The DWmegawad Club plays: Estranged

[Demon of the Well]

Map 12 -- Dig Site - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
This one's very, very dry. I'm kind of at a loss for things to say about it (!gasp!)....It's another linear crawl through winding tunnels and corridors and the like, with rapidfire alternation between indoor and outdoor areas, though in practical terms the way they all play is essentially interchangeable. Most of the action is very basic shotgun-oriented fare vs. small groups of low-level enemies attacking from the front; even where traps exist they tend to front very direct assaults that don't require much movement to handle. A very significant portion of the enemies act as weak turrets considering the level's low monstercount, as well, which gives the proceedings something of the flavor of a static shooting gallery. The exception to this is the optional warp-snare which briefly surrounds you with cacodemons (and also hands you the SSG), but it's over in an eyeblink. I think the most interesting bit here was the subtly eerie soulsphere secret, which bafflingly teleports a couple of Barons back near the start of the level for you to confront later, when you loop around after getting the blue card. I didn't really understand what Foodles was going for here, I have to admit (the Barons are utterly irrelevant from a combat/pacing perspective), but I also kind of liked it, somehow. Sometimes stuff that's weird for weirdness's sake is alright, you know?

Visuals are about par for the course with what we've seen so far, meaning they're adequate at worst and subtly cool at best. As is often the case with dig/archaeology-themed maps, the texture palette is here broadened to include elements from many different themes (tech, industrial, natural/outdoor, Hell, ruin/gothic, etc.), but the entire level's so small/short that this doesn't really register, and none of the different thematic components really has much time to breathe or assert itself. The 'cute' scale makes the outdoor parts of the setting feel a little cheaper and flimsier than average, I felt, but as per usual there was a cool room or two, as well. My favorite was the auditorium room (or whatever it is) just beyond the blue door.

[baja blast rd.]

map12

I love this track; it's a shame it was used on a map that is largely filler. Highlights were the caco that warps behind the player in that trap, the SSG showdown, and the soulsphere secret, although one or both of the barons would have been better off as an archvile. The rest of the action is the sort you can find in at least 20% of maps ever made. The blue-and-white hitscanner room reminds me a lot of something Memfis would make, but without the same charm; it feels too sterile and regular.

The tangent this post ended with is now a standalone thread. I've seen things like "Build Time: 1 Month" in the text files of ILs similar to this one, which reminded me that I wanted to rant about that.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP12: Dig Site
11:48 | 100% Everything

So um, yeah, pretty much a filler map? At least it's largely inoffensive. The SSG/caco room/trap was an easy highlight. But the supercharge/baron secret felt fairly pointless. (Not that I'll complain about starting the next level at 200% health.) Not a lot else to say other than it looked fine, and I enjoyed myself at least. Also, yeah, that music track is fantastic.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 12

I can appreciate the desired ups and downs one wishes to manufacture in a wad such as this with episodes and forced deaths within it, but what i don't understand is the often found insistence upon shoving maps like this one in. It's not bad in and of itself, per se, but this is map 12 of a megawad, y'know? Why am I gunning down zombiemen with a pistol and picking off imps with a shotgun? I don't mind picking off imps mind you, and usually i use the shotgun to do it, but it seems like the only real way to play a map like this is sort of blandly. A small fry small weapon small scale map. The optional Caco and Baron encounters notwithstanding, the highlights of the map frightfully enough are simply a couple well placed Spectres. The layout and design are fine, it's just the combat i take issue with. I guess i just don't see the point of maps like this being anything other than say 1 through 3 of the wad and that being the end of it.

[grahf]

Map 12 Dig Site

So we have returned from Hell to the world of techbases. Once again it's a techbase/cavern-hybrid map, as the first few maps of Estranged were. Lots of low-tier opposition, which is actually refreshingly fun to mow down after some of the beefy enemies in the last few maps.

The map is simple and ammo is plentiful. I found myself with 200 bullets and 50 shells throughout almost the entire thing. But it flowed well and has a fun cacodemon trap halfway through. Pretty decent.

[baja blast rd.]

I change my mind about map12. Already! It's a pretty fun one to speedrun. I think a lot of maps that don't offer much as far as casual play goes can be fun if you have to blitz through them, and vice versa.

[baja blast rd.]

Ironically it's now the caco section that is my least favorite bit, since there are so many cacos and it's a pretty trivial/repetitive fight. Favorite part is the hitscanner stuff at the ending, which is actually quite easy to survive starting from 100 HP.

Best run I can do with my hardware randomly pushing me leftwards. -_-

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP12 Dig Site

Not much to this, it's nice overall. I didn't like chaingunner teasing at the beginning moments, where I can never get their guns and all. The SSG trap is a sure standout. The secret where barons warp out comes into play upon pickup of the blue key too. The last few rooms, nah, that brings the level down since I pretty much camp out the room of hitscanners that can all see me.

[Steve D]

Map12

Nice linear breather map, though not that much of a breather compared to Map11, which was only a bit less easy than this one, it just seemed more difficult because it had a lot of heavy meat. This one has a bunch of hitscanners, which is always dangerous, and I was especially victimized by Chaingunners who once dropped me down to 33%. You don't want to miss a shot against those guys when you have no armor! ;)

It was a nice-looking map in the Foodles simple style, seeming much like what you'd expect from a 1995 map which didn't suffer from bad texturing, although there were greusome misalignments in the fence at the start. As usual, elevated snipers are the main threat and some of the placements were moderately evil, especially the Chaingunners. The Caco trap was fun and reminded me of the "Snowflake Room" from E2M9, where of course you faced Barons instead of Cacos. The Foodles room isn't really like that, except perhaps in spirit. It was mean to rim the fighting platform with nukage, which inflicted the only damage I took in that battle. BTW, thanks for the SSG!

The Soulsphere was a nice gift, though the teleporting Barons were irksome. A funny guy, that Foodles. ;D

Ah, the BGM, "Dark Halls" from E1M3, Toxin Refinery. In one shot you have one of my fave BGMs and fave maps. As I like to mention from time to time, being The Ancient Doomer means I roamed the earth when MacOS 7.5.3 was the latest thing, along with the Model T, and because of the particular version of Quicktime associated with that OS, I heard the best version ever of this track. There was something about it, it sounded like it had a choir in place of the synths, which made it both unbelievably creepy and hypnotically mesmerizing. Sometimes I just played it on its own. And then one day an update to Quicktime changed the MIDI instruments and threw more percussion into the mix, ruining the purity of it. It was a life tragedy, to say the least.

I still have a hard drive with, I hope, the correct version of Quicktime on it. One of these days maybe I'll pick up an actually working PowerMac and see if I can record that version.

[Aquanet]

MAP12: Dig Site

I see a straightforward, relatively easy map like this and I try to speed run it, like someone else said, because it's the only kind of map I can speedrun. Everything is solid-feeling and easy to shotgun. I'm interested to see where the difficulty curve goes from here. The previous couple of levels jacked it up with with some unusual results.

[mouldy]

MAP12 - "Dig Site”

Back to some kind of techbase, no idea what the general story is behind this wad. I'm assuming there is one since there has been some effort made on continuity between the maps, I'm just too lazy to look it up. I'll make a guess from the title that this is where they dug up some artifact that opened a gateway to the monster world. So this is a short and relatively easy-going episode opener, the highlight of which was the surprise caco fight.

[Spectre01]

Map 13: Dark Heart

Another techbase + nukage map, similar to what we've seen in the first few levels. The enjoyment and difficulty in this map depends on taking the right fork at the nukage crossroads and grabbing the rocket launcher. Otherwise you'll be playing the rest of the map without one, despite collecting tons of rockets and making encounters harder and much grindier than they should be. There are quit a few Barons here, whose porpoise is simply to waste your ammo as they appear in casual situations. There are a few surprise traps that can be challenging, especially without the RL, or for those unprepared. Quite a good number of Revenants and Pain Elementals here too. Decent map and the atmosphere was well done in certain parts.

[grahf]

Map 13 Dark Heart

Here we have a longer techbase, interspersed with nukage. This one I'd characterize as only average for Estranged. It is DARK. I had to turn off f.lux so that GZDoom gamma correction would work - this even in a relatively dark room at night.

Two combat encounters stand out as quite difficult, which is a step up from previous maps. Firstly, in the sewers where you get the RL you are attacked at all angles and cannot even retreat past the Cacos. I wouldn't say it's unfair, but the degree to which your movement is restricted while being forced to fight a mixed group of mid-tier enemies with a RL reminds me more of something like Valiant than previous maps in this megawad.

Secondly, at one point you see a teleporting enemy. Immedietely I turned around and ran back and sure enough it was an AV who had already resurrected 2 Cacos and 2 Revenants. It's not that difficult if you react quickly, but if you don't you'll have a massive force resurrected behind you, making the later parts of the map probably much harder.

Ammo is really weird on this map. I had an absolute ton of shotgun shells. Waaaay more than you'd need to even SSG every single enemy in the level. I have absolutely no idea why.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 13 -- Dark Heart - 100% Kills / 0% Secrets - FDA
Hmm, looks like I missed the one secret because I happened to drop down directly on top of the otherwise fairly obvious visual tell. D'oh!

This one's a little bit scary, yeah? And in more ways than one--the base itself is darker and moodier than anything we've seen prior, accented pointedly by use of the track "Suspense" and the beginnings of reality beginning to slip through the cracks a little ala Deimos, with strange creeping vines beginning to rapidly overtake the facility's less-traveled corridors, disembodied eyeballs staring intently into the security readouts on the assorted computer monitors, a cellar where blood inexplicably seeps from the ground in the southeast corner, and a helluva lot of black candles everywhere (I always wonder whether the demons place these, or if the UAC personnel does as they begin to lose their grip on themselves). The overall look is very OG Doom and would've fit right in with the saner portions of The Shores of Hell, I think, but bits and pieces of Doom II assets do crop up here and there for flavor (beige brickwork, riveted metal supports, even a brief patch of that green/white lacquered tile I like so much). The layout is a mite close and confining, even cramped in spots, with a suffocatingly low ceiling in most areas and a lot of sharp turns and blind intersections, all of which in this case I took to be a very deliberate design decision in the service of creating a disquieting atmosphere. Dynamic lighting effects return in force early on to add a foreboding to your initial descent into this hellbound heart of man's enterprise, and a dim lighting in general tends to dominate.

The real heart of the matter here, though, is that for the first time in what feels like quite a while the hellspawn are really out to take your life (to say nothing of your mind and soul). Apart from the persistently close confines which lend nearly every encounter an air of the uncomfortably personal, the mission is very trappy and features a number of encounters where you will be smothered and snuffed out in a heartbeat if you don't act lightning-fast, epitomized by the teleporter-swarm encounter in the northern maintenance corridor, or indeed the very first scuffle with the pack of pinkies as soon as the game begins (the chainsaw-starts are becoming rather A Thing with this WAD, eh?). Some of these snares are potentially deadly enough that proponents of the Fun and Balanced (TM) might even take exception to them, but I reckon here Foodles is still playing "fair" in that the nastiest fights all pose little clues for you before they happen. Doesn't mean you'll spot them all, of course, but that's part of the game this map proposes. Myself, I was able to sniff out the aforementioned trap when I noticed a very suspiciously-placed metal post mostly recessed into the ceiling of the corridor's neck (looked like it might slam shut at any moment, and just WHY would it do that, hm?), but was caught almost completely off-guard by the tripwire-teleporter snare in one of the nukage tunnels. Wasn't paying enough attention and mentally parsed the strange red brace (a callback to a similar device from map 12, of course) as just a bit of piping or something, and so was very nearly killed when I suddenly found myself squirming in the center of a flash-orgy of biting and belching and bitchslapping.

Other encounters are simpler and require more general awareness than hairtrigger reflex or actual intuition, ala the arch-vile initially standing by the marble mural in the blood cellar who teleports away to undo your work in a previous room (not a real problem if you quickly realize where he went), and when the map's not posing an actual trap it has the tendency to just huck sacks of meat and/or bones for you to chew through en route to your next objective (i.e. the RK guardians), but the close-quarters nature of the proceedings and the level's once again short duration leaves even this simpler stuff feeling more visceral than dull. Good map. Maybe I'll have to wake up from here and start taking this a little more seriously?

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 13

Woo howdy this one is pretty neat. So there's some fun chainsaw stuff early on, then a couple revenants scared the crap out of me. Anyway I kept going and eventually got to the nukage fork in the road. Going right first leads to the rocketlauncher and one hell of a fight with enemies porting and swarming in from three sides. I had to play this encounter a few times to survive it. The left path teleports one into the middle of another scrum which is also pretty tough. Eventually I find myself in yet another revenant and caco fight, this time one i could corner camp but i storm right in because that's more fun and die multiple times.

After hitting the switch that lowers an inaccessible blue key, i was lost for a while before finally seeing a hallway where a hellknight was awaiting me. No idea how i missed that so long. Anyway eventually get the blue key and kill the archvile. Ammo is almost too plentiful on this map, there's hardly any management necessary. An embarrassment of riches. End up at the end of a tunnel collecting rockets when a whole bunch of enemies spawn in along the hallway and it's time to unload at them; was fairly tough. Then there's a rather underwhelming fight down the end of another hallway, i think the intent is to charge into that too, which i would like, but there's really no chance; this is right before the exit anyway. That's the map; it was serviceable and looked nice, with a few standout encounters.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP13 Dark Heart

Ah if it isn't this level. This level was almost impossible to beat the first time on ITYTD/HNTR because not only is there the horde of demons at the start, but the chainsaw was missing on those two settings. This is why we should always playtest on difficulties other than UV, cause we miss stuff like this if we don't. With that said, the chainsaw problem is fixed, and the demons shouldn't cause trouble now.

With THAT said though, it's another cramped layout, with some annoying chaingunners coming in from a side room the moment you start sawing. There's quite a few bigwigs to take care of in some corridors, and then the nukage area. The rocket launcher trap is a pretty harsh one, and teleporting away to another area all of a sudden can be surprising. Up to and past the blue key, it's entirely linear. There's one very devious trap at the midpoint there, with barely any room for some horde of enemies. Add all that up with the tight ammo placement and this is one nasty level. Worth it to playtest though.

[baja blast rd.]

map13

The start is a real drag, imo, chainsawing of pinkies that is fun to do once and then tedious afterwards. If you ever want to get some UV-max runs in or even replay it just once to record a video or whatever . . . bleh. The pinkies can never actually get to you in numbers through the 64-wide opening, either. Once you get to the fork in the road, the map gets fun. Dynamic bloody <3 designed encounters <3 along with some incidental combat that doesn't feel fillery, because the sin of "hey let's just scatter a bunch of low-tier monsters around here and here and here" has been mostly avoided. Surprise is most of the threat in the main encounters, but they remain fun even with perfect knowledge, even the simple and amusing "stand in the corner and pump rockets as things warp in" fight in the suspicious bar room. Ammo balance is indeed strange -- two shellboxes would be better off as rocket boxes, or maybe the secret could have additional dildo launcher ammo, or maybe there could be 4-5 fewer HKs and cacos collectively before the exit. Not a dynamic SSG meat cleanup as is. But the various traps are among the highlights of the mapset so far.

[mouldy]

MAP13 - "Dark Heart”

Visually this feels like revisiting the first episode, but then shit suddenly gets real with that blind teleport into a cramped room full of revs and cacos. That is pretty harsh stuff, not quite as harsh as a later trap that springs in a random corridor and will kill you unless you immediately turn around and start firing rockets. This is also one of those maps that gives you various routes, but can make life a bit difficult if you take the wrong one. Despite the slightly bullshitty traps I enjoyed it though. It has a nice gloomy atmosphere and a very unpredictable progression.

[Steve D]

Map13

Wherein Foodles demonstrates that he's a cannibal, because he's obviously trying to eat us alive.

I hardly know what to make of Foodles. For the most part, he seems a nice, gentle soul whose pastime is rescuing baby ducks, but every now and then, he transforms into that lunatic from Chicago who enjoyed painting clowns and burying victims in his basement. The painter is at work in this map.

I had to die my way to victory in the Rocket Launcher Fight. I probably surrendered 6 pelts in that encounter and savescummed out of a few more. Then of course, I survived several times but decided to re-fight the battle because I was all tore up. Once I finally figured out a winning strategy, which I imagine DotW accomplished in 2 milliseconds – I just checked his FDA, and yep, he did -- it took only a couple tries before I emerged with a loss of just 5% health and armor, and since I came into the map at 200/100 – continuous! – I was at a comfy 195/95. For me, the winning maneuver was to sweep left after grabbing the RL, watching the Revvie spawn point. Then, just before they appeared, shoot 2 rockets, or 3 if I felt super-lucky given the tight space, the charging Pinkies and the advancing Revvies. Then, sweep around behind the Revvies and the Pinkies, go into the Pinky closet, put my back to the wall, and fire away. If 1 or more Revvies was infighting with Cacos, I was golden. In the final iteration, only 3 Cacos survived the rocket barrage, then falling to SSG and Chaingun. The chaingun helped keep the Cacos on a tether, because the SSG allowed them to break away and use their crazy side-speed to cut off the ring on me.

After that, I died about 5 times in the Left Fork of the Nukage Road. Another tight space with monsters up in your grill. Not my favorite approach to Doom encounter design. As a keyboarder, I prefer some elbow room. It was amazing how fast I could lose massive amounts health and armor with Revvies crowding me and throwing them hooks. The winning strategy here was to blow away the nearby Sergeant, slip the charging Caco, and go into the adjoining alcove in front of the lift. Again, a little Caco/Revvie infighting was much desired, to at least keep the Revvies occupied while I shot them.

After this, the map became much easier, the only hairy fight being the one where a bar blocks your way just beyond a box of rockets. 3 more pelts handed over to Foodles, because I tried to dodge behind the wall protrusions. For me, the key to this battle was to instead grab the rocket box, turn around, say, "Fuck dodging!" and unload rockets down the corridor. Best defense was a good offense here.

Foodles seems very fond of corridor fights and excels at catching you in long, narrow hallways or stairways with a Revvie or 2 as corks in the bottle. When they open fire, you get a chance to run your best quarter-mile time – in reverse. It gets a bit tiresome and I'd like to see more open-field combat that doesn't rely too heavily on ledge snipers.

"Suspense" is my all-time favorite Doom track and Foodles does a good job in providing that feature in his map design. There's clever use of sound, for example monsters that see you but can't get right at you, so you can hear them as you work your way around. The darkness is only part of a nice, subtle lighting scheme, which Foodles has shown in other maps as well. Very clean nukage base design reminiscent of American McGee's work, which I appreciate since I'm a bigger McGee fan than most Doomers, it seems. All in all a good showing.

[Steve D]

Getsu Fune said:

MAP13 Dark Heart

Ah if it isn't this level. This level was almost impossible to beat the first time on ITYTD/HNTR because not only is there the horde of demons at the start, but the chainsaw was missing on those two settings. This is why we should always playtest on difficulties other than UV, cause we miss stuff like this if we don't.

Well said. DB2 always goes with whatever your last Thing difficuly setting was, so the next new Thing has that setting. It can really bite you in the ass if you start laying out the difficulty as you go instead of just designing for UV and doing your settings at the end. So you end up with missing teleport destinations, light fixtures and, in the mentioned case, weapons.

[KBlaney]

Map 7: Dead Simple inspired slaughter? Oh apparently not. We have several big arena areas but there is no apparent reason to stay and fight most of the monsters as running by them can be done fairly safely. That is, until the end where... oh... this is a Dead Simple-ish level. Not a bad way to go about it, mind you. This probably ranks up there with the best of them for a host of reasons.

Map 8: This is a secret hub-and-spoke level with a neat little feature where the spokes start to connect as you collect more keys. Otherwise it is a fairly short level with a few textbook fights. Perhaps the most memorable parts are the caco-imp infighting and the ambush after finding the yellow key. With all of these teleporter exits I'm missing the major selling point about the beginning of the WAD which was levels that interlocked.

Map 9: A somewhat linear level all said and done, but it does tease a number of off shoots occasionally to break up the linearity. I'm actually rather pleased with myself for getting through the dark archvile (darchvile?) maze on my first try.

Map 10: This has to be a nightmare on pistol start (and I see largely it was). There is some good use of archiviles here. They don't feel unfair since you hear them before you see them and you just know that you are going to have to rekill all those monsters you just fought your way through previously. It is a great use of the strengths of the monster if a bit too dark.

[Aquanet]

MAP13: Dark Heart

The hardest moments are the hardest in the wad so far. The least fair, and least interesting, to me is the trap in the northern hallway where spawn jumps in at the other end and you have rocket it. I ended up running through the revs and corner abusing from another room. The earlier trap triggered by the W1 teleport line in the nukage tunnel I thought was tough but pretty well designed. Corner camping didn't seem viable, so I first tried escaping up the nearby lift. That worked initially but not on later tries because of the chaingunners in the room at the top of the lift. Using the main hallway and the blue key door area turned out to be a solid strategy with some quick ssg work. The texture schemes are a bit all over the place, but it jibes with the darker mood. There's a stronger sense of place here than in any of the earlier maps.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP13: Dark Heart
29:41 | 98% Kills | 87% Items | 0% Secrets

Foodles shows some teeth here, but much of it comes in the form of teleport ambushes, which, y'know, whatever, but anyone can just 'port a bunch of baddies into a room and make it hard. I died to a couple of those, but just knowing what was coming made the second time around go much more smoothly. (I did manage to survive both the RL trap and the one-time-teleport from the nukage tunnel—not in that order, though.) And the final room with the cacos and knights was tedious just because everyone got bottlenecked in the doorway to the preceding room. Otherwise, I liked the look of the level, and the way it was laid out. Heck, I enjoyed the incidental combat, too. I did miss the secret, though; I IDDTed it at the end, but the clue (which I did end up seeing) was too subtle for me.


MAP14: Fissure
21:00 | 100% Everything

Now this one really hit the spot for me. Nothing like slinking around outdoors and getting shot at from all directions. The varied terrain and looping path made for a lot of fun. The indoor areas were all pretty lame by comparison, though; the final room being particularly disappointing. But all the outdoor stuff was just aces.

[Spectre01]

Map 14: Fissure

Hey, remember that map03 with all the annoying ledge snipers along a canyon? Well, here's another one with even more of those! The outdoor gameplay is something I didn't enjoy at all. Foodles does step up his detailing game here with some nice geometry and height variations in the canyon, the dam bridge and the blue comptech interiors that I'm a big fan of. The indoor combat lacks any bite this time, being all frontal and predictable, if rather cramped. I was expecting something more in the final mountain base with the exit, but it was some Cacos and a bunch of dudes. Next map's lookin' juicy with the higher monster count and the starting area.

[grahf]

Map 14 Fissure:

I like this map. It is a winding, open cavern with some mazey techbase areas off to the side. Initially you are extremely low on ammo and only have a chaingun, and the author uses this as a guidepost by dropping bullet boxes in the proper direction to lead you. Only very late in the map do you have a significant supply of ammo.

It feels like the action is considerably more vertical than previous maps, which is a good thing. It gives the map a much more complex feel than something simple, flat and boring like Deadlands.

The fights are pretty sniper heavy with lots of hitscan but it's nothing extremely difficult. The toughest section has two Revenant snipers surrounding you as well as a few far off Imps while you need to cross a bridge with two Mancubi guarding it.

I did see a RL right at the beginning of the map, but it looked unreachably high. I found all the secrets and that wasn't one of them, so I'm confused if the RL is accessible on this map? It sure would have been useful in a few places.

[Spectre01]

grahf said:

I did see a RL right at the beginning of the map, but it looked unreachably high. I found all the secrets and that wasn't one of them, so I'm confused if the RL is accessible on this map? It sure would have been useful in a few places.

You can straferun to one of the ledges to grab that first one. There's also a second one in the nukage lake on the other side of the dam.

[mouldy]

MAP14 - "Fissure”

This is a nice map, very scenic. Bit of hassle at the start from being exposed to snipers with no armour, but other than that I have no complaints. I always enjoy a bit of mountain climbing in doom maps. Can't think of anything else to say really. It was a pleasant journey.

[Steve D]

Map14

A very nice-looking canyon map with groanworthy gameplay. It's enough to make you wonder if Foodles actually did the encounter design in Map13, because most of the maps have been like this, trudge-fests against boringly-placed ledge snipers.

Playing continuously, I'd have had to put very serious effort into getting killed here, or having fun, for that matter. Foodles places snipers high and low, all in turreted positions, and to complete the disaster, howzabout some Lost Souls trickling in from below and across the canyon? Careful with that Rocket Launcher, Eugene!

The snipers weren't even placed in such a way as to endanger the player. They existed more to punish you for venturing forward, so you end up camping one corner after another. An especially amusing fumble was the Caco/Revvie cave, where the Revvies were placed at a distance to lure you forward into their rockets, but suddenly 3 Cacos appear just ahead of them. Looks like a boring infight setup to me, but I laughed my ass off when the Cacos got stuck at the opening just above the little nukage creek. I reckon that has to be intentional, so kudos to Foodles for a nice joke. It allowed me to blast away at the helpless gasbags, and I felt kinda bad about that.

You soon gain the upper ledge, where you see glorious health bonuses at the verge, but beware, for an unseen chaingunner is on the ledge below, and you'll lose more health than you gain. Hey, I'm not laughing this time. There's already been enough un-fun trolling in this megawad.

And so it goes, on and on. On one platform you walk out and get fired upon by Revvies beyond auto-aim range. Glad I'm not playing on PRBoom, because if you're gonna be pulling this cheap shit, I'll go right ahead and cheat in return by angling my Rocket Launcher down.

And then there's the exit "fight."

I keep hoping for another Map05.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP14 Fissure

yeah I'm pretty sure pistol-starters on UV might have a slight headache getting two imps in a confined space. Other than that, this is quite a canyon level, intimidating in a lot of ways, and as usual snipers, with some lost souls and the occasional ninjagunner. Prying the weapons can be bothersome. Careful consideration with that yellow key too. That bridge, I guess it's acceptable, but I've never really one for bridges in most cases. The interiors are once again, plain and forgettable, although there's this neat mosh pit in the exit room.

[Spectre01]

SteveD said:

On one platform you walk out and get fired upon by Revvies beyond auto-aim range. Glad I'm not playing on PRBoom, because if you're gonna be pulling this cheap shit, I'll go right ahead and cheat in return by angling my Rocket Launcher down.

Unless I'm demo recording, I have no shame in playing with free aim. The way I see it, if something can shoot me, I should be able to shoot back. Stand your ground and all that.