket launcher won't help you in the next map, a lot of close quarters. yay.

[cannonball]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

Yeah, map 08 looks good, but plays crappy. The blue key is on a lift that isn't labeled too. And that rocket launcher won't help you in the next map, a lot of close quarters. yay.

Wish I had found the plasma gun in map07 now :P

[Phobus]

MAP08: And the Dead Shall Rise: I didn't hate this, but it is too cramped for the "Living End" theme that it evokes. The numerous little pits with low-damage lava are just pointless hinderances... Particularly so as I actually found myself diving into them on purpose just to see if there was anything in there (turns out there's an invulnerability, the red key door, a few enemies you'd otherwise never shoot at, some rad suits and even a sort-of-clever lift secret... That gives you another rad suit). The use of the Star of David in place of the usual pentagram sort of made sense to me, as it's an easier shape to draw on a square grid, but the way the lines were all wobbly took away from the idea.

All in all, it's pretty disappointing, but at least it's a small map, so there's only so many walls you have to hump to work out which one is a lift to the blue skull (weak example, there, but weak map design too). I must have killed half of the enemies just standing at the start and picking them off with my chaingun and then used my plasma rifle, rocket launcher and SSG on the numerous Barons, which probably didn't help how easy my experience of the gun play was.


This MAP09 looks like a different beast all together. Definitely will need more than 10 minutes on my lunch break to do that!

[mouldy]

08 - And the Dead Shall Rise by Orin Flaharty

At first glance this looks like an interesting map, it has the look of classic creepy hell dungeon with its wood and marble and abstract layout - but there are some seriously baffling design choices lurking within... people have mentioned the random patches of damaging floor and the red door hidden down a pit of death, there are also lifts that are not obviously marked as lifts and will only be discovered by frantic wall humping in a pit of death, enemies in a distant room who's only purpose appears to be to shoot you if you decide to stand still in the pit of death watching them from afar, and a bridge that only raises up if you open the map in doom builder to find the line you had to walk over but didn't because it wasn't necessary or obvious you had to.

[cannonball]

Map 09 - High-Tech Grave by Thomas Möller
Cool level, nice tech base design with lots of helpful secrets. The gameplay is quite tricky and challenging at times. The level looks really good and plays well. The mancubus fight up to the yellow key is probably my only complaint as falling into their pit means you will take a lot of damage.
Awesome music as well :)

[Capellan]

Map06

I wasn't a big fan of this map on my first play through, oh so many years ago, and I'm still not especially fond of it. It feels quite 'bitsy', without much of a flow to it.

Difficuly is not high; what there is mostly comes from the hitscanners, rather than the HKs and Cacos around the place.

I did like the yellow key area, with the caco fight in the pitch dark; waiting for it to fire so as to get a bead on it was fun.

The narrow corridors seem like a suboptimal choice for a co-op themed wad.

[Phobus]

MAP09: High-Tech Grave: Packed full of secrets that provide far too much ammo (16 in total!) and a pretty dense and surprisingly heavy approach to monster placement (lots of mancs, revenants and other bigger monsters) this map made for an exciting play. Architecture is generally cramped (one or two very close encounters with the aforementioned mancs can get pretty hairy as a result) but the actual layout is pretty interesting, as it provides a lot of routes that, in co-op would mean an exciting and chaotic experience as you all rip through various given paths locating switches, keys and the things they apply to. The fact that this is a functional and solid map in single player makes it even better IMO. Quite extraordinary!

[mouldy]

09 - High-Tech Grave by Thomas Möller

This was quite an enjoyable map after an awkward start, it certainly has that old school doom flavour with macabre layout and devious traps, and secret cubby holes galore. You can even see some nods to the original doom here and there. I was preparing myself to hate it after the barrage of cacodemons at the offset forcing you through a door into the arms of an arachnotron, but found the going easier once I died a couple of times and learned the layout. After that there were a few traps that did me in and some rather tight corridors, but the map itself was interesting and unpredictable enough to keep me hooked. I managed to find 14/16 secrets in the end.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP07 - NOT THAT SIMPLE

I was worried it would be a Dead Simple ripoff (something not quite beaten to death yet in 1996) but thankfully it wasn't. Fun map, with lots of fun areas. I liked the maze gradually falling piece by piece, and the secrets were perfect - I think I found only 1 or 2 while playing through but found almost all of them after running around looking, which is a good level of difficulty for them, I think.

Only thing I didn't like was the first Arch-vile fight has zero cover, and thus relies on the player getting lucky with causing flinch hits. I got lucky and managed to get 3 straight flinch hits with the SSG on the first try, but still. This map pretty much requires a continuous playthrough (or finding the secrets) given the monsters at the start.

MAP08 - AND THE DEAD SHALL RISE

Thy Flesh Consumed-style map (specifically E4M2) that had a promising start then falls apart. I didn't like how jumping into the lava was required, especially since the radsuits are placed down there as if they're for making a mistake, not up above where they're a sign you need to go down swimming. Being able to drop into the red door area without needing a radsuit, then needing one for the way up is also a big no-no. The blue key is practically a secret. And after I got the blue key I couldn't figure out how to get the bridge/staircase to the blue key door/ending to rise (though this may be a bug in Zdoom?) Bleh.

[dobu gabu maru]

Starting a bit late. Playing the "purist" style: HMP, no saves, consecutive play, weapons forfeit from death. Should be interesting.

MAP01: Pretty standard opening map, although "standard" might be the wrong word to use since maps like these set a good precedence for what a MAP01 should be. Nothing really out of the ordinary, the low amount of health/high amount of ammo was kinda weird.

MAP02: Bit the dust side stepping off a ledge into some nukage since I was watching the SDA marathon stream. Shame on me.

Great level. Love the huge use of new textures, must've been pretty impressive back then. Always enjoy the constant use of weird doors and dozens of elevators that the early wads had. Nice balance of enemies, although armor was really plentiful (blue armor in a 5 minute level?) but the layout was nice. Found it really enjoyable.

MAP03: Cute little interconnected level that felt like a little remix of Doom 2's first map. The room with the blue key was the hardest and then it was a basic map from there. Surprised at how short these maps are... maybe I'm just used to every map nowadays taking 20-30 minutes.

MAP04: A puzzly level that I feel indifferent towards. I remembered it from my first playthrough just from being lost so much, and all the secrets were neat. Was not a fan of all the chaingunners from a distance.

Playing multiple levels at a time vibes really well with MM.

[cannonball]

10 - The Mansion by Alden Bates
An ok map, looks a bit sparse and bland at times and the gameplay isn't that interesting. Nothing overly offensive, just not a very memorable level.

[Phobus]

MAP10: The Mansion: Really dull, brown, sparsely populated and hitscanner-y on single player UV. I saw a co-op puzzle that must be entirely optional*, so it does carry on the previous map's more obvious co-op leanings, but not to the same extent. I liked the music and the way the place closes you in at the start. Gives it a slightly menacing air, even if the rest of the map doesn't follow through on it at all.


*Checking the editor, it is indeed an optional rocket launcher quest and the game play looks a lot more exciting with the extra co-op enemies too.

[dew]

i'm so looking forward to you guys reaching map12, hahahaha.

[mouldy]

10 - The Mansion by Alden Bates

hmm... this map started off kind of interesting, despite the overwhelming brownness and texturing that gave my eyes repetitive strain injury - there was a bit of non-linear exploration going on, and interconnective secrets, but it really didn't seem to go anywhere. It felt like it was building up to something that never quite happened. Fights consisted mainly of opening a door to a square room and mowing down a handful of hitscanners and the occasional taller monster from the safety of the doorway. Large empty square brown rooms and even larger emptier outdoor spaces. A finale that I only realised was the finale when I found the "oh-is-that-it?" exit 2 empty rooms later. I notice in doom builder there is a bit more to it in multiplayer, single player was kind of lacking though.

[Capellan]

dew said:

i'm so looking forward to you guys reaching map12, hahahaha.

Yeah. Kinetics is ... not good.

[Doom OG]

I really liked MAP08: And the Dead Shall Rise, but I'm not sure why, lol...I think the layout of it is nice. A bit tedious at times though.

[Capellan]

Map07

Delete the HK maze and give the player at least a scrap of cover for the 'archie in a box' fight, and I'd have thoroughly enjoyed this map. Unfortunately, the HK maze is there, and there's not an ounce of cover to be had, making the archie fight a case of "have RL or need massive luck".

[Phobus]

I found a combination of using the SSG on the MAP07 Archie-in-a-box, combined with having a few of the sergeants alive up on the ledges behind kept me safe enough in the absence of cover, as the Archie was cover from the hitscans and they were a valid distraction technique (I'd blast him and, if they shot him, let them have his firey wrath before giving him both barrels again). Combine distraction techniques with his pain chance and I think it's realistic to get out of there untouched. Admittedly, I had loads of health so was pretty confident about walking out of there alive and I only left a few hitscanners because I figured that might be a viable escape after hearing the Archie through his box.

[Capellan]

Map08

It seems that 'jump into damaging sectors in the hope of progressing' is an Orin Flaharty thing, as he did it in map05 as well as this. At least here the red door is visible on the map, which is a hint you didn't get last time.

Others have mentioned the lift for the blue key, which has absolutely no visual sign of what it is, and the unintuitive method of raising the bridge to the blue door. I guess Orin's thought was that the green armor would tempt you to jump onto that platform, thus triggering the bridge. Honestly, I'm not sure why the bridge wasn't up to begin with.

Mediocre map. Gameplay was pretty meh. Found one secret - a berserk patch in a damaging floor area. It was short enough that I didn't get too frustrated, but definitely not a stand out map, and I can't imagine it being good for co-op, with all the narrow walkways.


Map09

Starts off frantic and pretty much doesn't let up. You've almost always got monsters in your face, usually in waves. There's plenty of shotgun ammo for them all, though, so that's OK. Not much of a sense of a real, functional place here. It's just rooms to kill monsters in. Fortunately, they're well put-together rooms, on the whole.


Map10

Drab-looking, drab-playing map. I exited with a mere 58% kills, it being laughably easy to just ignore large chunks of the level.

[cannonball]

Map 11 - Halls of Insanity by Eric Reuter and Denis Möller
Strange map, not in the sense of theme, but the very obvious this can only be 100% completed in coop. The layout and progression is fine, found it a lot easier as I was playing consecutively.
It's an ok level, better than the previous one. Just seems to have not been finished and polished for this wad.

[vdgg]

Capellan said:

Map08[/b]
Found one secret - a berserk patch in a damaging floor area.

This unfortunately was changed to medikits on skill 4, making a Tyson demo totally unlikely (I don't say impossible, but there seem to be too many barons to kill).

[j4rio]

I've never played mm before, just watched demos.

Map 1 - Somewhat tolerable start, later on forcing you to camp stuff from distance if you didn't want to take unnecessary risks.
Map 2 - Nice, until I decided to do extended map exploration only to find myself in inescapable sludge. Screw you, map 2.
Map 3 - Nice.
Map 4 - I cleared it in around 8 minutes, then I wallhumped whole map for half an hour in hopes of finding red key. Then I suicided in sludge. Screw you, map 4.
Map 5 - Crappy start with miserable hitscanner usage (those sarges behind walls - are you kidding me?) followed by miserable arachnotrons usage. A little bit of exploration later, I managed to enter a teleporter with just shotgun while there was a HK waiting on the other side of teleport destination waiting to screw me up. At this point I deduced this map is shite and quit. Screw you, map 5.
Map 6 - Shotgunning 4 cacos at the start was just grindy bore. HK popping up right in front of my face when I entered BK platform was another crappy moment. Overall, it was just continuous grindy SSG experience.
Map 7 - Hitscanners at start forcing you to slowly peck at them from distance with limited ammo was boring. Archvile usage in the middle of empty room didn't really feel tricky to me, it was rather unexpectable silly bullshit than tricky. After proceeding further I somehow found myself in the middle of tiny hallway with baron on one end and HK on the other end with just shotgun. Screw you, map 7.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

My map 07 technique for dealing with the archie was:
1: Get the RL secret
2: Lower that lift thingy that acts like the door to the archie box area
3: Stop the lift from going back up by standing on the inner edge
4: Run and press the switch opening archie box with enough time to run back to the previous room.
5: Unload the rocket launcher in archie's face.

[mouldy]

11 - Halls of Insanity by Eric Reuter and Denis Möller

This is one of those classic weird old doom maps which resembles a building that was smashed on the floor and glued back together blindfolded, there is no pretence here at any kind of real world functionality. Seemingly random rooms, corridors, steps and lifts, gaps between walls, 2 blue keys??.. And as it turns out a whole section you can't get to in single player, which is annoying. I actually quite enjoyed it, its very unpredictable and interconnected, and the slightly sinister melancholy music adds to the mysterious atmosphere perfectly. Just wish I could have accessed that other section.. unless I missed a switch somewhere...

[Magnusblitz]

Capellan said:

Map08

Others have mentioned the lift for the blue key, which has absolutely no visual sign of what it is, and the unintuitive method of raising the bridge to the blue door. I guess Orin's thought was that the green armor would tempt you to jump onto that platform, thus triggering the bridge. Honestly, I'm not sure why the bridge wasn't up to begin with.

I actually did jump over to the green armor (figuring since there's a switch to go there I might as well) and it still didn't trigger the bridge for me...hmm.


MAP09 - HIGH TECH GRAVE

The texture usage and the abstract layout really makes this feel like a Shores of Hell level to me. I played through going red key - blue key - yellow key - exit. Lots of monsters but shotgun ammo and health is plentiful (though the health is offset by the lack of armor - there's one blue vest right before getting dropped into a fight with 3 mancubi at point blank range, and one green vest before being dropped into a fight against 20 demons in a crowded room). Was fun until the part before the yellow/blue key gates, which suffers from having very thin hallways with Barons at the end of them, which is just frustrating.

[Feniks]

I'm a bit late, but I hope you don't mind me joining in. Playing on UV with saves at the start and end of each level (I always do my best to get 100% of everything). I might break this rule later in case some nasty nukage traps get in my way.

Map01
A relatively tough starter map, but not hard at all with enough foreknowledge. I died miserably when I played it the first time, but didn't have any problems now. First maps usually allow the player to play quite carelessly but that's not the case here.
However, unlike Hell Beneath, this one is actually fun and pretty well-designed.

Map02
Loved it. Particularly the textures and the music. And the bridge itself. The action was sort of lukewarm, but what gives? Not everything has to be action-packed or freaking hard.

Map03
A textbook Tom Mustaine map. Fairly good, but he's done much better in Perdition's Gate or even in Evilution. Doesn't fit the map03 slot well in my opinion, as it's too short and too easy. Perhaps it was intended to be yet another Entryway-style first map, but was eventually trumped by the final map01.

Map04
This one must've been really hard back in 1996. Really, really hard. Close-quartered Hell Knight and Baron of Hell encounters, lots of sniping chaingunners and not even a rocket launcher or plasma gun. I died twice or three times, either ambushed by HKs/Barons or shot by a bastard chaingunner. This map forces you to play extemely cautiously unless you're a helluva player or you've memorised basically everything.
Heck, even a blur sphere came in handy when fighting projectile enemies, which happens extremely rarely.

Map05
Another favourite of mine. I just don't have enough words to describe how great it was. I think it's one of the most memorable MM maps.
Looks neat, especially for a 199x map, and plays really well too. A lot easier than the previous one, but the hitscanner placement and the nukage may piss some players off.
Even though I've never been a big fan of nukage in Doom, I think Orin Flaharty did a really good job here, because it sort of added a sense of exploration and variety to this map.
With a lot of revenants and chaingunners thrown into, it could've easily been a Plutonia map.

Map06
So-so. Some areas looked and played good, but the texture choice and map design were in no way coherent. As a result, it ended up being quite forgettable, although I liked the parts with a lot of former humans to assassinate.
I felt the megasphere was completely unnecessary.

[kmxexii]

dew said:

i'm so looking forward to you guys reaching map12, hahahaha.

It's probably the most divisive level in the set. I love it but the vast majority of opinions I've heard are a fountain of bile.

[Phobus]

MAP11: Halls of Insanity: This map is so Doom in terms of how it looks and functions. The only problem is, we're clearly playing a multi-player map, to the extent that 11 monsters can't be seen (and therefore killed) from the accessible parts. I managed to get pretty much everywhere, including getting two blue keys, but there's two barriers that block of the player 2 (and presumably 4) starting area, neither of which can be moved from our side. It's fun in a way, but would've benefited from having an SP mode built into as well as the co-op experience. Going into DB it looks like the map is a bit of a lottery, because if player 2 gets through in time he can shut off player 1's normal route, which I think would cause both to have to go player 2's way. Not sure on that though and I don't have anybody to play it with to find out here.

[Capellan]

Map11

A mostly fun map to play, with plenty of cross-fires and windows. My only complaint would be the necessary door that isn't marked with a door texture.



Map12

Obvious texture misalignments all over the place, terrible use of architecture (yes, it is harder to aim and dodge when you've made sure I can't see the enemies. It's also no fun). There's also at least one instance where it's possible to get blocked from finishing the level.