The DWmegawad Club plays: Hell Revealed

[mouldy]

MAP28 - "Top Hell" by Haggay Niv

Finally get to shoot some more stuff with big weapons. A fun sandboxy map (with emphasis on boxy), with nothing too difficult to deal with, unless you open that door with all the archviles behind it. The main exercise is avoiding the cyber rockets and hunt for something stronger than a rocket launcher to take them out. The joy of finally being able to mow down hordes of barons. Not sure whats going on with the exit room, seems to be filled with purely decorative enemies, but whatever. Quite a sense of scale in this map, makes me glad there weren't any flying monsters.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP28 Top Hell

this level never really struck me out as interesting, but I don't find it horrible. the placement of cybers as turrets is the main tedium here but by this point I'm more or less used to it. the spiderdemon room and many others aren't memorable at all, maybe the room with the berserk is because of the annoying arch-vile that comes in right as you switch weapons to attack or revive mancubi. the exit room is quite bad too, as mancubi effectively shield an arch-vile who can attack from behind. so even a map with heavy cyberdemon usage finds its most annoying enemies in arch-viles and mancubi. Yikes.

[antares031]

MAP29 - Temple of Fear
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

Did you bring your weapons from previous levels? Then, great. Just mow down those pinkies before they climb up to you. If not, It's time to grind some meat with chainsaw. Keep in mind that this level has pitch-black maze secret with a big prize(for pistol starters), and here's how I reach it: "Move forward straight carefully until I find a trace of pit. Then move backward a little bit to pass the trap, turn on the automap and move backward and strafe right together until I move to the right somewhere from automap, turn 180 and move a little bit." Other than that, there's nothing much to say about this level, except the dark room. When you enter the dark room, make sure to find a switch to turn on the light. This will give you a big advantage.



MAP30 - Hell Revealed
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 94*/100/100

Another IoS level. I'll pass. Just grab your favorite source port with mouse free look. If not, pray to the god: please don't let IoS spawn pain elementals. And yes, distract that cyberdemon by provoking monster infighting.



In Overall
Hell Revealed is not a perfect wad, it does have some annoying moments, and some tedious layouts. But some levels are "challenging" in a positive way. And in the end, It was worth to beat every levels on UV-PS. Nobody will doubt that this classic megawad from 1997 has influenced many other masterpieces, like Alien Vendetta. And it will be remembered as a fine example of the early ultra-hard megawad.

The best level: MAP24
The worst level: MAP14

[gaspe]

MAP29 - Temple of Fear

Kills: 79% | Items: 40% | Secrets: 50%

For the level before the ending we have this underground temple like complex made of marble. It was quite nice and I liked that sacrificial altar. Though I don't have kind words for how this map plays. Room after room of tedious SSG play against mid-tier monsters and arch-viles released everywhere. After skipping everything and I pressed the switch at the arachnotron's room and the other in the upper room I looked for everyplace I could reach but without going back into the octagonal room as it was filled with all the monsters I have left behind. I had to open the editor to discover that one of the switches opens a random wall at the start, nice; at least I saw where's the RL. I restarted and since you have to go back at one point you have to kill all, I let the monsters to group again near the altar so the infight helped a bit. To pick the red key we have other barons to kill with the SSG and finally we can go to the red key door where a wall of hell knights awaits us. Aside a couple of nice visual things this was just awful.


MAP30 - Hell Revealed

An usual IoS map. Though we have some arch-viles and revs to kill to use the elevator safely, and you have to be lucky that they won't spawn many flying monsters or other arch-viles.

It was a nice chance to finally do HR on pistol start. It always left me unimpressed, even the first time I played it. Aside few moments it's really bare, bland and unispired. And the gameplay was even more a mixed bag going from really cool fights and setups to making me wonder why am I still playing this wad. For sure it's still a historical wad which is really worth to check. Though I think it has aged really badly compared to its contemporaries.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP28: Top Hell
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Back to box land with this map, though thankfully it's an airy cathedral sort of level that avoids the room-corridor-room-corridor design of some of the other overly boxy maps. Lots of high-ranking enemies here, but low monster count and it's actually quite easy. The cyber twin turrets are easy to avoid, and a lot of the monsters are stuck on ledges or behind block monster lines and thus just become beef to chew through. I love the RL though, so it was still fun enough to hold my interest. Best fight was probably releasing all the AVs from the plasma gun room. Not sure what the point of the room with the blur sphere was, except maybe intended as a funny riff on the baron/cyber doom in Tricks and Traps? The end felt rather anti-climatic with everything in the room being trapped on ledges, I actually went back and cleared out everything else (cyber turrets, mastermind, etc) for the hell of it.

It's also quite possible to beat this level without firing a shot, did a run in 48 seconds on the first try. Looking at the speed demo archive looks like the record is :41 for a normal path and :16 using an AV jump for the yellow key.

[Magnusblitz]

My vote for next WAD is Bloodstain.

[dobu gabu maru]

Oh yeah, February is always troublesome for megawads—looks like MAP29 & MAP30 will be tomorrow then.

MAP28: Niv tries his hand at making a straight slaughter map, but rather than turning out like MAP22 it feels ineffectual like MAP25. There was just so much space and ammo everywhere that not once did I feel threatened. And sure I did die to the cybers 1 or 2 times, but it was because I refused to dispose of any of them without the BFG. This is another map where the aesthetic is really appealing to me, but man, the gameplay was just straight-up boring. Probably worse than MAP25 in my book.

[VGA]

Magnusblitz said:

My vote for next WAD is Bloodstain.

Hellbound! It is fucking awesome...

[T-Rex]

Gonna finish the last three levels now. Considering there's only 29 days this February, I might as well complete Hell Revealed.

Map28: Top Hell (Haggay Niv)
103% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets
Time: 10:14

For a map that claims to be really difficult (since according to the Hell Revealed info pack, Haggay was angry that Map29 wasn't so hard), it really isn't, because you have so much ammo to spare, especially the rockets and cells. The map has a lot of room to run around and use cover, so that's an added positive. Anyway, this is a pretty neat underground map that's loaded with heavyweight enemies (barons, arachnotrons, mancubi, arch-viles, cyberdemons and a spider mastermind), and this doesn't use custom music. Since I'm playing this under the Plutonia IWAD, I'm hearing "The Demons From Adrian's Pen" which I felt really suited the map quite well. Some goofy moments here, though, particularly the room to the east north of the starting area with the group of cyberdemons and the lone baron, essentially an inversion of the famous baron/cyberdemon room from Tricks and Traps. Also watch out for the arch-vile ambush at the east room once you pick up the berserk pack as they'll promptly resurrect the mancubi you have killed. First things first, go to the west side of the map to pick up the red key from the spider mastermind and arachnotrons, then go to the north section, kill the arch-vile on the small pit and enter it so you'll be teleported on the large fountain where the yellow key rests. Finally, head to the east side for the exit, but keep an eye on the arch-vile that is among the mancubi on the upper ledge. Pretty straightforward map, and not as challenging as Donner and Niv claim it to be. I find it pretty enjoyable as well, even though taking out the cyberdemon turrets can be a bit of a chore.

Map29: Temple of Fear (Haggay Niv)
100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets
Time: 12:19

The penultimate map of Hell Revealed, and while it has some challenge to it, it doesn't come as close to being as difficult as most of the other maps in this episode. I always thought Afterlife would have fitted as a penultimate map even more due to how long and hard it actually is. Even so, this map isn't bad. It's yet a mostly underground map with a lot of marble sections hence the name Temple of Fear. There's unfortunately no cell ammo, so you'll end up using all of your ammo after using the BFG on some of the enemy packs here. You can take out the demon pack with the rocket launcher at the very beginning if you're playing the megawad continuously. Otherwise, if you're pistol starting, you'll have to resort using the chainsaw that's conveniently placed right at the start. The dark maze is one of the parts of the map that stand out as you need to find the right path to some goodies. There's also another section where you'll get teleported to a dark room swarming with monsters, and you must find the switch that will light up the room so you can have a better chance to take them out. You have to backtrack in order to locate the red key, but thankfully it isn't bad for the most part. The ending area has a giant pentagram on blood with cacodemons and a cyberdemon (two on UV) that will spawn in, so you get quite a bit of a climactic fight. Not a disappointing map, but it could have been placed in another slot as there are other maps that could easily fit as HR's penultimate map in terms of visual aesthetics and difficulty like Map23 or most definitely Map26. This is also the final map to use a RotT track, in which we hear the same track that was used in Map11, "Chant."

Map30: Hell Revealed (Yonatan Donner)
89% kills, 60% items, 100% secrets
Time: 01:02

This is a bit like Plutonia's Map30 The Gateway of Hell, only much tougher. You got the last legions of Hell to hamper your progress in firing your rockets at Baphomet, who fires four (two on ITYTD/HNTR) spawn cubes at once. Just your typical final boss battle. Short and straightforward. There's unfortunately little to no room for error, because if you do miss your shots enough times, mainly due to the enemies knocking you off the elevator or stepping on it, then you're screwed. You have to be very fast and precise with your timing to line up your shots just right, which isn't hard once you get the hang of it. However, it's the cyberdemon that makes it very, very tough, and you'll have to rely on monster infighting to beat this map. Thankfully, this isn't as annoying as 3 Heures D'Agonie 2's Map30. Playing this with the Plutonia IWAD will have you listening to "The End of DOOM," the intermission screen track of The Ultimate Doom, which does go quite well with the map. An appropriate finale to end Hell Revealed.

Now to conclude with my final thoughts, how much I rate this megawad, and the maps that I considered to be the best or worst. Meanwhile we get the cast of characters with a distorted picture of two guys (presumably Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv) with the Hell Revealed title on top and the RotT track "Adagio For Strings" (used in Map31) playing.

Hell Revealed may not come as close to matching some of its contemporaries from 1997 like Requiem and Eternal Doom, but it had such great gameplay, a certain type of charm, and for most part pleasing and consistent level design. I mean, sure you got some Wolf-3D/RotT-style maps in the early part of HR (I sometimes like to have that type of simplicity every now and then), but how Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv orchestrated many of the scenarios and monsters was really well planned and thought out, and in the mid-late maps we get to see grand and beautiful architecture. Yonatan Donner may not be one of the most prolific map designers of the late 90s, but his maps were good enough to catch Team TNT's attention, that they had him on board to design a couple of maps for their deathmatch-only megawad Pursuit, which he later converted into single-player for his two-map wad Dead Perfect (hrb.wad). Despite Hell Revealed having a lot of homages to other sources, it still has its share of original material and has a great sense of flow and beauty. Goes to show that Donner and Niv were just as much of geniuses as any of their contemporaries.

About the gameplay, yes, there's more slaughtermaps in HR than in Plutonia, but it is far from being considered a slaughterfest wad, in my opinion. As I will quote from rwdpa: "The fact that the term 'slaughter' even exists bunches up my panties because it normalises 'non-slaughter gameplay' and positions slaughter in some kind of niche, when -- to me at least -- a lot of what people consider slaughter gameplay is NORMAL Doom, and you have to go way up to Sunder or CS2 scale before I consider a map a slaughtermap." That's exactly what I feel about HR. Yes, it has a much higher monster count than many wads of its time, but it doesn't come as close to being a slaughter-based megawad. It's highly doubtful that the Slaughterfest series was inspired by HR when there are other wads that surpassed it and had much greater influence than what was supposedly the "progenitor" of slaughtermaps, not to mention that many of the Casalis' works like Punisher, Seej, Showdown (MM Map23) and Go 2 It (Plutonia Map32) predate the slaughter genre. I have played this megawad for years, and I can assure you that there's a lot more to HR than just "let's see how many monsters we can cram in one room." I don't see anything in the maps that suggests that they placed the monsters in every room willy-nilly. All I got from it is that Donner and Niv took the knockabout gameplay style of Plutonia and expanded on it.

As for the maps, well, I can't say that there's any map that I absolutely dislike, save for one that I might not care about. I enjoyed every single map, even my least favourite has something good in terms of design and concept. Since there's not a single bad map in HR, I might as well take the time to say what are, in my opinion, the 5 hardest maps, from the least difficult to the most.

#5 - Map23: Ascending to the Stars
#4 - Map26: Afterlife
#3 - Map31: The Descent
#2 - Map22: Resistance is Futile/Map32: Mostly Harmful (it's a tie between them)
#1 - Map24: Post Mortem

So what's my verdict on this mapset? Hell Revealed is by far one of the best megawads I have ever played. I really enjoyed it, and I had a lot of fun with it. I would recommend this to anyone, especially those who have just mastered The Plutonia Experiment. I still don't understand why some people are adamantly hating on this wonderful mapset, let alone exaggerating its difficulty. While the early levels may not be so astounding, we eventually see much better design in the later part, and many of them are even reminiscent to Milo Casali's geometry. And of course, there's the music, it uses Rise of the Triad's soundtrack, which I have to say, really pumps me up more than Doom and Doom 2's. It got me curious in checking out the game, and when I finally got it, I can definitely say that I loved it a LOT. Ever since then, Rise of the Triad has become my most favourite FPS game, rightfully so since Apogee is the greatest game developer of all time, the king of computer game companies. Apogee kicks ass! With that said, Hell Revealed will always have a special place in my heart, so I would be biased when it comes to this megawad. Besides, it has spawned a sequel, and influenced megawads like Alien Vendetta (my most favourite), Kama Sutra, and Speed of Doom. Anyone who plays through Hell Revealed, at the same time will make themselves acquainted with the Casali Brothers and other mappers. Hell Revealed is still a classic to this day, and it truly deserves its spot on Doomworld's Top 100 Wads. Challenging? Yes. To the point where you feel overwhelmed? No. I might be giving this wad another encore.

For the final score, it gets a 9 out of 10 as there's plenty of awesome bits here and there, despite the cheap moments.

So that's Hell Revealed. I hope some of you at the DWMC have enjoyed the megawad, and to those who played it and hated it, clear your mind of those terrible memories or those unfair exaggerations you heard from others and give it another go. It's not as bad or insane as people make it out to be and it doesn't deserve the bum rap it gets. It's really enjoyable once you know all the ins and outs, just like with Plutonia. Good luck to everyone who are going to play the next megawad. If it's one that interests me, I might join in. Take care everyone.

[Budoka]

MAP29: Temple of Fear

Let's start with the positive. This is easily the best looking map in Hell Revealed, which means a lot coming from me since unlike most people here, I actually like the aesthetic style of this Megawad. That hectic brawl with the army of Revenants and Archviles early on is satisfyingly suspenseful, and the fight in that dark square room can hold its own although it's not really that dangerous.

Everything else? Dull and lifeless, and unfortunately this is one of the largest maps in HR, so our end result doesn't look good. As for that pitch black maze with inescapable pits... yeah, no. No one's going to bother Haggay, especially if you don't even tag the prize as secret.

MAP30: Hell Revealed

As I experienced it in my latest playthrough: frustrating as hell to play, but quite satisfying to beat. I guess I can't decide whether I like it or not, but it does lose points for being an IOS clone.

final comments for Hell Revealed

Clunky as it feels now, this megawad is still a lot of fun for me and I do feel like it still holds up. It does require a particular mindset to enjoy as it's not casual-play friendly at all. And of course, as people on this thread have stated multiple times, it was a huge influence on some of the most universally lauded Megawads of today - hell, for one thing, it's the one that made slaughtermaps popular...

I reiterate my vote for March in favor of Vanguard/Hell Ground/Bloody Steele as suggested by Cynical. Those are some of the best PWADs ever created, and should certainly give club members who didn't enjoy Hell Revealed a breath of fresh air.

[Crusader No Regret]

Hell Revealed retrospective:

Been silent all month and only played two maps without cheats this month (though mucked around with god mode on several more). This set is memorable for me more because of when I encountered it. Had only been Dooming for a few months and toying around with editing when I heard about this mapset. This is one of the first set of maps that I put an editor to use to uncover secrets so I had advance knowledge before making serious attempts.

Most of the early maps I feel would be utterly forgettable if they were encountered as individual releases outside the megaWAD. Map 11 is when things really pick up and map 13 is when it feels like the challenge WAD that HR is reputed to be.

Something I haven't seen mentioned much is how some maps play wildly differently on different difficulties. Map 9 has the same monster distribution on HMP and UV but HMP provides plasma and rockets to rip into the opposition. Map 7 has the same traits though that map is still weak, just less tedious on HMP. Map 14 gives a rocket launcher from the start. Maps 23 and 25 have a BFG available. And so on.

Individual levels to come.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP29 Temple of Fear

It's the running of the pinkies! Aargh! <sarcasm>

compared to everything else, this level is quite average, and another one I associate with typical 90's map. it's nothing much. cheap moments include teleporting into that green room with all those enemies (the one with the light switch), as well as the fake bars that mancubi (and an arch-vile behind them again!) can shoot through. I guess the backtracking is a bit hard to figure out, but then again, there's a tedium in a room with barons of hell in it. the end game is quite underwhelming here.

MAP30 Hell Revealed

yay wad title in level title, boo icon of sin with randomness.

final thingies

this wad is one to remember for bringing difficulty to the forefront, while design quality ends up being rather plain. I have to say that HR was a lot more evil in difficulty than I last realized, as it put barons, arch-viles, and mancubi in the most evil of spots sometimes. the way the monster placement on different difficulties was one of the things I noted, where I find arch-vile on HMP, I could find a cyber on UV.

can't remember what I thought was the best map, but the worst is easily MAP18.

[Paul977]

Nothing much to say about map 27-29 except that they are far more easy then map 24 and 26. Top Hell being my favorite for gameplay and visual.

MAP 30 - Hell Revealed

Hardest map of the wad for me and one of the two map of the set (the other was The Descent) where I used saves. I'm not good with Icon of Sin elevator aiming type, it's one of the levels that I have played less.
Here we have 4 arch-viles at the back, 2 packs of revenant on opposite sides of the lift spamming missiles, many imps (and barons) that slow the way to the switch and, icing on the cake, a Cyberdemon wanders the arena: in short a nightmere level.
Best I've done here was to place two rockets (without saves), when I rushed for the third I was always overwhelmed.

[Lingyan203]

I vote for Bloodstain too.

[Urthar]

ZDoom - Continuous Play - HMP

MAP28 – Top Hell
The map has a surprising low monster count in view of the amounts of resources lying around. I was half expecting a swarm of Archviles to make an appearance, and there were a few, but they seemed content to stay where they were.
In fact, most of the map is fairly non-threatening, and it doesn't really have anything else to make up for that.

MAP29 – Temple Of Fear
Well this map did a decent job of depleting the mountain of ammo I had accumulated, and there were some reasonable dynamic encounters and traps. Still a few odd monster block lines knocking around, but perhaps they make sense in the context of pistol starts or speed running.

MAP30 – Hell Revealed
I've never been a big fan of the Icon of Sin, and very remake I see of it drains my will to live. So after a handful of attempts I threw in the towel and promptly deleted HR.WAD from my hard drive.

Hell Revealed
Of all the classic era megawads I've played, HR is probably my least favourite. But it does have it's moments, and while often roughly hewn, loose and experimental, I can see why it would go on to influence later creators.

[dobu gabu maru]

FYI guys Bloodstained and the Vanguard/Hell Ground/Bloody Steel combo are tied right now, so your vote really matters here. This also got me thinking, and I'm going to instate a policy where if the next month comes up and the votes for the candidates are tied, I'm just gonna flip a coin to determine the winner. Anyway, onto the final stretch

--------

MAP29: Another atrocious map. Bulky barons everywhere, not enough rockets to simplify the grinding process, AVs used at every opportunity, and fucking “fake” midtex bars. The blue key AV warp in is the only mildly interesting part of the map, as you have to deal with them eventually, but there’s so many shells you can just brute force your way through it (and it's super boring if they clog up the BK door like what happened with me). The entire red key section was needless filler (so many barons!) and the map ends on five fucking cacodemons and a lone cyber to fight. What a joke.

MAP30: I ran around without firing a shot, letting the cyberdemon clean everything up, and then save-spammed the IoS fight since four spawners is overkill; this must be how Suitepee feels about regular IoS fights.

Overall, Hell Revealed is an archaic—yet admittedly inspirational—dick waving contest. T-Rex compares it to Plutonia, but I feel that Hell Revealed is mostly hard for hard’s sake, taking Plutonia's mean-spirited approach and cranking it up to 11. It’s true that it requires a lot of planning in order to efficiently map out a UVmax route, but it’s done in this dull, overtly long way that’s terrible to play through without a strategy. Like, here’s a squad of mancubii and you only have the shotgun! Or here's a load of barons but you have to save your rockets for another encounter! Enjoy! It was trying to be difficult the same way something like Wizardry 4 was, constantly pummeling the player and needing obscure solutions in order to make it more "puzzley", sacrificing freeform combat and exploration in the process. And while I can respect something with an oppressive challenge—and there are some good, awesome, hard maps in here!—Hell Revealed becomes that much more insulting because a good 1/3rd of the maps are piss easy and the ones that aren’t have oodles and oodles of tedious meat to grind through. It feels like it fragrantly wants to waste your time when it’s not rubbing your nose in some stupid bullshit.

It’s not the worst wad, and it’s certainly not just “walls of meat” like I imagine many of its detractors proclaim. But it’s not pretty, and it’s not particularly brilliant either—it’s just blunt like a hammer. Again, I respect it for spawning an entire genre I enjoy, but goddamn if this didn’t try my patience at times.

Favorites: MAP24, MAP22, MAP26, MAP32

Least favorites: Almost every other map in the set (but especially E1)

Probably a 4/5 set when it first came out, but I feel it’d round out to 2/5 nowadays.

[Paul977]

HR has created a new step of difficult using very thought traps and situations, for example consistent use of Cyberdemons, even in confined spaces.
Graphically it is heavy to see considering the megawads that come out today still for me it's a mapset useful to play for increase your doom ability.

Favourite maps:

1) 32
2) 23
3) 11

Worst maps:

1) 30
2) 15
3) 12

[joe-ilya]

29

Sloggish map, you have to saw a horde of demons, then to shoot a load of barons, revs and AVs with the SSG, only then you can obtain a plasma gun, blue armor, and the secret rocket launcher behind the blue door, all guns.

The rest are unmemorable corner fights, the shitload of AVs by the exit makes you run quick to the exit. And you can ledge-grab a couple of useful items (red skull, blue armor)

3/5

30

Just another IOS map, punishes you way more when you have to retreat to beat the IOS.

2/5

Final thoughts :

It sure pioneered the slaughterfest mapping genre, luckily for the authors, many players didn't pistol start and just thought you're supposed to run around with BFG/SSG and blaze faces, if they would pistol start; they would hate it and quit on MAP05.

Overall wad rating : 2/5 Weak 32 box maps.

Top maps :
1)MAP04
2)MAP15
3)MAP25

Worst maps :
1)MAP07
2)MAP31
3)MAP23

[baja blast rd.]

I started Bloody Steel and it's really beautiful and the gameplay isn't bad either.

Bloodstain by contrast feels like it could have been designed by a more advanced version of Oblige. Ultra-simple ultra-symmetrical layouts predominate, often with tedious clearing of high-HP monsters.

http://i.imgur.com/AONnN7y.png

If you've played Scythe 2 and its most acclaimed spiritual descendants (skillsaw's stuff, Ribbiks', SoD/Resurgence/etc.), you've played a much much better version of Bloodstain already.

[Cynical]

If you like Bloody Steel, you're going to love Hell Ground.

Bloody Steel is basically a love letter to Hell Ground, but Eternal's original is even better than its kid.

(Come on, deciding voters, make the right choice!)

[glenzinho]

+1 Vanguard/Hell Ground/Bloody Steel

[Magnusblitz]

MAP29: Temple of Fear
95% kills, 1/2 secrets

This map starts off well, with a fun little "release the demons" bit at the start followed by a good rev/AV fight for the blue key. After that, though, it becomes Meat Corridor after Meat Corridor, with every fight either being an atrocious grind through big-HP monsters (or a horde of demons trapped behind a block monster line) or completely inconsequential (the arachnatrons). There's also a fair amount of "what does this switch do?" and the need to go back to the start (the switch that opens up the area with the hell knights that leads to the red key) is a good example of why keys were put in the game - switch that to a yellow key/door combo and it'd be so much better. The end is extremely anticlimatic as well - five cacos in a huge room and a cyberdemon that doesn't even teleport in until you shoot.

All in all, the map feels like a very early effort, designed from the frame of mind of just randomly putting down corridors and rooms without any plan. At one point in the map, there's a room with an AV, a baron, and a switch. The switch opens a monster closet with 4 imps in it. There's nothing else - no items, no required progression, nada. What the hell?

[Cynical]

Magnusblitz said:

All in all, the map feels like a very early effort, designed from the frame of mind of just randomly putting down corridors and rooms without any plan. At one point in the map, there's a room with an AV, a baron, and a switch. The switch opens a monster closet with 4 imps in it. There's nothing else - no items, no required progression, nada. What the hell?

If you're talking about the room I think you are, there's a secret rocket launcher in there.

[NaZa]

My favourites:
1. Afterlife (MAP26, 9.5/10)
2. Post Mortem (MAP24, 9.2/10)
3. Gates to Hell (MAP15, 9/10)
4. Last Look at Eden (MAP13, 8.8/10)
5. City in the Clouds (MAP14, 8.5/10)

My least favourites:
1. The Path (MAP16, 2/10)
2. Judgement Day (MAP20, 2.3/10)
3. Siege (MAP21, 2.5/10)
4. The Descent (MAP31, 2.75/10)
5. Ascending to the Stars (MAP23, 3/10)

[mouldy]

MAP29 - "Temple of Fear" by Haggay Niv

Temple of grind for me, as I ended up ploughing through walls of baron meat with SSG. I'm assuming there is a rocket launcher somewhere, but the only place I didn't look was the dark room that killed me instantly, I didn't feel like going back in there. So at some point I realised this map really does want me to kill monsters, and most of them are barons. Although there was a swarm of pinkies to take out with the chainsaw as well. Very obscure progression, but I ended up in the final room where it looked like a big battle was destined to happen, and it didn't. Some cacos were there, wondering what to do with themselves. A cyber growled, a door opened, and there was the exit. Strange map. It has some exploration value but the monster usage is pretty dismal.

MAP30 - "Hell Revealed" by Yonatan Donner

I got bored trying to do this and gave up. As far as IOS maps go its not so bad though, at least its fairly obvious what to do. Just down to endlessly trying it until you get the rocket in the hole, if you don't on the first few goes then there will probably be too much stuff around to survive. I think people have moaned enough about that whole IOS aim through the hole thing over the years that I don't need to add anything else.

Final thoughts...

An interesting slice of doom history. It feels kind of experimental, though not in the sense that it was intended to be, more in a broader sense that the community in general was trying to develop a direction for hard maps to go in, and this wad was one of the pioneers. Some of the maps work well and some are a bit pants. I've complained about a lot of them, and possibly unfairly in some cases since UV pistol start on any map should represent the biggest challenge that map will give you (ignoring nightmare), and if that means knowing the map inside out then so be it. In general it seems a lot of the maps are designed around running away from stuff rather than killing it, so I wouldn't describe it as a slaughter wad (unless the player is the one getting slaughtered). I get the sense that max kills was not a priority, rather just getting to the exit by any means. It does feel a bit clumsy at times in its approach to difficulty, exemplified by the over-use of barons, and reliance on very specific techniques and foreknowledge. There isn't much room for improvisation in some of the maps, and that squeezes all the fun out of the game for me. And not forgetting of course that a lot of the maps have ropey visuals and unimaginative layouts even by the standards of the day. Think my favourite maps were 22 and 24, with honourable mentions to 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 23 and 28.

[Naan]

Even without played the whole thing, that's the same impression I got from HR: most maps weren't made to be remotely UVMax-able, let alone doing that on pistol start. I even believe some early maps such as MAP13 and 14 were harder on UV pistol start than most of later maps under the same circumstances, exept maybe MAP26. That somehow clashed with my completionist profile.

[Pirx]

time to wrap this up, i stopped with my last entry after map 23, guess why...


MAP24 - "Post Mortem" by Yonatan Donner

well, that was the mother of all slaughtermaps for me when i first played hr, and the reason why i stayed away from this kind of gameplay for several years, i was just too frustrated about getting from 200/200 to 0 within seconds if i did something wrong. i guess it was to me what DotW meant by To certain temperaments I imagine this probably makes the map even more of a backbreaking slog than earlier, more cut-and-dry entries. which doesn't mean i don't recognize this map's merits for spawning a series of tributes using this concept of conquering a difficult to control upper level. you have to know the routes because it's impossible to stay at the upper level, the walkways there restrict doomguy's greatest asset, his mobility, and down in the blood you need radsuits and get chased by cacos. i gave up for this time on playing this map without saves, as i wanted to finish hr in due time, but who knows :p



MAP25 - "Dead Progressive" by Yonatan Donner

as others have said, much easier... if you don'T get caught in the damn spider legs and get the plasma rifle and the rocket launcher first. the rest was rather simple, even without a bfg. there's plenty of cells and rockets to let you go on a rampage. that bridge trap at the blue key reminded me of plutonia's m08 "realm", where chaingunners spawn on both ends of a bridge too, an inspiration underscored by the "plutonic" texturing of the map.



MAP26 - "Afterlife" by Yonatan Donner

another hard map, i think 24 and 26 should have been the last in the set, to form a story line where doomguy dies and goes and goes to hell... it's a surreal place with blocks of marble, blue pillars and some buildings floating in a void, one containing a chess table with monsters on it. while i'm generally a heavy ssg user, i found it a bit too ssg-centric, with boxes of shells littered all around. fortunately it's possible to get the rocket launcher from its platform via archvile jump. i like this abstract, surreal style a lot, and other maps it inspired.



MAP27 - "Cyberpunk" by Haggay Niv

back in haggay's square land, this map reminded me of 50shade's map 16 we played last month: a similar orthogonal style with lots of cybers for honing your 2-shot skills. the bfg is in a secret near the yellow key and the ssg in an unmarked one near the start (i'm not fond of secrets you find via wallhumping). somehow the cyber maze was a thing i remembered well, despite the otherwise unremarkable map.



MAP28 - "Top Hell" by Haggay Niv

i think it's haggay's visually most impressive map, a large-scale, squarish demonic temple with about 2 dozen cybers, often placed in pairs overlooking large halls. but they don'T have cover from lesser demons, and there's also a bfg available plus bulk cells everywhere to kill twice its monster count. fitting music from doom2 "getting too tense".



MAP29 - "Temple of Fear" by Haggay Niv

these 3 niv maps should have been around the map 20 spot or so... since this map is pretty underwhelming. it looks interesting enough, there's one big fight in the beginning where one has to punch through a match of barons vs revs to isolate and kill some archviles before they resurrect everything... but unfortunately, much of the map is is made up of large rooms with barons to chew through with the ssg. also, standing still while shooting herds of pinkies?



MAP30 - "Hell Revealed" by Yonatan Donner

ok, the icon map. i don't bother with them, i use mouse aim.



so, does hr live up to its fame? certain maps do. they were seminal for the "slaughter" genre and certain map styles (post mortem) to develop, they still provide a good challenge, as 1000+ demos for this wad prove. it was fun to revisit hr and see it as a more experienced player, and through the eyes of the others here. however, it takes about a dozen maps to develop the style hr became known for, there's tedious meat walls (baron and pinkie hordes) and some ideas rather unpopular today, like unmarked but essential secrets, deathtraps one has to know in advance and speedbumps like map23's ending. still, i think the positive aspects prevail, but i think many would have kept about half of the wad and discarded the rest.

btw, a second hrmus add-on for those maps with doom2 music would be nice. i remembered jimmy's strength in numbers for fitting hr's theme well, perhaps other can choose their preferred midis too.

[Magnusblitz]

Cynical said:

If you're talking about the room I think you are, there's a secret rocket launcher in there.

No, I did find the secret RL, that's a different area (the bookroom with the blue armor in it). I'm talking about the area behind the second blue door, near the red door. Which, now that I look at it in DB2, is actually the switch that opens up the path to the red key near the start... which I thought was the arachnatron basement switch, but apparently that lowers the giant pentagram. Weird progression, but at least nothing is actually pointless.

[rehelekretep]

playing this for as long as i can pistol-start, UV. not bothered with max as i hate looking for secrets.

Map01/UV

i like the foreshadowing (is that the correct term?) of the demons in the room (although im getting a weird texture error in the ceiling...) and i just punched them all to death with the berserk pack!

K 100
S 100
T 4:12

Map02/UV

feels very blocky (for want of a better word!). the shadow room looks really ugly for some reason. this felt very simple but i inevitably got lost (doom noob...). didnt find the secret :(

K 100
S 0
T 7:51

Map03/UV

i really liked the tight confines of this map, and the basic design of it didnt feel blocky and crude as Map02 did with the more open areas. i didnt like that i had to run away to hit a switch for an elevator. i think once its down it should be 'usable'. finally got the SSG :)

K 100
S 50
T 7:12

Map04/UV

i thought the outdoor/garden style atmosphere was a nice change so i was disappointed when it led to a corridor to finish. not sure how to get the bfg as it wasnt a secret?

K 100
S 100
T 5:33

Map05/UV

damn! this was hard. the arachnotron was a nuisance. i only managed to kill it basically spazzing around it blasting with the SG! i liked the design of this level - lulling you into killing the enemies through the windows until you realised that you needed to save the ammo for enemies that could actually reach you. the baron placement was horrible though - couldnt use the RL so SG takes way too much time.

K 100
S 100
T 15:48

[VGA]

Noone wants Hellbound goddamnit. Then I put my vote on Vanguard/Hell Ground/Bloody Steel :D