The DWmegawad Club plays: Hell Revealed

[Demon of the Well]

Whew. You were really scaring me there for a minute, Dobu.

rdwpa said:

It seems like the DWMC will run out of good modern megawads at some point. (I'm of the opinion that megawads really only started getting good in the early 2000s.) There's still stuff like SoD (Cynical will object to me including this one), the upcoming BTSX e3, some 1024 stuff (niche though), some Community Chests (mixed bags), PRCP, and so on, but the list isn't long at all. And frankly, old megawads are more often bad, held aloft by only nostalgia.

All things to end are made, my dear fellow. That being said, I wouldn't worry overly much about The End being too terribly imminent....as we move through the docket of modern releases, more gradually yet steadily appear to replenish the list anew, some of them inevitably as if out of nowhere. Not absolutely everything is going to be of AAA billing, of course, but there is nothing wrong or unnatural or unhealthy about that. Also, I reckon there is something of a minor deluge of eminently play-worthy releases upcoming in the not-TOO-distant future, as well....I don't want to sound like I'm trying to soapbox too much, but I've followed the work of the PWADing community through more than one generation, and one of the defining characteristics of the current culture is A-list releases spending a loooooooooooooong time in development, often kinda-sorta-shrouded in secrecy, and more often than not for (very reasonable!) QC/polish-related reasons. Perhaps this is vexatious to BDL types and to antsier players in general (and I suppose I've been guilty of pining melodramatically for the still far-off Vela Pax on more than one occasion myself!), but it also usually means that when it rains, it pours. Good things are in the future, mark my words. At least as far as DooM is concerned, at any rate!

Map 10 -- Chambers of War - 100% Kills / No actual secrets
The very first zombieman somehow managed to shoot me twice before I offed him. :(

Interesting to see Getsu Fune describe this as 'bland', but in a positive way. Seems like something of a contradiction in terms at first glance, but I think I sort of understand what he means. This is a very down-to-earth little number situated in the part of the game where Hell Revealed finally starts to rev up its engine, and I seem to have been guilty of discounting it myself, remembering it mainly for its pompous-yet-generic and somewhat ill-fitting name (to me it looks like a old mansion rather than anything having to do with war, but perhaps it's supposed to be a Monster HQ or something?). Playing through it again this evening, however, it strikes me that this may actually be one of Haggay's best maps in the set (though I'm probably most partial to m21 as his set highlight, personally), and in a MYHOUSE idiom of all things! The most memorable encounter is the hedgemaze 'gotcha', actually one of Niv's more clever ideas, but I found the rest of the content more engaging than expected, as well.

The layout is comprised of corridors with one-entrance box-rooms adjoining, and this being HR, many of said rooms feature a goodly blob of demonic HP loafing about in them. Doesn't really sound like a recipe for success, right? I found it deceptively playable, though--everything is fairly spacious, with corridors tending to be long and wide, so you can zoom around the house and get a lot of things moving rather than actually being required to door-camp through very many encounters as in many of the previous maps; it feels good to be able to be really aggressive for a change, and the item balance here is more than generous enough to allow a reasonably competent Doomer to play pretty loose/cavalier. Things can be surprisingly dynamic here, as well, due to a relative scarcity of monster-blocking lines, allowing monsters to chase you around and mix with each other to some degree. That potential weapon progression is more conventional (and I mean that in a positive way in this case) this time helps, as well, with an early plasma gun available to make for a good second-fiddle to the trusty SSG. Now, I guess it's fair to say a significant part of this potential entertainment factor I'm speaking of is predicated on having some degree of foreknowledge (which, for good or ill, is not really an uncommon thing in this mapset), but as a repeat player at this particular juncture I reckon I'm not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth, and save the windy musings on whether this is 'good' or 'bad' design for some other time.

Not to sound too much like a broken record, but from an aesthetic standpoint the presentation is generally quite clean/sensible and thus palatable enough, albeit more than a little primitive by modern standards. The commitment to the manor/manor grounds theme here is total (i.e. nothing like the circus-parade of textures from one corridor to another ala the northern reaches of map 09), which strikes me as interesting....earlier, IIRC someone likened Donner to the Romero of the two and Niv as the Petersen, but to the (very) limited extent the analogy holds up, I think it's actually closer to being the other way around--essentially all of HR's most famous maps are famous for the concepts they feature, and essentially all of them are by Donner with somewhat catch-as-catch-can aesthetics, whereas Niv's maps are usually a little more understated from a gameplay perspective, and feature a stronger/more coherent sense of theme as far as visuals go. Like I said, it's hardly a very strong analogy in the first place--some of Donner's maps are much more thematically/conceptually coherent than others, and Niv has own share of funky little concept areas (e.g. the whole of map 07, or a certain infamous part of map 27)--but something to think about. Anyway, the visual presentation here's alright--the yard with the hedgemaze is the low point, looking unadorned/undetailed even by period standards, but the rest is serviceable enough. I guess I always have been susceptible to the fluted wood/plaster/library texture set commonly seen in mansion maps, though, pretty much my favorite of the Doom II tex additions, along with the lacquered CEMENT tile stuff.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 11 -- Underground Base - 107% Kills / 100% Secrets
Ah, memories. Looking at this now I suppose I shouldn't be surprised it was essentially Donner's first map (and indeed, looking at HR through a nominally "analytical" lens, it's disarming how blatantly obvious it is that a big chunk of the PWAD is essentially the authors' version of Baby's First Mapset), what with its panoply of isolated concept-rooms, haphazard Wolf3D-looking map layout where height variation appears in sudden exaggerated blotches, and generally incoherent theming (it is in fact entirely underground, though, for the record!). Obvious amateurism or no, though, I've got to admit I'm finding it well nigh impossible to ignore my warm fuzzy feelings for it. Of course, much of this is based purely in fond memories of my own very first playthrough of it, where the feeling of accomplishment for beating something like this after a series of protracted struggles was very real, but I think it has a surprisingly clever/nuanced thing-balance (though I suppose your conception of whether it's "clever" or merely "bullshit" will depend on your generational attitude towards the concept of 'mandatory secrets') and some charmingly witty moments--don't tell you didn't at least crack a smile when, upon backtracking from the blue key, you find yourself going on autopilot to camp out the viles who've appeared on the other side of the U-arch like you did on the first time through, only to have one of the fuckers open the central door on you. Great music, too. I have a positive opinion of the RoTT soundtrack as a generality, but this particular track's my personal fave.

It's also probably still accurate to say that this map is notable, if for nothing else, as the one where HR starts to get tough. Once you know the map pretty much every situation in it is easy to control, if not downright exploit, but therein's the rub--it's only a walk in the park if you know it. Going in blind, it's liable to be a grueling endurance match mired in both attrition and austerity, as you use a patchwork arsenal to somehow try to stubborn your way past blockade after blockade of powerful monsters, with claustrophobic pincer-snares and dangerous blind drops to catch out the hesitant in between major areas. Not just a question of tasking you with repeatedly overcoming hefty obstacles with limited means, there are some genuinely sinister machinations at work to bait you into overcommitting in one fight only to leave you in a really bad spot a little ways down the road, the most notable of these being the trek through the iconic wooden towers room up to the red door: when the first cybie pops out of the floor at the far end down below it is tempting to spend your recent small windfall of cells on him, even euphorically easy to trick him into corralling himself behind one of the blocklines marked by the circle of blue torches while you stand opposite and pound him in relative safety from afar; but if you give into temptation and take the easy road like this, you're going to be kicking yourself a few minutes later when you run up against the second stationary cybie just past a nasty bottleneck up top, especially if you also missed the very signposted yet rather sneaky secret area containing the RL....trust me, I speak from experience. ;)

If you confronted this scenario back in the late 90s or so I imagine it was easy to write it off as broken bullshit (and I suppose at least some will find it very easy to do that even today), but the thing about HR is that even where it gets a bit demented there's often a sort of genius of balance beneath the surface if you're willing to look. There are a lot of permutations for how to solve the problem this room presents: as Cynical alluded to, you can save resources by leaving the first cyberdemon alive (got to be careful not to 'trip' on him when leaping from tower to tower that way, of course); you can carefully comb other parts of the level for enough scratch to wear the second guy down from afar (esp. with bullets) before finishing him with shells (which of course is complicated if you don't kill the first guy!), YOU CAN LOOK FOR HIDDEN STUFF (<--this is an option that seems to have almost completely (d)evolved out of the average modern player's brain at some point between 2003 or so and now), which is very likely to at least clue you in on the all-important RL secret, or, if you're really ballsy and/or desperate, you can charge to the end of the bottleneck and do a very careful rocket-baiting tango at its mouth while blasting cybie #2 almost point-blank with your SSG, tricky but doable (again, I speak from experience). Point is there's options, even if it may not initially seem so, and that's really what a lot of the better play to be had in HR's better maps is about. Some of the options are predicated on guile, foreknowledge + planning, or relatively advanced play techniques, granted, but learning some of these different tacks precisely through and BECAUSE of the baptism by fire that HR represented back in its day is where a lot of its fun came from. Again, I don't expect a modern audience to be able to share in this, nor should you feel pressured to (I myself still think Fava Beans is a piddly little slip of a mapset that contains almost 0% interesting content despite a welter of very sensible and cogent arguments on the part of real old-timers that it represented a brilliant accomplishment in its own time!), but I do hope to somehow impress upon you that we old duffers aren't ENTIRELY off our rockers when we say there's something genuinely worthwhile about these boxy old tangles of chokepoints and meat-zones. :D

[Cynical]

After reading that, I can't wait to see how you're going to try defending map 20 ;-)

(I somehow doubt you'll try defending the tedium known as map 28 at all, heh)

[T-Rex]

Well said with everything you've written on your thesis on Map11, Demon of the Well. Map11 is less of a slaughtermap (save for the giant BFG chamber) and more of a puzzle map because you have to play smart and know where you have to go to in order to manage and survive the opposition as you're greeted with more heavyweights than in the previous maps. While it may not win any beauty contests, considering this was one of Yonatan's first maps, it's certainly not offensive. I mean, I've seen worse architecture in TNT (Map08 and 27, anyone?), but this map along with many other of HR's maps are clearly notches above them. And even back when I first had Final Doom, I used to think Plutonia had bullshit and broken monster placement until I played it more and found out what that megawad strives to achieve. Since I've read reviews and the text file on HR's gameplay style before I got to try it, I wasn't discouraged having being desensitised from Plutonia over the years. Even Plutonia forces you to do the rocket dance with the revenants and cyberdemons, but due to the compactness of most of the maps, that makes it all the more trickier, hence why I see many say Plutonia is more chaotic than HR. I think all of us have to agree that both Plutonia and HR have their own ups and downs which makes it a tie over which megawad is better. One thing for sure is that after Map12, and from Map13, we'll get to see much better architecture. And as for me likening Yonatan to John Romero and Haggay Niv to Petersen, I can see what you mean in terms of the texturing of the maps, although even Romero had some instances of funky aesthetics and texturing (like a few maps in Doom 2) while Sandy would at time become coherent with them (Monster Condo).

[Magnusblitz]

Gustavo6046 said:

@Pirx Who likes barons? (other than me) They are normally a nuisance of tough scumbags (The two E1M8 barons combined takes like 24 Shotgun shots to kill, or more if the shotgun power isn't half the SSG power) but they still are good for smaller bosses when alone.

Barons are generally poor enemies because they combine high hit points with low threat level. They take a lot of punishment (5 rockets or SSG blasts) but they move relatively slowly and only throw one easily-avoidable fireball. Some map makers can make them more dangerous (such as putting them in close quarters where their quick and damaging melee attack can shine) but such uses are few and far between. The way they're usually used, they're just imps that are far more boring to kill.

[T-Rex]

Magnusblitz said:

Barons are generally poor enemies because they combine high hit points with low threat level. They take a lot of punishment (5 rockets or SSG blasts) but they move relatively slowly and only throw one easily-avoidable fireball. Some map makers can make them more dangerous (such as putting them in close quarters where their quick and damaging melee attack can shine) but such uses are few and far between. The way they're usually used, they're just imps that are far more boring to kill.

Yeah, and in cases when you're cornered by a Baron, you're forced to SSG or plasma rifle it and hope it dies before it can tear you to shreds. They're pretty much the precursor to Quake's Shambler, to some degree, only that Shamblers are much more dangerous as their movement and attacks are very quick.

[Alfonzo]

T-Rex said:

[...] I think all of us have to agree that both Plutonia and HR have their own ups and downs which makes it a tie over which megawad is better. [...]

Reading this post and several others that you've made here and elsewhere, I'm confused as to why you think the two mapsets are so readily comperable. Could you write about this a little more? I understand that lots of the points you raise are made with an eye for the era's developing an increased difficulty, but how this difficulty is applied seems to me completely different, and wouldn't lend itself to most given discussions about precise aspects of level design like layout, progression, pacing, etc..

Plutonia is a happy marriage of shoplifted IWAD body parts and creative focus. It's apparently streamlined, economic and exacting with remarkable consistency, with the sorts of play found in the later maps not seeming alien if imagined anywhere else in the set. The layouts are more interconnected, the geometry in combination more conducive to varied and precise monster use, the pacing is fluid, the number of monsters scant and on the wrong side of 100, the approach to concept-driven level design less outwardly experimental, opting instead for advancing established methods with a unique hook (Hunted is definitely an exception, here, I agree!)...
Compare this to HR, which is a rip-roaring lurch into uncharted waters with brazen gameplay and scattered ideas, sometimes ham-fisted in execution, and featuring en block hordes of baddies in rudimentary square rooms, little to no connectivity, mismatching levels of provisions, a steep difficulty ridge (!), and pacing that's sometimes so slow it could be killed with just a sprinkling of salt.

One area of comparison I can see the two sets being featured in is the joint facination with Romero's Living End, among a couple of other stock maps, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that Post Mortem was inspired directly by Final Frontier or Anti-christ. Beyond that though... is there something I'm missing?

[T-Rex]

Alfonzo said:

Could you write about this a little more?

I'll be glad to elaborate some things I've noticed between Plutonia and HR and why I compare them very often.

I won't argue that yes, there are differences between Plutonia and HR both stylistically and thematically, and while it also applies to the gameplay to a certain degree, there's considerable influences between the two wads.

Some people like to believe that Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv were the originators of the slaughterfest concept, however, Dario and Milo Casali are pretty much the actual forerunners in so many ways. Dario himself mentioned in the 5 years of Doom interview that he and his brother liked to make maps that involves plowing through hordes of monsters, some of which are in Plutonia and other wads, particularly Memento Mori. Their standalone wads, Punisher and Seej (yes, I know they're both Dario's, though the latter was based on a deathmatch map by Milo) are also a testament to what they would contribute and influence to the evolution of Doom mapping as the body count even surpasses the maximum of HR. Seej has well over 900 monsters! Given that they all came before HR, it is a huge possibility that Donner and Niv used the Casalis' gameplay style, idioms, and tropes as models for their megawad (Yonatan even mentioned Hunted in one of the maps in the infopack program). I mean, many of the really difficult wads wouldn't have been that way if it hadn't been for the Casalis' trailblazing. Prior to 1997, they were the only authors who have designed levels that were far more challenging than any other wad created at the time.

I'm going to agree that Plutonia is more well-crafted in design and had a consistent theme going compared to Hell Revealed, but let's take a look at the geometry now that you mentioned it. Of course, Dario's levels might not be comparable as they are lean more towards quasi-realism and believable locales. Milo, on the other hand, had some rather simplistic geometry (circular/boxy rooms, curves, and hallways). Those ones may be a bit more closer to HR's geometry, considering how some playing the wad here found the early maps to be Wolf3D-ish/RotT-esque, but this becomes even more apparent later in the wad as Yonatan started to implement curvy walls in some of the later maps. The theme of the brown stone/brick walls and green grass combination in Plutonia even made ocassional appearances in some of HR's maps (first half of Map04, and even the currently played Map13). Monster teleporter ambushes are quite akin to Plutonia's traps involving teleporting monsters.

There are some parallels between HR and Plutonia as well. Both megawads were handled by two people respectively, there were at least a couple of maps that drew inspiration from other maps (notably the official IWADs), and while HR has a steeper difficulty curve, it still uses the similar principle of Plutonia. Also, both uses music from one official game; Plutonia used Doom's music along with some of Doom 2's while HR used Rise of the Triad's.

In regards to the level inspirations, there's quite some they shared in common. Although City in the Clouds is different from Odyssey of Noises, they still drew inspiration from Doom 2's Downtown. Post Mortem, The Final Frontier, and Anti-Christ are influenced by The Living End, like you said. But there's even instances where HR drew concepts from Plutonia. Resistance is Futile, for example, while it may not be based on a particular map, it still uses the type of concept seen in Showdown (MM Map23) and Go 2 It. Mostly Harmful, while not a Go 2 It ripoff, is still seen as the hardest map before Post Mortem redefines that. At last the boss map, it is somewhat similar to Plutonia's since you have a Cyberdemon that hampers the progress of shooting rockets at Romero's head along with various other monsters surrounding the arena.

Well, I hope that explained things a little bit more. In full honesty, because I love the music which got me into trying and enjoying Rise of the Triad (Apogee games are the greatest!), HR has a special place in me that I will defend it to the very end, and it irks me that it gets unfairly criticised while Plutonia gets way too much praise, much as it is a good megawad.

[vdgg]

dobu gabu maru said:

...I had started writing about how joe-ilya’s maps are way more fun than what Donner could ever create, before realizing what I was doing ;_;

I just realised they are from the same country :)

[NaZa]

vdgg said:

I just realised they are from the same country :)

Donner is from Israel.

[T-Rex]

Ah, yes, I remember that info from Team TNT's homepage since Donner worked on their deathmatch-only Pursuit megawad.

[NuMetalManiak]

Cynical said:

After reading that, I can't wait to see how you're going to try defending map 20 ;-)

(I somehow doubt you'll try defending the tedium known as map 28 at all, heh)

just wait till MAP18 for me.

MAP13 Last Look at Eden

Split into three distinctive areas, all memorable. quite a nasty level especially on pistol start. the real troubles for me here are opening the first door, where revenants decide to show up on all sides for harassment. And then the chaingunners teleporting near the sphere. The courtyards themselves have lots of space, so all I really need is patience there. the 30-second trap also sticks in my mind as one of the nastier ones.

[Paul977]

MAP13: Last Look at Eden

Started the map with 19% armor, full shells, full bullets, few rockets, some cells. I died countless time in the first room when the revenants pop up.. With no armor no mistakes are allowed. In my first succesfull attempt to pass the first two rooms I died in the blue key cage.
In the attempt where I completed the map (still dunno how I do) I proceded in the following way (probably wrong but I didn't saw any solutions or demos): cleaned the first room with ssg and few infights, dodged the revenants, killed the arch-vile with the rocket launcher, carefully cleaned the second room (zombie commandos infight helped me), I generate infight between mancubus, barons, hks, arch-vile and the spidermastermind in the arena (I should have involved the cyberdemon). Finally I survived the cage with 13% health, I let the final cyberdemon to kill the arch-vile and run in to the exit. End.

For me Hell Revealed is far more difficult then Plutonia.

[mouldy]

MAP13 - "Last Look at Eden" by Yonatan Donner

This map is something of a grind on pistol start, both in the sense of chipping away at many big monsters with little guns, and also in the way some of the encounters demand very specific techniques with zero margin for error, making you do them over and over until you get it perfect or you are just plain lucky. To start with you have the courtyard buzzing with heavy artilery and only a shotgun to deal with them. I found that I could run in circles for a while and get enough infighting going to thin them all out to a manageable level, but then there is a horde of barons and hellknights upstairs. Not knowing what was coming next I had to take them all out with shotgun which was mega tedious. I could possibly have not bothered, because after trying the next bit a dozen times it seemed that the only option to survive it was to run into the next room and just try and leg it down the steps to the chaingunners and hope to find enough cover to not get minced by them. Similarly the next room, which is the main courtyard, works best if you run straight into it rather than shoot through the doorway, and after messing about in there for a while trying to get everything to kill each other there was finally some breathing space to take on the three locked doors.

There is still only SSG at this point, a rocket launcher and a few rockets was provided, but not enough ammo to carry on using it throughout. If I was going to play it again I would save all of those rockets for the cage room, which was absolutely stupid with no armour. I only remember ever getting one green armour in the whole map, and that was gone in the blink of an eye with all the other shit going on. So, into the cage with 100 health and no armour, and SSG. Dead in microseconds. Had to play it over and over for an eternity just to get a totally lucky go where there was enough infighting to survive it. Not a friendly map to unfamiliar players this one. With hindsight I would save the armour and rockets for that particular bit I think.

Harsh stuff, but I'm guessing maybe that pistol start is an option intended for people who already know the maps inside out.

[Budoka]

MAP13: Last Look at Eden

I've always loved the frantic feel of this level, even back when I couldn't even beat it. Pistol starters, either ignore those first two courtyards when beginning the map or die trying to do anything. Cleaning the starting room will just waste all your ammo, only to have the first Archvile ruin everything you accomplished. Very devious indeed. Grabbing the secret Megaarmor will help you tremendously, but it's possible to survive the dash without it (I would know), which is good because that's a rather tricky straferun to make under pressure.

The other big moment is the blue key cage, but... actually, it's easy as shit. The last few times I've played this map, I've always played that part the hard way and yet barely taken any damage, and we all know I'm pretty far removed from a Doomgod. Just SSG/rocket all the chaingunners right away, and keep mobile. it's that simple.

In other news, you can watch gggmork completely destroy this map here (includes a notable trick which I would never have thought of):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sooDChNib4

[dobu gabu maru]

Interesting discussion regarding Plutonia v. Hell Revealed. I stand firm on Alfonzo's side of the two mapsets being more distinguished from one another, but it's nevertheless thought-provoking to read T-Rex's argument. I can definitely see inspiration from the Casalis to Donner, but I feel like it's such a different spin on the formula that it becomes dissimilar (besides some of the obvious homages T-Rex mentioned).

mouldy said:

Harsh stuff, but I'm guessing maybe that pistol start is an option intended for people who already know the maps inside out.

Well since you probably didn't know, there's a secret blue armor in that second room where the chaingunner warp-in occurs; your hypothesis is on point.

MAP13: Dayummm this map is evil. Playing this from pistol start is an entirely different experience, as you’re reduced to a mere shotgun unless you charge ahead. And making that initial blitz to the SSG is the hardest part of the map, thanks to the massive chaingunner flood that occurs by it. It’s definitely difficult but it’s not all that fun, as without the secret blue armor it’s kinda up to the RNG whether or not you get torn to shreds. Besides that, the map is interesting in that it contains the seeds of many slaughter staples. Here you're taught about priority sniping the AVs, to let infighting take care of the bulk of the monsters, that PEs need to be brought down ASAP, and there’s even a good ol’ cage trap where you’re surrounded on all sides. It’s all good in theory, but it’s so haphazardly placed together here between the block monster lines and SSG-only gameplay (good luck scrounging up enough ammo for the rocket launcher) that the map feels more like an interesting experiment than an amazing experience.

Still, it offers up a stiff challenge, and I do respect it for that. Plus some of the AV sniping was fun, so it’s definitely head and shoulders above the sheer congested inanity of the first twelve maps.

Cynical said:

That's the most common opinion I've seen over the years, but I honestly have never seen what other people do in that one.

I think you're looking at it too analytically rather than holistically. It's thematically consistent, has significantly larger rooms than we've seen thus far, has encounters that promote constant mobility, and most importantly—isn't a corridor crawl. While MAP11 has a larger monster number (and could also been seen as the "start" of Hell Revealed [though MAP12 kinda nullifies that]), it feels too underdeveloped in scope and style, while MAP13—despite the gameplay problems—is so much more readily readable as a "slaughtermap" in modern times.

Oh, and you guys are crazy if you think MAP18 and 21 are defensible.

[antares031]

MAP14 - City in the Clouds
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/80

Well... I'll be honest, this level is by far the worst level I've played in this wad... with pistol start, I scored numerous deaths during my play. There are two critical flaws; one is every weapons are guarded fiercely, even a normal shotgun is guarded with barons and arch-viles. You can't obtain weapons from zombies, either. Because there's no zombies in this level from the first place. Another critical flaw to me is there's no SSG in this level. This gives a huge, huge difference to pistol starters, compared to continuous players. Back in the past I played this level with continuous play, I didn't notice these issues. Even the combat is so uninspired. I was just wandering around for more than 5 minutes, not shooting my only weapon, so I can play a monster infighting simulator. But in the end, this level is not for my taste, and I want to give a one star for this level.

[joe-ilya]

13

Sucks hard, you waste your time shooting mid-tier monsters with a regular shotgun in the symmetric courtyard, then an AV comes in and resurrects everything in the base, you lure a huge chunk of monsters to one side and quickly go to the other side, open the door again and make a luck based run for the SSG, it's luck based because you jump from several cliffs and there are monsters underneath which block your way sometimes and can abrupt your run if you play with vanilla doom. As you get the SSG, a shitload of chaingunners teleport and can merely get out of the area with the chainies on your back draining your health quickly.

Then you're greeted with a huge courtyard hub with loads of mancubuses and doors. You open the brick building, barely get the yellow key, open yellow door, push a button from below it, run into the fountain which countain the red skull and a cyber guarding it, open red door, get blue skull, open blue door, teleport to the start of the level with the first building now open with an exit in it and an AV poorly guarding it.

1/5 for not giving me nothing but SSG, SG and a chaingun to mow huge walls of flesh in bland flat bare squares and being a luck based map overall. I'm also hoping to find good gameplay and not just fresh air.

[Budoka]

dobu gabu maru said:

Oh, and you guys are crazy if you think MAP18 and 21 are defensible.

I'm actually a huge fan of Hard Attack, except for one particular element which unfortunately is used a lot. But we'll get to that when we do. MAP21... well, like most Haggay Niv entries, it's much cooler in concept than in practice.

By the way Suitepee, this has to be your funniest playthrough commentary ever. You were a bit confused regarding the secret exit on MAP15 though, the teleporters leading to either exit are in fact located in different parts of the ring. It's easy to tell in your stream as one has a dead Archvile on top of it while the other has nothing.

[gaspe]

@antares031 I suggest you to give up on going for 100% kills, on pistol start it's more tiresome and annoying than anything else.

[Cynical]

dobu gabu maru said:

Oh, and you guys are crazy if you think MAP18 and 21 are defensible.

18 is pretty bad, aside from a couple of rooms that I think are *really* neat, yeah.

21 is goofy, and it's piss-easy, but I think it mostly works.

antares 0351 said:

Well... I'll be honest, this level is by far the worst level I've played in this wad [...] But in the end, this level is not for my taste, and I want to give a one star for this level.

HERETIC!

City in the Clouds is easily the best in HR, and possibly top 10 of all maps ever. That map is completely perfect and wonderful.

[Ribbiks]

Cynical said:

City in the Clouds is easily the best in HR, and possibly top 10 of all maps ever. That map is completely perfect and wonderful.

out of genuine curiosity, can you elaborate on the aspects of this map that you enjoy?

[Cynical]

Ribbiks said:

out of genuine curiosity, can you elaborate on the aspects of this map that you enjoy?

1. It's a puzzlebox, and what a puzzle! I'm quite fond of exploration-puzzley/"figure out a way to get your tools" starts (as you've probably noticed from my own maps), and City in the Clouds has the mother of them all. There's still just enough variability and execution involved in the start, especially in being efficient enough under invuln to take down both Viles by the blue key before it wears off, that it's engaging every tine without getting rote.

2. It's very amenable to evasive/hide and seek play. Personally, I find running and escaping from groups of monsters to be more fun than fighting, and the city streets of "City in the Clouds" readily allow for that kind of "run and evade while under heavy fire" kind of play. It'd have been nice if there had been a few loose Viles running around those streets for some extra pressure in this playstyle (or maybe if those three that appear after you grab the blue key could actually escape their enclosure and do anything), but it's still an exemplar here.

I also happen to like most of the setpieces en route to the yellow key, especially the ones in that little narrow network of hallways, but I realize that I'm quite alone in that these days.

I might feel differently if I gave a shit about maxkills, but I don't. It's not uncommon for me to leave HR maps with about 50% kills.

[antares031]

gaspe said:

@antares031 I suggest you to give up on going for 100% kills, on pistol start it's more tiresome and annoying than anything else.

Nah, I can't give up on getting perfect kills. It's my personal way to appreciate the author of level, although this level was not a good one with pistol start. Maybe I should have play the levels continuously just like I used to play this wad.

Cynical said:

City in the Clouds is easily the best in HR, and possibly top 10 of all maps ever. That map is completely perfect and wonderful.

It's a matter of personal taste. I must admit that this level is enjoyable if I bring some weapons(SSG, especially). But with pistol start, This is one of the worst levels in HR for me.

[Ribbiks]

Cynical said:

1. It's a puzzlebox, and what a puzzle! I'm quite fond of exploration-puzzley/"figure out a way to get your tools" starts (as you've probably noticed from my own maps), and City in the Clouds has the mother of them all. There's still just enough variability and execution involved in the start, especially in being efficient enough under invuln to take down both Viles by the blue key before it wears off, that it's engaging every tine without getting rote.

2. It's very amenable to evasive/hide and seek play. Personally, I find running and escaping from groups of monsters to be more fun than fighting, and the city streets of "City in the Clouds" readily allow for that kind of "run and evade while under heavy fire" kind of play. It'd have been nice if there had been a few loose Viles running around those streets for some extra pressure in this playstyle (or maybe if those three that appear after you grab the blue key could actually escape their enclosure and do anything), but it's still an exemplar here.

I also happen to like most of the setpieces en route to the yellow key, especially the ones in that little narrow network of hallways, but I realize that I'm quite alone in that these days.

I might feel differently if I gave a shit about maxkills, but I don't. It's not uncommon for me to leave HR maps with about 50% kills.

I see :D. It's a style of mapping that doesn't seem to be in favor much nowadays. While I don't view it quite as favorably, I kinda like the idea of a map not being built around max-kills. Throwing that nicety out the window would afford a lot more extra-pressure/crossfire/etc, plus perhaps an atmosphere that the level is an actual place owned and operated by demons, not a streamlined shooting gallery just waiting for doomguy to bust in :p

[Cynical]

Ribbiks said:

plus perhaps an atmosphere that the level is an actual place owned and operated by demons, not a streamlined shooting gallery just waiting for doomguy to bust in :p

I think this probably is a lot of it. Something like HR14 or Scythe29 feels a lot more oppressive than, say, Grime, SWtW02, or SD20x704 even though the latter maps are obviously far more dangerous and lethal. Atmospheric/aesthetic concerns and "gameplay" concerns aren't as separate as many parts of the community, particularly the more skilled parts, frequently claim.

EDIT: BTW, after thinking about it further, I feel like I sold map 18 short earlier. Aside from two dumb areas, it really is a pretty good map; it's just that those two dumb areas are monstrously bad, and one of them (which, unfortunately, is the more daft of the two) is by far the largest in the map. I guess the more-or-less mandatory on UV secret is also pretty silly, although the method of its concealment and what it contains are actually quite cool (its contents are actually quite Ribbiks-lite, IMO); it's just its importance that's a bit off-model, at least for the last decade.

[joe-ilya]

14

Nothing is fair, no good weaponary, not enough health, extreme falls with monsters blocking your way and scratching you out, long line of spectres and many other luck based situations. Not even a point goes right, everything is annoying and takes too long to kill.

0/5

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/44741633 = part 2 of my playthrough, covering both secret maps and maps 16-23. (UV, continuous)

I hate this wad. Never have I played a more dull yet slogfest-difficult set of levels in all my Doom wad playing existence. I'll be glad when this is finished.

I somehow managed to make map 31 quite easy for myself; first of all the descent didn't have any monsters until the bottom, and then I hid in one of the corners as the monster blocking lines helped me clear out the red key ambush.
Map 32 was annoying as all heck.....but then how awesome of the mappers to NOT consider placing any kind of health kit at the start of map 16. Because you know, after having to perform a E1M8-style exit taking us down to 5-10% health we don't need any health for the next level right?
Slogfest after slogfest ensured thereafter, with monster blocking lines aplenty. (with the odd good map or spot on a map)
And map 23 ends with the worst Archvile (all 20 of them) placement I've ever seen, alongside an equally terribly placed teleporter. Good grief that room took a while.

I'll be happy with the last 7 maps ending as quickly as possible.....

[gaspe]

MAP14 - City in the Clouds

Kills: 77% | Items: 43% | Secrets: 40%

The setting of a city floating in the sky is cool, though the execution is too shallow for my tastes. The weapons are well guarded here, I remembered only where were the SG and the RL . Then proceeding into the everlasting corridor of spectres where I almost fall asleep. I wasted some time killing the pinkies near the BFG hoping I could grab it. In the yellow key building I wasted other time going into the marble room, but even at the yellow key there some bullshit punching midtier monsters in the cramped hallway. The plasmagun is useless at that point. A bit too many crap moments in this level.

[T-Rex]

dobu gabu maru said:

I can definitely see inspiration from the Casalis to Donner, but I feel like it's such a different spin on the formula that it becomes dissimilar (besides some of the obvious homages T-Rex mentioned).

Similarly, wads like Alien Vendetta and Deus Vult were inspired by Hell Revealed, yet had their own distinct flavours. Alien Vendetta, for example, branched off in becoming epic adventures with really outstanding architecture, ala Eternal Doom, while having a few HR-esque slaughters thrown in. Deus Vult, on the other hand and as Tosi mentioned in another thread, takes the formula to a whole new dimension that showcases and demands a completely different gameplay style, which paves the way for the likes of Sunder, Combat Shock, and the Slaughterfest series.