The DWmegawad Club plays: ConC.E.R.Ned & Draft Excluder

[Steve D]

E1M5 – Administration – Kills – 100, Items – 99, Secret – 100. End Health – 195, Armor 77. Death Count – Zero

This was a fun little romp. Lots and lots of monsters, and plenty of traps, most of them not very dangerous. IMO, the yellow key trap was the highlight.

Probably the biggest difference between how I'm playing these maps now as opposed to how I played originally, is that this time I'm sidestepping the Meat to get at the hitscanners. The opening corridor, which wraps around the grey central area, is a perfect example, because you just tear right down the passageway dodging Pinkies and Imps in order to blast the Sergeants, and then come back to clean up the Meat. This makes the experience relatively easy, but the large number of Sergeants, including some that snipe you through windows from below, still makes the encounter hectic, and is one of the most dangerous parts of the map, IMO.

The grey central area was an enjoyable set-up, though that is one big square room. But at least when you spring the main trap you get attacked from all angles, including some much-appreciated flanking from the rear.

There's a lot of Doom Furniture in this map and some fun secrets. To my amusement, I didn't figure out the Computer Map secret until I was backtracking from the exit to go for a max. Ah, that blinking light all the way across the square. ;)

Although the combat is mostly toothless, the enemies were served up in such a way that mowing them down was quite fun.



E2M5 – Tactical Command – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 109, Armor 200. Death Count – 2

This map shocked me. When I first playtested this map, I died 25 times. That might have been my highest death count for the entire megawad, and this turned out to be my favorite map. A big part of my high death count resulted from playing the E3 section first, where I ended up fighting the Cyb and Mastermind with nothing more than a handful of gravel.

Sailing through it this time, even though I played the E1 section first, I find it hard to believe that I could have died 25 times playing continuously. Maybe I had switched to pistol-starts by this time? I don't know. But I do know this, the map seemed dead easy this time, and not very entertaining.

I died once at the start when I went into the big open hub and got slaughtered by Sergeants. Using saves, I probed the defenses until I decided the best way to attack this area was to Rambo it, because camping the door caused more problems than it solved.

Remembering my agonies from the first playthrough, I went the E1 route. Aside from sniping Sergeants and a few roamers, this was a piece of cake. Even the leap of faith into the Rocket Launcher room, which earned me at least 5 deaths in playtesting, was a breeze this time, and the big Baron “trap” at the end was little more than a sloggy bit of tedious shootage. This was to prove a glimpse of things to come, as I think this map amply demonstrates that the fun-factor of a level is inversely proportional to the number of Barons it contains, and this map has a ton of Barons.

So off to the E3 section, after first finding a lot of Cacos have invaded the hub area. These Cacos would factor heavily in the strategy I developed in the E3 area, which was basically to save the Invuln for my trip back, so I could go out and rocket the sniper imps and BFG a bunch of Cacos and Sergeants. This demonstrates that I had more fear of shotgun blasts than Cyb rockets. ;D

As to the E3 area itself, I found it to be something of a campfest, and indicative of the complicated, switch-hunty gameplay, where finding my way out of the area was tougher than any of the fights it contained.

The trap design, again, didn't have enough depth. For example, the switch in the little lava moat that opens a teleport trap allows you to simply run out the door and wait for the monsters to follow, because there's nothing that gets in your way or is waiting for you once you open the door. I know I fought this one in the room while playtesting, and perhaps I should have done so this time, but when I heard the monsters teleporting in, I did what comes naturally in an area where space is restricted – I ran away.

One thing worth mentioning is that I did appreciate the Zerk. I killed the Barons first with rockets – thanks for all the rockets in this map! – and then grabbed the Zerk to punch out the Spectres. This trap did have another layer, since Sergeants and Lost Souls waited at the other end.

I fought – if that's the proper word – the Cyb/Mastermind encounter without the Invuln after using saves to determine the best approach. I've gotta say that I really disliked the Invuln secret, but that's because I dislike secrets where you have to run for it. You have to put up with that kind of thing in the IWAD, but it's not something I enjoy in PWADs, as it's time-consuming and frustrating, so I just clipped for the Invuln after I figured the secret out. But that's skipping a step.

Back to sequence. I BFG-slapped the Spider after it killed Cybie, but soon realized the red key wouldn't lower the red bars, so up I went into yet another switch-hunt area and the campingest battle in the whole map. The room loaded with Barons, Imps, Cacos, Spectres, Lost Souls and Sergeants just begs to be camped. It had too many monsters on station. IMO, it would be much better to make the initial opposition lighter and then teleport a horde in when the player reaches the switch platform. That there was no such horde surprised the shit out of me. But then, if a horde was teleported in, and the player finds the secret, they can camp the horde from the secret area. I seem to remember doing something like that, so maybe there was a horde in one of the betas?

I then grabbed the Invuln and attacked the hub. Everything went according to plan except that more Cacos than expected survived. Even so, sweeping the area of hitscanners made the E2 section the easiest part of the map, whereas I recall being hounded through that area while playtesting. Unhappily for me, I dropped a couple Imps on the “1” sign on the floor, so I never found that switch until I opened the map in DB2 and realized what had happened. Now that's what I call a random factor. ;)

I died once charging the Cyb at the exit after we had teamed-up to eliminate yet more Barons.

I found the map nice-looking overall, with the E1 section being my favorite from both an appearance and playing standpoint. E3 was my least favorite section, though it had some nice-looking areas, but the gameplay left much to be desired, IMO, perhaps because it mixed slaughtery elements, for example the large amount of infighting required, into a traditional map in less than optimal ways.

Anyway, in terms of death count, it seems I'm 12.5 times better at Doom than I was on my first play, and this map has dropped from my favorite to perhaps my least favorite in the megawad so far. It's not merely that the combat is disappointing, but it went on and on forever and I wanted out long before the map was over. I believe it's necessary in a map like this to flank the player from the rear in order to keep them entertained and stressed-out. Too much of the combat here was straight-ahead, and with 368 monsters, that turns into an almighty slog.

[TheOrganGrinder]

E2M9: Blackout

This is the first map in the WAD to really make pervasive gloom a feature - indeed, it's the central theme of the map, which is probably why it occupies the secret map slot in this episode rather than being incorporated into the standard level flow. There's a strong sense of being buried somewhere in the absolute depths of the base, at a junction of technology and bedrock where Hell's influence has taken hold like an infection.

Gameplay, I feel, under-utilises the map's central cavern; there are a couple of times where it features as a source of monsters while you're hunkered down in the southern corridor, but you don't spend a lot of time fighting in the room itself. That kind of extends through the rest of the map's gameplay, now that I think about it; the gloom is extensive enough, and deep enough, that the standard tactics of lunging in and depending on situational awareness to keep you alive are all but nullified, and it felt like survival depended very much on withdrawing to and holding choke points every time things got serious. After a while the focus on pitched battles got a bit wearying; I don't think the layout and monster placement necessarily mesh well with the intended atmopshere.

For the most part, though, I found myself enjoying this level and what it had to offer - the screws are certainly being tightened on the player.

[scifista42]

Sui Generis said:

Were you aware that the slime damage pulse is predictable?

Speaking for myself, I'm aware of that, but pretty much unable to use it to my advantage. Not because I can't see it, but because I usually can't time my movement precisely enough. Besides, I play with the keyboard, so that I can't easily circle-strafe in place until my good moment arrives. In order to see the weapon bobbing, I need to do a run-up.

[cannonball]

E2M6 - "Haunted Cellars"
Yeah I suspected this might be hated by some. The gameplay here is deliberately unbalanced to force the player further into the map, generally the monsters have a step or two advantage over the player to start with. Couple that with the need for tactical strategy as the radsuits are at the start of the map (there are extra suits in the ammo cache areas as you pick the keys up).
The layout again is the worst thing here, it doesn't work well to be honest, that said if the layout was more competent then this map would be an even bigger nightmare to navigate.
I still dig the tense and eerie theme going on here, in term of atmosphere I think this map succeeds better than E2M4 in terms of a dark setting.

Anyway onwards and upwards, a huge non-linear base crawler awaits.

E1M5 is just about done now

The general progression is intact here, but the start area has been revamped to allow for better encounters and the east and west wings have be re-designed. Also I have tried to force a general texture theme into this one (computer and grey concrete based).

I think Adam Windsor will approve of the mass cacocide going on in this map.

[Surreily]

Here are some more maps.

E2M4: Infirmary - 100% kills, 100% secrets
These maps seem to be getting easier as time goes on, but I feel that if I was doing pistol starts, I would have more of a challenge due to the limited ammo. It does get better and more action packed towards the end, however, where many monsters teleport in. There's also a pretty nasty shotgunner trap which took a huge chunk of my health down. Nothing bad, but it's not a very memorable map.

E2M5: Tactical Command - 100% kills, 100% secrets
This, on the other hand, is very memorable. It has some sweet epic music that sounds like a remix of one of the Eternal Doom tracks, and the map is equally as epic. I had fun with the various boss fights (except the very last cyberdemon which kinda just felt filler to me). The map covers a variety of themes: techbase, marble halls, and a few things between those two. There are also multiple paths and, of course, the secret exit! I didn't have too much trouble finding all the hidden switches to access the secret exit here. The gameplay was never dull, and I especially loved the marble area and its spider mastermind encounter. This one is my favourite map so far - great job!

E2M9: Blackout - 100% kills, 100% secrets
Oh boy, this one is darker than Doom 3! Taking it slowly, I was able to survive most of the traps, but I did fall victim to two of them (those barons of hell at the end are brutal). Not being able to immediately see all of my enemies still provided a good challenge though. Great use of Doom's flickering lights, they work really well to add to the dark atmosphere.

So far, episode 2 is shaping up to be better than episode 1 in my opinion. Unless there's a really bad map coming up, I think episode 2 is the clear winner up to this point!

[TheOrganGrinder]

E2M6: Haunted Cellars

In some ways this is a return to a theme we've seen before in ConC.E.R.N.ed - a hub-style initial central area or corridor from which keyed sections lead off, to be explored sequentially. And yet this level does it rather better that previous maps built around the same basic layout. I think the crucial factor there is that, though they must be accessed in order, the keyed areas all connect to the central area via windows, balconies, additional passages or areas that open up... you know you can be threatened from the area of the map you've just left and will have to return to.

Between the omnipresent gloom, the significant number of spectres around the map, and the way unexpected area of the map open up as you make progress, there's a constant feeling of menace that fits the theme of the map well - it's a place that has you jumping at shadows and glancing over your shoulder. It uses the default E2M6 which is delightfully fitting.

[Tristan]

E2M3: Hydrophonic Facility
| Kills: 153/154 | Items: 84/97 | Secrets: 2/4 | Time: 07:24 | Deaths: 2 |

Significant difficulty spike here, and I did not welcome it. None of the fights in this map really stand out to me as being particularly fun, and lean more towards being either boring or frustrating, with the ending and start areas being good examples respectively.
Despite the energy cell pack that's given at the yellow key, the subsequent fight feels like it's meant to be done with the rocket launcher, which would make for a more interesting fight, but you can't do this because lost souls, demons/spectres are thrown into the mix, and you just know that one of them is going to carry out absolute zenith of bullshittery and walk right in front of you as you fire, something that already happened to me once on this map.
Additionally, this is another map where there's a baron in the exit that just doesn't need to be there. Exit room monsters like this one have always seemed like filler combat to me, and I've never understood why it's something used so often. If it were a lower-tier monster (2 imps maybe) I could look past it, but instead it's a baron, the biggest non-boss damage sponge available. Why.

3/10

[Capellan]

e2m7
This is certainly the most sprawling and ambitious map of the set so far. Frankly I am very glad I managed to find the computer map secret or I would have ended up getting even more lost than I actually did.

The level lets you know it doesn't plan to mess around by throwing a spider mastermind into the opening area. It won't be long before cyberdemons join the party too. None of those really seem like they need to be engaged, though: it's often more effective to run away from them.

There are a couple of trap here where it seems like the only escape is having the BFG out, which is drifting a bit close to the 'must have foreknowledge of the map' line for my tastes.

I respect this map's scale and inventiveness, though ultimately I found it a bit long. I enjoyed the first half, especially all the different ways the map interconnected, but by the time I had all the keys I was well and truly ready for it to be done.

Also, what's the deal with the normal exit and the death exit? I could understand it if every map had it (for pistol starters) but it seems a weird thing to do just once.

[scifista42]

E2M6 - "Haunted Cellars"

Good lighting and challenging horde gameplay. But sorry, I'm unimpressed on the whole, because I feel really tired of generic boxy corridors shaped and detailed and (over)populated in the same spirit again and again. So I've just rushed through the map while constantly dying and resurrecting.

[mouldy]

E2M7 - "The Core"
http://www.mediafire.com/download/v6par3skbvt7d69/concern-e2m7-mouldy.lmp

Very enjoyable adventure, sprawling and maze-like, to be honest I didn't know where I was or where I was going most of the time, but always seemed to end up in the right place. Its a big map, but doesn't seem so long thanks to the fast pace. And it is generous with the ammo along the way. Fun stuff. Couple of deaths along the way, only one from a cyberdemon surprisingly. If I had to criticise anything about these maps its that sometimes there are a lot of switches to press, and it isn't always very obvious what they do. There's a bit of that going on here, but its a pretty minor gripe as I never spend too long figuring out what to do next.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/6314549 = part 2 of my playthrough, covering maps E2M5-E3M3 plus secret map E2M9. (pistol starts, UV)

I now officially hate overuse of Barons of Hell thanks to this wad.

The latter half of Episode 2 was awful for me.
The extensive Baron usage finally began to take its toll on my enjoyment factor of the wad, and the creative encounters went way down in favour of HURR DURR PLACE/TELEPORT A FEW BARONS HERE! on far too many occasions.
The Core particularly annoyed me due to it being one of those "exploration" maps where going the wrong way results in struggling, in which case it's either 'fight 37 Barons and co' with or without both the rocket launcher & plasma gun in the same vicnity, not even spread out.
At least E2 ended with a half-decent Cyber fight, as if there hadn't been enough of those in E2 already.
I mean, there were a few decent ideas in the latter half but it almost felt like cannonball couldn't resist using Barons way way too much at this point in lieu of making fun maps.

Episode 3 so far at least seems to some dickish creativity, and I hope it doesn't end up like the latter half of E2.

Also it'd be nice if cannonball was around for my final stream, it's not as much fun raging at him when he's not around!

[Tristan]

Yeah, if there was one monster from Doom 2 that really should have been in Doom 1 too, I'd say it would be the Hell Knight. I'm becoming reluctant to play any further in this WAD, and that's one of the stand-out problems.

[Capellan]

The barons are a lot less annoying on continuous :)

[Steve D]

Capellan said:

The barons are a lot less annoying on continuous :)

But the maps are a lot more exciting from pistol-start. ;) Then again, if I was playing continuous, I'd be more aggressive and might actually die more often.

[Capellan]

SteveD said:

But the maps are a lot more exciting from pistol-start. ;)

I would surmise that people bitching about there being too many barons and considering quitting do not agree :)

[Tristan]

Yeah I was considering going back to continuous starting from next month, but I may just switch now because it's only making me see these maps in a negative light.
Additionally playing continuous makes it feel more like a journey, rather than a big set of unconnected maps collected into one WAD file , which is more my thing anyway (and how I played back in the PSX days) so I guess I don't know why I bothered with pistol starts in the first place :P

[Magnusblitz]

E2M7: The Core
100% kills, 9/9 secrets

Is it better than the movie? Yes.

A large, sprawling map, with 450+ enemies to chew through on UV, and plenty of secrets to try and find as well. I made the mistake of going left into the level proper, so I ended up riling up quite a few barons before finding out that the heavy artillery was stashed over on the right side of the map. However, there's plenty of lifts and doors (or obvious encounter-starting switches) to leave them behind until the player is properly armed up, so the 'baron spam' didn't bother me too much here. The cyberdemon key guards are a bit more problematic, as Capellan notes, they can usually just be ignored and run away from - but where's the fun in that? The red key encounter is probably the best (I like the ground collapsing and leaving only a few columns behind, making the player spend a bit more effort on footwork), the yellow one is probably the worst (run around in circles until the switches drop, then leave the enemies to their own devices). The blue one might seem a bit close to needing foreknowledge, though, as does the exit (which is also best approached by running away and dealing with the enemies from a position of safety).

It looks pretty good, as well, and it follows its slotmate Spawning Vats in having a little bit of everything. Unfortunately, Spawning Vats also was memorable because it had a few locales that really stuck out in the mind (such as the blue computer area, or the big red cross in the hellish area) whereas nothing here really stands out - it's a big mishmash of E2 theme that most people will probably forget. But it's a fun level to clear out, at least for me, just about the right length.

(The 'almost death exit' is pretty tacky, though)

[Demon of the Well]

^Pistol-starts will train your flexibility and resourcefulness, and flexibility/resourcefulness will ultimately open up new horizons for you vis-a-vis mapsets you'll encounter in the future, in ways both great and small, subtle and overt. More subjectively, I believe that pistol-starts also give each individual map a greater chance to put their best face forwards as regards various nuances in balance, encounter design, exploratory/resource-gathering component, and so on and so forth--ultimately I think that the sense of journey is more rich and satisfying (if perhaps less strictly realistic in a mundane sense) if that journey is as full of distinct discrete experiences as possible, as opposed to containing highlights here and there amidst a lot of stuff one simply plowed through as a (super)human juggernaut by dint of using carryovers.

All that being said, of course, there are only a scant few reasons to play something in a way that would actively cause you to enjoy the experience less than you would otherwise--things like skill settings, the pistol-start/continuous dichotomy, the no save/savescum dynamic, and other features of the game exist to be used to enhance one's overall enjoyment, not ignored out of principle.

******

My lack of goodness, I certainly have fallen behind on this one. Time to buckle down and attempt to claw my way back a bit....

E2M2 -- Logistics - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Hmm, bit of a weak level, I felt. I suppose it wasn't done many favors by the fact that "Containment Area" is one of my favorite maps in the original Doom, and so the perfunctory references to it made here (e.g. the token crate area) tend to only invite unfavorable comparisons....rational or not, nostalgia is a formidable force, after all. Anyway, there's a vague sense here of more of the increased level of structural sophistication (in comparison to the speedmapped E1) that was noticeable in "Collider Anomaly", although it's still baby steps at this point--each discrete area is still basically a self-contained box (or an elbow corridor in the case of the northeastern blue area), but now there's more variety in what the boxes contain (e.g. the crate-maze versus the standard early Cannonball 'tech-thingy in the middle of the room' of the start area), and there is a sense of height variation between the discrete areas themselves, even if it's still functionally rare or nonexistent in moment-to-moment action.

Kind of ironically, though, while many of the maps in E1 were much more basic (sometimes to a fault) in a structure/layout sense, a lot of them were still more entertaining to actually play than this one, perhaps because the action here is on the self-consciously restrained side by dint of being in an early slot. Much of the incidental combat is unremarkable, particularly in the crate area (not nearly enough of the wandering monster effect going on in there), and many of the bigger battles seem poorly judged in their implementation: several players have mentioned getting stuck at the bottom of the lift on account of the imps/sergeants that port in up top upon conclusion of the blue key quest, and I had a similar problem with the final wave outside the exit--I didn't leave the dinky little nook with the last switch in it quickly enough (I had erroneously assumed there'd be another discrete area at the end, rather than the final battle taking place in the entry hub itself), and so I got stuck fighting most of the encounter from inside of it, not very thrilling (would've been dangerous if there'd been Barons about, though). Oh, right, and there was a PCorf Baron at the end, no thanks. I did like the trap at one end of the blue area--claustrophobia + a blocked egress--but all in all the action's not much chop. It's not even that chokepoint fights (which tend to dominate here, intentionally or otherwise) are a categorically bad thing, mind you, but I feel they've got to either be a lot more fundamentally pressuring (e.g. there has to be a real risk of actually losing the breach to the enemy, and there needs to be a pressing reason why you may not want that to happen) or make more sense from an in-world perspective (or ideally both).

Aesthetically, nothing was too offensive (although that neat square snake-frame around the window into the room with the cracked floor really bugged the hell out of me for some reason), but the map seemed like a bit of an underachiever, especially after E2M1's stronger (and more classically Deimos) showing--the outdoor area with its road and overcast lighting looked okay, but the crate area is MUCH too bright and cheery (and lighting is very flat in general, come to think of it), and most of the rest sort of blends together. I didn't initially like the music track either (not very familiar with it, but its style leads me to guess it's from Descent), although admittedly it grew on me a bit by the end. In some ways, though, I feel like the less expressly basic layout works against this in some ways--for example, it really looks like you should be able to jump through a window near the red key into the area beyond the blue door without needing the blue key, but this would break the map's simplistic progression (because the door is blue-locked from both sides), and so it's prevented by a crass movement-blocking line. It's a small thing, but details like that hurt immersion and tend to dispel largely cosmetic illusions of sophistication in a layout and structure (which this relies on)--there's really no substitute for the real thing.

E2M3 -- Hydroponics - 100% Kills / 75% Secrets - FDA
A different spin on a familiar concept. While it's disguised somewhat, if you think about it the layout here really follows a pattern that was something of a trope in E1--a central space (or two of them, in this case) with a primary access corridor encircling it, with little one-shot side areas dotted here and there around the outer perimeter. There's also an additional area to the west, of course, but while it's large in dimensions it only takes up a small fraction of the playtime, so it's the quest for the blue keycard in the eastern half that accounts for the meat of the experience. I'm of two minds about the action here...on the one hand, that what is on offer here is once again so much more restrained in pitch than a lot of what we saw in the E1 maps with similar layout leaves me feeling a mite underwhelmed (the Baron horde from E1M6 is still looming large in my mind, I guess), but on the other there's a certain charm to the minor 'cascade' effect to the incidental combat that you get if you move through the map at speed--there are windows into/out of the main corridor from most of the side areas, and the loosely circular orientation of the layout means that monsters from areas ahead of your current position on the loop will often see you and start approaching before you come to their area proper, which helps the action avoid the pitfall of becoming a strictly room-by-room janitorial affair. A couple of 'big' fights which are only big in comparison--a spiderdemon showdown (no prob since there's ample cover) and the teleport wave outside of the medical facility at the end--I used the V-sphere nearby for some rocket-punching antics, but I reckon it's a pretty simple/easy fight even without one, perhaps suffering from the fact that you can apparently just run away from it if you want--not like the PCorf Twins (dammit Cannonball) at the exit are going to hold you up for very long. Ultimately, I think the early berserk 'secret' went a long way towards my being entertained here, which I suppose one could take as a sort of 'glass half empty/half full' sort of deal.

Aesthetically, while this isn't particularly striking I do find it preferable to E2M2--I like the wider variation of colors and organic/inorganic textures in an OG Doom E2 context (no doubt suggesting the power that the Deimos gestalt has assumed in my mind over the years), although it does come off a bit video-gamey in places since so many of the large number of rooms have an identical ceiling height (and height variation in the action is again rare, incidentally, although steps are made in improving that in the final area). Also an interesting detail in that the maps now seem to be segueing into each other in-world--e.g. the exit room from E2M1 was the start room of E2M2 (implying some kind of elevator chamber, like we descended from the collider labs to ground floor to get to Logistics), you can see the medical facility where E2M4 takes place at the end of E2M3, etc. I wonder if this will continue to persist throughout the later reaches of the mapset?

[Steve D]

Capellan said:

I would surmise that people bitching about there being too many barons and considering quitting do not agree :)

You might be on to something, Adam. I caught Suitepee's stream today when he was over halfway through E2M9, and complaining mightily about Barons. Then came M6 and storm clouds were brewing. Less than halfway through M7 it was a classic Suitepee Category F5 Hurricane of Rage. :D

It'll be my turn in the barrel in another hour or two . . .

[Steve D]

Eris Falling said:

Yeah I was considering going back to continuous starting from next month, but I may just switch now because it's only making me see these maps in a negative light.

That's an important consideration. Although I'm mostly a convert to pistol starts, I do regret pistol-starting BTSX E2 on UV. I'd have enjoyed myself more if I'd played continuous or dropped the difficulty. It was, as I've bitched on numerous occasions, too much of a meatfest for my taste and I got tired of SSGing hell nobles, especially in Map15, which had 400 monsters on UV, and not one was a hitscanner. Shudders! ;D

[Demon of the Well]

There were no hitscanners in that map? Huh, weird. I remember its strangest quirk being that by far the heaviest concentration of opposition was situated in what seemed to be by far the most nondescript portion of the map....like, even from a purely scenic standpoint. I still thought it was a good map all things considered, though, and I'd wager that if you played it again (e.g. in 2027 when E2 sees idgames release) your impression of it would improve as well, a result of your changing playstyle. ;)

E2M4 -- Infirmary - 100% Kills / 50% Secrets - FDA
Died once in this one, got too sloppy/cocky during fisticuffs too many times in succession and ended up walking into and being unceremoniously dispatched by a mean-spirited shotgunner trap on 20% health as result, underscoring the Adam/Steve theory that those cadaverous cueballs are potentially the deadliest enemies in OG Doom. Also noticed the painfully obvious second secret I missed within seconds of first coming upon it while watching my own demo...funny the things you sometimes manage to miss in real time, eh?

So, this is a fairly straightforward Tyson-style map. Well, not really 'Tyson-style', honestly....it has a fist-based start and a generally slow-burn level of action (a combination which encouraged me to use the fist as my primary weapon for most of the map), but after you come back up from the gloomy gothic basement you start accumulating more and more ammo (esp. shells) to the point where you can comfortably play it with conventional armament for the remainder. Other than the shotgunner trap which took my life once, and perhaps the final warp-in of monsters before the exit (again, more Barons in that wave than one might expect, although they're not much of a problem given the number of rockets available near the end) monster placement is very straightforward, with most enemies making basic frontal attacks and little else--for the most part it is gradual attrition that is the main danger here, rather than specific designed encounters per se. Since most of the enemies are smallfry (and thus fun to punch) it works out to be palatable enough, although I do suspect it's the sort of map I won't remember very well after the month is through.

Or if I do remember it, it won't be for the action, anyway. Aesthetically, it's a bit of a mixed bag, with a pronounced representational slant being its main distinguishing characteristic--alongside the abstract/generalized techno-goth spaces there is lots of stuff that identifies this as a field hospital of some description (gurneys, an ER room, a nurse call station of sorts, etc.). Attempts have been made to elevate these sector-props above the level of pure scenery; e.g. the lost souls that hover over the corpses on the gurneys when the player returns from the basement. It's not much, but it helps, perhaps because it distinguishes the level from the aesthetically very similar E2M2, and again distracts somewhat from the mostly one-plane nature of the action.

[baja blast rd.]

Yesss, Dotw posts, finally.

[Steve D]

Demon of the Well said:

There were no hitscanners in that map?

Allow me to echo rdwpa and say it's great to have you back. :) And yes, I opened the map in DeepSea to confirm that Map15 of BTSX2 has no hitscanners. It's funny how different apps show different monster counts, too. DeepSea shows 496 monsters on UV,but that includes 68 Net (multiplayer) monsters. GZDoom shows 428, the correct count for single player, while GLBoom shows 413, which is the cubic-inch displacement of a highly successful Chrysler V8 engine of the early '60s. Okay, 428 is the displacement of a great Ford Cobra Jet engine, too.

I might try that map again in a year or so. Then again, probably not. ;D

[dobu gabu maru]

Yeah pistol starts are indeed about flexibility and resourcefulness, which is especially important for an Ultimate Doom wad as the (non-Sergeant) monsters are rarely threatening on their own. Granted, people should play what they feel like playing, but I feel that some of the most exciting parts of some of these maps are lost if you know you can just blast away at it with the PG or BFG.

E2M7: Memfis mentioned E2M2 being the first adventure map while Magnusblitz rebutted that E1M7 did a better job, but IMO this is the first real adventure map. A myriad of choices to choose from, vicious traps everywhere, and nearly 450 enemies blocking your path to the exit—penultimate maps don’t get much better than this. I like how cybers rule this playground (although you can flee from almost all of them) and especially how the paths intertwine. Powell did an excellent job with ammo balance here too, keeping me on edge but never sucking my munitions dry. Cool cool cool.

[Steve D]

E2M9 – Blackout – Kills – 97, Items – 80, Secret – 66. End Health – 81, Armor 74. Death Count – 8

I got through this all the way on Gamma 0!

I enjoyed this more in playtesting. Nowadays, I just don't have the patience to wander around in the dark wasting ammo shooting at enemies I can't see. I don't necessarily object to the gimmick, but man, this map was awfully large for a stroll in the dark.

Surprising as it may seem, the grid-square trap in the southwest corner was one where I complained to cb during playtesting that it ought to be a locked-room trap. He wisely ignored my advice on that one, otherwise I'd probably have to catch a flight to an uncharted island somewhere. ;D

This map had way too many Barons, IMO. I'll have to agree with Suitepee that Barons are really weighing down the final maps in E2. In this map especially, with its tight ammo, the last thing I want to do is plink at Barons. Thank God I came into this map on continuous, since I normally do the secret maps that way.

Anyhow, thanks to a bit of ammo in my tank, the first half of the map was my favorite. I will say that it's an entirely different experience in GZDoom on Gamma 0 than it was with Risen3D on its default setting, which IIRC is Gamma 1, maybe Gamma 2, and in the older versions where it could practically see in the dark, which made it far easier.

The only things I strongly objected to was the return from the grid-square area, which I played before I got the red key, since I missed the opening to that key in the dark, and the blue key adventure. The return from the grid-square area was a meat corridor which found me way short on ammo. I suffered most of my deaths here because I wanted to avoid wasting all my cells and rockets on the avalanche of meat coming at me. After 4 or 5 deaths, I realized I couldn't stubborn my way through it, so out came the heavy weapons, which cost me dearly in the blue key adventure, where I died at least twice owing to my low ammo and the frequency with which I needed to switch weapons. But what really bugged me was the blue key switch, which didn't lower the blue key platform, forcing me to slog through more meat to find another switch. FFS!

The final stairway towards the exit showcases one of cb's signature structures, the curvy-sniper-ledge-alongside-a-stairway. I usually like these, but having Sergeants up there in the dark was most definitely not appreciated. There's gotta be a way for cb to suffer penance for that. ;D

Of course, I ran through the Barons from behind a stream of plasma, as I had had more than enough of this map by then.

In the end, it was just too much of a good thing for me, and the Barons were too much of a bad thing. The map would have worked better at half its size, IMO.

[scifista42]

E2M7 - "The Core"

Not bad! Three things sold me: Great non-linearity, variety in shapes of rooms + colourful texturing, and good pacing of gameplay in the majority of the map. That is, with the exception of the very demotivating start and slaughter keycard battles - I disliked those. Aside from them, I've enjoyed this map.

[scifista42]

E2M8 - "Gates to Hell"

Nice build-up, but the rest was nothing more than a dumb camping + sniping exercise. That's a shame. The map looked good, although it was tiny. I've found the secret room only thanks to seeing the Cyberdemon's rocket flying through that wall. :)

[Capellan]

e2m8
Frankly, some of e2m7 could have been migrated to this map and I would have liked both levels better. As is, it's "walk down a hallway and duel a cyberdemon", and you're done. Given now many cybers have dotted the wad so far, that's very underwhelming.

[Magnusblitz]

E2M8: Gates to Hell
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Yeah, this a very underwhelming and anti-climatic end to the episode, especially after how long and good E2M7 was. It almost feels like an attempt to craft an Icon of Sin battle in Doom I - there are monsters that teleport in, and the target is across a cavern that needs to be shot with the rocket launcher... but it's not any better than an IoS battle and probably a bit worse (since there's no puzzle, and that's really what IoS battles have going for them).

[Sui Generis]

A few People said:

[General hatred of Barons]

Yeah, the baron does seem to have a disproportionately high health compared to most other monsters.

I think the reason for this, which is often forgotten, is that the Baron is in truth not a normal monster but a mild boss monster, as per the original E1M8. ID needed a larger, more dangerous monster for the end of the original E1 and so whilst it's attack is not supremely dangerous, it was presumably required to have a high health for the shock value it would have provide players back in '94. All previous monsters would swiftly die from the chaingun but the barons could swallow a 100 bullets and just keep on coming for you.

I think this psychological role that they needed to fulfill also explains their lack of speed - their slow speed and high health would have made them seem like unstoppable leviathans back then, when the game was released.

Of course nowadays, this original role they would have played is lost, what with players being comfortable with strafing and with always run on. No modern day player would find barons challenging as a boss monster, so instead they are used as just an ordinary monster, but the DNA of their original role continues to manifest in the above average health making them an awkward fit for either role.