The DWmegawad Club plays: Vanguard & Hell Ground & Bloody Steel

[scifista42]

MAP02 - "Underground Factory”

I'm still really impressed by the (semi-)realistic sceneries and details. The vehicles were particularly fantastic. Gameplay is decent too, featuring challenging moments, calm moments, and moments that are challenging depending on your strategy, which is cool. I've found both secrets and I was more than satisfied with them again.

[gaspe]

MAP08 - The White Sea

Back to the industrial wasteland now. The level is filled with nukage pretty much everywhere. The ambush in the western section puts a good pressure with the archviles on the front and the revenants behind. I didn't understand well why you get teleported inside a giant box. And when you exit from that area those monsters blocking your passage were a bit cheap. The final boss is a steel monstrosity that grows from the factory, is really cool visually. Before entering into the mouth of the boss and killing it there's a slaughter battle to face. In the platforms with the spiderdemons the things were done so you can't rush and ran past everything so easily. Overall it was a really good level though it got a bit annoying sometimes. Magnusblitz said that MAP05 has a horror-movie vibe, allthough the atmosphere is completely different here I think that movie-vibe describes well also the mood of the MAP08.

MAP09 - The end of Bloody Steel

Neat effect of the double sky and the level split into 2 different but at the same time similar areas.

[scifista42]

MAP03 - "Blast Furnace”

Impressive depictions of a construction site / foundry / factory, both in general layouts and in details. Plays well, too - I like the variety and partial unpredictability of fights and necessity to pay attention all around myself, and even the Demon + Berserk encounters felt fitting and satisfying in the particular places where they appeared. Ammo / health / challenge balance seems to be well done for my taste, and elements of nonlinearity were all good. Got 3/4 secrets, missed a megaarmor behind a fire wall (discovered by cheating).

[gaspe]

MAP10: Circle of Death

This is a more ordinary mine map stuff. The start was quite hectic, and it was the only noteworthy moment because unfortunately the rest was a bit underwhelming. The circle cave with the crushers that we have to cross many times was the only interesting thing in the level. There's also a rip-off of Plutonia Congo. For a bonus level is allright, but it feels more to be a speedmap that the author wanted to include in the set. And there's no blue key in the level o.O

Overall Bloody Steel on the gameplay it had a few low moments but for the most it was always very good and a bit varied to fit the atmosphere or the environments of the map. Many poeple criticized this wad for the visual style but I think that Big Memka had a clear idea of what he wanted to do for the aesthetic of the themes. It's a really inspired work and plenty of cool in it.

[Demon of the Well]

Alright, here I am again. My modem fatally shat out its bowels as a small pile of festering putrescence on the very evening of my previous post, and due to a combination of professional obligations and blizzards in this part of the country it's only now that my net access has been restored. I unfortunately don't have time to participate in the Bloody Steel segment (shame too, it's a pretty good WAD, although its author could certainly use some more practice at tuning the gameplay style he opts for at the end of the set proper), but I do have a towering megapost about the rest of Hell Ground to get off of my chest, so....batten down the hatches?

Map 03 -- Paranoia - 131% Kills / 100% Secrets
Hmm....that BGM track. I reckon by this point I've developed Stockholm syndrome with it (and indeed, with many of Eternal's other stylistic quirks, ala his fondness for 90s-style sound replacements), but I seem to recall it kind of bugged me way back on my initial playthrough. The Russian proclivity for using mp3s or .ogg files for BGM in PWADs is something I'm still not entirely sold on (in the majority of Lainos' WADs I tend to jury-rig things so I can listen to a custom midi instead, for example), but I do actually like most of the selections in Hell Ground, which I suppose is just one more little way this mapset 'clicks' with me. Anyway, rambling aside, much like map 02 was very clearly thematically referencing Plutonia E1, I get the impression that this map might be referencing something specific as well, but can never quite put my finger on what it might be.....perhaps one of the more off-type Plutonia maps, ala "Realm", or maybe "Tombstone" on account of the proper tech implants? Whatever it is, I feel like it's the least aesthetically coherent map in the set, some sort of squat, stocky greybrick fortress apparently set in a clearing in the woods, with an anomalous server-room of sorts and another pair of sacrificial slabs similar to the one from "Werewolf Moon" further in. Nothing particularly flashy to write home about, though I do like the combination of gradient and directional lighting in the final sacrificial room. By contrast, some of the colored highlights in places give a somewhat messy impression--the seedy red hue of the servers in the server room and particularly the juxtaposition of green fluorescent striplights with wooden medieval man-doors just seem baldly out of place; I understand the want to add a splash of color to a generally grey/beige map but regardless I think the stock white fluorescents and stock server textures would've looked better.

Nevertheless, even if it's not going to win any beauty pageants I think it plays rather well. In map 02, most of the encounters were very simple and used the deja-vu effect as their lynchpin for player interest, but here we see a host of more original setups from the outset, with that four-commando crossfire primed to rip you to shreds within moments of your arrival in this particular dimension. I can hear the bellyaching now--"bullshit, cheap difficulty, RNG lottery, blah blah blah"--but I think it's good to have a prickly start like this in what is generally a very slow-burning sort of approach to combat. It also has some nice low cost/high return layers to it--you can't camp it out from the balcony (at least not from fist-start) on account of the two knights loitering out there, you're left to decide if the SSG is really a better first pickup than the armor vest, etc. Of course, once you've experimented a little, it turns out the real Pro Strat (R) here is to immediately run for the switch that opens the northern server room, snagging the SSG just as you dash through the timed door, past the undead welcome-wagon and into the fray beyond--sounds dangerous but in practice you will almost aways soak less damage this way than if you tried to fight the chaingunners in the start room directly, and there are plenty of sergeants in the server room to keep you stocked up on shells via their dropped weapons to compensate for the box of shells on the balcony which you eschew using this strategy.

Most of the rest of the level's action unfolds via simple but smart monster-placement--the crossfire pattern of mancubus attacks is an effective complement to the need to seek visual cover in the fight with the arch-vile in the server room, and there a couple of opportunities to defang some chaingunner ambushes via locating secrets. The final fight's also pretty cool for something as simple as it is--at first it seems like you're going to be able to literally stand in one place and hold down the trigger, but then suddenly the arch-viles start clown car-ing out of the aether into a pile soon-to-be-reanimated rambo-zombies, and shit can start hitting the fan pretty quickly--I didn't need the megasphere before the fight on this playthrough, but I did misjudge my rocket ammo and so had to fight the last two viles with the SSG while desperately hugging the small corner pillars to keep from being perforated by the slew now un-un-un-undead lackeys.

Entertaining map, 'punchy' is the word, I think, a nice contrast with the much more adventurous/longwinded map 04.

Map 04 -- Warp of Time - 100% Kills / 86% Secrets
I got to thinking, why was the rather mundane-looking wooden well in the heart of the timelost forest-fortress so dearly guarded? A fountain of youth, perhaps, something to explain why the funerary manor held all sorts of black magick paraphenalia and a time-gate, but no 'permanent residents?'Hmm....I wonder. Of course, for every miracle-cure there is inevitably a list of troublesome side-effects, and it now seems that after plunging down the old well we've become lost in the maintenance corridors of eternity; stranded in the musty crawlspace between time and space. Residing in a suspiciously felicitous pocket-dimension is a nexus binding together four fallen worlds; perhaps one of them holds the key to our wayward fate?

This is one of the weirdest maps Eternal has ever released, and he's released more than a few. It's a set of gimmicks, arranged as a strange homage, tied together by and residing within another, larger gimmick! Whew. Essentially an intro/outro and four separate short standalone maps all in one (though the 'Foundry' world is only really big enough to be called a maplet), the map's most immediate concept is that it is a very simple Hexen-esque hub of sorts, allowing players a choice of four separate areas to complete in any order before moving on. Quite a lot of maps use non-linearity and quite a lot of them use hubs/hubspokes, of course, but I feel there is something intrinsically pleasing about those ideas when framed in this particular way--one gets the impression of a "Stage Select" mechanic of sorts, ala the old Megaman games or any number of others, always a treat. I do wish that the hub itself featured some sort of visual signposting that communicated something about each of the areas in order to inform your choice on a blind run (and for navigational convenience on a return engagement)--Hexen used different materials on each of its ethereal gates, for instance--but perhaps Eternal chose to leave things vague (to say the least) in order not to undercut the thematic surprise that this 3 + 1 set is intended to represent. Upon sallying forth, it eventually becomes apparent that 3 of the worlds are strongly color-themed, surely an left-field homage to "Killer Colours", map 31 of the much-esteemed Alien Vendetta. It's a strange reference, both because of the way it shows up out of the blue and because it's almost purely thematic in nature, with none of the areas much resembling the original's in terms of actual gameplay (which I consider a plus). Stranger still is the presence of shorter fourth world which breaks the triarchy of allusion and muddies the conceptual waters a bit....maybe this world is supposed to represent the base 'color' black, dunno. Another possible reading involves looking at Hell Ground itself as a sort of paean to a number of the author's favorite games, in which case this world might represent....Quake II, or something?

Anyway, I suppose all that's neither here nor there, from a practical standpoint the most notable thing about each world is that each has a different concept or concepts underlying its gameplay: the odd rusty-iron Foundry world features a narrow gauntlet and a simulated space-loop effect; the Blue-Tech world features a stair-building puzzle, lots of height variation, criss-crossing the airy central chamber; the green Deathserpent temple expresses itself through more ornate/elaborate architecture and a welter of boobytraps, some obvious, some not; of course the strange red bio-nest world is replete with slickly slithering tissue-conveyors and a conspicuously exaggerated final encounter where most players will be better served in thinking outside the box a bit. Each area is self-contained and really could be thought of as its own small level, though all have been nominally balanced to be the 'first' world in a pistol-start playthrough. That being said, your 'order of operations' can actually make quite a significant impact on your overall play experience--most of the actual combat is purely incidental and generally straightforward in nature (the red world's last challenge excepted), but both healing and ammo are deceptively tightly balanced, such that the timing of watershed moments (which can vary heavily depending on your itinerary) such as when you get your first backpack or when you get your rocket launcher can make a marked impact on your momentum for most of the runtime. Myself, I know all of the areas but haven't memorized which portal leads to which world, and so ended up doing things in a really suboptimal order: I went to the Foundry world first, which meant I had no backpack to collect the wealth of ammo available from dropped weapons and no opportunity to build a stock of rockets, which put me behind the curve in the blue world as I had to mostly use small-arms fire to clear the large spaces, which in turn left me starving for bullets and shells in the nastier red world, where I was left to rely heavily on melee.

It's worth noting that I only had the melee option to fall back on because I know where a lot of the secrets are (although at a score of 86% it seems I still have something to learn about the map--I suspect what I missed is in the Foundry world somewhere, I always walk out of there with the creeping sense I've overlooked something). To a player with no foreknowledge who doesn't find many secrets, I suppose there is potential for a really arduous slog of things--imagine going to the red world first, having to spend what little ammo you have on the monsters in the corridors, and then hitting a decisive progress-gate because you're wounded and can't survive the return trip down the short crusher-corridor, where the only way to avoid damage is to know about a certain secret (a telegraphed one, granted). Ouch. This is not a design style I'm personally inclined to categorically find fault with, though....I think that for non-linear adventure maps like this (as opposed to non-linear arcade action maps or whatnot) to express their adventuresome qualities, there often needs to be less slack in the actual thing-balance, even if this entails some outre outlier scenarios (what's a grand adventure without some adversity, besides?). I've played the map a lot of times in a lot of ways, and I reckon it mostly works, at any rate--after limping through most of the first three worlds I was able to quell the Baron-flood at the end of the bio-nest and explode through the green temple to the finish with ease, so if you keep your wits about you I reckon most possible itineraries should smooth out nicely, sooner or later.

[Demon of the Well]

....on second thought, I should probably NOT put all of that tempestuous windbaggery into a single post.

Map 05 -- Undertaker - 114% Kills / 100% Secrets
One of the neat things about these DWMC playthroughs is that the onus to be analytical when thinking about a level you've just played can often cause you to realize things you might not have otherwise. Here, despite the fact that I've played this set many times before, it only now dawned on me that the default theme of Hell Ground is, in fact, The Plutonia Experiment, as we've another outing wrought from its core texture assets here, this time another subterranean tomb of sorts, half-flooded, with a vague/generalized jungle-vault look. In truth, this is not quite the recollection I'd held in my mind's eye--I was expecting something more openly Meso-American in look, sort of Ruinbros-y--but then, I was also dead sure that it used the Caverns BGM track from the original Diablo (it doesn't), so mayhap the fault is mainly with my poor memory.

Nevertheless, the bulk of my fond recollection about the level concerns not the wallpaper but the action, and here I fortunately seem to have been more on-point. This is just a fun level through and through, from its unusual chainsaw-based start to its tense finale during the final descent, which is incidentally exactly the same trope we most recently saw in map 31 of Hell Revealed, though I've no hesitation in saying that this particular iteration of the idea plays approximately 14,461.82% better than that one does (scientifically speaking). I believe it was said back during the HR playthrough that the original concept is likely inspired by something from the end of Quake's E3, but I reckon the specific allusion that Eternal is making here is to Hell Revealed II, or perhaps "Pharaos' Tomb" from Scythe II. It's not the only encounter to bear a marked similarity to something from earlier in PWAD history, either--the claustrophobic forest of upright 'coffins' found in the large southern chamber comprising the bulk of the western wing bears a marked similarity to something from the infamous "Citadel on the Edge of Eternity" (map 29 of the original Community Chest megaWAD), though once again there's more entertainment to be had in this one room of Eternal's map than there is in the whole of the aforementioned gargantuan behemoth. Again, I attribute this to smart, efficient fight design that doesn't need a great degree of ostentation simply because it's so clever at root.

Played from a pistol-start, by this point in "Undertaker" you are likely starting to run pretty low on shells and bullets (even moreso if you've not found any secrets to that point), and so after the first wave of coffins pops open and you see the ammo pickups on the trapped pads you start to get a sense that things are about to get rough. The close proximity of powerful monsters screaming in your face as you try to gather supplies with which to keep fighting is likely to force you to dance out of the way to avoid their swiping claws, and in so doing it's very easy to unwittingly tread on another of the pads, which of course will spring another wave of ravening horrors on you while also creating the opportunity to tread on yet more pads, and soon enough you can find yourself tearing around the room in a panic trying to hide from arch-vile spells using the complex field of painfully thin coffin-braces as cover, all while the slender bastards gleefully sashay about the forest of posts undoing all of your fine work. We might also consider the aforementioned 'descent' fight: in a Doom context, the easiest way to cheese fights like this has historically been to find the teleporter spot and plug it with your body; some newer setups use two or more simultaneous landing-spots to prevent this, but Eternal is all too happy to allow you to sit smugly for several silent minutes, confident you've outwitted him, right up until he springs a cyberdemon with a unique landing spot near the end of the ride, to give you a heart palpitation or three and more importantly force you to shift your ass, at which point you will quickly find yourself double-fucked (though you can still win if you happen to know the way out). Brilliant in its simplicity.

The incidental action is quite satisfying in its own right, as well. Again, it's the little things--while the route through the level is again essentially linear, there's a sense of dynamic traversal and real visual progress at play, with a great deal height change between segments to be navigated (love the RK jump), and details like the early peek at the blue key or the giant corkscrew in the central hub which initially appears to drain the waters before serving as the frame for your final descent, to say nothing of that cheeky-ass death-exit. There is a fair bit of very basic 1v1 monsterfights in some of the halls between major areas, but these seldom overassert themselves, and periodically the architecture itself lends some joie de vivre to what would otherwise be rather plain combat, ala the simple pleasure in hurling the lifeless bodies of demons and other foes down the majestic stairway dominating the western wing.

Lovely stuff, I do believe this is my favorite level in the mapset.

Map 06 -- Timeless - 100% Secrets
Here we have an instance of that most rare type of Doom level, a dedicated puzzler, completely combat-free, something of an intermission between the rest of the game and the substantial finale. I believe the intent here is to be more relaxing and cinematic than to actually be a headscratcher--for the most part the puzzles are very simple and shouldn't pose much trouble for players who've seen this type of level before (or who also enjoy games that tend more towards the cerebral than DooM and most other FPSes are wont to be)--though if you're a principled low-res/low-fi type the bit the colored tiles might unintentionally present a red herring or two. As an aside, on this playthrough it was here that I noticed another thing about the mapset that hadn't really struck me before, that being that Eternal seems to have designed it with continuous play very much in mind, as evidenced by the narrative use of the death-exit mechanic and a number of the secret placements. In "Timeless", for instance, there are no enemies to be fought, but there IS a secret sawn-off shotgun for the curious to find, clearly intended as a little bonus to change the early pace of the game's final map.

All told, there's not a great deal to be said here; I reckon either you can stomach this kind of thing or you can't, not a whole lot of middle ground concerning something like this. By its nature it is probably the least conventionally replay-worthy map in the game, and while I've seen better stabs at purely atmospheric prelude/interlude/postlude maps nevertheless I'm glad Eternal included it, it's a small but significant contributor to this set's particular personality.

Map 07 -- Mystery of Hell - 108 % Kills / 100% Secrets
It always comes back to Hell, doesn't it? Good to know there are certain eventualities one can always depend on, I suppose. It's not quite the classical take on the theme, though--no fiery redrock wasteland, no gothic-grotesque marble palace, none of that dilapidated "Deimos in a boarding school" look of most of Doom II's Hell, etc. Initially, the tableau of an inconceivably ancient complex of catacombs and chambers carved into the pith of a cold grey mountainside with sulphur in its veins is somewhat redolent of Doom III's Hell, which seems to have been the intention--the appearance of the level's first Baron, silhouetted as he is against the fiery aperture in the rock from which he emerges, is a shot literally straight out of Doom III, and I'm sure there are other specific references that someone more familiar with that game than I am would recognize, as well. This isn't the whole story in this lengthy level, though; penetrating deeper into the mountainside, you'll eventually find yourself passing from the primal stone ruins into a baroque suite of richly tiled and paneled chambers, housing several opulent libraries filled with untold aeons of forbidden knowledge. If this seems like a sudden return to the funerary mansion setting of "Werewolf Moon", that's simply because it is--literally! It took a few playthroughs to dawn on me, but I believe the artistic intention behind the obvious thematic similarity here is that the two places are in fact connected--something of a dimensional 'fold' scenario, I suppose--with that mysterious cracked door (complete with corpse holding an important item) which appears in both places and inexplicably cannot be passed in either as the point of connection, like an umbilical cord linking map 01's otherworldly manor to the eldritch womb which birthed it. Storytelling aside, despite using what is, fundamentally speaking, an extremely traditional setting for its endgame, with this level Hell Ground accomplishes something I always greatly appreciate seeing in any mapset of significant length, that being that it creates a distinctly different mood during its final chapter, which helps greatly with wrapping things up with a nice satisfying clout (and also serves to disguise one of classic Doom's few persistent weaknesses, that being that it's not very good at proper bossfights and thus is often compelled to punctuate its climaxes in other ways). Yet again, it's the little details that get me--the spoken phrase tied to the red key, the understated/mysterious BGM selection, the explosive boulders raining out of the sky on the blasted plain surrounding the final black tower, and so forth--and which bespeak the amount of care with which Eternal treats his craft.

Speaking of changing the feel of things, this level also features another new threat (and a brief reprisal of the sentient revenant missiles as last seen in map 04, come to think of it) in the form of the tar-skinned abyssal imps, who serve as the first real challenge in the level (especially from a pistol-start) and reappear periodically throughout. In function these fellows are something like a combination of the super-imps from Obituary (augmented HP, slinging green projectiles like a hell noble) and the mutated strain of the species from STRAIN, making for an enemy that requires good reflexes and heightened evasiveness (especially when encountered in numbers and with the player's initially light armament) without being difficult or time-consuming enough to try to carry the whole level (note that they only appear periodically). Their presence and tendency to be used in a more choreographed way is a complement to the general body of combat in the level, which true to the set's form is largely incidental in nature.

After you get over the uncomfortable introduction to the new imps, the action early on is deceptively easygoing, mostly relying on the blindside style of monster placement and steady stream of alertness-testing snares that have characterized most of the mapset to this point. It's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security here...the farther in you get, the more subtly sinister the placement becomes, until soon enough you can find yourself feeling more hunted than hunter if you're not careful, although if you've a knack for secrets you can potentially become powerful enough to brute-force your way through more than one imbroglio. It seemed to me like this subtle shift starts to really become more pronounced midway through the 'mansion' area--one of the upstairs libraries has had it shelves and stacks and monsters arranged just so such that if you try to nip one backstab in the bud you end up inviting two others, and spinning to deal with them in turn invites still two more, and so on. Bits like this are evenly spaced throughout, such that there's an engaging blend of purely incidental combat with more calculated tricks, ala the grand stack room housing the blue skull key, which juxtaposes obvious/directly placed enemies you can deal with in the manner of your own choosing with sudden incursions designed to test your nerves, like point-blank ambushes meant to spook you off the stacks or the nasty arch-vile duo and that piece of 'natural' cover which has a way of slyly dissolving at just the wrong moment--even the map 07 tags are used in a fairly natural way. Like I've said, Eternal finds ways to show you a lot of variety without relying much on elaborate setpieces or puzzlefight scenarios, which is something that's fundamentally satisfying in its way.....I reckon I enjoy a lot of Eternal's non-slaughter work in much the same way that some other players enjoy stuff like Fava Beans or things of that ilk, in that it makes for good 'comfort food'--something to keep you alert and engaged without levying a ton of stress or a nonstop pace. This is quite a long level, but I find it is well-paced and manages to be entertaining throughout despite a small hitch now and again (chiefly the replenishing sniper-cages, those are usually a recipe for irritation rather than threat/fun), and am curious to see how it holds others' attention as well.

Also of note, of course, is the bossfight, which uses some of the basic concepts behind a traditional IoS fight without actually being one itself, no doubt a relief to some. For my part, I don't find it offensive, but it is unfortunately probably the weakest part of the map, mainly because it's so unabashedly exploitable (i.e. back into a side corridor every time a vile appears, and wait for an opening to nuke him safely). I do like the attempt at creating a more robust arcade-style 'weak point' system for the boss itself, but actually fighting it seems untowardly contrived in its way, e.g. only being able to actually hit each eye while standing on the opposite pentacle, despite plainly being able to hit it visually from other points (the result of some very fiddly impact-trigger lines, I presume). That said, and in fairness, I usually say that the real point of an IoS encounter is to create pathos/catharsis rather than to be something where you have to dig in your heels and really sweat through it, and I suppose this encounter more or less fits the bill--it's more a matter of ritual by that point, and to its credit it is memorable despite its rather humble scale and scope.

[dobu gabu maru]

Demon of the Well said:

it only now dawned on me that the default theme of Hell Ground is, in fact, The Plutonia Experiment

Yup, I completely missed that point until reading other people mentioning it. My excuse is that I haven't played Plutonia since I first encountered it, so I couldn't readily recognize it (been crossing my fingers for a Club playthrough at some point).

MAP08: Holy shit is this a malicious map. I thought that trying to survive the first few opening minutes was brutal enough, but little did I know that it was just the tip of the iceberg! While it may seem like the constant overflow of nukage is your biggest problem, the hitscanners are the true source of your migraine as they whittle you down from afar—any new area you warp into will have them waiting with bated breath, eager to turn your olive armor to tatters. There’s also some pretty unforgiving AV use too, from the opening bastard to the three that swarm you to the west, to those pugnacious punks that sit atop the vehicle to the east. I greatly enjoyed this gameplay more than MAP07’s, but I also felt like maybe Memka should’ve cooled down a little bit, especially since the rest of the mapset doesn’t prepare you at all for the vicious fight for survival you'll undertake here. It’s a solid closer that really makes you struggle for a victory, but it kinda veers away from what I adore in Bloody Steel’s framework.

Visuals are still top-notch though.

MAP09: A quaint closing shot, though the impassable lines are a bit of a strange/unnecessary inclusion.

MAP10: At first I felt like it couldn’t understand why this wasn’t in the main set—it’s a quick and tense map that would’ve fit snugly between MAP05 and MAP06—but then when I was running around the outside ring of crushers looking for where to go, I felt the drag. It’s not bad really, it just… takes longer than it should, which is funny considering that it’s probably the shortest map in the set. I feel like if there was some editing done to make the outer layer less hub-like (and the player was allowed to pass through the middle more freely) it definitely could’ve joined its brethren. Not bad though… I’ll still take it over MAP07.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed Bloody Steel, so much so that it’s easily the best of the 3 wads we played this month. It’s exactly what I want to see out of a Russian author: an innovative setting, bizarre but smart gameplay, and a (literally) foreign approach to progression and design. The areas felt realistic and vibrant, the gameplay pushed and challenged me (especially at the end), and even if I got lost I still had fun poking around these rustic landscapes. It still has a couple rough spots here and there (dat music!), but I remain overjoyed at how it turned out. Bloody Steel is probably my favorite Russian mapset—bravo, Big Memka!!

Favorite: MAP06

Least favorite: MAP07

[Crusader No Regret]

Reloaded my save in map 5 to give the final battle another go. Used the same strategy of staying silent and out of sight until I needed to evade a projectile and got 96% kills this time. Guess my positioning was more exposed than before.

Moving on from a death exit...

Map 6: 96% kills, 6/6 secrets, 12 deaths

Whew, this took a while. Somewhat difficult start accounted for part of the death count. By now, monsters that can attack from out of the player's attack range are common though this journey mixes in more and deadlier setpieces to make clearing the map without saves a daunting task. I used saves for sanity. Ammo distribution feels strange. Even with the amount of infighting I provoked, still ran out of shells midway which turned around into a surplus afterward. I found the number of monsters that die to infights long before I can reach them memorable. The red keycard fight is easily the most slaughterlike: testing crowd herding and control skills and no cheap tricks to cheese through it. Died a bunch here to before success.

Another visually appealing locale to journey through with varied progression. Like the idea of a demon controlled mansion responding to the marine as an intruder. Now I have random thoughts of stone gargoyles that launch fireballs at trespassers. Visiting the rooftop was a highlight. The outdoor view may be a copy paste job but it's an appealing one. Also was happy to track down that one secret that eluded me when I played through this many months ago.

Another fail in the playtesting department. On HMP, 19 monsters never arrive on the scene. Checking with IDDT, they're alerted but the trigger to release them from their closet is never activated. True maxkills appears impossible.

[scifista42]

MAP04 - "Alarm at Factory”

Epic-feeling adventure with great aesthetics, gameplay and emphasis on exploration, which I've enjoyed despite being somewhat lost at occasions. Really worth the length (I split my playthrough to several parts). So far, I feel better about this wad than about Hell Ground for sure, although comparison with Vanguard would be harder, since its design philosophy is different, but I'm inclined to prefer Bloody Steel over it too.

[dobu gabu maru]

scifista42 said:

MAP04 - "Alarm at Factory”
So far, I feel better about this wad than about Hell Ground for sure, although comparison with Vanguard would be harder, since its design philosophy is different, but I'm inclined to prefer Bloody Steel over it too.

Yeah, even though I adore skillsaw's design, Bloody Steel really won me over—glad you're enjoying it too.

[Demon of the Well]

Hell Ground is my favorite of the three. Vanguard shows an author on the cusp of finding his voice--call it the rough/spunky debut album before the more polished/refined studio sophomore--and assuming Bloody Steel is not the last we see of Big Memka (hopefully/presumably not), I believe it will eventually be remembered in much the same way. My assessment of Bloody Steel is, ironically, much the same that many other players had of Hell Ground, that being that it definitely succeeds as an adventure but features some rather rough/sloppy gameplay at points, particularly in its late stages (from '3th Century' on, I'd say).

Nevertheless, I'm glad to see the Russian style writ large finding purchase with the Club one way or another, it is a rather unique brand that I hope has a long life ahead of it.

[plums]

Demon of the Well said:

This is quite a long level, but I find it is well-paced and manages to be entertaining throughout despite a small hitch now and again (chiefly the replenishing sniper-cages, those are usually a recipe for irritation rather than threat/fun), and am curious to see how it holds others' attention as well.

I really liked Map 7, chaingunner cages aside. I'm fine with long maps that meander a bit and the nice visuals kept me entertained. I thought Hell Ground was good overall, the mishmash of Plutonia homages and otherworldly locales is a bit strange (those super-speed scrolling faces are a direct Plutonia reference) but it more-or-less works as a narrative. Thumbs up to this wad from me.

[scifista42]

MAP05 - "Horror in the Mine”

Still pretty awesome thematic visuals and atmosphere, as well as varied and well entertaining gameplay setups, traps, surprises, exploration, etc. Even Barons feel well used here, I guess the map's length/size makes them seem less of a drag, haha, but I'm OK with the map's length for what it's worth.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP05 Horror in the Mine

another underground level of spookiness. what a lovely hallway with cascading lights.

unfortunately this is one of the least speedrun-friendly layouts I've played so far, lots of snags, especially at the city and red key area, combined hitscanner/projectile surgence from all sides, the interiors at the city are incredibly cramped (heck I stumble into secrets by complete accident here). Slow and steady wins this race if anything, because trying to beat this in even under 10 minutes is gonna make me lose my lunch.

are there any demos for this set? I don't see any on DSDA.

[NuMetalManiak]

thought I'd put the next two together, they seem to be connected via title.

MAP06 Mixture of Ages Part 1: 18th Century

Save the Christmas carols for the seasons real greetings. After a rather splitting death exit, I find myself in a similar situation to MAP01, pistoling, then shotgunning, until finally realizing where the SSG and rocket launcher are. very sparse pickups as I progress to the mansion I see. Geez, there really shouldn't be snipers here. there's a rather obvious soulsphere trap once I reach past the fence. the shit that came after it at the mansion entrance was even worse. a sidequest to a hedge maze nets me more ammo, and I can then enter the mansion finally, where demons teleport in while I gather the goods.

sure the mansion is nice, but I've been through better. plus, there's rather typical combat in this realistic place. one very weird room with four switches, two of which crush you and the other two open things elsewhere, pretty sure one only teleports an arch-vile in though. the mansion backyard is quite nicer than the mansion itself, but a lot of enemies like to crowd in stupid spots, also the window monsters are tempting then the arch-vile reveal comes as a nasty surprise.

after some exposition behind red key doors, I've got access to the second floor. neat trick there, all for the blue key though. I then notice I must head back to that fountain for another ambush, right at another red key it looks like. this opens up the exit, all the way back at the start. yay backtracking...NOT. Overall, this is quite a cool map, marred by backtracking, complete inability to get 100% kills (this bugs me just as much as Magnusblitz gets bugged by misalignments), and some snipers in places.

MAP07 Mixture of Ages 3 Part: 3th Century

ugh, those errors in the automap title are gonna haunt me here. as if the horde of mancubi, imps, and other noble figures in our next time travel exposition wasn't enough to prove that point. yay turrets...not. looks like my first stretch after running in circles through the hub involves the outdoor town to the north, just littered with meat. lots of it, before and after the red key, especially those annoying flying guys after the key. a trip south leads me to a shootout between revenants and hell knights from different sides. after that, well I hate mancubi, and then the canyon area where the blue key is guarded by snipers everywhere. yes, I had to go down there to get the switch to progress further, then fight more enemies just to reach the key, with another caco wave coming at me after I do that and wait in that tiny room for like a few seconds.

Do hallways which crowd with hell knights and imps work together? not when two cybers come into play on both sides they don't! obvious BFG shootout happens there after I had expended rockets on other parts of the map. what do you know, another canyon section! At least it's an outdoor one so I can admire the sky (btw that megasphere secret where the archvile was doesn't have any tags, just jump or something). of course, canyon-cleaning is in order when I head down, starting with vile guardian #2, then everyone else. three plate presses later, slaughter time! glad for the invulns, since arch-viles will make things hard until I get rid of them as always. also a few cacodemons were behind impassable lines and I have no idea why. if that weren't enough, a whole teleport closet never gets into the map.

after some rounding abouting, I find out where the keys all go, and it's go time in the setpiece villa to the east, where the exit is. the big round room has me BFG'ing the wall many times to damage and kill everything, with the wall of shotgun guys + archviles, the cyberdemon, and then the hell knight + spiderdemon. so stupidly hard even on this difficulty setting, oh look another guy didn't teleport when he was supposed to! Not killing everything due to bugs irritates me so much. I'd like to be able to like this cause combat gets good in places, but there's just frustration at the same time and missed kills makes me look at the stats and whorl.

[NuMetalManiak]

So I take it that DemonWell isn't playing Bloody Steel? Oh well. anyways, I'm all done with this wad:

MAP08 The White Sea

remove all the hitscanners around this area and this could be a good map. another strange sky, dotted with a green sea of damaging things, while various enemy types either snipe or converge, the two tactics that cheat the most damage out of me. the horseshoe layout at the beginning provides some strange progression, having to hit a switch on the left side, clear it out, then slaughter a few big enemies while more snipers also come into play. and this is why *I* pack a BFG. entering the flooded-out garage, this is where I end up dealing with setpiece walls, for some minor fun I guess. what's with the backtracking though? that was completely not necessary, and didn't provide me any hint on where the next switch would be to open up the final garage door (protip: Check just by the entrance to the garages).

Holy fuck, I'm in an oversized crate! or did I shrink? either way, this segment probably was the most fun because of that novel thing, but the cacos didn't even come up like they aren't supposed to. also an arch-vile never showed up on the left side of the horseshoe in the previous area. Goddamnit BigMemka, just let me get 100% kills in one map, PLEASE!

okay, outside, another obvious-looking slaughterfest will commence in this open area, and radiation suits for this can make things tougher. well those spiderdemons proved this point already. and hey look, teleport destinations are only flagged on hard difficulty, so I'm missing even MORE enemies. oh yeah, the ending battles where frustrating (arch-viles from two sides AGAIN, plus cybers and rising/lowering lifts) and lame (more cyber/archie usage in the demon maw, but it's a lot less suspenseful for some reason). not sure what's up with defeating the end boss either, just shoot a bunch of barrels and you're done.

MAP09 The End of Bloody Steel

wait a second there's another map I can play...

MAP10 Circle of Death (Bonus)

so here's the bonus level (the thing said bonus levels, plural, but there is only one). this is probably my favorite level though, as combat doesn't get frustrating at all here and the crusher gimmick is done well. the circle, if you will, works nicely although it's a shame most enemies can't be crushed either. a room ripped "straight outta Congo" is here too. oh, it seems even the bonus level is impossible to 100% kills. A blue key is missing, some teleport destinations aren't flagged on easy, and some sectors are not tagged according to linedefs. so even my favorite level in Bloody Steel is ruined for that.

So Bloody Steel overall. It's got some pretty great design, and some pretty good combat overall, but out of the three wads played here, it's my least favorite. there were times where I would just feel like a map needed to end already, particularly with MAP05 and MAP07, and other maps were either okay or just meh for me. it's a bit of a fuss for me not getting 100% kills and items in some maps too. I've played better sets from Russian authors.

[scifista42]

MAP06 - "Mixture of Ages 1 Part. 18th Century”

Bloody Steel becomes reminiscent of Hell Ground and immediately beats it on its own field. Neat adventure. Also superb visuals, architecture, interconnection by windows, gameplay, balance, twists... At first I thought the start was quite harsh, but then I came to realize that it isn't really, and I enjoyed it.

MAP07 - “Mixture of Ages 2 Part. 3th Century”

I think I'll stop here, though. Large open spaces + large monster crowds doesn't smell well to me.

[dobu gabu maru]

scifista42 said:

I think I'll stop here, though. Large open spaces + large monster crowds doesn't smell well to me.

Good idea. Not only is that map too long for its own good, but MAP08 is cruel for cruel's sake, which I know isn't a gameplay style you enjoy. Those first six maps are golden though.

[Pirx]

ok, finished this in a hurry to get to eternal doom, yay. or kind of finished it, that is not all of it.


MAP05 - "Horror in the Mine”

wow. what an impressive opening. that corridor with the moving light, like doom3 in the doom engine. the room at its end wasn't exactly heavily guarded, but its tight enough to make punching that knight a bit difficult. next i got out to a drilling area (or so i assume that the machinery out there are drilling and pumping equipment) where the terminator3 music was perfect for the job. at least concerning the machine noises. the annoying part about it, as magnusblitz noted, was how it it goes from near silent to very loud. i still wanted to hear the music, so i waited for the loud part to end before starting any critical action because i simply couldn't hear the enemies. anyway, firing away at the caco swarm at the drill allowed a chaingunner to puncture me several times before i finally found him. returning from here i found the corridor occupied by a horde led by an archie. well, the part coming after the red door was not exactly my thing, due to the extremely cramped rooms here. i had a wonderful "good at doom" moment here - the door fell shut as i fired rockets at the mancubus on the balcony, i jumped with 5 hp remaining into the courtyard and got shot by a zombieman. whatever. the rest consisted of more searching for a way through various decayed structures, until i stumbled over a shiny technical complex hidden below. i had about 500 cells already and there were 5-600 more in bulks, plus the cyber couldn'T hit me on the platform at all, so the fight inside had more bark than bite, but was nevertheless entertaining. so what do we have here, a time machine?



MAP06 - "Mixture of Ages Part 1: 18th Century"

nice view of an 18th century mansion and anachronistic modern tech elements scattered around. the time machine is standing on an island amidst trenches of lava. the are radsuits around so i could find some shells and pass the trenches, getting to the mansion. really impressive visuals, again. gameplay inside was often not that hot, imo, as often happens with these realistic setting: you have corridors with monsters, open doors and shoot monsters in rooms, etc. there's plenty to explore inside this mansion, i got out of a cracked wall, into an inner court, up the roof and back to the inner court, where things became rather busy when i picked up the red key, but there's a bfg ready to calm them quickly. anyway, i don't know if it's russian mapping style to punish players who rush into combat, but i kept looking behind every corner in both eternal's and memka's maps for enemies hidden there. after getting all keys, backtrack to the time machine outside to leave.




MAP07 - “Mixture of Ages 2 Part. 3th Century”

ouch, i didn't expect this, based on the difficulty until now. a monumental map of a roman castle (built for inhabitants at least the size of cyberdemons), mostly gray stone and columns, with fitting ancient statues and engraving. the beginning reminded me of vanguard's map 11, plenty of ammo, run circles first until they have thinned their ranks and you don't risk running into crap at every step because there's so much of it flying around (my main problem with this type of map, you're bound to run into some unaimed fireball. couldn't find the switch for opening the back door because it was so splattered with baron innards. 4-5 viles upon opening the door, managed to rocket them hiding beneath the central pedestal. the ghetto outside made me think of some modern shooter with terrorists of rooftops of adobe houses. cross the main arena and into another temple, ending in a huge cave. mouselooking here makes plasma balls look like tracers. the part with the baron cage and whatever key was up there elicited some swearing because that fucking eternal doom style switch (lol) that opened the cage was almost impossible to see. returned pretty beefed up and shot everything in the main arena without further ado, including that cyb bastard atop of the pedestal. as impressive as the look and sound of this map was, how it played was not exactly my thing, with the constant barrages from said bastard and the mancubus gallery.



MAP08 - "The White Sea"

cool polar light sky over a huge area overlooked by several chaingunners... eh, fuck that map. or give me a sniper rifle or something. started several times, always got shot to pieces by said fucking chaingunners, and idclev'd out.



MAP09 - "The End of Bloody Steel”

look, a credits map.



so, overall, a great mapset visually, especially the corridor in map05 had me watch my screen in disbelief. excellent visual detail and realistic represenations for the good old doom engine, makes doom mimic stalker (the first 5 maps) and perhaps serious sam, at least the roman part. bombastic soundtrack, albeit too loud sometimes, as i ranted on map05. bonus points for the custom graphics. unfortunately, this attempt at realism comes with plenty of places where you can barely move, get stuck, can't see hitscanners behind foliage, have a hard time finding switches etc. perhaps that's the reason why i couldn't find demos for this mapset. it's really elaborate, just doesn't flow that well in places.





m6: spot the anachronism





m6: health bonus meal






m6: looks a lot like eternal's library





m7: it's raining imps